Off Kilter

Today was a just a little off. There’s no concrete explanation that I can give you; it just was what it was.

We celebrated my birthday at lunch with a strawberry cake, and someone brought me a lunch from Cracker Barrel. The interesting part of all this is that my birthday is not for another couple weeks. It’s one thing to celebrate the weekend before or after, but weeks before is weird. I ate birthday cake for me, but I didn’t get any birthday wishes from anyone. So, happy early birthday to me!

The baby shower for my friend Bridget was a success, tons of pink gifts for her and her baby girl, lots of oohing and aahing. But there was so much noise and activity; I couldn’t focus very well and ended up missing her opening most of the gifts. I felt a bit disconnected, like floating through a pool with my head underwater. You know what that’s like? You can hear noises; you’re aware that people are there, but you’re strangely removed.

After work, I rushed home to drop of the rest of my birthday cake and then dashed back to my truck in the pouring rain. I was heading to my boss’s house to watch the Oprah show. I arrived just as the rain became a torrential downpour, and I ended up getting soaked as I hurled myself towards the front porch. A few weeks ago my boss and two other teachers went to Chicago for the show, and the episode was airing today. All of the women at work were invited to go. I have often missed out on these gatherings because of scheduling conflicts, and I was determined not to miss this one. However, other than those three women who were on the show, I was the only one to show up. The four of us sat in her den watching and enjoying each other’s company, but they never really had camera time, so all of our eager anticipation amounted to nothing.

The best part of today was walking with Chris though we did not walk any of our normal routes. Since it was raining and the truck was on empty, we decided to take care of two things at once. We stopped to fill up and headed to the mall near our house to do a little power walking. The mall is really a strange place to visit. Most of the stores have closed, and there are very few people milling around the few stores which have remained open. But it’s a great mall for walking; we didn’t have to navigate through crowds. We rounded the mall four times acting like silly little kids and basically just shooting the breeze. So nice.

And now I must put my house in order so I can go to sleep.