This morning, some kid puked on Nick's bus and as the bus accelerated, this oozy stuff with brown chunks trailed along toward the back of the bus. The way Nick described the puke rolling into kids' feet, backpacks, and lunch boxes was like a cheese-touch scene out of the 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' series. Unfortunately, Nick's backpack fell prey to the puke-touch.
I had just managed to get to sleep after everyone left for work and school. I figured I had all morning to make that 6 1/2 hours of sleep add up to just enough. Remember, I had asked Susie if we could work on training next month? Yeah, I actually did that. Poor Susie was rejected because her house is too well-organized, but my morning was free so I could take care of me. Doesn't that sound nice? That was when Nick called from school.
"Mom, could you come pick up my backpack and bring me a new lunch?" he asked. "Some kid puked on the bus and it got on my backpack."
"Did it get into your backpack?" I asked.
"No, Mom, but it's just so gross. I just can't eat it."
"It's pizza."
"Mom, please?" he asked. Then he described what had happened and I told him I'd be there before lunch to give him something different to eat. Shoot, my morning was back on a schedule. Still, I figured I could get a little more sleep. No dice. The phone rang twice more and, even though it was on vibrate, I answered it. After a half an hour of sleep, another twenty minutes, and then forty-five minutes, I was done trying. Technically, it added up to a decent night's sleep when you put all the parts together.
Then, I tried to get onto the Cub Scout database, but I couldn't because someone else was using it. Crap! They were all supposed to be done by then so I could collect the information and head into Seattle to buy the awards for Friday's meeting. One den leader was going to make it so that none of the dens was going to be able to get their awards! I ran out of time waiting and emailed this guy before I had to run into town to bring Nick his lunch. He and I had a nice lunch together, except that I dropped the lid to his salad and it stuck, sloppy side down, onto my pants leg. Yesterday, I'd had to retire a pair of jeans that had worn through in an embarrassing place and realized that I was down to two pair of jeans that I liked and felt comfortable in. Crap! Now I have to go home, get onto the database, throw in a load of laundry, and then, if I still had time, drive into Seattle to buy this month's Cub Scout awards. As I was leaving, Nick handed me a large garbage bag with the puke-touch backpack in it.
When I got home, after I'd started the load of laundry, I found Seth, my gray kitty, snuggled into my favorite white sweater which I'd spread out on the bed, still a bit damp. There was a gray ring on it where he'd made himself comfortable. I wondered if the little gray hairs would come out by just putting the sweater into the dryer with my penultimate pair of comfortable jeans. We won't talk about why I only have two pair of jeans that are comfortable these days, now will we?
I sat back down at the computer to check the Cub Scout database and the same guy was still holding up the show. So I managed to find his work number in one of my directories and I called him.
"Oh, I guess I forgot to log out," he said after I explained who I was, why I was calling, and why I sounded like a freight train was going to run me down in the next sixty seconds if he didn't let me get onto that database. Then, I got a text from Claire asking me if we had her pretty platter that she left at the bake sale last Saturday. I didn't know, so I texted Mike, asking him. In the meantime, the landline rang. I missed that one and it was some cheerful nurse telling my answering machine that all Nick's tests were negative, now isn't that just great news? I hate when you know that something medical is wrong and you really need to find out the answer and they tell you they have no idea what's wrong after running a couple of tests and try to get you to believe that's a good thing. Mike texted me back that he had Claire's pretty platter. And then the doorbell rang.
Not only was there a Christmas UPS package on my front doorstep, along with a produce bag of Teddy's poop that hadn't made it into the garbage bin, but there stood my friend, the cleaning hobbyist with a dog crate in her hand. My house, remember, was too messy to invite in poor Susie and here stood Martha Stewart's younger jazzier sister at my door. 'Oh man,' I thought.
"Hi!" I said. I resisted the urge to use my foot to block the door from opening any further. It was too late. She could already see the cardboard boxes that needed to be broken down and put into the recycle bin. I was going to do that. I really was, but not just this morning. She explained that since we'd had Teddy in that very small crate, she thought she'd bring over this one that was surely two sizes bigger so that Teddy would be more comfortable now that he's grown. Thankfully, the crate she was talking about was in my car, so I walked out, in my stocking feet, and we looked at them together.
"Oh, I think mine's taller," she said. They were the same height, just a slightly different proportion. I smiled. Now I'm going to have to hang onto this duplicate crate for the next two or three months in the spare closet space I don't have, before I can give it back to her gracefully. This is how neatnicks keep their houses clean. Let someone else store it for them. Don't even get me started about the shed and the corner of our office that is filled with Cub Scout stuff that no one else is willing to store. Mike couldn't say no.
I tried to keep a smile on my face, put her crate where mine had been, and stood there with my perfectly good crate, hoping she wouldn't ask to come into my house. The last time she came in, she suggested, three times, that Mike and I buy another bookshelf for the left side of the fireplace to balance out that bookshelf on the right. Doesn't like asymmetry, I guess, but I wasn't going to jump into the car right then to go look for that bookcase with her. I wondered, if she came into the house, if she'd suggest that I needed to place dirty dishes on both sides of my sink to make them balance the room there as well.
