-thanks, Dad, I shouted, shoving my backpack and lunch onto the passenger seat, and he waved goodbye. He had started the car already and Robert E. Lee was warm. It had been a toss up between Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, but the latter had suited him.
What normally is a 15 minute commute took two hours: traffic moving at 10mph. I called Joh and left a voice-mail with my usual birdy-chattering, however my 'm's' came out like 'b's'. Dumb cold.
Even with leaving an hour early, I was late. Friday mornings with the Owen boys are a favorite of mine, still it was hard to read them the same book over and over while losing my voice. I talked with the eldest about moving and Star Wars and WWII POW's and God, I talked to the middle child about trains and hungry goats, and I talked to the baby about foreign embassies in North Korea. After lunch, where one child decided to spit his "yucky" mandarin oranges out (I thought, into the kitchen trash-bin), I began to put the middle child to bed,
-but first, let's have you go potty and wash your hands, I directed.
-otay, his little voice answered. As I left him to grab the baby.
After tucking the middle child in, I was in the kitchen warming a bottle when I heard a waterfall. It was a beautiful sound, but not the sound you want to be hearing from inside a house, especially not from the house you are babysitting in, and especially not when you are the only adult. Turned out the mandarin oranges had been spit out into the bathroom sink, clogging the drain, and the faucet had been left running. Dreadful. Water pooled from the ceiling creating islands out of boxes and inched its way toward the carpet. Panic inside of me. I could continue writing about the incident, but honestly, I'd rather not. In the end, the leakage was stopped, the floor mopped up, and the mom arrived back home so I could leave for my other job. Consequently, my car would not budge, being stuck atop a hill of solid snow. After fifteen minutes of shoveling and only being able to breathe through my mouth, he was released. Back on 35, I realized I had left my work clothes at home, including shoes, and would not have time to stop by and pick them up. I improvised and made a skirt out of a black cardigan and told my rain-boots they would have to do. You should see the blisters I have from wearing them all night without socks--because my socks were still soaking from the flood.
All in all, it was a no good very bad day. One of those comic-strip days when a rain-cloud follows above your head. I avoided customers because my breath was hot and heavy in the air and I avoided answering the phone because customers could not understand me and I avoided helping in the bar because customers would notice my failed attempts to catch the dripping from my nose.
After work, my cousin surprised me in the parking lot and I told her of my miserable day and she gave me Kleenex and we laughed until we reached that state of laughter where you become silent and your eyes well up. At home, I collapsed on the living room floor with an uncontrollable fever, every muscle and bone replaced with sharp rocks and ice; I felt as though my skull had duplicated itself around my brain and the two of them were at odds to break through my scalp and jaw.
Yet I am reminded:
"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life- the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination.” -C. S. Lewis
m
-but first, let's have you go potty and wash your hands, I directed.
-otay, his little voice answered. As I left him to grab the baby.
After tucking the middle child in, I was in the kitchen warming a bottle when I heard a waterfall. It was a beautiful sound, but not the sound you want to be hearing from inside a house, especially not from the house you are babysitting in, and especially not when you are the only adult. Turned out the mandarin oranges had been spit out into the bathroom sink, clogging the drain, and the faucet had been left running. Dreadful. Water pooled from the ceiling creating islands out of boxes and inched its way toward the carpet. Panic inside of me. I could continue writing about the incident, but honestly, I'd rather not. In the end, the leakage was stopped, the floor mopped up, and the mom arrived back home so I could leave for my other job. Consequently, my car would not budge, being stuck atop a hill of solid snow. After fifteen minutes of shoveling and only being able to breathe through my mouth, he was released. Back on 35, I realized I had left my work clothes at home, including shoes, and would not have time to stop by and pick them up. I improvised and made a skirt out of a black cardigan and told my rain-boots they would have to do. You should see the blisters I have from wearing them all night without socks--because my socks were still soaking from the flood.
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| rene gruau |
After work, my cousin surprised me in the parking lot and I told her of my miserable day and she gave me Kleenex and we laughed until we reached that state of laughter where you become silent and your eyes well up. At home, I collapsed on the living room floor with an uncontrollable fever, every muscle and bone replaced with sharp rocks and ice; I felt as though my skull had duplicated itself around my brain and the two of them were at odds to break through my scalp and jaw.
Yet I am reminded:
"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life- the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination.” -C. S. Lewis
m
