This is for Kookie, because she’s pig crazy.

Yesterday was not my happiest day. I got up late, slept in, even, and had a too long in bed type headache. I decided to push through it anyway and went about my morning chores. I had purchased an air freshener on Friday which wouldn’t spray, so I decided to hunt down the receipt and return it. After all 3 bucks is 3 bucks.

I was happily about to back out of the car port when I looked in the rear view mirror and was greeted by the unwelcome sight of 12 inch red letters painted across the back window loudly proclaiming the ‘n’ word. I was not about to drive ANYWHERE with that on my back window. I put the car back in park, turned off the engine and went and dragged the garden hose to the back of the car port. I had hope that a quick squirt would remove the mess. No such luck. The good mood I had tried so hard to cultivate was rapidly disappearing.

I had to scrub at the offending red paint with my hand. And rinse and scrub. I was no longer clean and dry, but wet, grubby and not amused at all. I managed to scrub all the paint and rinse all the flakes of red off the car. I turned off the hose and got back into the car. I was now officially grumpy.

I drove to the store and returned the non-functioning air freshener. Then I took that 3 bucks and promptly went to the car wash to have the rest of the car washed and the back window given a good soapy scrub. The girl at the car wash was being particularly thorough this day. Normally, I would have been pleased, but I was annoyed at having to be there in the first place. I hadn’t planned on giving Casper a bath until the END of the month. She sprayed some green liquid on the left side of the car. Then she sprayed some cream colored liquid on the left side of the car. Then she scrubbed the left side of the car with a long handled brush. Then she rinsed the left side of the car. She went over to the right side of the car and repeated the whole process. The process was also repeated on the front and back of the car. After all of this we went through the ‘express wash’ machine wash and dry. My car is now very, very clean. I didn’t recognize it on my way out of the fabric store.

Yes, I went to the fabric store. It’s a smallish JoAnne’s here in town. I had the misguided impression that looking at pretty fabric and flipping through the pattern books might cheer me up.

It might have worked, except when I got there, there was a woman with two young and VERY loud girls. She was allowing them to wander all over the store without supervision and they kept yelling out to her and to each other when ever they saw something that caught their fancy. I stuck it out, figuring how long could they stay? They were at the checkout when a woman came in with her toddler and a very angry baby.  I gritted my teeth and wished calm and peace in the direction of the baby. Soon it settled down to a nice peaceful coo.

By this time I had looked through the stacks of fabrics, which seem to be shrinking smaller every time I enter the shop and was trying to settle in to look through the catalogs of patterns. Every once in a great while, I will see a nice pattern that might actually look as good on me as it does on the willowy fashion drawings of the item. I had gone through one catalog and started on another when an older woman came in and plopped herself next to me. And snuffled. And sniffed. And snuffled and sniffed.

I gave up. I flipped the book I was looking at closed and took the fat quarters I had selected to the check out. My mood was not improved.

I went home and took a nap. It seemed the most productive thing I could do.