Facie’s Ramblings

Before I launch into a woe-is-me tale, let me tell you how bad I feel about complaining, knowing how many good things I have in my life and how much worse off others are. But I feel the need to get this off my chest. Unfortunately as much as I like my job, I find myself staying late pretty often. I had one blissful, leave-on-time week two weeks ago, which I thought was how it was going to be for the next month or so, but, well, um, no. We have deadlines. And, more than that for me/the bigger reason is I want my materials to be perfect or nearly so; I am unwilling to let pretty much anything slip past me. As a result, I find myself doing a lot of extra work/going the extra mile. So after putting my time in (and often eating at my desk), I walk the 10 minutes to my car, sit at every light imaginable (seriously, can we just computerize those babies after 5:30 or 6?!), suffer through tunnel traffic, even after 6 p.m., and I am home late (duh). Some days I eat with my family; more often...

Yesterday in the 5 o'clock hour, I was happily braiding Jordan's hair. After a few minutes, we heard what sounded like firecrackers. I normally call them fireworks, but because of the popping sound I heard, I am going with firecrackers. I commented to Jordan that I wondered what sort of holiday I had forgotten about, as I could not imagine why some idiots would be setting off fireworks at the end of August. I yelled to Brian, who was making dinner in the kitchen (yes, I am very lucky my hubby cooks), if he had heard the fireworks. He came into the room, looked at me seriously, and said those were not fireworks. Sigh. And, lo and behold, about 20 or so minutes later, Brian got an update on his super-smart phone that said a teenager had been shot outside of the local McDonald's. The same McDonald's I had just taken Jordan to last week. The one where we eat outside at the Play Place whenever it is nice. The one we go to at least once every other month. Between the ...

See those two shoes up there? The ones that don't match, not even close? Yours truly managed to leave the house last night in those completely different shoes. Apparently, when I checked myself out in the mirror before I left, I failed to look at my feet, which is not too surprising considering I pretty much never do that. What is odd is that I must have put each shoe on without looking at what I was doing. For the love of Pete, I know those shoes are slip-ons/backless, but how could I not catch a glimpse of them while sliding my tootsies in?! And as you can see from the photo, the structure is quite different. Any marginally coherent or observant person should notice that they don't feel the same. Yet I, apparently as clueless as they come, managed to walk out of the house and drive to the Strip District without noticing anything was amiss. When I got of my car almost 30 minutes later and took a few steps, then I decided to look down. Oddly enough (but clearly not surpr...