Gotta' Minute?

Do you want to hear about what kind of day I've had?
Let me tell you...

Imagine that you flipped a switch in your house and expected a light to turn on. Simple, right?
Now imagine that you flipped that switch and then nothing happened. So you did some rudimentary investigating and found a frayed wire that was preventing the light from turning on. Well that's disappointing, but a quick call to the electrician will solve that. You go to the phone, and find that it's not working. Hmmm... that's weird, the phone usually works. Oh nevermind,you can just pop over to my neighbor's house and ask to borrow her phone.

Why hey, there's your neighbor in the driveway - could you borrow the phone for a moment, you need to call an electrician about the frayed wire. What? She's going to visit her grandmother in the hospital and noticed that her car was out of gas and perhaps you could just run her down for a really quick visit and then you two would return to use her phone to call the electrician to fix the wire? Oh... okay.

So you agree - it's just a quick trip - then you can use the phone and get everything arranged, right? But on the way to grandma's, you're pulled over for having an expired registration on the car. How could that be? You sent the check in weeks ago and, oh drat!, that's right - the new registration stickers never came in the mail. Yes, yes, you could tell that to the judge, sir.

You both eventually get to grandma's, and of course she's napping. So you wait an extra 20 minutes and then visit with her, say your goodbyes and quickly drive back home. Oh right, the phone call to the electrician. Into the neighbor's house where her dog jumps on you and puts a run in your new sweater, argh! Here's the phone, call the electrician - he's out of the office until next Tuesday. Gone fishin'!

You leave a message and return to your house. It's now dark and you hit the switch to turn on the light and when nothing happens, you remember how this all started and sigh with resignation as you go look for a candle and matches...

THAT'S the kind of day I've had.

To top it off: our HHE arrived today.

Sort of.

Tim spent last night and this morning preparing for the arrival of ALL our stuff. Three shipments is what we were told. What we assumed was one from Snohomish with my few items that I packed in March; one from DC with the things I had while at FSI; and one from Snohomish with the majority of our worldly possessions. Tim packed up the "Welcome Kit" we've been using (kitchen, bath and bedroom supplies) and moved all the furniture to the periphery of the room to make way for the Really Big Boxes that would arrive.

His first indication that something was wrong was when the movers arrived an hour early and sat outside in their moving van until the appointed hour. Why would they be so early if they had so many things to load up? His next clue was when they raised the truck doors to reveal not five, not ten, not fifteen, but two lonely boxes of belongings to be unloaded. Yup... only my things from DC.

He kindly unpacked it all by my return after work at 6:15. Nothing for him: no favorite kitchen appliances, no books, no clothing.

Finally, after dinner in an effort to salvage some feeling of accomplishment after this terribly frustrating day, I used the brand-new floor cleaner and disinfectant that Tim picked up at the store to counter the sickly-sweet stuff I found earlier. Oh it did the job alright. In an industrial-strength solvent kind of way, that is. On the label Varsol was touted as being great to treat stains on clothing, grease on surfaces and floors! It's the original! After listening to my protestations  and complaints about the chemically smell, Tim finally googled the product and found a group of people extoling the virtues of Varsol as a machine-parts cleaner and replacement for kerosene.

Yes... I was now cleaning our kitchen floor with it, swatting at the air and coughing as I  opened windows and grew concerned for open flames (like our gas stove three feet away).

No, THAT'S  the kind of day I've had.