For Butter or Worse

I was up extra early Thursday after an incredibly fulfilling night’s sleep. I’m tempted to give credit for waking so rested to my extended stretching. I know I can’t validate that 100%, but aside from the recent time change, it’s the only other significant change I’ve made. I was up just a smidge after 5:00am. I completed my exercise routine in leisure and spent a considerable amount of time fooling around on the PC. At 5:30am I headed out with Ykraps. It was still raining after doing so for most of Wednesday’s late evening and again through the night. We took the umbrella for shelter. After our walk I pulled Ykraps to the laundry room where I covered him in a bath towel to blot away the lion’s share of the rain covering his thick coat. He’s never acts too agreeable until he realizes how good it feels to be massaged with a towel. However, because he can’t speak, I can only judge by his rudimentary facial expressions. Coffee time was enjoyable. I was able to accomplish my PC agenda withy out any worry of the time. After delivering Mindy’s coffee at 610am I moved directly to meditation. That went well too after once again remembering to take the time to fully immerse myself in the gaps, thus reducing typical mind clutter and wander. After meditation I did a thorough stretching regimen. That went well, too. I was ready for anything. It was still raining outside, so even though it wasn’t too chilly I wore a second wicking shirt. I wore hand and ear covers too. That was just about perfect. The rain tapered to almost nothing by run’s end. And yes, I ran the full four miles. Somehow I missed the towel that Mindy draped over the banister in anticipation of my wet return. After asking where my orange towel disappeared to, she pointed me back to the home’s entrance. Ahh – OK! We had fried eggs, which lately I’ve been craving more so than the scrambled variety. There was still some of that ham left too, so I nuked a few pieces. The fruit was fresh but all of it tasted somewhat tainted to my buds. Mindy & Bella disagreed. I did eat Gates of Hell wings the night before, so maybe that had something to do with it. Probably not. I brushed my teeth and gargled when I got up to combat ‘barbeque’ mouth. Mindy left at 730am, and I was soon off to the shower. Bella visited me in the masterbath just as I was blow drying my head. She was there to douse the puncture wound on her hand with peroxide. But after giving it a once over, I declared it healed. She agreed. We headed for the bus stop at our usual time of 755am. I noticed a paper sticking out of Jacob’s book pack. I asked about it. He acknowledged it being there, and said I should know what it is. I then donned on me. It was the note Mindy said she’d write to his bus driver addressing a problem Jacob’s having with other older students’ picking on him while on the bus. I suggested alternative measures none of which left him feeling more comfortable, or better than Mindy’s note. Whatever. After he boarded the bus he quickly surrendered the letter and moved to his seat. I saw the driver reading it, and then called him forward to discuss. She looked at me then at him and asked why he hadn’t mention it before. Who knows. As she closed the bus door she addressed me and said that she’d take care of it. When I got back to the house I opened the card Mindy left for me on my side of the master bath sink (she frequently leaves cards there). It was a card celebrating or commemorating the 3-year anniversary of my Nov 19, 2006 marriage proposal. Thanks Princess. In kind, and before heading off to work, I scrawled a little thank you note for her to find later when she got home. Off to work.. During my drive I missed two phone calls from Mindy. Worried that there might be something wrong, I called her once in my office. She wanted to let me know that all the details were finalized should we want to do Portland for TG trip next week. She also reminded me of the evening’s parent/teacher conferences scheduled for both kids. I shared the bus driver’s reaction to her letter story and also thanked her for the card. My work day ended up being a total blur. I was inundated and immersed in busyness all day long. However, I did manage to shop air fares to Oregon throughout the day when I found a spare minute. I could find nothing cheaper than $600 and that was before baggage charges. Southwest, who doesn’t charge baggage fees, was even worse - $800. My mental cap was $500 a piece. I also wanted to book our MLK weekend Holiday Valley trip but couldn’t find the time. Not only was I busy, but I was also consumed with work stress. I wasn’t in the mood for personal fun. Now, as I reflect back on the day, I realize that I didn’t take enough breaks to allow myself to decompress. Work got the best of me. There’s no question. I let it. Thankfully, though, it doesn’t happen all too often, at least not to that degree. I could see that Mindy phoned multiple times but I was so immersed in my work that I had to let her calls pass. I figured then reminder calls about the parent/teacher conferences. I asked her to do that. This might’ve been the toughest work day of the year. Figures! When I finally got a minute I phoned Mindy around 520pm to let her know my status. She was already at the school with Jimaken in conference number one of three. I