my unexpected day
i had plans for today. big, lofty, written in list form with red pen on the back of an envelope plans for today.
but when someone dangled the carrot of a lunch get-together via the contemporary lure of the text message screen, i had to say yes.
lunch became not just about midday sustenance, but rather first a play by play on the chosen restaurant's nasty-mannered staff (have "thank you" and "enjoy your meal" vanished entirely from the modern waitstaff vocabulary? is it difficult to set a plate down without an evidently angry thump on the table? am i asking too much when i ask for an affirmation that the menu i'm meant to order from is the one that's folded and in a stack tucked up front next to the register that no patron can see until they reach said register, particularly with a line ahead?) and then a more topical look at the state of the blog we both write for. which segued easily into a strategy session, a walk across the street to a donut shop ("this is THE donut shop" a patron schooled us) and a phone conversation with a third party held in a mcdonald's parking lot that lasted over an hour, and ended with everyone happy and me almost a melted puddle of mid-afternoon ninety degree sweat.
and i only like to get that sweaty when i'm doing something else entirely.
of course my unexpected day gave me the somewhat more expected headache, which took the fun out of grocery shopping (yes, i think grocery shopping is fun), then made me kind of moany-groany and unable to fully appreciate the episodes of 90210 i'd recorded while i was out.
i know, i know: the horror of it all.
then i made cookies. because i had to. because at the start of the quarter when my students find out i like to cook and bake they ask me to make them something, and i always tell them if they're good we'll do a pot luck party on the last day of classes and i will bake them cookies. and so that day was upon me, and even though i'd go so far as to say not all of my students were as well-behaved as i'd have liked, they still will get the chocolate chip cookies i promised.
but unexpected doesn't always mean bad. in fact, sweat and headache aside, all the unexpected parts of my day wound up being all for the good, including the cookies. normally the cookies stress me out and take a lot of time and make a lot of mess, but this batch was totally under control and simple and everything's all tidied up in my tiny kitchen and the kids' cookies are bagged up and ready to go and i even set aside a smaller bag of them to give to my still-away darling boy. and i'm proud of myself, because i lasted a whole week before i sent him an email love letter type thing which he won't even see until he gets home. i mean, seriously, ten days without the internet is what i really call a horror. well, it's a close second to ten days without the fella i love. even my ability to not go completely mental about missing him has been unexpected. fancy that.
i'm ready, at day's end, however, to wrap up the unexpected elements and get back to the usual routine. i think, considering i'm still behind on my paper-grading, ready for bed at just a little past ten p.m., and already not sure about what i'm going to wear tomorrow, that things are looking up in the normalcy department.
heck, give it another couple of days and get me my darling boy back and i will tackle all those items on my to-do list. i might even enjoy 90210 again.
oh, who am i kidding? even when i hate that stupid show i still love it.