Yesterday was fantastic. Which makes up for the crap that was Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday morning was fine. I got up, baked four dozen cookies to give out to people here, and went to have a great lunch with Andrea. My day should have continued on just as fine, right?
Instead, I got sick after lunch, and it somehow drained every last bit of energy out of me. I looked like Superman does when he gets near kryptonite. But my day was far from over, so I dragged myself to the post office, then came home to finish all my baking. Jerry's office at the Pentagon wanted cake, and was willing to trade some of Monique's Hawaiian meatballs for it. Those meatballs are the one reason I can't be a true vegetarian LOL.
So while waiting for the oven to preheat, I stood in the kitchen trying to eat. And then the inside of the oven burst into flames. And not little flames. Big flames. It's electric, so I leaned over and punched the button to turn it off (thankfully that stopped the whole bursting into flames thing), and ran to the leasing office. The girl up there saw me running in and asked what was wrong, and I told her my oven had blown up and she laughed. Apparently the heating element went out, and they've had 8 of them go in the past few weeks. Normally I would have had to wait a day or two for them to replace it, but since I was in the middle of baking, and I had dropped off cookies to them earlier in the day, the maintenance man came and fixed it at 7:00 at night. Sweet!
Unfortunately, it meant not finishing my baking until well after 10. I finally got to sleep around midnight, and got up before six to get myself together and get on the road to fight DC traffic. Then I had the half hour metro ride, and then security at the Pentagon. Let me tell you, everyone is so friendly there at security. They laughed when I begged them not to squish my cake, told me the pictures on my ID's were gorgeous, and showed me exactly where I needed to go. Not to mention they were fast and efficient. TSA needs to come learn from these guys.
After I left there, I went to Ikea. I found some wonderful things, then dealt with the surly checkout guy. Is it just me, or do they seem to have a rule at Ikea where they refuse to help small people load big things back onto their cart? Finally, this woman and her two kids helped me drag it all into the elevator. I told her she was the most help I'd gotten in the store all day. She must not have been from DC. ;-)
And after all this, I came home. My Ikea purchases are still in the car, half a container of the meatballs and rice are gone, and I fell happily asleep at 5 yesterday, and slept until 5 this morning. I feel better than I have in days. Going around DC yesterday reminded me how much I miss it there, and hearing one of Jerry's collegues speak so highly of him made me miss my husband and all our friends in that office. I may finally be adjusting to life here in Staunton, but my heart is in Washington.
And it's why there's still $40 on my metro card.
Today's lesson: Despite traffic, rude people, and smelly metro riders, it's still easy to miss the city you love. Even when you're sitting at a dead stop on the expressway at 8:30 in the morning.
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