Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Can I go back to this morning and start over?


This just isn't turning out to be a good day. I'm beginning to believe the forces of nature are out to get me.

First off, let me tell you I had a blast with my mom this weekend. It was nice to approach DC as a tourist again. However, it was freezing. We went on the twilight tour and just about shivered to death. Worth every penny and every second of the biting cold, because the views of Washington lit up at night were breathtaking. We also timed Arlington Cemetary just right and got to see the changing of the guard. If I hadn't seen all of Washington, I sure have now. Of course, my mom wanted to see one of the most important tourist attractions in the area: Ikea. My mom spent $20. I spent $350. Whoops. But for that I furnished two whole bathrooms and got pretty far in designing my bedroom, kitchen, and living room. Big weight off my shoulders, there.
I woke up to find yesterday's happiness and sunshine long gone. The weather had gone back to its general gloom, and there was more rain. I should have known today would suck when I looked out the window.

The drive to the airport was fine. No traffic. No getting lost in the Pentagon parking. I dropped my mom off and headed on my way, only to narrowly miss getting smushed by a pickup truck. My Washingtonian friends, explain this to me: is the turn signal a foreign entity to you? My husband sure doesn't use his, and this truck decided to cross two lanes of crowded, fast-moving traffic without signalling. I had no clue he was going to not only change lanes, but cross over behind a bus and forget to check for the silver Saturn in his blind spot. I slammed on the brakes and the tires squealed and I slid everywhere, missing the truck by less than an inch. Idiot.
TomTom, my GPS, was idiot #2 today. Or maybe I was the idiot for listening to him. I punched in the coordinates for home, and forgot TomTom has no clue how to deal with the mixing bowl of expressways next to my exit. Instead of just heading along my regular route (which I know pretty well), I followed TomTom. And ended up at Ft. Belvoir. What puzzles me is that he gets the exits right going north, but not south.

And idiot #3 was definitely me. I always end up bumping my head on things when I do laundry, as the dryers are stacked on top of each other, so I always walk through ahead of time and close the dryer doors on top so I don't hurt myself. I thought I had idiot-proofed the process, but evidently not. I went down to get my laundry post-dry, and found one of my dryers hadn't worked, so I went to switch into one that did. And smacked my head so hard on the coin insert slot that I saw stars and opened up a fairly good gash at my hairline.

I want very badly to crawl back into bed and forget about the rest of the day, but it's covered with Jere's clean laundry. And I still have to go downstairs and do one more round with the dryer. And pick up Jere from the metro. But I swear, we're getting takeout.

Today's lesson: There really is something to that foreshadowing concept. Gray skies, looming clouds...next time I see them, I'm not getting out of my jammies.

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