what a life we live

There I was anticipating my new family room with tranquility this morning when the worker guys showed up. I should say worker guy. I thought with both girls away at their camps, I'd have time to sit, pay bills, get a little rest, maybe plan a nice dinner for my family.

Worker guy pulls up old baseboard in preparation to replace it with the new, and calls my attention to a place on the wall where the carpet and old baseboard is wet and moldy. Said that it must be the bathroom sink (the girls' bathroom) leaking, and it looks as if it's been leaking for quite awhile.

Odd how it's the one wall that is up agains the home theatre and all the electrical cables as well as outlets that go with all the components. Worker guy says it can be fixed, but I must call Boss Worker Guy (BWG). I do, and they decide to fix it.

I am unable to do long awaited laundry because water is off due to the leak. I talk with BWG; he says they can fix it no problem. Just an additional charge. What am I going to do? A plumber will charge more, I'm sure. So I agree. The baseboard gets finished and all is well. Or so I think. I now have to find some time to phone the home insurance carrier to see if leakage is covered by our policy. My luck, probably not.

While they work, I leave to take Emily her lunch, and visit my dad who is still in the rehab center (nice name for convalescent hospital). I stop back at home to see the progress, and it all looks good. I go pick up Emily, deliver some paperwork to my doctor, and return home.

The new lights are finished! Well, nearly, anyway. Worker Guy says "there we are, five lights--which way do you want them aimed?" I say, "five? I thought there were going to be six?" Worker Guy says that BWG told him there are six lights and one goes in the entryway. I try not to get bothered by it.

Worker Guy turns on the new lights in the new family room, and voila! The whole room looks like crap. My soft Acorn squash-like color is now bright Caltrans Orange. Every single mistake ever made in the wall where the new lights are located is now beautifully illuminated in great detail. The beams look as if a drunk painted them. There is orange on the brown, and brown on the white and white on the orange, in places where we don't want these colors. It looks horrible. The lights are horrible. What do I do now?

Meanwhile, I try not to be too disturbed by it, but the nausea is building, so I go look at my email. What a nice surprise! an email from Kim, with a warning about sex offenders in my neighborhood. I stupidly looked at the website, and find 27 (that's twenty-seven) registered sex offenders in my town. Not just in my town, either. No, some are just a few blocks away from my home! Nearly all live near a park or an elementary school where our children in the town play soccer, softball and other sports activities, not to mention all the play dates made by young mothers for other youn mothers.

My living room drapery has been hung, thank you very much Mr. Scott. I now realize why there was some extr a slack on the cord. The rods were supposed to reach more to the edge of the wall than within the window.

I attempt to remain calm and walk to the mailbox to see what mail we have. What's there but a parking ticket for a car I've not owned for two or more months. I phoned the owner and guess what? Her telephone number is disconnected. How clever.

I want to scream but I can't. I've lost my voice due to this sore throat. I call my husband and just about whisper to him asking if I can have a nervous breakdown because of my day.

Now my throat is screaming, and I have nothing to take for it since I don't know whether it is caused by a sinus infection or just a cold, or what.

My beautiful daughter Emily comes to me with a coffee mug full of ice water. I am so pleasantly surprised by this. She has been such a big help to me in so many ways the past few weeks. She has just made me realize how grateful I am for my life, even with it's ugly walls, erroneous parking tickets and bad lighting.

My little beauty cutie.