It was rounding on 1:30pm, the hour beyond which I wasn't going to be able to get into Seattle and back home before the boys got off the bus. I told her I really needed to go pick up awards and started to head back toward the house. She walked alongside me until I stopped, half way to my door. This wasn't going to work. I stood, trying to listen to her conversation and to think out a plan at the same time. I wasn't ready to leave yet, but I could fake it.
"Hon, I was about to head out to the Scout shop to buy awards," I said, trying to look enthusiastic. "Why don't you come with me? We'll have lots of time to chat in the car. You can help me get awards at the shop and we can do a drive-thru at Taco Time for salads on our way back?" I tried my most winning smile.
"Uh, no, I need to go anyway," she said backing away toward her car. Bingo! She was out of the driveway in five minutes. I had remembered that my cleaning-hobbyist friend is not a fan of fast food. My iPhone said 1:18 pm, nuclear time. Twelve minutes was enough to grab a shower, print the list, and head into Seattle. Well, you might have figured. Twelve minutes wasn't enough. The printer decided that this was the best time in the world to smear each page with little globs of ink. Right. I printed two pages again, then carefully laid each page out to dry and finally headed out the door without the comfort of a shower. Ew.
On my way into Seattle, my friend Laurie called about a Scout award that hadn't made it into the database because, "somebody's hogging the database." I began to tell her about my lack of sleep, the cat's tinsel-puke, Nick's puke-touch backpack, my jeans, the database hog, and the identical-puppy-crates storage issue when she interrupted me.
"You'd better use latex gloves on that backpack. You have some disposable gloves, don't you?"
"Sure, why?"
"I just had that stomach bug and believe me, you don't want to get it." Then she proceeded to tell me about her past four days, in technicolor, and four-part harmony. I started to feel a little queasy. There are just some stories a person doesn't want to hear in detail.
Just as Laurie hung up, I began to imagine a family of gods that were sitting on a heavenly couch watching the universe unfold using a remote control that tuned into a sitcom channel. All comedy. All the time. And today, that comedy was me. I had become an 'I Love Lucy' rerun. I remembered the time, twenty-six years before, when a whole bus-load of kids were yelling at me in my car at a stop light. I had left my biochemistry book on the roof and it was heavy enough to have stayed there for a while. Just then, a bus drew up alongside me on I-90. A couple of tiny kids in the very back row looked over, grinned, and waved at me.
I waved back.
Thank you for listening, jb
I had just managed to get to sleep after everyone left for work and school. I figured I had all morning to make that 6 1/2 hours of sleep add up to just enough. Remember, I had asked Susie if we could work on training next month? Yeah, I actually did that. Poor Susie was rejected because her house is too well-organized, but my morning was free so I could take care of me. Doesn't that sound nice? That was when Nick called from school.
"Mom, could you come pick up my backpack and bring me a new lunch?" he asked. "Some kid puked on the bus and it got on my backpack."
"Did it get into your backpack?" I asked.
"No, Mom, but it's just so gross. I just can't eat it."
"It's pizza."
"Mom, please?" he asked. Then he described what had happened and I told him I'd be there before lunch to give him something different to eat. Shoot, my morning was back on a schedule. Still, I figured I could get a little more sleep. No dice. The phone rang twice more and, even though it was on vibrate, I answered it. After a half an hour of sleep, another twenty minutes, and then forty-five minutes, I was done trying. Technically, it added up to a decent night's sleep when you put all the parts together.
Then, I tried to get onto the Cub Scout database, but I couldn't because someone else was using it. Crap! They were all supposed to be done by then so I could collect the information and head into Seattle to buy the awards for Friday's meeting. One den leader was going to make it so that none of the dens was going to be able to get their awards! I ran out of time waiting and emailed this guy before I had to run into town to bring Nick his lunch. He and I had a nice lunch together, except that I dropped the lid to his salad and it stuck, sloppy side down, onto my pants leg. Yesterday, I'd had to retire a pair of jeans that had worn through in an embarrassing place and realized that I was down to two pair of jeans that I liked and felt comfortable in. Crap! Now I have to go home, get onto the database, throw in a load of laundry, and then, if I still had time, drive into Seattle to buy this month's Cub Scout awards. As I was leaving, Nick handed me a large garbage bag with the puke-touch backpack in it.
When I got home, after I'd started the load of laundry, I found Seth, my gray kitty, snuggled into my favorite white sweater which I'd spread out on the bed, still a bit damp. There was a gray ring on it where he'd made himself comfortable. I wondered if the little gray hairs would come out by just putting the sweater into the dryer with my penultimate pair of comfortable jeans. We won't talk about why I only have two pair of jeans that are comfortable these days, now will we?
