This afternoon I'm scheduled to work until 5 PM as always. I'm also scheduled to make call at 6:30 in Harrison, MI, which is at least 2 hours from here. No matter how many times I plug the addresses in to Mapquest, it keeps spitting me back the same set of impossible directions for my time frame.
Nothing in my life is ever that simple, though. I have to stop at my house and pick up the backseat for the van, pick up Kirstin from my mother (who will be heavens-knows-where when I show up), buy a skirt to wear in the concert and a slip to go under it, and hit an ATM machine so I can get Kirstin and I both dinner on the road. We will also need to stop for another agonizingly expensive 20 gallons of gas.
I think I'm just going to have to throw my hands up in surrender, and leave work early. I hate to do that. I would rather spend my personal leave doing fun things that I choose to do, not running errands so I can make a concert call.
I wish our director would have listened to me on this one, though. The reason I have to be in Harrison at 6:30 is that we have a concert at 7:30, and it takes a while to set up, warm up, and change.
What this means is that I have to take time off from work on a Friday so I can do it, hard as I tried to avoid it. Actually, the rest of my choir will be there at 4 PM to load all our equipment. Apparently they are used to having to leave work on a Friday for this stuff. That really doesn't work for me! In a few weeks we have another of these Friday night shows, in Stanton Michigan. That day I have an important meeting that will go until 5 PM, and I really can't get out of it.
My director has been quite unyeilding about it, however. I asked if we could schedule Friday concerts for near Lansing, and 8 PM showtimes. That sounds reasonable to me. I don't think she really understood, though. She expects that I'll just make it happen. One particularly annoying point is that I have told her several times since I joined that choir that I couldn't get out of work early this Friday, and would have a very hard time getting to Harrison by 6:30. 7 would even be a stretch.
Then on Monday she passed out the travel plans, and lo and behold, she had scheduled me to drive 6 choir members in my van! Hello!! I *can't* leave Lansing at 4 PM. It just isn't possible. Grrr.
So I guess I will spend my lunch hour at the mall buying a skirt and slip that I can't afford because the ones I've already paid for and ordered through the choir supply catalog haven't arrived yet, even through I ordered them back in February. Ridiculous.
I'm not in the mood for this, does it show? I just want to curl up in a corner and read my book during my lunch hour. Not run silly errands.
Last night was relaxing. Kirstin and I watched a movie and ate pasta carbonara, and snuggled on the couch for a while. When I put her to bed, she asked me when I was going to ask Forest to marry me.
I smiled, and told her (for about the umpteenth time) that these things take a long time for people to think about, and that we'd just have to wait and see whether Forest and I were right for each other that way.
She pointed out that she's already been waiting for most of the school year, and that's a long time. I can't say as I blame her on that one. For an 8-year-old, most of a school year *is* a long time.
She's rather eager to see me wedded, and to have a stepfather. I'm not sure what the driving force behind her eagerness is. Maybe she wants matched sets at her dad's house and mine? Maybe it's a longing for normalcy of a sort, or maybe she really wants the sort of influence her dad exerts from a male figure at my house? Maybe she just wants to get a pretty dress and carry flowers down an aisle again. Kirstin loves weddings.
I don't know, but I guess it's nice that she likes Forest, anyway.
After bedtime, I went downstairs and curled up with a book. Despite the previous night's lack of sleep, I really wasn't tired, and read until Forest came home, close to midnight. I'd missed him yesterday, and certainly wasn't going to miss a few minutes with him before we were both asleep. He's been missing me, too, and I think we're both looking forward to a couple of quiet nights at home on Saturday and Sunday this weekend.
This morning I woke up at 8 AM, which is an hour later than I was supposed to. The alarm wasn't set right. Still sleepy, I opened the curtains to let in the tint of yellow sunshine that always makes me smile in the morning, and went to wake up Forest. I sat next to him, and looked at his peaceful face. I had rubbed his back last night while he was falling asleep, and he was more relaxed than he's been in ages.
I smiled as I observed that he was sleeping as he always does, on one side, holding a soft pillow to his chest, propped against his chin. He says that's descended from his love of stuffed animals as a kid. When he's sleeping like that, I can almost picture him as a child, snuggled up with Hop Hop, his stuffed bunny rabbit. It melts my heart.
I leaned down to kiss his cheek, and though he was still sleeping, he made a mumbly noise, and smiled, crinkling his closed eyes in an innocent bliss that you don't often see in an adult face. I intertwined my fingers through his, and petted his hair, gently telling him I loved him. He smiled again, and cuddled me close.
When he was finally awake, he was just as happy and cuddly, gave me many kisses, pulled me in for a hug, and told me again and again how much he loves me.
What a nice morning!
He's on the road today, going to see Wayne in Chicago. I'm somewhat glad it worked out this way, because I'll be tied up all day with work, errands, and a concert. Tomorrow, however, I'm free all day, and he only works 1-8. We can have some time to chill out together then.
In the meantime, he certainly picked a beautiful day for a drive! The sun is still beaming down, and out my office window I can see a few thin wispy clouds decorating the sky.
I'm in a daydreamy mood, and would like nothing better than to curl up and alternately bury my nose in a book and stare out a window.
The proposal I wrote won a grant! Cool. Now I have to figure out how to write a budget for all that money for a year. It's a little scary, and I'm way too daydreamy to get into it today, but it's pleasant to know that I accomplished something tangible.
