How Was Your Day?

My presentation for tomorrow was late. I hadn't been able to email or phone Nate for a final bit of information, so I asked for help from Mike who works nearby. Mike said to email Nate and good luck. I previewed the presentation in a meeting and got beat up. It seems to be a pattern in that meeting -- I get beat up.

Trudy called to say she was going to get meat and to have a snack. I didn't need a snack, but it was quitting time, so I picked up my book. The chapter was grim. The next chapter was grimmer. The next was the most profoundly depressing thing I've ever read.

Trudy called to ask me to start the grill. The backup gas canister was empty. I had trouble hooking up the backbackup. And all of the sudden, I desperately needed a snack. The peanut butter jar was empty. The unopened jar had a pool of peanut oil a quarter inch thick on top, and I made a brown oozing mess on the counter as I fumbled to put something into my crashing body.

Trudy came home. She put the chicken thighs on a platter, and I put them on the grill and sat next to them, because at this rate the last thing I needed to do was burn the meat. The backbackup gas canister ran out. My sad crashed head could only sit there and let the meat sizzle a while in the lingering flames that were left.

Trudy and Ben came out to help to find that the meat was done after all. But on returning to the house, we found that the pecans were burned and the roasted kale was ... roasted. I had a hot flash and had to sit down again outside.

After dinner Ben announced that he was going to go pick up a friend. Trudy pulled him into the kitchen, and I heard whispering. He came out with a sheepish smile on his face and suggested that we just sit outside for a while and chat. The flowers helped a little. The cool breeze helped more. When it was safe, Ben left.

Ben and Marie Claire returned with a game console. She was going to teach him how to play an old game that she brought along. She had him put on a CD. And they sat there, she and he, playing this video game in the living room playing music that filled the living room.

It was The Beatles.

No bad day of meetings, no number of empty gas canisters, no mess of peanut oil in the kitchen, no burning of pecans or crispy leaves of kale, and no number of depressing chapters in a book can diminish the fact that that evening Ben brought a friend home and they played video games with The Beatles playing loudly on our stereo.

I was almost in tears.

How was your day?

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