I'm So Far Behind I Think I'm Ahead of Myself

As I kind of alluded to in my last post, it’s been a long couple of months at work. On Thursday, my poor little brain was so fried, I’d started to type phonetically. We have something called the “Bribe Offer” we send out to prospective customers who’ve requested a demonstration of our program. Frequently, we get people who miss the 48 hour window, and they write in asking if they could have it extended. In reply to one such email, I wrote, “We would be glad to extend the bribe off her to you.”

Luckily I caught it before it went out.

I usually catch my typos and grammatical errors before I hit the send button; occasionally, however, I don’t. Per that same question, the customer replied back with a thank-you email, and I saw that I’d written, “We would be glad to extend the bride offer to you.”

Apparently we dabble in the wedding industry as well.

I’m just glad I didn’t combine the two; separately the two typos are innocent. But saying that we’d be glad to “extend the bride off her” is something completely different.

Gives the term “extended family” a whole new meaning.

A few days earlier, a friend had sent me an email announcing an acoustic performance he and a bandmate had planned for Friday; I’d missed their last few shows (including an invite to a BBQ that my email didn’t see fit to deliver to me until the day after it had happened), and so I was thoroughly looking forward to going. I hadn’t been really out of my smooth little routine of work-gym-home-meditate-bed-work-gym-home-meditate-bed (though I’ve been slipping on the gym and meditate part off and on, as even those things have seemed too much, despite the fact I always feel better after I do them).

All day at work on Friday I kept thinking, “Gee, I'm really looking forward to going out. I really need this! Long couple of months. And hey -- better reason to celebrate. First time in two months I've had an empty email box! Yee haw!”

Well, okay. Maybe “yee haw” wasn’t really part of my thoughts, but it sums up the feeling of excitement I had quite nicely.

Happily, I went home, fixed myself some dinner, showered , and was quite pleased at how easily I found a parking place (the bar was located too far off the train line to make it feasible to ride downtown) -- even though I had to walk back and forth three times to get the direction right on the addresses. Apparently my brain was so tuckered out it couldn’t count. I was really looking forward to some good music, a drink or two, and some camaraderie with friends.

I got to the bar a few minutes past eight – their starting time – and my first thought was, “Huh. Sure is quiet here!” The stage seemed very sparse and dark for a soon-to-come performance. Acoustic usually means minimal, but the stage looked so minimal it was like the band wasn’t even performing that night.

“Well,” I thought in an effort to reassure myself, “these things never start on time.”

But something still plucked at my brain. “Excuse me,” I said to the bartender. “I’m looking for Kevin and Jason.”

She looked at me a moment, confused. “Who?”

“They’re performing tonight.”

“I wasn’t even aware we were having someone play tonight,” she said.

“Just an acoustic show,” I replied, and felt that something pushing through thoughts, as if it were fighting its way through a thick crowd of people to get to the front.

“This is the Tiger Bar, right?”

“Yes,” she said.

By then I could even swear I heard my thought yelling, “Yoo hoo!” at me to really get me to look at it – and still I brushed it back. For whatever reason, I couldn’t quite acknowledge it yet.

“Maybe tomorrow -- ?” she asked.

I felt the little thought step forward, and what it had been trying to tell me suddenly became as clear as if it were shaking a hand-held sign at me, tidily-lettered on a piece of white poster board.

I felt my shoulders crumple. “Oh, man,” I said – literally – reading the sign. “I got the date wrong.” But, still, even as the truth of the realization hit me, I was sure the email had said Friday.

I thanked her, and I turned to leave. “Want a drink before you go?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I think this is a sign I just need to go home.”

The few patrons there were rather amused, as was she. I half-considered her offer of the drink, but knew that declining and going home was the best course of action. I need sleep more.

I really wasn’t all that annoyed by the mistake in time; what annoyed me more was that I’d paid $3.00 to park for the night and I’d only been downtown ten minutes. So, not wanting to let it go to waste, I waited for another half an hour in the parking lot until another car pulled in to park and gave the people my stub. I just couldn’t bring myself to throw away the ticket.

In a way, though, it was kind of a relief. I was so tired, and felt somewhat like I had a cold tapping around in me, waiting for its chance to burst forth like a seed-laden dandelion, set free on by a child blowing on it.

So I came home, and immediately checked my email. Turns out I got the Friday part right; it's just that the show isn't until NEXT Friday, the 24th.

I changed into comfy clothes, popped a bag of Orville Redenbacher’s Kettle Corn (the most utterly divine popcorn on Earth, so sayeth my humble little self), watched the first half an hour of Kill Bill, Vol. 1 on Encore, and went to bed. I tried to get up and going at 8:30 this morning, but I felt blurry and like I had molasses for blood. I’d wanted to get an earlier start on the day, but clearly my body wanted more sleep. Back into bed I crawled, and I didn’t blink my eyes open until nearly 10:30.

I feel much better now – it was a beautiful sunny and warm morning and early afternoon – which helped me to feel much more rejuvenated. After planting a few new geraniums in the pots on my patio to fill in some holes (I have some brilliantly red ones that are now about two years old that are fantastic; they seem to like being tucked back in the corner, protected by my deck chairs during the winter), I had a nice lunch of a salad and a dessert of the last of the semi-sweet Nestle Morsels.

That’s actually been my favorite lunch lately – a big healthy salad with organic baby greens; red, green and yellow bell peppers; green onions; tomatoes and walnuts, topped with Paul Newman’s Balsamic Vinaigrette. I’ve been coming home for lunch the last few weeks because it’s cheaper, and it’s been nice to get out of the office completely (I only live about ten minutes away, and that’s in bad traffic). My lunch companion has been Perry Mason (one of my favorite shows). I get home not long after it’s started, and I can watch through to where he nabs the true culprit. It’s been even nicer, because I’ve been seeing ones I’ve never seen before (as a side note, KPTV has been showing Perry Mason every day at noon ever since it went off the air.) Usually it’s a treat I only get when I’m home sick, given they run two hours of it – it used to be followed by Matlock – but I think staying for the second show would be stretching my boss’s good graces.

Tomorrow is D-Day, of course, my nickname for Father’s Day. I’m taking my dad to see Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, and then we’re heading back to the apartment to grill some steakes and corn and sip on some McMenamin’s beer (as anyone who reads Andrew’s blog -- www.technodevil.com), consuming their fare and beer is something our family – Dad and Andrew in particular – generally involves deep, wicked coersion. While I don’t collect the restaurants in the same manner that Andrew and Dad do, I can easily say it’s one of my favorite places as well, and I have to admit going to new ones is a lot of fun.

It’s been a nice day overall. I didn’t go into work, as I have the last few Saturdays (I promised myself that if I had the email boxes emptied by the time I left Friday night I wouldn’t go in), and it’s been quiet here as Andrew’s been off with Erika.

Oh! Fun news! My grandmother is going to be moving to Portland. She sold her house in Boise (very bittersweet for her, I’m sure) and will be living with my Dad in his house by early August. She’s really looking forward to that, as am I. When we went to her house for Thanksgiving last year, that was the first time in three years I’d seen her. I do call her frequently, but it’s not the same thing as actually being in the same room with her, chatting with her face-to-face.

But now, dear readers, it’s time for me to go de-frazzle myself a bit more at the gym.

Enjoy the poem below; it’s actually one I wrote around 2 am one morning a few years ago in, homage to someone; on a whim, I entered it at Poetry.com and it won a prize. It was even published in a book of theirs, first one you see when you open it up!