Spence is blustering again. I used to think he was sane and sensible and rational. Maybe he used to be sane and sensible and rational. Sometimes.

Not since yesterday.

He blames all this on me (and I accept that it was partly my fault). But it never would have happened if it hadn’t been his idea. But try telling him that. And now he’s being imperious and bossy and telling me what I have to do.

What he doesn’t know is, I fully intend to do it. I want to do it. Who wouldn’t want to spend a week on a South Pacific island? Just because I have to be there with him is no reason not to go. In fact it’s the absolutely perfect reason to go.

So I can get over him once and for all.

Now I just have to go tell Anne that, so she can write it all down and then we can all go to bed. It’s late. And she has to get up early tomorrow and work hard all day. Writers work very very hard (or so she tells me).

Just between you and me, it seems they spend an inordinate amount of time watching Men In Shorts. I like watching them, too. But every time I come downstairs to watch, Spence starts yelling again and I have to go back up and get to work.

You’d think the author would have to do something, wouldn’t you?

Sadie owes me. Big time. And if she thinks I’m going to let her walk away after what she did, she’s out of her freaking mind.

She’ll argue. She’ll fuss. She’ll come up with a thousand — hell, a million — reasons why she can’t do this. But she can, damn it!

And if she doesn’t, I’m firing her.

I missed a week and a half of the men in shorts playing in the World Cup because I was in Alabama learning how to refine my ability to search for dead relatives. You have to realize — from that — how truly devoted to genealogy I am, because it’s FAR MORE INTERESTING to watch men in shorts.

But a girl has to have her priorities. Though I have to admit that if I’d realized I was going to be going to Alabama in the midst of the World Cup I might have reconsidered. After all, I missed the previous three years due to sons getting married or other sundry friends getting married. I could have missed this year for the men in shorts.

Alas, I didn’t.

I watched today, though, and I saw Australia lose a heartbreaker in the 95th minute on what looked, frankly, like a penalty kick that shouldn’t have been awarded. But then, that’s one of the things that happens in soccer. Guys fall down and act like they’ve been shot — and then once the foul has been proclaimed, they are usually resurrected injury-free (not always, but you’d be amazed how much writhing is forgotten once the ref has made his call). So, I feel bad for Australia. And I feel happy for Totti who made a great kick. And bad for poor Schwarzer — who really had no chance.

And this afternoon I get to watch Switzerland and the Ukraine (who’d a thunk it?) while Spence and Sadie come to terms with a new plot development. Hopefully they will do this upstairs out of the way of the men in shorts.

I wrote two books about soccer players — a goalkeeper, Lachlan McGillivray, who was the hero of McGillivray’s Mistress, and a striker, Joaquin Santiago, who taught Molly everything she needed to know in Lessons From A Latin Lover. If I’d been smart, I’d have written them so they came out in a World Cup year. But no, I missed it on both counts. Duh.