Manic Monday

Most people aren't too fond of Mondays; after all, they signal the beginning of a too-long work week, and the end of a too-short weekend. But for hairdressers, Mondays are like our Sundays, and the bonus is that everyone else is working while we are off. It is about the only compensation for having to work on Saturdays.

This Monday isn't so good for the Mister, however. He's had a rotten cold, that seemed to be better on Friday, but rebounded with a vengeance by Saturday night. For Sunday he was a pity, and today he's even worse. If he was a dog, we'd have shot him by now. He's a pretty good patient, for a man. There is the odd, pathetic moan from the bedroom now and again, but for the most part, he's happy to remove himself from the civilized world and just be sick, without any audience. (Which is just as well, because I am a terrible nurse. I simply cannot remember how awful it feels to be ill, and therefore barely tolerate those who are. I can sympathise with some one's suffering, but I really don't want to be a part of it.)

I had to do some work over at the Things' school first thing. I run a plant sale fundraiser every year, and it's time to get that up and running. The stupid photocopier cut off the left hand side of every copy, and I didn't notice until I was well into it. It meant that all 500 copies had to be corrected, by hand, because it looked like you could only by 11 flats of plants, or a half a flat. (It should have said "full", but the "fu" didn't come out. I didn't mind writing "fu" on 500 copies, because that's what I was thinking the whole time.) Then I noticed that it looked like we were selling miniature pots of plants for $16.00 each, because the "1" got cut off, and it looked like we were selling pots of ".6 inches", ".2 inches" and ".0 inches", instead of 16, 12 and 10. Thing 1 was happy to miss a science lesson to help.

I went over to my parents' house to give them a hand after that. My parents are selling their house (after 35 years) and are downsizing to a condo. They keep their place in immaculate shape (a pity I did not inherit that gene), and they don't accumulate junk, so the preparations to sell will be minimal. But their realtor recommended that they paint the inside of the garage, because it might influence the overall impression of the house. Do you know how you live with something for years and don't notice it? Well, the inside of my parents garage was one of those things. The colour could only be described as "Dog Spew". How on earth none of us noticed how horrible it was for the past 35 years is beyond me.
My father has bad knees, and my mother is terrified of heights, so it falls to me to perform the daring "Feats of Strength"around their house, such as climbing the ladder and once going up on the roof to inspect the chimney when it had a raccoon in it. My dad took a tumble earlier in the day when he slipped off a step and fell into the garbage pails. I guess the racket was fearsome. My mother nearly had a heart attack. Anyway, later on, I managed to drop the roller tray (full of paint) off the top shelf, which also made a commotion, and my mother thought it was me falling off the ladder, and nearly had a heart attack. I'm glad that job is over, because my mother's nerves won't take much more.

And now I have a bit of time before the kids come home from school, I take Thing 1 to a doctor's appointment, make dinner and get some leaf bags so I can get cracking on cleaning up the backyard tomorrow.

It's only a day off from one job.