TIM-BER!

(or Why I Went To The Store Wearing Two Different Shoes)

Today was just one of those days that couldn't get started on the right foot. Literally. I went running, but my pace was off (and Mystic threw up by the side of the road) and the whole 2.2 miles took way longer than it was supposed to.

My car windshield was still covered with frost when I got home, so I scraped off the windshield and the rearview mirror and all the windows and then went inside to get dressed. Because it was Mismatch Day at school, I put a sandal on one foot and a running shoe on the other. I came back outside a few minutes later, jumped in the car, and hit the road. I could have easily hit a few other things, too, because the windshield immediately fogged up and I had to pull over to the side of the road and wait for the defrost to kick in. Oh well - it gave me a chance to eat the leftover cheesecake from last night's dinner.

By this time my only prayer of making it to school on time was to take the shortcut cross-country - the one I was hoping not to take because the potholes have gotten so bad. Then I got stopped for tree trimming. Fortunately, the traffic on my end got to go through almost immediately...

...but then the tree trimmers felled a tree. Squarely across the road. We all sat and watched while they chopped up the fallen tree, ran it through the chipper, and spewed it into the woods. This process took about ten minutes, during which I called the school to say I'd be late, thought about the meeting I was missing, and contemplated what I would say to the guy with the chain saw if so much as a twig hit my car while it was parked there. Not much else I could've done, unless somebody knows how to make a mid-size sedan fly. When they finally did shred enough of the tree to let traffic through, I got to see the faces of the folks waiting to go through in the opposite direction. All of them looked exactly the same. If I had to write a caption, I would simply say, "Grr." As a direct result of this turn of events, I was ten minutes late to school.

I felt guilty about being late and not putting in a full day - even though I rarely leave on time and stay half an hour or more after school quite often these days. (Having a conscience has that effect on a person.) So even though I had a piano student to teach, I stayed ten minutes after school. That made me late for the piano lesson, after which the student's mom wanted to chat. I was headed to the station to quench my gas tank's thirst when I remembered that the purse I had ordered finally in - at the gift shop nine miles away which closed in fifteen minutes. Because I was eager to attempt to break the Purse Curse (more on that some other day) I drove straight to the gift shop and ran right past three customers before I realized that I was still wearing two different shoes.

I think my family might disown me.