Thursday, January 04, 2007

The Little Things That Make Me Rant

When there is so much in this world to pray for, when people are dying and being murdered unnecessarily, and when young children in third world countries and in our own glorious USA are starving and ridden with life threatening diseases, I thought about not posting today. Seriously. Right now, on the TV evening local news, a woman was bitten 65 times by a pit bull. How bad is that?

But I'm going to post my little rant anyway. It's my journal.

Here are the chronological events of the day that are funny, in retrospect, but the day isn't over yet.

  • I wore odd trouser socks to work. One navy and one black.

  • After spending thirty minutes at the copy machine this morning, I finished the job with an offset stack of collated material (5 sets of pages 1-20). On the way to my office I thought to myself, "Watch me drop this." A fraction of a section passed and I tripped on a buckle in the moldy, old, stinking carpet and the whole job flew out of my hands, flittering and fluttering here and there. I just whistled a happy tune, held my head up high, and cleared the mess. I hid it in my shred pile. At 4 cents a copy, I didn't even care! The college needs to replace the darn carpet.

  • Around 10am, I took a short break and stood outside to witness a dozen BLUEBIRDS in the field adjacent to the parking lot. Oh, boy! I tip-toed fast (like they might hear me...chuckle!) back into my office to grab the camera. Ran out to see them. Gone. Later in the day I took my camera out again and there was not one peep, song, chirp to be heard. Not a bird in sight.

  • While driving home I made a mental note to stop for gas as I was driving on fumes. Of course, I drove right past the gas station and pulled into my garage to see "idiot light" blinking at me. Stupid is as stupid does.

  • Changing out of my office clothes, I threw open the clothes hamper to find it full. Didn't I just wash and put away two loads on Tuesday? Is there no end to this? There are only two adults living in this house, for goodness sakes! I sorted them AGAIN. Two loads in progress.

  • Washing my hands at the bathroom sink I noticed a very dark scalp. How can your roots grow 1/2 inch in one day? It's hideous!

  • Scanning the house...dust. Dust everywhere. I didn't notice it yesterday.

  • I go onto the front porch and see the plants have wilted in the hanging baskets.

  • Kids are shooting hoops across the street, wearing shorts and t-shirts. Something is wrong with this picture. It's January.

  • I swing open the dishwasher and it's full of clean stuff. It never ends...

  • Since Michael is in VA tonight, I have trash duty. The clouds were heavy and thick so I hurried outside to do poop patrol with Chloe & Bella. Camera around my neck. I see a Carolina Wren near the feeder! I drop my poop-patroling equipment, power the camera, then Bella runs near the sighting with her stupid hula hoop. Another bird, gone.

  • I step in poop.

  • I curse.

  • Feeling very irritated now, I look at the feeder loaded with fat-bellied mourning doves who are sucking up the food like it's their last supper. From sunrise to sunset, they freeload. I felt like throwing my Weight Watchers manual at them.

After all of this, there are two good things I am happy about today. Thank you, God.

We have about ten young Camellia Jarponicas along the back of our house. They are starting to burst with color. I have never had flowers in winter other than pansies. I'm so glad I was able to get this photo in after sunset.

My Stoke's Field Guide came in the mail today. Yeah! I love the color illustrations but why did they have have to put the "stinker" on the front cover?

Gotta get my roots done now.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's right, it's your blog, you can say what *you* want. And thanks for sharing your day - you reminded me I had to take *my* garbage to the road - with the holidays and mourning day everything has been screwed up these last two weeks.
Well, you're not the only one with a household that I *swear* multiplies while I'm not looking - laundry, dust, yup, multiplying like rabbits!
Even though your day was rough, thanks for sharing because your writing does make me smile!

Anonymous said...

And the flower is gorgeous!

Susan Gets Native said...

Oh, Mary!
LOL

Well, at least you can laugh about a day like that.

Anonymous said...

Mary, you are just a hoot girl! I so enjoyed hearing that I am not the only one who has "days like that!" The camilia is beautiful... yes, thanks be to God! :c)

Anonymous said...

Woo hoo! Funny post, and a great way to start my own day...

...except...

Don't you be talking to me about no 'hamper-full' of laundry. Girl, I have FIVE children. And myself. We are talking a PILE of dirty clothes stacked in front of hte washer about 14 inches high. I'm not kidding.

Whose job is it to do the laundry around here?

I'll tackle that when I get the Christmas tree taken down...

Have a terrific day, garbage and all. Watch out for herons.

Mary said...

Dear Beth,

My hat is off to you. I can't even imagine the amount of Tide you use in a week. LOL!

Anonymous said...

You made my day! (reading with my morning coffee) Hopefully, today will bring all of those birds right back to your viewfinder and you'll share them with us!

Anonymous said...

Oh Mary, I laughed like a banshee at the cover of your bird book...the mighty koi eater posed for that picture just for you hahaha. I can't imagine seeing a flock of bluebirds. I feel gifted when I get to see one. Loved the flower shot, that was one of the things I loved about visiting my Dad in Florida...the incredible flowers in bloom down south in the middle of what would be my winter up here. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Rant on, woman!

Birds know when you have a camera and when you don't. When you don't, they will pose and preen for you and then stick their little tongues out and say, "Nyeh! Nyeh!" It's annoying but we just have to plow along!

Enjoy the flowers! They are lovely and I NEED to plant one in my yard. All my previous houses have had them and I don't know -- I miss it.

My laundry pile is also horrifying and I'm still working at de-Christmasing the house.

My advice -- get your hair done and really enjoy it -- I love it when someone else shampoos my hair. Ahhhh!

Anonymous said...

Very nice photos. I'm sorry you had a rough day, although it made for a very funny post. I hope the weekend treats you better. Thanks for stopping by my blog!

LauraHinNJ said...

I'm a couple of days behind on commenting Mary, but this post cracked me up.

Maybe you should let the Stokes' know your opinion of their choice of cover bird - they do have a blog you know.

;-)

How do you like that little book?