I sat back down at the computer to check the Cub Scout database and the same guy was still holding up the show. So I managed to find his work number in one of my directories and I called him.
"Oh, I guess I forgot to log out," he said after I explained who I was, why I was calling, and why I sounded like a freight train was going to run me down in the next sixty seconds if he didn't let me get onto that database. Then, I got a text from Claire asking me if we had her pretty platter that she left at the bake sale last Saturday. I didn't know, so I texted Mike, asking him. In the meantime, the landline rang. I missed that one and it was some cheerful nurse telling my answering machine that all Nick's tests were negative, now isn't that just great news? I hate when you know that something medical is wrong and you really need to find out the answer and they tell you they have no idea what's wrong after running a couple of tests and try to get you to believe that's a good thing. Mike texted me back that he had Claire's pretty platter. And then the doorbell rang.
Not only was there a Christmas UPS package on my front doorstep, along with a produce bag of Teddy's poop that hadn't made it into the garbage bin, but there stood my friend, the cleaning hobbyist with a dog crate in her hand. My house, remember, was too messy to invite in poor Susie and here stood Martha Stewart's younger jazzier sister at my door. 'Oh man,' I thought.
"Hi!" I said. I resisted the urge to use my foot to block the door from opening any further. It was too late. She could already see the cardboard boxes that needed to be broken down and put into the recycle bin. I was going to do that. I really was, but not just this morning. She explained that since we'd had Teddy in that very small crate, she thought she'd bring over this one that was surely two sizes bigger so that Teddy would be more comfortable now that he's grown. Thankfully, the crate she was talking about was in my car, so I walked out, in my stocking feet, and we looked at them together.
"Oh, I think mine's taller," she said. They were the same height, just a slightly different proportion. I smiled. Now I'm going to have to hang onto this duplicate crate for the next two or three months in the spare closet space I don't have, before I can give it back to her gracefully. This is how neatnicks keep their houses clean. Let someone else store it for them. Don't even get me started about the shed and the corner of our office that is filled with Cub Scout stuff that no one else is willing to store. Mike couldn't say no.
I tried to keep a smile on my face, put her crate where mine had been, and stood there with my perfectly good crate, hoping she wouldn't ask to come into my house. The last time she came in, she suggested, three times, that Mike and I buy another bookshelf for the left side of the fireplace to balance out that bookshelf on the right. Doesn't like asymmetry, I guess, but I wasn't going to jump into the car right then to go look for that bookcase with her. I wondered, if she came into the house, if she'd suggest that I needed to place dirty dishes on both sides of my sink to make them balance the room there as well.
It was rounding on 1:30pm, the hour beyond which I wasn't going to be able to get into Seattle and back home before the boys got off the bus. I told her I really needed to go pick up awards and started to head back toward the house. She walked alongside me until I stopped, half way to my door. This wasn't going to work. I stood, trying to listen to her conversation and to think out a plan at the same time. I wasn't ready to leave yet, but I could fake it.
"Hon, I was about to head out to the Scout shop to buy awards," I said, trying to look enthusiastic. "Why don't you come with me? We'll have lots of time to chat in the car. You can help me get awards at the shop and we can do a drive-thru at Taco Time for salads on our way back?" I tried my most winning smile.
"Uh, no, I need to go anyway," she said backing away toward her car. Bingo! She was out of the driveway in five minutes. I had remembered that my cleaning-hobbyist friend is not a fan of fast food. My iPhone said 1:18 pm, nuclear time. Twelve minutes was enough to grab a shower, print the list, and head into Seattle. Well, you might have figured. Twelve minutes wasn't enough. The printer decided that this was the best time in the world to smear each page with little globs of ink. Right. I printed two pages again, then carefully laid each page out to dry and finally headed out the door without the comfort of a shower. Ew.
On my way into Seattle, my friend Laurie called about a Scout award that hadn't made it into the database because, "somebody's hogging the database." I began to tell her about my lack of sleep, the cat's tinsel-puke, Nick's puke-touch backpack, my jeans, the database hog, and the identical-puppy-crates storage issue when she interrupted me.
"You'd better use latex gloves on that backpack. You have some disposable gloves, don't you?"
"Sure, why?"
"I just had that stomach bug and believe me, you don't want to get it." Then she proceeded to tell me about her past four days, in technicolor, and four-part harmony. I started to feel a little queasy. There are just some stories a person doesn't want to hear in detail.
Just as Laurie hung up, I began to imagine a family of gods that were sitting on a heavenly couch watching the universe unfold using a remote control that tuned into a sitcom channel. All comedy. All the time. And today, that comedy was me. I had become an 'I Love Lucy' rerun. I remembered the time, twenty-six years before, when a whole bus-load of kids were yelling at me in my car at a stop light. I had left my biochemistry book on the roof and it was heavy enough to have stayed there for a while. Just then, a bus drew up alongside me on I-90. A couple of tiny kids in the very back row looked over, grinned, and waved at me.
I waved back.
Thank you for listening, jb
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