It's Monday, so of course {Just Write}

It's Monday, so of course. I start the morning by picking a fight with my husband about where to store the winter gear. It's the first fight we've had in months, and I'm listening to myself yelling about where to put the hats and gloves and shoes. I am excessively angry about mittens, and we are supposed to celebrate my husband's birthday today. Happy birthday to you, your wife is a shrew....

I'm walking back from the bus stop when my neighbor reminds me about the girl scout meeting at 5:15. Crap. Thought I'd have all the time in the world to make the birthday dinner, but apparently, not so much.

I hurriedly slice up the eggplant while my daughter asks me how to spell "have" and "does" and "what" and "fireweed". The timer beeps, and I grab the pot holder and run to the oven.

"It's a compound word. So first you spell fire, f-i-r-e, and then weed, w-e-e-d." I turn the bundt pan upside down, and out falls the birthday cake. And by fall, I mean fall apart. I try not to do the same.

My husband comes inside.
"The fence guy is finished...he just needs a check."
"Great. Ok. Can you take care of it? I'm busy ruining your birthday dinner."

I go back to the eggplant parmesan and the failed no-fail cake, tempted to spell another four letter word....s-h-i-...

"Jo, you told him we didn't need the back section done?"
My husband is back, and this is a question. A good one.

"No, he did the estimate before the neighbors put in the back fence, but I thought he was going to finish the part that theirs didn't cover. Oh my word, he didn't do the back?!"

We both race out the mudroom door to wave down the lumber-laden fence truck. On my way out, the door slams into my son's cheek as he is trying to get in. I return to find him in tears. Oh, buddy, I'm so sorry. Crap--is that another timer going off? What the hell did I set that timer for?

It's 5:15. Time for the meeting I forgot about. I take deep breath after deep breath on the walk to girl scouts. I tell myself that the intensity of my angst and frustration is in no way warranted by the circumstances. Nothing on my list of woes is a big deal. Not the stinky blue cheese spilled  all over the bread cutting board, not the useless 85% complete fence (that might not be rendered useful until next spring!), not the likely-mildewing laundry that I forgot to put in the dryer, not the ruined cake.

A few minutes into girl scouts, I listen to six of the cutest little first graders spontaneously break out into a chorus of "Down by the Bay." I take another deep breath, inhale the blessing of a healthy, happy (at least at the moment) child.

(I feel like I should leave out the part where I return to finish the dinner, mess up even more stuff, run out of pans in the drawers because they are all in the sink. And the part where my healthy, happy daughter throws such an egregious fit that she has to go to her room in the middle of dinner--screaming loud enough to make our ears bleed. Oh and the part where my husband's plate gets cold while he addresses the behavior with my daughter, the part where....)

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, I believe I was inhaling blessings or some other inspirational crap like that. But for real. If this is what my worst day looks like, then I can't conjure up one legit reason to complain. (Except maybe about the mittens. Those wet, stray, disorganized mittens really piss me off sometimes.)

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I know I said it was Monday, but it's actually Tuesday. And on Tuesdays, we just write (in this case, about Mondays).

my monday moment of zen (borrowed from a view on a friday run)