Possumblog

What a morning.

Which started last night. Oldest had some kind of stomach distress, which manifested itself in a convenient trash can that Reba had only moments before put beside her at the computer. She'd been typing up some notes for a class, and had earlier mentioned she had to be at school this morning at 7:00 to take a make-up test for having been gone during school on Friday to practice for the honor choir.

For those who've been stopping in for a while, you probably already suspect she had a severe case of malingeritis, but I think this time she might actually have some kind of stomach bug, mainly because after the first trash can heave-arino she actually went back to working on typing her notes.

Onward, then, to the other events of the evening--seemed Reba had to drive to Tuscaloosa today for a meeting, and only had a quarter tank of gas. It was very cold and rainy last night. And windy. And cold. And DARK. And by the time we got through with supper, LATE(ish. Well, late-ish for me, which was actually only about halfway through American Idol.) ANYway, it was cold, rainy, windy, dark, late-ish, AND in my zeal to nest and cocoon last night, as soon as I got home I put on my pajamas. (After taking off my work clothes, of course.) SO, it was cold, dark, rainy, windy, late-ish, and I was in a terrible state of dishabile. ::sigh::

Went upstairs and put on a pair of jeans (leaving on my pajama shirt that almost looks like a regular tee-shirt. Well, all except for the Care Bears.) and got the essentials of travel--car keys, wallet, pocket knife. Put on my shoes, and being that they are of the Rockport mocassin-style deck shoe sort, and being that I am an idiot, I neglected to put on a pair of socks. I mean, you know, how cold and windy and dark could it be!? I'd only be out for a second to fill up, and then back inside!

Grabbed my jacket and off to Sam's Club. Which is on top of a mountain, and in order to place it on top of a mountain, all vegetation within sight was leveled, leaving it exposed to the viscissitudes of rain, wind, cold, and yes, even darkness. And idiocy. Got out and HOLY MOTHER OF SAM WALTON it was cold, etc. Filled up, then drove across the parking lot to Sam's to pick up some soft drinks to help ease someone's roiling gut. It didn't really occur to me until I got home how pitiful I must have looked in my go-get-gas-and-freeze garb.

Eh. Whatever.

Back home, where I found the small trash can that had previously been a receptacle for stomach contents placed neatly on the driveway where I had left it, waiting to be rinsed out. Oh. I forgot I'd done that. And it was so late. And dark. And rainy. ::sigh::

Grabbed the hose, turned on the water, and proceeded to rinse out the bucket while simultaneously making myself eligible for a wet tee-shirt contest. And let's face it--as cold as it was, I think I could have won.

That done, close the garage door, then into the house, where it was warm, and light, and unwindy, and dry, although even more late-ish than it was before. Upstairs, saw that none of the kids had gone to bed yet, although they were close, especially after I told them all to go to bed. Except for Rebecca, who was studying math. And Oldest, who had now migrated from the den to the upstairs with a computer disk that she wanted to use to print out the notes she'd typed.

A disk, I might add, that did not have the file on it. "Did you save it!?" She said yes, which told me it was probably still on the C:\ drive downstairs. As it was. Copied it, printed it, then finished watching Simon make people cry, then remembered after the three younger kids were finally asleep that I had left the soft drinks in the car.

Where it was cold dark rainy windy and the ground was possibly contaminated with stomach germs.

::sigh::

Downstairs, door, trunk, door, upstairs.

Reba went to bed, because she had to go to Tuscaloosa in her freshly filled up Focus this morning, leaving me awake with Oldest to make sure she'd done the rest of her homework. Which she did do--again, one of those signs that she might actually not have been sandbagging.

She finished up, took her shower, I watched Dave interview Tatum O'Neal, who looks like five miles of bad road, Oldest out of shower, came to our bathroom to put her clothes in the hamper, and

HUWAAAAAAHHHHHGGGRRRR.

WHAAGGGGHHHERRRRRRAAAAAUUUGGGH.

SPt.

URRGGGHHUUGGHHHHH--UGGGHUGHUGHGUU.

::sniff::

RUGGGGAA--HOOORFFFFOUGRUGRUGR.

Oh boy. I got up and found her at the pot, but unfortunately standing up, rather than in the preferred bowing-at-the-porcelain-god position that directs ejecta into the receptacle, rather than onto it, and the surrounding floor.

::sigh::

I got her a washcloth, and started reeling off toilet paper to clean the floor. We finally got it clean (and I doused it with a barrel of Lysol just to be sure) and she went and changed pajamas. "You want to sleep in the bathroom just in case?" Well, I guess she's outgrown that. Off to bed.

And this morning?

Well, she was not that perky, but she still went ahead and got up, and I took her on to school so she could take her make-up test, and she didn't protest. I think she really must have had some kind of stomach bug.

The rest of them? Well, Reba got to take the other kids to school this morning, and despite her best efforts to reach Tuscaloosa by 9:00 a.m., she found herself at 8:30 sitting in bumper to bumper traffic just down I-459 at Liberty Park. Which is more than thirty minutes away from Tuscaloosa, even if you travel at the normal prevailing traffic velocity, which is 132 miles per hour.

All that windy dark rainy cold late last night managed to freeze over this morning, so just about every bridge from here to anywhere had a nice crispy glaze on it, making traffic slow to a standstill.

She called me to tell me what was going on, and I don't think I quite gave her the supportiveness she needed in her turmoil. "I'm SUPPOSED TO BE THERE AT NINE!"

"Uh, well, you're not gonna make it. Just call and tell them you're going to be late."

"::silence::"

Aw, good grief. I don't know what she was looking for, but obviously, rational though wasn't it. I KNEW I should have opened with the joke about the groom and the bride's sister!

The rest of the exchange was pretty terse.

Oh well, I had work to do, anyway. Which I did--mailout day today, and so I've been tearing up the copier and the printer and the envelope feeder all morning, and for some reason everyone in town decided I was the only person who could help them, in my Jack Baueresque fashion, negotiate their way through the bureacratic maze around here. Then, right in the middle of one call, yet another from Reba.

What's this!?

Put the guy on hold, went to the front desk, and she said she'd called the office and talked to her supervisor, who was just leaving. Seems the lady who had just been hired within the last month to take over for Reba after she moved up to her new job, passed away suddenly this morning. Asthma attack, they think.

Sort of changes the way you think about your mornings.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at January 18, 2006 10:31 AM