Squelch! Squish! Splat! I tried to log into Slate to answer Marylb's wonderful post about being who we are on the BOTF and I got a security certificate error and it still refuses to log me in. The system makes a sort of electronic splattery blert when it pops up an error dialog. And that's just perfect for this day.
Meeting at my son's school yet-a-frelling-gain so I get stuck in four times as much traffic as usual. And I guess just because I have to use the route, they've decided they need to install a hyperspace bypass or something so there's orange cones and reflective vested shoulder-angels lining the whole route gesturing at you to slow down. WTHeck!? I roll down the window and point out that this is stop-and-go. If I slow down any farther I'd back into the guy behind me. He laughs and shrugs and goes back to making calming gestures at cars.
The weather is a very typical Fall sort of day. It's like God decided we need to soak like beans or something and put a dismal gray lid all over everything. Back to the house for something I forgot. As I get out of the car, the carport drops half a cup of drizzle about half a degree above sleet down the back of my neck. Lovely.
When I came out, the little girl across the way is waiting for her bus. She's in kindergarden this year. She's so cute standing there in her cute little purple raincoat and her backpack. But she's staring at the drips off the front of her hood. The look on her face says that she's just done with the entire proceeding. I know that feeling. Her bus gets there. As she squelches her way across a puddle to get on she notices me and we share a big wave and a smile. Hopefully her day goes a little better. Except now I'm stuck behind her bus all the frelling way down the arterial.
The color is leeched out of everything. Even the maples look drab. The leaves don't drift down in elegant swirls. As I'm walking across the parking lot a big clump of three or four of them splat onto the blacktop next to me close enough to splatter my shoes. One of them's a really pretty red one the girls would probably like for their collection but my hands are full so I can't pick it up.
I get in, put my stuff down, and I'm greeted with this morning's Charlie Foxtrot and a cup of coffee. A sip tells me whose turn it is to keep the kitchen up this week. I know it's him because he makes what may possibly be the most average worst pot of coffee in the world. It's just bad enough you make that squinchy face when you take a swig, but not so bad you won't go ahead and finish it off just for the caffiene's sake while planning a run to the coffee stand over your lunch hour.
Reading through email, I find the project slipped a day thanks to the accounting system vendor's shenanigans, I've got a customer with a spyware problem who is certain it's all my fault, and Live's logon server just sat and sputtered until it got in the way of my work and I shut it off. So I can't answer Maryl.
I doubt I had anything that would be real helpful to say. Mostly it was a anecdotal "me too". But it would have felt nice to talk to her again.