Skip to main content

A Weird Thing


A weird thing happened today. I was driving the puppy to the park because we like to take walks there, and I passed a sign, one of those big yellow ones on black legs with moveable letters. It was directing people to a Christmas shop that will open Saturday December 10 for some special sale or something.

I was turning a corner and needed to watch traffic, but the words "Saturday, Dec. 10" caught my eye, and I said to myself, "But Saturday is the 11th." It is, isn't it, I thought to myself. The orchestra will be performing our Christmas concert on Saturday, and I have been focused on it for weeks. I started by putting together the newsletter plugging it, and then going to a show at Kent Stage to help promote it, and then I moved onto planning our involvement in the parade and then onto a cookie thing for after the concert—I'm going to taste test some Christmas cookies at a new bakery tomorrow!—and then onto practicing my part for the concert and then rehearsing, too.

So, you see, it's a big day, and nearly everything I've done or thought about doing for the last several weeks has led to it. I've had it in my head for what feels like forever, and I've known the date on the calendar. Suddenly, seeing it on the big yellow sign set me back because it's the 11th, right?

I kept driving to the park, wondering if I'd screwed up. What if I put the 11th on the newsletter, and maybe the error was missed in proofreading? What if I have been wrong all along, thinking it's the friggin' 11th when it's really the 10th? But I'm at the park, and I'm walking the dog and can't do a thing about it! I can't even check the newsletter to see if I'm panicking for nothing!

Finally, back at home in my warm house, I get the puppy settled in, and I sit down at my mactop and check my work. Yes, Saturday is the 10th, and apparently I've known that all along. My work is accurate, and I have nothing to worry about. Nothing, that is, except this business of suddenly changing the date in my head for no apparent reason. Nothing, that is, except doubting myself almost to a minor frenzy.

All is well, though. The big yellow sign is correct. My newsletter is correct. The big date I've been working toward is right where it should be. Weird, eh?

Here is the newsletter, by the way. We'll be sending out an issue about a week ahead of every concert on the schedule.

Comments

dive said…
I wonder how many people will turn up for that sale on the wrong day.
3:17 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No More Mr. Nice Guy

It's good to be a nice person--to say nice things, to do nice things, to write nice things--but I declare an end to the use of the word nice. Nice is what you say when you can't think of any other adjective. Someone shows you a picture of their back yard--that's nice. Someone tells you about their afternoon adventure--that's nice. Or someone describes their childhood in great detail and sometimes with painstaking effort--that's nice. It's a lazy word, and it's non-descriptive. Nice is like mashed potatoes with noodles and chicken gravy all in a big pile on one plate with some canned corn for garnish. Everything is the same color and texture and base substance--starch (this is a favorite Amish dish). Nice is like a partly cloudy day in April when outside feels like inside, and you can't tell a difference between the lighting and the temperature of your living room and the lighting and temperature of your front yard. Nice is a glass of lukewarm water. ...
20 comments
Read more

Ish People

Tell an Ish person to show up around 9 a.m., and you'll see them somewhere around 9 a.m. Tell them to show up at 9ish, and you'll see them anywhere from 9:05 to 9:20. You have given them license to dilly dally, and who wouldn't take advantage of that? The other night at the big shindig dinner party, one of the drummers said the rehearsal the next morning would begin at 9ish. "I am an ish person," he says. Immediately the clanker goes off in my head--oh, good, I thought. I can deliver my daughter a little late. No Ish person is early, so if you say 9ish, that does not mean give or take 5, 10, 15 minutes. It's exclusively a taking phrase. Take an extra 10 minutes to drink your cup of coffee. We won't mind. We're Ish people. Sunday's rehearsal started at 2:00. Because it was conducted by the same people who conducted the Saturday rehearsal, my understanding was 2-ISH. My daughter is worse than I am about taking liberties with Ish time frames, so she d...
14 comments
Read more

Long Live Anita Bowser

You know I occasionally check my hometown newspaper's website to scan the obituaries (morbid, I know, but I'm at that age). Over this past weekend, I read the obituary of Indiana State Senator Anita Bowser . She was a noted Democrat who championed causes protecting the neediest in the state's population. She was respected on both sides of the aisle for her intelligence and plain and outspoken approach to law making. The picture on her senate page is lovely. I remember none of those things about Anita Bowser . My first year or so in college was spent at a branch of Purdue University, and in the early 80s, Anita was a political science professor. She taught my American Government class my freshman year, and she was a mess. Somewhere in my old text book, I have a sketch of her drawn on a particularly dull day in class--her hose sagged at her ankles, her slip showed at least half an inch all the way around, her hair had been slept on but not brushed, and her bright red lip stic...
18 comments
Read more