10:07 a.m. - October 03, 2007
No Need To Be Grumpy!
You know, the old Smed would have been morose and angry last night, and continued to this morning.
Why?
� It was raining when I left work, and Highway 100 was backed up from 77th street past my exit onto Highway 62. When I was leaving the office, I was talking to the family, and Katie was on the phone and dawdled (scolding Kristin and Liz about something) and then when I got into traffic I couldn�t talk because I needed to concentrate.
� It turns out that 169 was also backed up. For some reason, the north-south routes on my commute turn into 15-MPH parking lots in the rain.
� I forgot my power cord for my laptop, so I only had about 75 minutes of battery time on the laptop at home. Not a big deal, really, but it limited my ability to read some web sites and play some baseball games.
� I had plans to go get my laundry and then go by Lap�s to drop off some mix CDs for her since she helped me out, big time, a couple of weekends ago. I also wanted to go by Super Target to get some groceries and a�George Foreman grill. (It�s cheap and I had a yearning for steak and chicken. I do have a broiler and I used it once but I don�t trust my oven that much.) Anyway, whilst I was in Target Lap tried to call � she had an emergency and had to leave the house. Ah, well. So it was a trip to pick up laundry.
� When I got to the laundry � it wasn�t ready. The owner was apologetic, and I�ll just pick it up today. I mean, my schedule is SOOOO FULL (hah). So depending on if Lap will be home tonight or tomorrow, I�ll just do the laundry / Lap lap of the Cities tonight.
� It was rather fortunate, I guess, that my plans were waylaid because I had an emergency constitutional that I needed to take � so much of an emergency that I bolted from my car to get upstairs to take it. In doing so, I dropped the headphones of my iPod in the parking lot. Today, when I went to the parking lot my headphones were by my car � and one of the little ear buds was crushed because a car ran over them.
See, I could really be angry or down about it. But it was all little things, really. Traffic is traffic � what can you do? I spent the time at home without the computer listening to my iPod on my iPod clock-radio-stereo thing-deal-bit and reading a book and the papers. It�s not like I have every minute planned � and I really like getting out of the house so another trip to Uptown and to Target to get headphones isn�t a thing.
I did speak to the girls and Liz and things are going great there. It�s nice to have some closure and a sense of what will be happening soon. There is LIGHT at the end of the tunnel.
I�m going to become active, but active with my family, my church, my work, and on issues that matter to me. I�m in an area now that really leans toward my particular brand of politics (or at least there are more kindred spirits) so I�m going to feel more confident in raising my voice and following what is happening in the world at large. My new heroes are Keith Olbermann and John Stewart. Oh, wait, I�ve always liked them. Anyway�
Also, I�m going to take care of myself. The choices I make will be the right choices. My health and safety are job 1 for me � especially in this new career paradigm.
Ah, nuts, I just realized that I forgot to take my pills this morning. So watch out, I�m going to morph into a cranky old man soon. GET THE HELL OFF OF MY LAWN, KIDS! I want my Maypo!
