Well, Herself ran away from home today, bound for New Orleans. She claims to be attending a librarians conference, something called “The SLA 2010 Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO,” but Momma O’Grady didn’t raise no fools. I mean, what kind of library outfit would hire James Carville and Mary Matalin as its keynote speakers? Puh-leeze.

I practically invented that really-honey-I’m-working dodge, telling her for years that I was going to Vegas to spend a week covering a bicycle-industry trade show called “Interbike.” And she bought it. Ho, ho. There’s one born every minute, but I ain’t one of ’em, Toots.

So it’s just me and the cats here, enjoying some of the filthiest June weather in recent memory. If it’s not pissing down rain, it’s blowing 40 mph or thereabouts, and sometimes it’s doing both, causing the furnace to click on.

These conditions are not limited to Colorado, by the way — the poor saps racing the Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour de Suisse have had to break out the rain capes. Happily, I do my little bit of business indoors, where’s it’s dry.

Meanwhile, Herself just rang me up and said she can’t find red beans and rice, jambalaya or gumbo at the restaurant she’s supposedly at. Just sushi. She’s not nearly as good at lying through her teeth as I am. Hell, I bet she’s not even in The Big Easy. She’s probably in Vegas.

• Quick, all you librarians — from which work of popular fiction did I steal the headline on this post?