When It Rains, It Pours

The last couple of days have left me disoriented and amazed at the variety of experiences my life provides.  Here's a small list from the last couple of days.

1.  My mom tells me on the phone that she was bringing Shea home when she suddenly bursts out, "Noni, did you know that Jesus has risen?"  Ah, Catholic school. 

2.  I'm on my way home from teaching my night class when a small white car comes tearing out of a side street as I'm passing through an intersection.  A cop is in hot pursuit.  After they pass, I continue on.  I don't make it 30 feet before I have to pull over for a second cop.  Five more feet after they pass, another cop.  This trend continues until I've been passed by 12 patrolmen.  I finally get to continue down the road uninterrupted when I arrive at a four way stop.  Sure as shit, here comes the white car.  I stay parked at the four way stop.  The white car passes me, followed by 12 patrolmen.  They block off the intersection before I can pass through.  Instead of being a mile away from home, I have to take a 3 mile detour.  I have yet to hear a news story about the incident.  I'm beginning to wonder.

3.  When I arrive home after the run-in with high speed chases, I find that the wind has blown over two sections of my back fence.  My wife tells me that she let the dog out before discovering the fence.  When she discovered the fence an hour later, the dog is gone.  This is especially frightening because our dog is dog-on-dog aggressive and quick to start a fight.  When she finds out, she rushes out of the house to look for the dog.  Shea panics at her absence and begins to have a melt down.  By the time my winded and frazzled wife returns home, she discovers a toddler in the middle of a meltdown.  The story comes out in bits and pieces, but I feel for my wife, who happens to be suffering from a cold.

4.  My daughter is also sick.  When I get home, I find a child who is running a slight fever, suffering from a persistent cough that won't allow her uninterrupted sleep, and has developed pink eye.  She is groggy and temperamental, which is to be understood.  I have to cancel classes the following day to stay home and take care of her.  The day is filled with coughing fits that lead to vomiting.  I wind up washing two beds worth of bedding, a load of puke-filled towels, and the sofa throw blankets.  I've been a bartender for years but this exceeded even my puke limits.  In the process, she bursts a blood vessel in one of her eyes.  With the pink eye, she sports the eyes of a comic book demon.

5.  I had to work late on Valentine's night (the night of the chase, fence, and illness) and so Tracy and I didn't get the chance to celebrate of traditional Valentine's feast.  We knew this was going to happen, so we planned to celebrate on Tuesday.  After a day filled with puke, pink eye, doctor's visits, and a sick child, I set about making dinner for the family.  Lobster and steak.  Tracy and I have the same thing every year.  After grilling the lobster tails and searing the steaks, we sit down to our meal.  It's kind of nice, minus Shea launching her germs across the table in series after series of dry, racking coughs.  The roses I bought for Tracy sit at the end of the table and we're able to share a meal.

It's been a day.  It's been a day that feels like a series of days.  I've alternated between happiness, worry, concern, stress, and anger.  My life continues to offer me experience after experience.  I think the key to all of this is to simply pay attention.  To slow down and take in each of these moments individually.  If you have the time, write it down.  This blog post is going to be fun to revisit with Tracy in five years.  We'll look back, laugh, and wonder at the fact that all of those things happened in the same day.