My Day

My head is still full of snot and my throat is still uncleared. I am not miserable anymore, but I am totally sick of having this hindrance to my vocal abilities. It takes the confidence right out from under me. I am getting to the point between church functions and now band practice that I will need to be up to singing four times a week. And if I can just get my blasted Martin back, I will be in better spirits. It is still getting fixed from the nice crack it has on the soundboard and the scratches all over the back from being scraped across a dirty hard surface floor (if you don't know the story, look here). I think I should hear something by Monday? I think that will be five stinking weeks.

Yesterday, I apparently survived the Chuck E. Cheese chaos. It went fine. I had to rush to the bathroom a few times to literally clear my head of an abundance of gelatinous fluid (there's that word again), but I fared alright. I got the salad bar so I would not have to eat much of the pizza and found a blonde hair in it. I was hoping it was mine.

Afterwards, I took the kids to my sister-in-law's apartment to let the kids play for forty-five minutes or so, and when that madness was through, I decided I needed to be home so I could make it to praise band practice in a few hours (since it would take me a good hour to get home). My girl would not move. Literally. She cried and sat on the bed where she and her cousin were playing video games and ignored me. It took me probably a half hour to get her out the door without making a bigger scene than she already made. It is rare she is ever like this, so I was patient but seething inside, ready to bite her neck and suck up her blood.

To top off the stress, before my daughter pulled her tricks, my Oldest was acting sort of ridiculous, being a total punk, and I told him to go out the front door and wait for me before he could push himself into an ever-increasing hole of hard core discipline. Yeah, he went alright. And he slammed the door. I am sure when my brother and sister in law looked at me they saw the fierce madness in my face at being so disrespected, and prayed at that moment for my salvation and for the life of my son who so foolishly just about committed suicide.

So, after pulling various teeth to get the crying Girl out the door, I got them all in the car somehow. Eraser Eater was a perfect genius, kissing my butt to no end. He's a smart kid. He knows that when the other two are acting up, he best not. The Girl let out a huge wail upon sitting in her booster seat, and the pot boiled over and I lost it. I let out a craggy yelp of frustration, some unintelligible cry of rage, and pulled the car into reverse.

"I was good," Eraser Eater meekly said in a tiny voice.
"I know! Thank you!" I yelled.

Then I made the wrong turn and got onto 66, the freeway that is always having rush hour traffic. Even at four in the afternoon. My mind wandered to what could have been, a half hour earlier and I would not be hugging the bumper of the car in front of me.
"If I could have been gone a little while ago when I WANTED to be gone, I would not be stuck in traffic now!!" I aimed at my daughter, "Thank you!"
She let out a perfect wail of failure.
The others just plain quit talking or even breathing. I think my daughter cried for about 60% of the hour plus ride home.

Then, as I was in the fast lane of the highway that would lead me to my destination, a huge truck with a double decker flat bed full of cars (do those things have names?) decided that he would just completely ignore the fact that I am driving straight ahead, and decided to merge out in front of me. It was complete suicide, completely illegal, and completely wretched of him to do. The hit was so close, if there had not been a slight emptiness in the lane next to me, he would have ended the lives of us all. I swerved to the right and honked my horn for a nice long time until he was no longer in my range of vision.
"We ALMOST DIED!" I yelled. I felt like the Dukes of Hazard. Usually when things like that happen my heart beats wildly. I noticed that this did not happen. That really should have scared the crud out of me. I think, when you don't fear anymore, you have lost your mind.

We finally got home and I made dinner right away since Dear Sir was to be walking through the door in a jiffy and I needed to get to practice once that happened. I ate a protein bar while I cooked and put it all out on the table and then left.

Practice went fine, I guess. I left really late because the music director has become a kindred spirit and we find that if we sit down and talk we get to laughing our sides off at stuff. I think it is because she is my age. No, I think it is because she is so sweet and kind and reserved and I am so in your face about stuff, we are refreshing to each other. I left her house laughing to the car, and she laughing to her front door. I drove home trying to hit high notes with my snot infested throat.

Since I live in the blasted forest, Dear Sir told me once that if I ever see a deer and know that I am going to hit it, just hit it because there are so many trees I would hit one of those if I tried to avoid it and my chances at survival are much more if I just plow the deer down. Make sense? Makes perfect sense to me. He said in Michigan, where he lived his high school years, people would die on roads that are filled with trees on each side because they would swerve to avoid the deer in front of them and it a tree instead.

So, at the last minute as I was on this forest road to my house, I spotted a HUGE possum. I know these things because they used to come around at night when I was growing up in California. They are so ugly. This thing was huge and walking pretty slow. In the middle of the road. I remembered what Dear Sir said. I just plowed right over the thing. I ain't dyin' for no possum. It felt like a glorified speed bump and I laughed a bit. Oh crud, I hope it didn't hurt the tires, I thought. But they were ok.