This is Tara, Mr. Steinbeck

Mice, men, getting laid, having plans. Schemes on rye toast.

Want to guess what did and did not happen Sunday?

You don't need to guess. You know.

MathMan suggested that my book choice is the problem. It isn't compelling enough for me. Bless his heart. That is not the problem. I am the problem. I can't make myself focus. One thing turns into another. Wiping down the kitchen counter ends with me cleaning out a closet while phoning my father to find out what year he got his first pair of roller skates.

Things derailed quickly. Sophie announced she was hungry. I referred her to my blog post.

A few minutes later, she returned to my room sporting an expression I couldn't quite make out. Maybe it was  resolve. She was going to make pancakes. Pancakes sounded good to me, too, but without providing some level of sanitation supervision, I wouldn't want to eat them. I'd help if only to avoid taking a bite of pancake only to find a long hair in it, I told my inner control freak.

Okay, so pancakes. That was it. After that, I'd read.

But first I had to play Words with Friends with Sarah W. (she's kicking my butt!) and four other people (so are they!) because it would be rude to leave them hanging.

A great wailing from the kitchen alerted me to the absence of milk with which to douse the cereal the children would be having for three meals apparently. Such carrying on.

Okay. A trip to the grocery because we needed more than milk and no one else can be trusted to do the coupons correctly. Must make that list and remember the reusable bags.

After the store, I told myself, I'd read. There was still time.

The girls and I returned from the store. MathMan had made dinner so we had a meal together followed by a brief celebration of National Ice Cream Day. Oh, Ben & Jerry, we hardly knew ye.

I waddled upstairs, back into reaching distance of the novel. In a minute, I whispered to the stonyfaced dust jacket. I had to wash my face and apply an anti-aging mask. Oh, and tidy up my nails, fix the cuticles, file them, buff them.

And, oh for heaven's sake, can no one else ever scrub the damn toilet and sink? Better do that before my nails.

More Words with Friends, a quick check of Facebook and Twitter told me that everyone was retroactively having fun at Mitt Romney's expense and that would be Breaking Bad. See! That didn't take long. No celebrity deaths to clutter up the feeds with RIPs, no sports happening. I enjoyed a sense of smugness. I was all caught up even if I couldn't find a way to use that dang Z in my game with Sarah.

I returned to the bathroom to rinse the mask from my face. MathMan joined me upstairs. I thought he must not be feeling well. Turned out he was playing with his Atomic Fart app on his phone. Again.

I sat down with the novel and began flicking the pages. That would fix him for providing a long, squishy soundtrack to my trip to the WC. He and his phone could turn a quick tinkle into a severe gastrointestinal event.

MathMan doesn't like it when I flick the pages of any book. He says it's because it's bad for the book and the ghost of his mother the Librarian will haunt me if I don't stop. I know it's because he can't tune out the sound of it like he can tune out the sound of my voice.

He grabbed the spray bottle he keeps on hand to discourage the cats from getting onto our bed and aimed it in my direction. He is a crack shot. I stared at him hard and gave the pages a definitive flick.

This would not end well.

We called a truce. If I read now without flicking the pages, it would appear he won. If I read and flicked the pages, I was breaking the truce. I put the book on the night stand and sighed. We watched a third of an episode of Downton Abbey, one Foyle's War episode, and the new Inspector Lewis - Generation of Vipers (I have the worst crush on Sergeant Hathaway) before finally falling asleep.

Despite the fact that I read zero pages of the intended novel, the day was not wasted. I even managed to do somethings just for me. I ran an hour on the elliptical and finished off my manicure with a lovely shade of purple. I can live with that.

Taking the Scarlet O'Hara approach helps, too. It is another day. I have another chance to read to my heart's content.

I have the day off.

Are you a rifle or a shotgun?