Long story. You don't have to read it, but I had to write it, because I still can't figure out that the hell is/was going on.

Countdown? Since sometime in earliest January, I noticed how I happened to catch the time at strange little markers. You know how odd it is to actually see an even hour (ex, 12:00 on the nose) or 12:34 or such, unless you're looking for it. Well, it started for me with 5:55, am and/or pm. Then 4:44, then 3:33. Sure, we all glance at the time a lot, but these times were seemingly jumping out to catching my attention. I began to get curious. It really started to look like a countdown. The progression would of course continue to 2:22 then 1:11, although I wasn't catching them, just the 5s, 4s and 3s.

I thought about this a bit, as I do, patterns and all. There can't be a 6:66 or higher, since 59 is the max on minutes, although 10:10, 11:11 and 12:12 are interesting. Then somehow I made the leap to dates. Some of these could be dates. 5/55, 4/44 and 3/33 were out, but 1/11 and 2/22 were possible.

I kind of watched when Jan 11th passed. Didn't note anything. Then the next of course is tomorrow Feb 22. Is there anything to it? Have I been seeing a countdown to something about to happen on 2/22?

In the meantime, I have a very close more-than-friend who is about to be deployed you know where and you know why, although just in general as such things are not supposed to be discussed in detail, but the word 'deployed' is all the hint you need to get the gist of what I'm saying. ANYway, sometime in the last few weeks I told my friend about the countdown. Then, he found out he was leaving here on 2/22. That seemed like a marker. This person will likely be gone for a year or more, so that makes the date significant. As I may be moving too and thus not even here upon his return, this could be the end of an era for me/us. We shall see.

In the hoodoo boogity realm concerning this tidbit, my friend's signifying number is 5. As it happens, Numerologically speaking, 2/22/2006 = 5. I'd say that means my friend is right on track. Sounds like synchronicity to me and comforting in its way.

There's more. I'm not supposed to be here this week. I'm supposed to be Home and hanging out with family. It didn't happen and something sure seemed to be conspiring to make sure it didn't happen. It went like this....

Spouse was supposed to go to Israel (yeah, over there) this week, which is why I picked this week to go Home. He was supposed to fly out on Friday evening. I dropped him at the airport then went to pick out some audiobooks for my road trip, before getting out of town. Before I finished that errand, Spouse called me on my cell phone. His flight out had been cancelled. The airline was working on reroutings, but I should wait to see how that worked out. Made sense.

Spouse was rebooked on a very early Saturday morning flight. SO, I fetched him from the airport. We went home. I would take him back in the AM then hit the road. But, the winter storm that had been predicted for Sunday or Monday had crept back until it occurred Friday night. We apparently had some sleet and definitely some snow. Now 3-4" of snow isn't much, but it's devastating here because the terrain is very hilly and the road crews are just not used to that kind of weather here. In fact, at 4am when we pulled out of the driveway, my car wasn't prepared for it either. My Cruiser spent hours at the bottom of the hill just below the house after we'd made several attempts to get Spouse to the airport but only slid on snow-covered ice.

The rest of the day was a more convoluted nightmare. Spouse was obviously not going to make his 6:30am flight. He called and the airline rescheduled for about 11:30am. We still couldn't get anywhere in my car. Spouse tried to call in favors from about half a dozen buddies he used to work with who -should- have been able to come through. Some were unreachable. Some said they'd get back to him but didn't. Some promised to help, but didn't or couldn't. It was a tragedy of errors.

As the time passed and Spouse was going to miss the 11:30am flight, he rebooked again, for 3pm. We managed to get my car back up the hill and into the garage but there was no way we'd ever make it off our street and to the airport. I had certainly cancelled my excursion by this point.

There was another round of phone calls trying to get someone, anyone, with a 4WD vehicle to come get Spouse and haul him to the airport. Now realize that all his buddies work at car dealership(s) and getting a 4WD was not the problem. The warm-body driving it just never materialized, through various circumstances, not excluding friendships now on the outs. Taxi/limo services were not running because they don't -do- 4WD because that kind of weather here just doesn't happen here very often.

Okay, so, it becomes obvious that Spouse isn't going to make his 3pm flight either. At this point, he and the party he was to meet in Israel finally succumb to the conspiracy. Something did NOT want Spouse in the air this weekend and/or in Israel this week and/or didn't want me on the road. Neither trip was going to happen this week. Ultimately, we've all rescheduled for next week, same time, same bat channel. There's no winter weather in the forecast. We'll see.

Naturally, being who I am, I wondered... WTF was all THAT about? Why were we grounded so emphatically? What were we being saved from or pointed to? I mean, the whole scenario was SO tangled as we were living it that it seemed like something had put up a big wall and said NO, Not at this time.

Honestly, I half expected something ugly to happen in Tel Aviv on the Sunday when Spouse might have arrived there, or something going awry with one of the flights he was supposed to take. Thankfully, nothing has surfaced so far as I know.

But then, I recalled 2/22 and the seeming countdown. Is it related? Was there a reason to keep Spouse out of Israel this week, on that day? Or did he have to get grounded just to keep me off the road during a winter storm? (Knowing I'd stick around if he had to) Or was it all just one of those things?

Might have missed something terrible. Might have been held here to catch something we needed to catch (like job thing). Might have nothing to do with anything. Might never know.

But Spouse and I sure feel like we're in a time warp. We had places to go, people to see. We didn't expect this interim week, and Friday evening we'll surely have a serious jolt of deja vu as we attempt this week again.

Strange. Just strange, I tell ya. I'm curious to see if anything notable occurs on 2/22 and if I stop catching 5:55..4:44...3:33... after that.