Entropy lives here, or life at the Johnson home

My watch, every clock in my house and the car are all set three minutes ahead -- yet I never get anywhere on time. No matter the level of chaos or calm around here, I always seem to be playing catch-up -- apparently now assigned as my static state in life.

In high school and college physics, the one lesson for which I managed to stay awake was the lecture on entropy: The thermodynamic process of expending energy or heat to return a body to its "natural" state following environmental or chemical changes to that body.

Think of freezing water to make ice cubes and then having the cubes melt again to form water.

This has been my story since my mother and father tried desperately to get me out of bed and on the school bus with a minimum of panic 30+ years ago. Life is always moving; there's much, too much, to do. It's just getting to all of it on time, coherently, and without wearing the navy blue pantyhose and black shoes (again) that seems to be the sticky part.

Now the shove from the warm sheets and out the door is provided courtesy of the BBC and NPR from a battered clock the ex didn't care to take with him. If not greeted with the "furry eyeball" coming from the curl of brown, orange, white and black who has reconned the dead center of the bed as hers (thanks Mollie) the likelihood of being tripped by thunderpaws the flying feline remains between my room and my daughter Helen's lightswitch.

"It's seven. Get up, we're late again." Flash of light. Rumble, rumple -- mumphf from the bed. "Oh, and Grandma and Grandpa will be here on Sunday, so we better get cleaning..."