This is turning out to be day when everything pisses me off. It started out so well ...one minute I was thinking about how nice hot soapy water feels on glass as I did the morning dishes ... I bought a new (for me) Norah Jones album and was listening to it while I folded clothes and hung up clothes and looked at all the shirts that need to be ironed ... again ... and the day was humming along ... texts from kids requesting services ... a candy wrapper under the coffee table ... a toilet not flushed because a whitening strip had fallen in after the deed and well, we can't flush that! ... and then I'm standing at the washing machine making sure the settings are right for this load and I feel someone right there ... and I turn around tensing ... frightened ... totally off guard ... I thought I was alone in the house ... and it's my husband. "Oh! You scared me!" I say. I can hear my heart pounding through the ear buds ... and he laughs. "It's not funny," I say and he tells me he didn't do it on purpose, still laughing.

I am still working on yesterday's stuff. A kid called before lunch. I don't know him ... couldn't even place the name ... then I realize he's the second gen (Dad was here years ago ... now flying out of Arizona) recipient of special kid glove mentoring services offered by the senior pilot in the area who I also consider a friend. He gave this kid my number. The kid wants to talk about CFI stuff ... he's getting ready to bail on being screwed over here at the local flight school ... as I did back in September. He wants some insights ... we talk. Turns in to a long talk ... which was okay, that hands free stuff with my phone is really nice ... which turns in to him wanting to buy me lunch so he can see what I put together for my CFI notebook ... and stack of Oral Prep stuff ... and I tell him I'll do coffee one morning later in the week ... call me back and we'll set it up. "What/who was that?" husband casually wonders and I tell him it was one of Steve's guys and so I'm gonna help him out. Husband says I would help him out anyway cause that's just how I am ... which is true. So I was stewing on that a little this morning ... the whole after the certification process thing for me ... and how it hasn't gone as I expected. Seems like no matter which way I turn it's just not coming together. I can't keep on at this ... it's like being in an indefinite hold ... I'm just about tapped out on fuel so to speak. I re-boot for the afternoon house wifery duties ... grocery shopping ... comes right after refrigerator and pantry cleaning ... I swear there is so little time for bon-bon popping! Receive texts from kids requesting services ... four of the five remain with "Center". And a surprise chat with a long lost friend ... 25 years ago friend ... started our marriages and little families ... church and zoo days ... can I borrow your new high heels friend. There were six of us ... and we all got along so well. Then we, my family, moved away and slowly, but surely, I lost touch with all of them. She was catching me up. Mostly news of horrible divorces and kid's in and out of rehab ... unbelievable news. They are all still in their early thirties in my mind's eye ... with precious sweet smelling babies. No broken dreams ... .
How do I look right now? She wants to know and I ping her a picture. She looks about the same too ... still a vivacious blonde ... we would still be friends if we lived close by ... we laugh about an old (painful for me) memory of her trying to get me to use a thing (I think it was called an epi - torture, something like that) for pulling the hair on my legs out ... yeah seriously ... now she has her whole legs waxed she tells me ... by Asian entrepreneurs ... I'm listening and shaking my head no way ... I think the vibrating Gillette fusion razor is daring enough ... we girl talk back and forth while I shop (yeah that's what our top secret girl talk is about ... perfecting smooth finishes and such) ... and then we promise to keep in touch better. