Whiny Wednesday

 I promise to forego Surly Thursday this week, but it was a bit of a trying day.

First of all, I am impressed at all of you and your language facility. Spanish! Latin! German! Japanese! Portuguese! A fellow Comp Lit grad! I've never met another one that I wasn't in school with. 

Tudor, I have heard Welsh spoken and seen it spelled and I fully agree it makes French look like a walk in the park. I didn't have that big a problem reading and writing French, I just felt stupid trying to speak it (Dani, I think I agree that just going at it like you believe you are a Masterful French Speaker is probably half the battle). I was told I had a naturally good German accent by my prof, but I never got much past the basics. I learned a bit of Polish from my grandparents when I was little, but at this point I only really remember thank-you, pillow and egg. For a while I made every person who spoke another language teach me how to say pillow and egg and I was up to seven languages - English, French, Polish, Spanish, Finnish, German and Portuguese. If you want to talk bedtime or breakfast, I'm your girl.

So. Today. I didn't sleep well, and my back hurt as soon as I got up. Usually I can get through half the day before it starts hurting, now that I have the chair cushion. I even did yoga yesterday - sucks when the thing you're doing to decrease your pain increases your pain.

I got to school and the Chromebook I use instead of the big computer (which is positioned awkwardly and results in more back pain) was left unplugged, so I didn't know if it would last my half day. I said "Frig" really loud. 

Classes start coming right away, and the kids were... challenging. The teachers looked like they were finding the day a slog too. Week after Halloween? Novemberism? Mercury in retrograde? Who can say? 

I held it together for the morning. Then I got to my afternoon school and THAT Chromebook was unplugged too. And the first two classes were CRAZY. They were loud. They were unruly. They were dumb. One kid stood in front of me at the desk looking everywhere but at me while I asked him his name four times, basically bellowing by the last time. I know, they're young, I try to cut them slack. But by that logic, I'm old, I should be cut some slack. Can I lightly rough up just one or two? Please?

After work I needed to mail something at the post office and pick up a few groceries. Heading from the post office to the grocery store, I had to stop because a kid was crossing in front of me completely against the light. After he was out of the way I turned and a woman stepped off the curb right in front of me, also completely in the wrong, and started yelling at me. I was torn between swearing and laughing, because what the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck? Also I realized I had been inside the pharmacy (that's where the post office is) and had forgotten to buy soap. It wasn't up there with the time I forgot to buy staples at Staples, but it was annoying.

When I opened the back of the car to put the groceries in, I saw a bag I had packed to drop off to a lady who does outreach for homeless people - she's amazing, I don't know how she does it all. I had bagged up the leftover Halloween candy and some blankets and a few other things I had picked up from her wish list. I thought maybe I would leave it to drop off tomorrow because I was so achy and cranky by now, but then I gave my head a shake and drove to her drop off point.

I parked and picked up the bag and it immediately started losing containment. I stuffed everything back in, but just as I put it down on the porch, a tiny Halloween bag of M&Ms fell out, and I grabbed it to stuff in my irascible gob on the drive home. 

So to recap: Last week - helping old ladies across the street. This week - stealing candy from the unhoused. 

It's supposed to freezing rain overnight and tomorrow, but tomorrow is my later, shorter day and the garage has been sufficiently cleaned out that I can park in it - not entirely sure whether I can get in and out of the car with my boobs intact, but I'll make it work. 

Hope your day was better than mine, but if not, this angry bunny is for both (all) of us.