Thursday, September 15, 2011

Off Topic - Crib Notes Mega Monday


Some Mondays are more Monday than other Mondays.
Some Mondays you carefully plan your entire day to make it to an appointment in San Antonio and arrive five minutes early! That is, five minutes early for the time you carefully wrote down. Which is the wrong time. The one hour wrong time.
I tried to think of myself as only 55 minutes late, but it was cold comfort on the long drive back home.
My fate Monday was sealed early on. Right around 4:30 am I glanced at the clock and noted that yes, the alarm was set, and yes, I had another hour and a half to sleep.
Unfortunately ignorance is sleep inducing. My dreams were so optimistic, consisting of all the things I was going to get done later in the day. I felt positively productive when I woke up, until I glanced over and realized I was an hour behind, because although my alarm had gone off, it had done so silently.
Only I would keep an alarm that goes off silently. Granted, it isn’t designed to go off silently, but it has a sticky button that every now and then changes the volume from dream shattering to dream extending. I keep thinking I’ll remember to double check it and it won’t be a problem.
And now it won’t be. That clock is off to a nice big land fill.
Mireya got a tardy slip at school, the first day they were giving them out. She gave me that look as she took possession of the slip. That “you have totally ruined my reputation with the new principal” look. I encouraged her to have a good day despite the rocky start. She refrained from rolling her eyes, but just barely.
The spirit of Mega Monday continued. I tried to drop off books to donate at the library. The box they were in was falling apart, but after some careful stacking I managed to struggle over to the Friends of the Library store doorway. Only to find that the Friends of the Library are closed on Mondays.
Smart cookies, those Friends of the Library.
I managed to get my books back to the truck without dropping them on my foot. Some times fate has a little bit of sympathy. Not enough sympathy to keep the other box from falling over when I opened the door, but enough to keep everything really heavy inside the truck.
All I can say is thank goodness it’s Thursday. 

(Do you enjoy these? The ebook collection will be out in a month! )

4 comments:

Captain Bailey said...

Yep, I enjoy 'em. Sometimes it's a wonder we make it back home in one piece.

Allenspark Lodge said...

I've always thought that Friday the 13th is a lot better than Monday the anything'th.

Bill

lytha said...

hi breathe, you said:

Funny about the coolness. Takes a while to build trust and friends I suppose. I wonder what the root of that is, from a cultural anthropology standpoint.

This is an item of much discussion amongs american expats living in germany. We move here and we wonder why the heck we cannot make friends after putting our best effort into it. Some say it has to do with Germany's history of not trusting strangers because they might be spies. But can a short period of time influence an entire culture permanenently?

Some say cold climate, cold people. (The reverse is also true.)

Germans are reserved and even distrustful, it takes 2-3 generations for even a German family to be accepted into a new town.

This is a country where you do not say hello to someone on the street unless you know them. I learned to stop doing that. It's better out here in the country, though, but as often as I invite neighbors or horse people over for dinner and activities, I cannot break through into friendship.

They see Americans as superficial and perhaps in some ways we are, but we are also known as one of the friendliest cultures on earth. So I'm really suffering the contrast.

I thought that when I found work I'd make friends but I see that is not the case - as I'd read in books, Germans separate work and play.

Most people on the ex-pat board I'm on go to English-speaking meet-ups to make friends.

The difference is shocking when we return home for visits - my husband already has friends in America! Whenever we visit,they call him and ask him out.

How I miss just having coffee with a girlfriend.

Achieve1dream said...

Yes I've had those days. Being late can set everything else up to be stressful. I'm glad it all worked out okay.