Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Bad Day 210--Down in the slumps

This will be quick because it is late and I have to go to bed because I have to be up in 6 hours to start all over again trying to ride a tornado. I feel like Pecos Bill. (Google him if you don't know who he is.) The mid-tour slump has arrived and today I realized we only have 5 months left and then I remembered how long five months is and I almost started sobbing at my desk again. Luckily, I only cried a little bit and not enough to remove all traces of mascara, so I don't think anyone noticed.

Things got better later in the day, though because I went to dinner with some friends from China, one of whom is actually from China and it was so fun to see her again and catch up and I ate Pad Thai in the Vietnamese restaurant because they told me that was the only thing they made without soy sauce. It was yummy and it was fun to be social again. I'd forgotten how much I miss it. In China, we went out to lunch together a lot and laughed and joked with the local staff and generally were very social. Then I got to Korea and nobody ate lunch together. Well, I fixed that because I started taking people to lunch with me. But then here in DC, everyone eats at their desk with their door shut, as I mentioned. Last week, I ran into people from my new office where I will start in June at lunch, and they not only remembered my name, they invited me to sit with them! It was amazing, and I thought, oh yes! This is what it is like to have office camaraderie! So it was fun to have a taste of that again tonight.

Then I got home and the trash can ninja had struck again and I didn't have to take the cans to the curb. My sweet Child 2 has apparently made that her goal to get to them every week before I do. And the homework ninja had also struck because Husband woke up really early and helped Child 3 with her homework via Skype so it was done when I got home! Miraculous! And not to be left out, Child 1 was really sweet to me today and I am so very lucky to have such great children and that made my slump day bearable.

These Iditarod sled dogs are having a worse day than me. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Iditarod, it is 1,000+ mile race in the snow across Alaska.



The problem is, this year, there isn't enough snow. In Alaska. Seriously! They are having to cancel or postpone the qualifying races because it is raining and melting all the snow and racing on rocky ground is too hard on the dogs' paws, not to mention the fact that it's hard to pull a sled through mud. The Dog will never be a sled dog because she is too small, and also too fat and lazy. But the children have in the past hooked her up to their scooter and made her pull it by running in front of it with a treat. So maybe Alaska can do that instead of the Iditarod--have a scooter race. It's a thought. But thank you, sled dogs, for reminding me to care for the environment because it would be a sad thing if Alaska runs out of snow and you have nowhere to race.

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