Keeping your head down

 There are times in lives when you must live by the rule of keeping your head down and your nose clean.

Some people have long stints of it. Imagine living in a war zone! For some it's a way of life. There are those who fake the confidence and keep plates spinning . And then those who have a spike in merde attached to shorter periods.

Like for about 18 hours of my day today.

I heard the dishwasher in the wee hours singing a happy tune.

I heard V get up before me. He had a torrid few hours the night before for this reason and that.

I heard the cat.

Image: meme of Condescending Mediaeval Owls

These were not intrusive sounds. I did not know they were the sinister harbingers of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I do exaggerate.

But when I went in to my usually empty pre-dawn kitchen my husband greeted me with "happy birthday" and "where do we keep the tea now".

This in itself was in no way terrible. And yet this scene could really be used to juxtapose against the future horrors.

My sister messaged. Again, in no way an issue. We generally get a lot of chitter and reel swapping and Scotland plans together.

My computer, where tasks of bureaucracy before breakfast awaited. Thursday stuff.

Or rather, a plastic box or electrical components designed to frustrate me awaited like a baited trap.

So my next two hours was battling that dragon. 

Very, VERY first world.

Then breakfast. Good. 

Then teenager.

Hmph.

There is a good dose of me in Paris. And there is a decent dose of V.

There are occasions when that combo is awesome.

And there are times when she can bring out the suboptimal teenager's mother and there are times when the suboptimal teenager's mother gets to look in the mirror.

So on the upside I didn't have to do the school run this morning. And I had an additional phone, so winning.

I did get sung to on the way to work by 'Salina. That was a bright spot.

The podcast that I am listening to on my commute stopped playing mid-sentence about a block before i got there.

The acoustics of my desk must have blocked the greeting from Keith over the divide, or perhaps the deathly silence from my workmates at the Far North of my work corridor froze the soundwaves.

It seemed like the rings of business damnation were used to heat my workload today. Email duels were enacted in my inbox. Confounding formulas required rejigs and macro dances recalibrating, whilst meetings about data pulling bled into lunch breaks and the sheer stupidity of a few added a sheen of incredulity to the whole eight hours.

Dad called for my birthday on the way home. Even when 'Salina had called him this morning to wish him a happy anniversary of being a father it took some consulting of the calendar and deduction (with a final push from my sister) before he twigged.

It's been a few years since Mum was the instigator of birthday call and song.

I did buy myself some wine and it was a label that I recognised from my range of cheap but drinkable Pinot Gris, but it was not from my old local bottle oh.

I had not made my birthday cake this year and had booked for us to go to a decent Asian restaurant.

But do you know what? I did not feel like hopping in the car to go out and nor did anyone else so 'Salina agreed to collect the order and come to ours.

Image: wait time for take away

The final twist in the tale was the restaurant gave our takeout to the lady with the little boy and brown hair who said "yes, I am Jeanie here for my order" just minutes before.

However, blessings be, the restaurant remade the order completely and it was fabulous and the store bought cake divine and presents on point and I even won the last 2 games of Uno.