That Kind of Day

It really has been that kind of day today. ::sigh::

I’ll give today some credit – It started out pretty good. I managed to get myself out of bed at 4:30 and got to the gym in good time. I saw on the news that there had been a tractor trailer roll-over not half a mile from the gym, but because I had taken the back roads instead of Route 1, I completely missed it. The driver survived and best of all, he was hauling clementines, which just made me smile. I also saw that the I-91/I-95 merge in New Haven has been named the 6th worst bottleneck in the entire country. Although this didn’t make me smile, it did make me smirk, as I’m sure anyone who’s been through there even once at rush hour would have happily ranked it at #1.

The day unfortunately started to unravel as I pulled in the driveway at home. The air was heavy with the stench of rotten eggs. Having lived here for almost five years, I am familiar with this smell. We live in a low-lying wetland with a sewage collection area down the road. Most of the time you wouldn’t even notice it, but some days are pretty ripe. I figured what with all the snow and ice melting and rain falling for most of the last 36 hours, things probably weren’t draining quite as well as they should be and the sewers were a little backed up. I ignored it. My downstairs neighbor didn’t. She thought it was a gas leak because apparently she’s never actually smelled natural gas (or rather the stuff they add to make it smell). So she called Carmela, and actually evacuated their apartment. When Carmela called me, I told her I didn’t think it smelled like gas and what I thought it was. Still, she had to call SCG to come check it out. Even the guy who came to check said it smelled like sewage rather than gas. ::eyeroll:: But he checked everything anyway, including my stove, where he found that the gas shut-off valve was more than two feet away from the stove and has to be fixed. Goody goody. And did I mention that by this time I was definitely going to be late to work and I still had to stop at the gas station?

I was about 15 minutes late, which was okay. Unfortunately, Gina was late too, which was somewhat less okay, but for a very good reason. Her dog got into a whole ton of raisins, which is definitely not a good thing. The vet told them to give it a couple tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting, but Gina still had to get back down to the vet to get puppy checked out. She and her boyfriend are a lot like me and Alan with the cats. Fur-babies. So Ashley had to come cover for a couple hours. Fortunately, both my house and the dog are well and safe. But it still made for a crazy start to the day. It didn’t help that Wendy is out for two weeks in Infants and Isabel, who is covering her, was out sick today.

And of course, it’s raining.

And Gina says that the kids always seem to act up when there’s a big storm coming, so even though we’ve heard widely differing forecasts about tomorrow and Friday, we should go by the more severe predictions, because the kids were in fine, uproarious form today. By the end of the day, seeing that I wasn’t going to get out on time (again!) and with the kids driving me up the frickin’ wall I was practically in tears. My favorite part of my workday? Hiding in the tent and having all my favorite kids think that was hilarious and come and snuggle with me. The one thing I know I can count on is when I need a sanity break, I can just grab a book and read to Elizabeth. Usually one or two of the other kids will come over and listen and it’s nice and quiet and cuddly. I really do love these kids. I had hope that if I had to stay late I would bump into Elizabeth’s dad. For awhile I only ever saw him at pick-up, but lately I only see mom, which sucks because I like dad. He’s cute. ~_^

So now I’m home after a brief stop at the liquor store for a bottle of wine. Sadly enough, I didn’t even get carded. ::sniffle:: I’m trying to tell myself that it’s because I’ve been in there multiple times and seen the cashier before. That I obviously had purchased the same wine in the past because I just went to the shelf and grabbed it. That most underage drinkers aren’t really interested in wine…. But still, 27 seems to be catching up with me fast! Can it really be Friday??

I did see one thing at the liquor store that made me smile. A new display of a brand of wine called "Mommy’s Time Out." Amen to that.

~Liz