one of those days

I'm glad the Sox had a nice morning. Mine was "one of those." Caused me to reflect on the difference in vocabulary we use when we encounter an inexplicable confluence of good things as opposed to the terminology that comes to mind when one has an unaccountable series of tiny setbacks. Thankfully, there was nothing seriously wrong, just a stream of little things. Which I hope has now ended. I would list them, but you'd laugh at me.

Indulge me for just one of them. Our new mini-van is a Ford. It drives like a dream, gets great mileage, maneuvers very easily. But it has those fancy-schmancy theft-preventing keys that out of the blue fail to function. I thought that if I was able to start the car in the garage at home, I'd be set for the day. The car would "know" my key and respect it. Well and good until around noon. I had finally gotten to my doctor's appointment in Chinatown, and having to move the car only once when I found an available parking spot (amazing!), because the meter malfunctioned as soon as it met my quarter (par for the day), I parked, paid out a second quarter (spilling all my additional coins into my backpack in the process) and made it to the office before they closed for lunch. Thirty minutes late for my appointment. OH, but I was only going to tell you ONE of the day's odd setbacks. (Believe me, there are some to spare.) Anyway, appointment concluded, I went to the car, unlocked the only door that you can unlock (the driver's side, which makes it risky to parallel park on busy streets) and started the ignition. Well, attempted to. The ignition locked up on me. I looked for the manual, but meanwhile used the cell phone to call home, because Sr. Helen had figured this problem out before. (I thought someone would have to take the "el" to Chinatown and meet me with a key.) But shortly after Sr. Therese answered the phone, the cell phone disconnnected the call and shut itself off! I turned it back on, called home again, and got Sr. Helen who shepherded me through the process, which involved mysterious rites like removing the key from the key ring, setting the parking brake, pressing the regular brake ("once") and then trying the key again. ROAR! It worked!

So far, it seems that my own shut-out world series of mishaps has ended.

I still have eight hours to go.