A gift

I woke up at 5:40 AM this morning, when it's too early to get up but too late to fall back to sleep, and almost straight away I knew it was going to be one of those days.

I was, for lack of a better term, extremely grumpy. Although the weather seemed to be showing signs of warming up, the scenery is still depressingly muted, all greys and browns and cloudy skies. Plans for a summer family getaway are on hold because everything I we come up with is either Too Expensive or Too Far. Work's been, um... repetitive. All of which makes me feel like we're not doing anything, our lives aren't going anywhere, and there's no progress... ever.

Knitting usually helps me a great deal when I'm feeling this way, but seeing as I'm still knitting the f*&&?%ing green scarf, and will continue to do so for the remainder of my life, it's not really working for me lately.

So I was grumpy, and it was going to be one of those days. You know, the kind when you just don't wanna? When all you really want to do is burrow deep beneath the covers of your bed, drink tea, eat chocolate, and read your favourite novel for the umteenth time, but you can't because you're a Grownup with Responsibilities so you've just got to suck it up and muddle through and hope you feel better tomorrow because a few more days like this and you're going to just lose it completely? One of those days.

And so it began. I showered, got dressed, took Emilie to school, went to work. By lunchtime I was in a serious funk, and all I wanted to do was go to the local Asian place, order some Phô soup, and read my favourite novel for the umteenth time. Trouble was that I didn't have my novel with me. And besides, I really shouldn't be going to the restaurant anyway, I should be trying to save money so that the family getaways I'm we're trying to plan are merely Too Far and no longer Too Expensive.

I heaved a great big sigh (for nobody's benefit except my own, I'm pretty much alone in my office all day long) and decided I would just go home for lunch. I'd eat, read a bit of my favourite novel for the umteenth time, and be back at my desk by 1.

Works in theory, except that when it was time to head back to work, my f*&&*??%ing car wouldn't start (my anti-theft device was no longer acknowledging my "It's OK, I'm not a thief, make car go" commands). I did not panic, nor did I get angry, right away. Seeing as how the exact same thing actually happened to me on Monday, first I tried Phil's "Push the button in the fuse box" trick, which totally saved me last time, but it didn't work. Then I reverted to my own skill set for when the Car Won't Go, which consists largely of swearing at the car and banging the steering wheel. That didn't work either.

I persisted for 25 minutes, alternating between Phil's skill set and mine, until I remembered that the definition of insanity is repeating the exact same thing and expecting a different outcome, and then I just thought "Screw it". I decided that the Universe had heard my pleas and had given me a freebie.

I called the office, went for my first run outside of 2011, and spent a happy afternoon drinking tea, knitting and watching Buffy.

Happy Knitting, Everyone

ps: the car started for Phil on the first try when he got home. It was totally a gift from the Universe.