Yesterday I spent the afternoon in a meeting with a group of Franciscan nuns. They need a new website and well, that's what I do for a living. I'm a project manager for a web development company. There were five nuns in the meeting, as well as their marketing person and a sales rep from my company.
Now, I'm sure it goes without saying that the nuns were as nice as the day is long. For a group of grey-haired ladies, they are actually pretty progressive when it comes to websites and technology and the like. However, they did have a lot to say and the meeting was nearly two hours long. I have the attention span of a gnat. I occupied myself with taking notes, watching someone mow the lawn outside the conference room, and fiddling with my new necklace. I picked up this necklace last weekend. It's very simple - just a turquoise ball (about the size of a small grape) on a chain. Somehow, I fiddled with it so much that I released the clasp. I felt the chain slide off my neck. But where was the pendant?
I surreptitiously patted my lap and the seat of my chair. Nope. Was it on the floor? It didn't seem like the best time to fling myself under the conference table and look for it. So, I casually put the chain in my pocket and carried on. The nuns were talking about some sort of shrine and whether they should mention it on the website. They were afraid to get too many calls about it. The secretary nun said that someone called the other day and asked her if the Virgin spoke French or English. The other nuns got a hearty laugh out of that.
I could not stop thinking about my missing pendant. Finally, I waited until I thought no one was looking at me and glanced straight down. Indeed, the turquoise ball was wedged in my cleavage. Nice. What to do, what to do? I opted to leave it there for the moment, as it did not seem like a good idea to dig around in my bazooms while sitting in a room full of nuns. I mean, seriously, does this sort of thing happen to anyone else but me? I seem to be a pro at it. When the meeting ended and everyone stood, there was a flurry of activity and chatter so I quickly reached in, scooped out the pendant, and tossed it in my pocket with the chain.
So, that was my Thursday. I'm sure I should learn some sort of lesson from it all, but I have no idea what. The day went from bad to worse when I got home. It was a beautiful day, so the kid and I went to the park. She rode her big wheel and I rollerbladed. All went fine until we headed back home. My daughter is not what you'd call the daredevil sort. There is a hill on the way back and she is terrified of going down a hill, so she sat on the big wheel and "walked" down the hill Fred Flintstone style instead of pedaling. Towards the bottom of the hill, she started to pedal again, but for some reason she pushed both feet outward and . . . the wheel flew off. The plastic actually broke. So, she sat and cried and said maybe her daddy could fix it. She must have been thinking of some other daddy because the one who lives in our house is lucky to fix a sandwich. I took off my rollerblades (fortunately I'd brought flip-flops) and carried the pieces of her big wheel home (along with my skates and the water bottle we'd brought to the park).
Later, I gave her a bath, she got soap in her eyes, and she screamed like a banshee for half an hour.
The only bright spot yesterday was that I found this drawing in her bedroom. For some reason I just thought it was cute. You can click on it to get a detailed view if you'd like. The drawing portrays Rapunzel as a young child. She is playing golf while a cat slides down her hair. She is also very patriotic. I'm sure none of this required any explanation because no doubt we all know what an avid golfer Rapunzel is.