apologized and told her that I’d be late – somewhere near 545pm. I did my best to wrap things up in by 530pm. I left the office and headed directly to Beacon Elementary. I took an errant path attempting to go straight at Britton off Cemetery Rd. That cost me a few minutes. I ended up finagling my way around a labyrinth of businesses and eventually found my way back to Leap Rd and onto Beacon. I’ll bet I arrived around 545pm. I spotted Kenny & Chrissy in the book store as I rushed in and towards Mrs. Valentine’s classroom. I waved and moved on. Mindy & Jim were already in conference with Mrs. Valentine, Bella’s 1st grade teacher, although I‘m not sure how long they had been in there. I knew that I completely missed the first conference with Bella’s reading teacher. Jimaken offered me the seat by Mindy. I just assumed Mrs. Valentine already knew of our situation having taught Jacob two years ago. Everyone seemed comfortable. She reviewed Bella’s progress and recommended she could improve her hand writing. To my eyes it’s far better than Jacob’s was at the same grade level. Jacob’s writing looks much like Mindy’s. Bella’s looks similar to mine, but still under development. We had a nice time chatting with Mrs. Valentine. Chrissy popped her head in to say hello. Her daughter Makayla has Mrs. Valentine too. She and Mindy explained that they borrow things from one another routinely. Their example was butter. I quickly quipped, not for cooking either. After a brief moment of silence, there was a burst of laughter. I found it totally humorous. Our conference with Mrs. Valentine was over at 6:03pm. We moved on to Mrs. Anderson’s classroom, Jacob’s teacher. Her loyalty to the Cincinnati Bengals was apparent straight up. There were posters and pictures all over her classroom. I shared that Jacob threw darts at the team picture she recently sent home. She laughed and shared that she told him to do so since he’s a Brown’s fan (also his daddy’s favorite team). Mrs. Anderson gushed about Jacob and went as far as to call him her favorite student of all time. She had nothing but wonderful things to say about him as a student and a person. Funny, I got the same thing as a young student. NOT!!! In fact, my third grade teacher, Miss Tracy, hated me. Still not sure why. I was devastated because I had a crush on her. She shared some of his work but then got sidetracked talking about the NFL and her and her husband’s trip to the 1989 Super Bowl featuring the Bengals and 49ers. The conference ended near 6:25pm. We quickly left for home with Mindy and I agreeing that I would stop for a Minelli’s pizza on my way home. I called Minelli’s to place my order as I walked to the Trooper. They quoted me 20 minutes. It didn’t take but about ten minutes for me to get there. I had to wait a good five minutes. I didn’t have any coupons. It was almost $17. Yikes! Dad was at the house watching the kids. As soon as I got in the door with the pizza I asked Mindy if I needed to walk Ykraps. I didn’t; she’d already done so before heading to conferences. Dad hung out for a few more minutes but decided not to stay for pizza. Mindy sent him home with some toffee and her leftover vegetable soup. We dug into the pizza. I must’ve eaten 6 or 7 pieces. I was famished. While eating my pizza I reignited my recently purchased external hard drive. I don’t keep it active all the time because it causes my machine to drag (not enough RAM). I discovered it stuck/frozen locked up apparently during the last back-up. I tried everything to get it going, including rebooting and reinstalling the software. Nothing worked. I wasn’t pleased at all. My new PC will be here any day now and I certainly don’t want to lose any valuable data (music/pictures/docs). After an hour I took a brief break. Mindy sensed my frustration and kindly left me to myself. I was very angry. I did find my receipt so I was hell bent on returning it on Friday for another. I was concerned, however, that Best-Buy might not accept it as a return despite only having it for 2.5 weeks. I read my receipt carefully. It said they won’t accept returns on laptops or software, which it is neither. Everything else is 30 days. After a few minutes away from it, I returned to try a few more things, including fully removing the software from my hard drive and then reloading it. I also checked the online users’ guide for any tips, but they were extremely shallow – mostly back-up procedures. I was just about to give up after getting a pop-up indicating that the software reload failed. But after clicking that away Windows prompted me to reformat the external drive and then asked me to name it. It never did that new out of the box. Hmmm? That did it. After that it searched my hard drive and found all of my precious files (music, pictures, docs and mail) and scheduled a new back-up. I launched the back-up and went to the family room. By then it was almost 10pm. I was beat after the day I had at work and then fighting my external hard drive. Come on weekend! We headed up to bed together shortly after 10pm. Once in bed, I remembered that the Buckeye basketball game was on. And they were playing North Carolina. I turned on the bedroom TV to catch the final minutes of the first half. We were getting beat badly, 34-20 at halftime. Mindy turned off the TV and we went to sleep.