A Day in the Life

Like Buckaroo Banzai, I've been going in several directions at once.  (If you don't know about neurosurgeon / rock star / physicist / adventurer Buckaroo Banzai, then you haven't seen my husband's favorite film.  Bear with me.) School, husband, friends and church left no time for blogging yesterday.

It was a busy and varied day.  Sunday morning was, of course, church.  My 99-year-old friend Eva wasn't waiting outside when I arrived to pick her up, so my friend Kevin went in to check on her.  She was feeling, as she likes to call it, "pokey," and wasn't well enough for church.  Kevin made sure Eva didn't want us to sit with her or take her to a doctor, and we went on to St. Michael's without her. I was crucifer, as I often am, especially in the shorthanded summer.  It's no joke sitting in an 85- or 90-degree sanctuary with an extra layer of clothing, the white alb the acolytes wear. I don't know how Father Smith manages to serve in all his heavy garments during Tucson's high summer.  If I had a million dollars, I'd buy the church modern air conditioning to supplement the rather ineffectual swamp cooler.

We alerted Father John about Eva, ate pancakes in the Parish Center, and returned to Eva's with chicken nuggets.  She was feeling a little better by the time we left, but we're all well aware her life is winding down.  Still, we're grateful for our time with her. She's fun to be around.

When I got home, I called my dad in Wilmington. He assured me that they didn't blow away in the hurricane.  They lost a fence and some roof shingles, but that was it.  My heart goes out to people in Florida and their families, but my family is okay, this time. Dad and Ruth left Kure Beach years ago, in part because of the hurricanes that always seem to be bearing down on the North Carolina coast.

The rest of the afternoon was John and me shopping.  It was the usual weekend routine, crammed into one afternoon instead of two: Costco, Trader Joe, Fry's for soda, Safeway for the usual boring food. No vitamin store this week. 

After an hour or so of watching Dick Van Dyke on DVD with John, it was back to the computer for the evening. There was certainly no time for blogging, though.  I updated the church schedule page and the church news blog. I sent a friend an ecard, and answered email. I was in IM with a friend about a possible new cat, and with a UoP learning team member about a chaotic team PowerPoint presentation. 

About twenty emails flew back and forth as the learning team tried to figure out who was doing what and where it all belonged.  Heidi revised my version, I revised her revision, and team members told me my version wouldn't open.  I managed to get it to open, resaved, resent, and then went back and added pictures. 

Somewhere in there I also reported a You've Got Pictures spoof scammer to AOL.

And then, finally, I got to work on the novel for a bit.  I really wanted to get at least the first third of Mages of Mavarin cleaned up enough to send it to Sarah for her birthday, but I just couldn't get it done.  I made progress, though. I hung it up around 1  AM, got in a quick shower, and went to bed.  This is very early by my standards - and incredibly late for John, who was still awake.  Normally he goes to be around 9 PM, and gets up at 3:45 AM to putter and go work out. Last night he had an idea for how to solve Act Two of his vampire screenplay, and his brain wouldn't settle down after that.

Me, I got semi-adequate sleep for once.

It's not fascinating reading, I'm sure, but there it is.  A day in the life.

Karen

The Aging Lottery  (features Eva and my dad)