Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Never Made It to Yoga

As my title here suggests, I had a trying day yesterday. Sometimes I feel that I get into trivial (and not so trivial) scrapes that are reminiscent of I Love Lucy, only they are generally not funny, not funny at all. This goes for the times I was marooned at the emergency room with my dad, mom in tow, complaining every minute that I couldn't make her sit there a single second longer. It took 9 hours to get my dad seen, but after two or three, Richard came and took mom home. He hadn't been available up till then, and since he refuses to have a cell phone, I had no way to reach him.
And also for times when R and I took a winter trip to Scotland the train broke down in a snowstorm, where it stayed for about 5 hours, without food, water, or toilets. And oh, the train was packed beyond sardines.
Yesterday was small compared to that. I set off for the garage at 7 AM, hoping to be there when it opened, but instead, I waited half an hour for the opening, when the owner came in. I had to wait another half an hour for someone to take me to the rental place. If there had been no line, I might have made it, but there was only one guy at the rental place, and a line. It was almost 40 minutes later by the time he got to me, already 8:15, so I gave up on yoga. When I got the car, a snazzy update on my Corolla with a seat that raised up to my required height, I lurched off, unused to power breaks. I'm used to it now.
I went to work to give back the papers. Interestingly, even after I showed that student a line from the paper on MySpace, she still doesn't understand what the big deal is. I don't know what else to say. I discussed plagiarism at the beginning of the semester, having them read about what it was, and did an exercise in class. I talked about it often in class, gave examples from papers, including this person's. STILL she clearly had no idea it was not the thing to do. She cried, genuinely, in her mind, innocent. I wouldn't be surprised if I hear from her parents, though I'm not supposed to talk to them.
Then I went home, my cellphone buzzing at me like an angry hive. There were 3 messages on it, 7 on my home phone. The delivery people whom I had called to cancel furniture delivery, postponing it till Weds. were all calling me back. One of them had already loaded my huge sectional sofa onto the truck, and there was apparently no unloading it.
I ended up skipping choir and sitting in the echoey house alone, all workmen gone for the moment, waiting for the truck to come. It never made it. It seems that everyone from Lake Elsinore to Irvine ordered furniture from Big Lots during their one day sale. I waited till almost 8:30 before I said I can't wait a minute longer. I was hungry, tired, and had to teach this morning at 7:30 AM.
Meanwhile, back at the car place, the catalytic converter had disintegrated because of the leaking oil that constantly inundates it; ditto the spark plugs. I dallied with the idea of skipping off to the car place and buying another Corolla, but made up my mind finally to get this fixed, hoping to get another year or 6 months out of it, and then buying a car, in a leisurely way.
Today I have to teach, return the car (when mine is ready),pick up my car, and go teach at CSU, where the papers are due. Next time I get observed there.

2 comments:

Marly Youmans said...

Having a silly day here... Everything keeps going wrong because of snow, mostly. Things haven't arrived, people haven't dug out, etc. Just when I thought I was booked more than humanly possibly (counting the two feet of snow to shovel), N. added on one more event so that we now have three evening events--glory, they decided to let the middle school band play with the high school tonight for a special favor. As if we don't have enough middle school concerts but must add on some more! And now I have this growing boy with no black pants long enough when the world is awash is snow... Eh, these little interesting days finish up in sleep, luckily.

Robbi N. said...

As if all that snow weren't enough! I agree; it's silly of them! But I remember those days of growing legs and too short pants.