Taking it in stride

What a week.  My theory stands about how the universe tries to extract the missed work hours from me when I get a day off.  I get one tomorrow for the state fair, though I am not going.  There's a small piece of work-ish stuff I'm missing out on, there, but I will not travel to Fair Park tomorrow, and that's probably for the best.

On Sunday, I went over to Mom and Dad's house, as is my ritual.  Danny had been called in to work, so Dad and I went out for beers.  Cas came out to join us, and we saw this rather fascinating scene unfold:

I have seen people use a selfie stick in public before, but it still entertains me.  Mostly, I love the older gentleman.  He is clearly over it.  And so goes a Sunday out for beers with Dad and my sweetie. 

Monday was parent teacher night, and I was in my classroom for over 12 hours.  I left to go to the bathroom a few times, and I did make it all the way down the stairs to the first floor to manage a few things in the front office for about five minutes, but other than that, I took up residence in room 329.

To top that off, the PTA forgot about me.  They promised to bring food to everyone who signed up.  I signed up.  No food.  I was still waiting for my dinner at 8.  No such luck.  I left at 8:15 and hit up a Taco Bell on the way home.  Meh.  Win some, lose some.  

Tuesday, the photography club met.  They also took a vote to meet every week instead of every other week.  The kids agreed and Larry said yes.  It was only then that they asked me if I was cool with the idea.  I guess.  I would have been a lot quicker to agree if I hadn't just had the longest Monday of the year.  Larry also wants to meet up with kids at the State Fair to do a photo walk on Fair Day.  I went with him last year, but I had to bow out this time around.  I already knew about the scheduled time for the water damage guys to come and finish the work in our house on Friday, and I had a sneaking suspicion that we would be seeing more plumbers that day.  Turns out I was right.  I handed Larry my fair ticket- seemed the only reasonable thing to do.  

On Wednesday, about half of my kids were out of the classroom taking the PSAT test.  That makes for a pretty dull day, because you can't really teach a full lesson to half of your class.  You would just have to re-teach it the following day to all of the kids who were missing, thereby boring the kids who heard you the first time.  I got out of the building, headed to the Home Depot, paid for the windows we're having installed on the front of our house and made it back home.  I had to pick up a few things and head to my bank before 6.  I think there was something else I managed to accomplish that afternoon, but it all went by so fast that I can't remember what the hell it was.  That's how you know you've been busy- you can't even remember what you did yesterday.  My theory about the universe extracting missed hours of work or work-like activities when you get a day off is looking pretty solid right now, isn't it?  

Today, I had it all figured out.  The plumber was coming to run a camera down the pipe to the city sewer line.  He was supposed to arrive between 3 and 4.  I had Mom all slated to come at around 2:30.  She was ready to go, too.  Her car wouldn't start, though.  The battery was dead, and nobody was around with jumper cables, so I had nobody at the house.  

I got a call at 3:22 saying that the company had tried to call me 30 minutes before (they hadn't), and the plumber was at my house.  I was at my desk at school.  We worked it out- the guys started the work, since it was something they could accomplish outdoors.  I raced home during seventh period, which I was suddenly very happy to have as my conference time.  I met them there about 10-15 minutes after they discovered the problem.  We talked about it.  I wrote them a check.  They're coming back in the morning to dig a hole in the yard.  Riveting stuff.

In addition to that, the water damage guys are coming to clean the dining room carpets and replace the baseboards.  So very soon, I should have plumbing that runs flawlessly, a beautiful dining room and a rather large-sized gash running through my front yard.  

I'm sure glad Cas and I are managing to take everything in stride.  I could see things like this really putting stress on a relationship, but somehow, we've managed to avoid that kind of frustration so far.  We're fixing stuff we didn't want to have to fix, but at the end of the day, it's not the worst thing, and we are both pretty happy with the living arrangements.  We'll fix the pipes and deal with the fallout, but I get to have this really nice guy in this really nice house with me.  It's best to keep that kind of perspective.