Good To Go

Welcome! Thanks for joining me for my Monday Morning Freak-Out.



I'm a little late for a true morning kerfuffle, but tardiness is integral to my freakiness. So no worries. Or lots of them, depending on your monitor size and blog-reading time allotment.


I had plenty to ruffle my feathers this morning, not the least of which was the departure of family. In the days leading up to the horror that was this morning, we enjoyed a lovely weekend of late nights and haircuts (Locks of Love post to follow) and bonfires and ice cream. Thanks for asking. How was your weekend?


Anyway this morning the EGE's mom, grandma, sister and baby nephew had to leave for home. It was a tearful goodbye... Maddy and Sarah and Grace are so sad to live a whole state away from Nana and Grandma. The way we usually deal with the letdown of their leaving is outright bribery and distraction. The girls and I have a longstanding tradition of buying art supplies and helium balloons after Grandma and Nana go home. I honestly can't remember how we started this, but it still takes the sting out of the lonely Monday.



However. This morning there would be no stationery store trip to dry the girls' tears. On the contrary, the office receptionist called in "exhausted" ... and so the scramble began. Instead of hanging out with my daughters and pretending that life with plain ol' Mommy is just as fun as having lots of lovely other laps around... well, instead of that, they got to pack for a day at the babysitter's house.



I was not prepared for going to the office today (translation: I hadn't pumped any milk), so I hurriedly barked orders at the girls and meanwhile packed Laura's diaper bag and put her in the Suburban and then trailed the girls as they walked to the neighbor's house for babysitting (running on with my sentence to try to give you a sense of the breathlessness of it all). I let the girls walk, but it wasn't a forced march or anything like that; they preferred to walk so they could wave over their shoulders repeatedly at the family as they loaded Tia's SUV.



This was my first mistake (or maybe my second, if you count not expecting and planning for our receptionist to call in with a hangover after the holiday weekend). Allowing the girls to walk seemed like a good idea right up until the time that Madeleine didn't show up at the babysitter's house.



ACK. You read that correctly. My 9-year-old chose the split second that I popped my head in the babysitter's door to make her little self a U-turn and walk back toward home (toward her still-packing family, a half mile away). Then when I called for her, she got scared that she was in trouble, so she did what any errant child would do: she hid in the shrubs at the side of the road. So I frantically yelled her name some more, and imagined every terrible scenario as I ran and searched and in general panicked the bejeebeez out of myself.

Never fear, the morning got better from there.

You know there's a Dutch Brothers blog-famous coffee house on the way to the EGE's office? (It's not exactly on the way, but it's only nine blocks out of the way. And that hardly counts when gas is a mere sixteen dollars a gallon).

So in the spirit of making lemonade, I detoured for my much-deserved liquid courage (no, silly, I'm talking about caffeine. It was only 9 in the morning.) and braved the six-car pile-up (otherwise known as a line of caffeine-deprived drivers) to wait for my self-medication. How was that for a crash of hyphens and parentheses in one paragraph? I think I'm approaching some sort of record.

So... FRIENDS... the weird coffee guy was there. My favorite coffee guy is a boy I like to call "EGE Junior." Actually I call him by my husband's actual name, plus "Junior." Not to his face or anything. It's just that he looks like my husband did in 1988, with the wavy black mullet and the tanned 20-something jawbone and... this could go on for a while. This morning, it wasn't EGE Junior. Alas, it was the creepy guy with the googly eyes who leans too far into my window every time he's serving me.

If you have to ask why I didn't leave the line (staying in line = mistake number two?), you may not be as espresso addicted as you need to be to understand this story fully.


Everyone in the Northwest knows that your relationship with your barista is nearly as important as your relationship with your hairdresser. But, FRIENDS, this dude takes it a little too seriously. He calls me by name, which is okay. He makes my drink ahead of time, which is, again, probably okay.

But TODAY HE TOUCHED MY HAND and not in a casual, just-handed-you-a-hot-cup way.

The kid asked how my Fourth was, and I said, all distracted-like, "just great, how was yours?" And he REACHED OUT FOR MY HAND and picked it up and started COUNTING MY FINGERS. It was my left hand.

EW EW EW.

So then I said, "What the heck?" And pulled my hand away a little quickly.

And he said, "Just making sure you didn't lose any fingers lighting fireworks."

Friends and readers, I must find me a new Dutch Brothers. If you have read this far in the Monday Morning Freak-Out, I thank you and welcome your advice.

Is it slightly weird that the barista counted my left digits?

Is it weirder that my first thought was that he was gonna compliment my diamond? Ala "girlfriend, your ring is gah-geous"?

And am I making a mountain out of a molehill? I hate to drive further for my Dutch Brothers fix.


And in other news, I arrived at the office to find some accounting issues. Math is SO not my strong point, and I'm tired of hyperventilating out only to have the fact-checker know better, so I musn't elaborate here. At least I had my quadruple mocha to keep me company for the morning. It may have been worth it.

Tomorrow I promise pictures of the Locks of Love haircuts. The girls look so grown up!