There is no unifying theme here. Mostly grouchiness. A thousand apologies.

It's been a long week. I haven't blogged.

There was a snowstorm. It took me three hours to get the carpool home from school yesterday. What is normally a 25 minute trip. Upset baby. Low on gas. Boiling hot in the van, because I had to keep the defroster on high just to see out of the window because of all our breathing. Sweating, hungry, cranky children and stupid drivers. Whee!!!!!

Also, the freaking freelance client decided they wanted a restructure of the course, and I've had to work my kiester off getting it to them. I was up until 2:15 last night working on it. And then, today, they had the nerve to ask us in this annoyed way to present them the files in the format we FIRST used, way back when, that they subsequently asked to be changed. And now they have the nerve to pretend they never told us that, and act as if we were slightly retarded for not doing it correctly.

And today, both boys had school canceled, but I still had to go work at the dinner theatre matinee of "A Christmas Carol," which I was certain would be canceled because it was composed almost entirely of school field trips! But NO, they tried to run the show anyway, and sure enough, by the time I got the children to the two different babysitting situations I had to throw together last minute, and arrived at work late because my van had trouble navigating the unplowed neighborhood streets, all but 2 of the school groups had canceled, and then after we opened the house, one of the remaining 2 called in, and we ended up with 65 people in the house. Where it had originally been 470 or so! It actually cost the theatre money to put on that show today, and pay the actors and the servers and the kitchen staff and the tech staff, etc.

They should have canceled, and it was extremely irritating to spend all that freaking time distributing my children amongst far-flung helpful childminders and driving to work, for 65 intrepid souls.

Blech.

On a lighter note, in my copious free time (read: every time I take a second to breathe, when I really should be working on something, or cleaning, or sleeping), I've been unable to put down a little birthday present I bought myself, Ian McEwan's _Atonement_. (How does one make this damn thing underline stuff?) It is astonishing, and the engulfing thoughtfulness of it is what inspired me, along with the quiet of a late snowy night, to write my reverie. I absolutely could NOT put it down. It's been a long time since a novel swept me into its world so completely, and made me positively obsessive about it. I'm sorry it's over, and now I want to read everything he has written. I love the Brits. I do! LOVE! You know how some British singers lose their accent when they sing, but with others you can still hear it? And how that's so cool? Well it's the same with the writers. And I super-dig the really English-y ones. I highly recommend this book. It's unbelievable. I can't stop thinking about it.

You know what made me a little sad tonight? Well, we live in rather a poor neighborhood. It's either little old widow ladies, or redneck Nascar people. Oh, and us. Heh. But the poorer neighborhoods are always, I notice anew every year, COVERED in Christmas lights. Granted, they're usually sort of garish and tacky, but festive, you know? And usually it makes me happy that those who aren't so well off are so merry. But driving through my neighborhood after some me-time at the grocery store, I noticed that this year, many of the lights are half-out, and hanging haphazardly, and the overall effect is less merry and more, well, depressing. Sad looking.

I'm cranky and need sleep. Maybe that's it.

Fa la la.


p.s. Okay. My weather pixie has a Christmas tree. That just made me feel a tiny bit better. Cute!