My Bad Day List

I want you to know that I’ve had some really good days. And I’ve had a lot of really good moments surrounded by normal days. And then I’ve had some really bad moments. Followed by some really bad days.

Today I’m sharing with you a list of things that happen on a bad day.

1. My daughter and I arrange a time to meet my very hip friend (yes, I have some of those), Karen, for dinner at the new, vegan restaurant FÜD. We are excited about both – eating at this new, vegan restaurant and seeing Karen. Karen’s super stylin’ cobalt blue VW beetle (see how cool she is?) breaks down on the way to dinner. Not just flat tire kind of break-down. We’re talking tow truck kind of break-down. So no dinner with Karen. [Sigh]
2. After spending countless hours mixing cayenne pepper brews and spraying it on my pear tree, the squirrels began their annual pillaging of the pear tree. The squirrels don’t actually want the pears. They whittle away at the pear meat to get to the four or five little seeds inside. The rest they cast aside. That’s it. Standing under the pear tree you see the remains of pear bits spread everywhere. And more rains down on you because they’re still at it. There were hundreds of pears in that tree. As of today we’re down to about 12. I coated them with a super concentrated batch of pepper spray, but I’m beginning to lose hope that we’ll get to eat any of them. [Double Sigh]
3. I notice in my neighborhood pear trees and apple trees with fruit completely intact and no maniacal owners spraying pepper spray or throwing tennis balls at squirrels in the trees. These people don’t pick the fruit from their tree either. It’s as if they don’t even care. I wonder to myself if there’s no justice to the universe. [Evil snort]
4. I’m vegan but beginning to imagine me with a gun (ok, it’s only a bb gun…but still, it’s a gun) shooting at the little varmints in the trees. All I want to do is irritate them enough that they won’t come back to the tree. I actually contemplate a trip to the store to buy said gun, but I realize squirrels don’t have to take their daughter to an orthodontist appointment this afternoon which means they’ll be here…and I won’t.  Not having a life makes them ultimately more patient than I am. [Grrrr]
5. I take comfort in my peach tree with it’s burgeoning fruit. It’s only a matter of days before they start to ripen. But after an evening on the town (see #1 above) I return to find a major branch had broken away from the tree. This is when I knew the day had gone from bad moments in a normal day to just plain ol’ bad day. [Sob]

But the optimist in me starts to emerge. I listen to a little Michael Jackson and start moonwalking across the living room floor. After watching This is It earlier this week, we’re a little Michael Jackson obsessed right now. I started working on the moonwalk yesterday. Needless to say, I don’t have it down yet, but I’m working on it (Hey, I have to have a dream)!

After music and dance, I begin to feel a little better. Maybe I didn’t have dinner with Karen, but at least I dined with with my dreamy daughter. Look at her? Isn’t she a cutey? And I talked to the restaurant owner about her name which I’m hoping will be a name interview in the making; yet another person with a less than traditional name journey.

And then I think to myself. If I have a bad day that can be resolved by listening to a little bit of Michael Jackson, moonwalking, and dinner with my daughter, well, it must not have been all that bad to start with. [Sigh]  I choose to ignore the carnage in my back yard and look to the front…which for our home happens to be north. As King Julian in Madagascar says, “It’s not a bad view!”

Look at this lovely lady trying to cheer me up just this morning. And I feel comforted with the start of a new day.