Stormy Weather

I've had the proverbial raincloud solely over my head this week. Too bad, really, because tonight is "date night" (finally) for my wife & I for our anniversary (which happens next week, but I'll be back in school by then).

I've always been told "never write angry," but I think writing angry brings out a whole new level of passion, yes?

You know you're in a foul mood when you're swearing at church...

See, I'd been "volunteered" (I once heard 'volunTOLD' is a much more accurate term) to help out with the kids' Sunday School stuff for a couple of weekends over the summer and I'm not really into kids. I know, I know. I have two of my own, but they're not normal kids. My daughter is reading, drawing like crazy and fully prepped for kindergarten in the Fall (she's also quite interested in seeing 'Narnia' this Christmas because she likes the story --and recounted about half of it to me one evening). My son, not quite 2, has a vocabulary nearing 500 words. I had a boy in the Sunday school class who just had his 4th birthday and I had no clue what he was trying to say. He has a very small vocabulary... Anyway, NOT a kid person and Sunday was not a day I was looking forward to.

Even worse, my wife had forgotten a bunch of things. I volunteered to get home immediately and pick it up, but she stopped me to (I don't know why) lecture me on a bunch of things first.

If only she hadn't lectured me.

I got into the car, pulled out and headed around the corner of the lot only to hear screeching tires as someone laid on the brakes.

Hard.

'V', who I swear will kill me one of these days, was speeding through the parking lot to get to church. Yes, she was a little late, but people don't go to Hell for coming to church late. Nope, they go to Hell for needlessly killing people. Killing someone in a church parking lot just adds to the irony.

Anyway, it's not the first time I've had a "close call" with V. It's the 4th time in 2 years she's nearly gotten me in the parking lot. The worst was one time when I had just pulled out of the lot onto the street and after checking for traffic, made my right turn --almost right into her car as it sped down the wrong side of the road to pull into the lot.

So I had a quite a number of choice words with her in the parking lot. The stuff at home could wait. This woman needed to hear a few things first.

What if I'd been walking in the lot and she was speeding like that?

What if it was one of the seniors walking past?

What if it was one of my kids? Church, to me, should be one of the safest places to take my kids. Don't make me wrong on this.

Well, that was Sunday.

Yesterday I needed to take my car in for servicing. Yesterday was the first day I actually regretted buying the car. 673 freaking dollars later, I was fuming. What-O-what is the warranty for again????? I got rid of my old car because I was sick of paying $2000 a year in repairs on it. In 2005, I'm already up to $800+ and it's still JUNE. I also wasn't feeling too good and really just felt like sleeping. I didn't want to have to wait for my car from 8am until after Noon. A coffee at Starbucks can only last so long...

Since I wasn't feeling too hot, I went to bed early last night, feeling the garbage could wait until morning.

Turns out I got to sleep a little longer than normal and got up just before 9am.

And the garbage men had been and gone already.

So, lesson learned, right?

It's the second time this year that I've missed getting the garbage out before 9:30 and the second time they've come by before 9. Normally, they come between 1 and 5... nice schedule and way to keep at it, boys!!

So, I condensed the trash into one bag and tossed it in the trunk of the now-$673 "richer" car and drove around town until I found the following:
1 - a house with trash at the curb.
2 - a house that looked like no one was home.
3 - a house that looked like it could use another bag... :-)

Oh, I also discovered one of the carpet staples my cats had clawed out of the stairs. It sliced into my big toe right underneath the nail. It was quite the slice and bled like you wouldn't believe...

How many days left this week?