Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Yesterday in a spasm of productivity I went ahead and put the patio set up on the deck. The table is out, the umbrella is in place and the chairs are lined up accordingly. Now I just need to hose the whole ensemble down and make it a comfortable landing place for visitors.

I did find one chair devoid of crap on the seat and made myself comfortable to enjoy the weather during lunch. There’s buds on the trees, birds are singing, and there’s a purring cat sitting in my lap, routinely smelling my beard for leftover food (apparently he knows I store it there).

It’s nice to be getting into the swing of spring again. There’s talk of a thunderstorm tonight and while I would usually welcome that with open arms, it’s on-call week which makes thunderstorms a little less enjoyable. (Lightning + phone lines = busy J.P.). Thankfully, the forecast shows the rain passing through to be brief.

I remarked on Monday how I had that good ol’ “unglued” feeling at work but then I calmed down when I got home. I’m feeling great today, and Earl made it a little better by joining me at home for lunch again.

Life is good.

This week I’ve got this citrus thing going on again. More specifically, orange. I can’t get enough orange. Orange flavored gum, orange flavored toothpaste, orange flavored Vitamin-C drops, orange juice, orange scented incense, the list goes on and on.

I love the color orange. I’ve always loved the color orange. And I just love the scent and taste of orange. Orange, orange, orange. While I was chomping away at some orange flavored gum on Sunday, Earl even had the nerve to call me Anita Bryant. I almost through a pie in his face but I didn’t have one nearby.

Now I’m in the mood for some diet orange soda. I don’t think I’ve ever had diet orange soda before. Maybe a midnight snack is in order.

Earl surprised me this afternoon by being home when I took my lunch hour. He has an dinner appointment tonight, so he’s taking some time out of his busy schedule to get ready for this little shin-dig.

Nothing gets the blood moving like having your beloved home at lunch time.

So this morning I was all happy when I awoke. I had slept well, I’m working the later shift this week so I can get some extra treasured sleep after Earl leaves for work and I can get to work at the reasonable 9 a.m. Bordering on giddy with this arrangement, I decided to fold a load of laundry before taking a shower, started a new load of laundry and picked up the house a little bit. I’ve even had time to sit down, meditate on what I want to accomplish this week and enjoy the scent of a little sandalwood incense.

All in all, I felt good when I walked into work at 9 a.m.

By 11 a.m. I was a raving lunatic.

I don’t know what happened to my mood. It seemed like things were just going awry all over the place. It was a bright, sunny, calm day. But phone lines were crapping out, internet connections were dropping all over the place and customers were calling with what I would frankly call stupid questions. “My answering machine cuts off after exactly 39 seconds. I think I need a new phone line.”

After returning to work after my lunch fiasco involving a service call with the local cable company, I calmed down a little bit and just did what I had to do. By 5 p.m., I found myself calming down considerably and thinking rationally again.

Perhaps I need start drinking lunch.

As Earl mentioned on his blog tonight, I’m on call. I was getting ready to abandon my gym visits during on-call week but I decided that I’d give it a try. So off to the gym I went, where I jumped onto an empty spazzmaster and did a power workout, worried that the pager was going to go off. I cut my workout time in half but did three quarters of my usual burned calories. All was not lost.

I’m hoping that I got this fit of hysteria I had today out of my system and just attributed my behavior to a bad Monday. I’m ready for a quiet and productive rest of the week.

Earl and I decided that we wanted to have a date of sorts tonight, so after working out at the gym this afternoon we made ourselves presentable, threw on some duds and headed to a local steakhouse.

The steakhouse is neighbors with the local theatre, and this week Cinderella: The Ballet is in town. Since I work right across the street from the theatre, I should have remember this from passing under the marquee all week, but I didn’t remember until we got to the area and saw that it was quite busy. The street traffic was a welcomed change for the usually dead Saturday night in this area.

We were pleasantly surprised to be seated immediately, having arrived about 20 minutes before curtain time. Along side of us was a party of about ten, including three young children, roughly early elementary school age. They were accompanied by their mothers, who appeared to either be friends or sisters, and an elderly couple that we deduced were somebody’s grandparents.

The kids were hedging into holy terror territory running around the tables of others, taking their shoes and socks off and storing them under the table, ripping loaves of bread in half and making like Hansel and Gretel. In the sad fashion on today’s parental generation, the mothers apparently couldn’t of cared less, save for the one that started counting “one, two, three” as if the Sesame Street numbers routine was going to scare the wrath of God into the children. Amongst all the noise from the table, the kids were screaming about how excited they were to being seeing Cinderella. Except it was 7:15. And curtain time was 7:30, and they were just being served their salads.

“This can’t be good”, I whispered to Earl.

Around 7:20, Count Monster Mom started flapping her arms like a demented windmill in an effort to flag down the waiter. “You need to bring the kids their food right now, they don’t need to wait for the other meals to be served.” Why discipline when you can stuff their mouths shut? Small wonder today’s youth is fat. Nevertheless, the waiter brought the kids their food.

It was nearly 7:25 when the remaining meals were brought to the table. At 7:30, as they were still digging in to their meals and undoubtedly the curtain was going up next store, Count Monster Mom did the windmill routine again and then snapped her fingers in the air (I’ve never seen that before in real life; how rude!) in a stereotypical “Garçon!” move, demanding the check. She then asked for the manager to come to the table.

I couldn’t hear the entire conversation, but Earl and I did our best to Gladys Kravitz what was going on next door.

“This restaurant is next door to the theatre, we thought a 6:00 reservation would give us ample time to eat before the show started. You should be taking 15% off the check.”

“Yes ma’am, I understand, but you arrived at 6:45. We’ve been located next to the theatre for a long time. One and a half hours before curtain with a party of ten is cutting it rather close.”

“But we have to take most of our meals with us since the show has already started. You really should take something off the check.”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but I can’t do that, as you were 45 minutes late for your reservation.”

Count Monster Mom then got all huffy and started shoveling her food into the take-out containers, gathered up her gaggle of monsters and headed for the door.

The grandparents decided to stay and finish their meal in peace. Earl and I enjoyed the silence after their departure as well.