It was 7 a.m., it was pre-coffee, and I was making scrambled eggs, treating  Oliver’s infected paw, on the phone with my N.Y. daugher re: travel plans, adding ingredients for turkey loaf to my mental grocery list, and stepping out to retrieve the newspaper, at which time the sprinklers popped up cheerfully to douse me. So when the vuvuzelas started, I was already in a state you might call irritable.

But then soccer took over. Tom and Nora have been obsessed with the World Cup, but I’ve been more, shall we say, aloof. (The most emotion I’ve displayed vis-à-vis the Cup is bitching about the vuvuzelas.) This morning, however, my family’s intense focus zapped me. I turned to the television and, within seconds, I was hooked.

I stood in my damp bathrobe and got acquainted with Landon Donovan, and life’s irritating factors evaporated. Even the vuvuzelas lost their edge.

After The Goal (note-to=self: get that YouTube vid on my iPhone), I skittered across Twitter and now I (along with 60,000 other stalkers) am following Landon. His tweet after the victory? “WOW!” (Well, whattya want, the Gettysburg address? The guy was pooped, for chrissakes.)

After the thrill of victory dimmed slightly, I got real and made a turkey loaf, fantasizing about tweeting old Landon a dinner invite, which would probably be his 59,999^th offer of the day.  Maybe I’ll invite Stan McChrystal instead. Bet his dance card is empty.

It’s all over NPR. Google is making me stupid. But I mean, are they sure? Is that what’s doing it? Or is it, you know, other stuff? I did a scan of recent life activity to see what else might be causing my newfound stupidity.

Could it be: 1. All those vuvuzelas  2. Too many Stacy’s pita chips while watching the NBA 3. That second grapefruit margarita after Game 6 (or was it Game 7?).  4. Watching 40 minutes of Fox News by mistake  5.  Arguing with the mattress delivery dude about whether when they say noon to five that includes five-thirty.  6. Arguing with my daughter about proper etiquette for borrowing my white Splendid tee shirt  7. Riding seventeen floors on an elevator with a guy yelling into cell phone about the “Celtic bastards”  8. Arguing with Tom about the value of owning a smelly ’67 Mustang   9. Hearing Meg Whitman on the radio 10. Rearranging the bookshelf, and now not finding Proust, only Wally Lamb 11. The grapefruit margarita after US tied Slovenia

These things add up; they will dumb you down.  I know I was smarter before all this happened (although I felt better about my own IQ after hearing Barton apologize to BP).

So, I wouldn’t be so quick to blame Google. In fact, I got a smidge smarter yesterday when I learned, courtesy of Google, that the people who attend bingo games outnumber NBA attendees by 59 to 1. (Note-to-self: tweet Kobe about this.)

Grapefruit Margarita:

3 ounces grapefruit juice

2 ounces tequila

1 ounce Grand Marnier

1 tablespoon lime juice

Lime wedges

Pour all this stuff except the lime wedges in a cocktail shaker, add some ice cubes and shake 30 seconds. Pour into 2 glasses, or 1 glass if you’re livin’ large.