Mental notes

So why is it that, when I switch offices, I hand back in six (6) keys and am given two (2)? We're switching from a key-based system to a 'security fob' system whereby they can program certain doors to open for certain people, so I need only a single fob for all the common doors, and then a single for my office. God bless technology.

 

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Near my house was a terribly ill-placed car glass replacement store. Ill-placed, in that it was located on a corner with little to no parking, and of course PARKING is key to a place where you need to drop off your car. The corner was always congested and, because it was near a busy street, ripe for car accidents as people tried to make the corner, got blocked by traffic, and others had to slow. So the place decided, wisely, to move.

 

And what replaced it? Another car glass replacement store. Call me crazy, but often when a business shuts down or moves, THERE IS A REASON. And while another dissimilar business may succeed there, the SAME DAMN BUSINESS? Seems just a poor idea to me.

 

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The people who installed the blinds in my office conveniently put the blind pull on the left side. Which is fine until you realize that the people who put in the desk put it on the left side, and there's a bookshelf over it, so now if I want to pull down the blinds I need to clear off the back part of the desk, sit on it, scoot myself to the very corner (it's a U-shaped desk) and reach WAAAAYYY back over and behind the bookshelf to find it. No one's fault, it's just a comedy of errors. Which is working life in this place. But at least it's a comedy.

 

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My child has decided that the new daycare has too many children. "I only like it a little bit", he says. "There are too many kids." The plight of the introvert in the extrovert world. I can't explain this to him, I can't explain that while he likes to sit back and not be bothered some times, 75% of the population doesn't really get that. I also can't explain to him that 25 kids and four adults is actually pretty good; for the rest of his educational career he'll be lucky to get that kind of ratio. And merely saying, "Well, get used to it, kid." feels kind of heartless. But really? That's the truth.

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This afternoon I picked up my kid from the daycare, and as usual had a chat with one of the people there about The Boy's day. This is someone I don't know well yet, but she came over and looked at me with a look of great disappointment. "He didn't eat his lunch today," she says with a terrible grimace, a sorrowful look. "He ate two bowls of snack, though, I guess he needed something to keep him going."

We had scrounged around for lunch today, Friday, the day before grocery shopping, but had come up with canned peaches, crackers and cheese, and a peanut butter and jam sandwich with no crusts; not his usual but certainly not that bad. But the scramble made me feel guilty, so all I heard instead was "You made a really lousy lunch that your kid wouldn't eat! What is he supposed to survive on??!" It was the terribly sorrowful look that got me. I suppose perhaps she meant to look apologetic, that he didn't eat, that it was somehow their fault. Which is funny, because I would never blame them for his not eating. Although for some reason, quite clearly, I'd blame me.

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There's something to learn from that but instead I'm going to have a glass of wine and mull over the fact that the sleeves on the sweater I'm knitting aren't quite the same. I think at the end of the glass of wine it's going to matter much less to me than it did before I poured the glass.