Saturday, October 31, 2009

What's in Retrograde?

This morning I was talking to a kid from my son's enrichment activity class, who was saying how he was so scared of Friday the 13th because it is so unlucky! I told him not to let the movies or magazines convince him that one day is more unlucky than another -- it's just a day. He didn't believe me. And while I really don't think one day is any luckier or unluckier than another, I have had the feeling in the past couple of weeks that I've been out of synch with the dance of the universe. Either that, or it is trying to tell me something. My sister in law says it is trying to tell me that I've got too much on my plate, and that may be true.

Last week on Tuesday, the hard drive on my work computer crashed. I lost everything I had from the beginning of the school year -- my lesson plans, my long range plans, templates, sample documents... you name it. I walked around in a daze for a couple of days, and then, when I got a new laptop, started the process of rebuilding from scratch. At least I got my grades in on time.

Then I found the back up disk I made at the end of the last school year. HOORAY! I put it in the computer. The computer will not recognize the disk. I took it to another computer. Same story. *sigh* Something is wrong with the disk. No computer will read it.

Then, my iPod, which is my calendar, my contact book, my music, my recipes, my encyclopedia, and on and on, was stolen. I already wrote about that. I'm still trying to get on paper all the events I had stored on that thing.

Yesterday, while in the mad rush to get myself & two of my kids to school in the morning, I hear a crash as we are all getting in the car. Nora knocked over a shutter that I had stripped & was getting ready to repaint, and it splintered as it hit the garage floor. *sigh* again. I picked up the pieces and said, don't worry, we'll find another shutter. As I'm getting into the car I hear Nora say, "OH NO!" She knocked over my entire cup of coffeee, glug glug glug, onto the car floor. Okay, that one made me squawk. I ran to get a towel, smooshed it into the rug, and drove away, because I had to get in for morning duty. And as much as I love the smell of coffee... that's not what I needed in the car! I wasn't mad, just... tired of all these crazy things!

Today I was trying to plan ahead for halloween, and as the kids are carving their pumpkins, I started a chicken roasting in the oven so they would have some protein before gorging on candy. About 45 minutes before it was done, I added a bunch of baby potatoes and some chicken stock. Nora watched as I added them, inhaling and saying, "oooh, that smells good!"

CRASH! The pyrex dish holding the chicken exploded into a jagged mess, the stock hit the heating element, and flames roared up from the bottom of the oven. I turned off the oven. The flames went out on their own. Nora turned to me, her eyes wide, and I just shook my head and laughed.
had a friend years ago who was really into horoscope stuff and swore that when mercury was in retrograde you should just hide in the basement for a couple of weeks.
Okay. That's enough. I actually went online to see if mercury was in retrograde, because I

Mercury is not in retrograde, but something is up, something is wonky, something is impishly having a little ha ha ha, and I'd like it to stop now. Please. My husband just came home from his long journey and I don't feel like staying in the basement!

Oh yeah... Happy Halloween!!

3 comments:

teridr said...

Oh, lordy, Naomi -- sounds like things are crashing down around you. I've done that trick with the cool broth and the hot pyrex myself, though I did it on top of the stove. I love your pic of the bird perched in the oven all by itself! Were you able to salvage the chicken, or was it totalled?

Lili said...

FYI, Pyrex is no longer "Pyrex;" it's just regular glass now. So a LOT of people have had it shatter on them because they're treating it like real Pyrex. Your best bet is to find some really old stuff at a thrift store, unfortunately.

Naomi said...

@Teri: I didn't want to even try to salvage the bird. The glass was just everywhere, and with the week I had I didn't want to chance biting into a shard. It was all totaled. Matt went out and picked up some take out!

@Lili: it actually was an old pyrex! A friend suggested that it may have had some minor flaw in it that finally gave way after all these years... I don't know. I think I'm going to get a nice, stainless steel pan next!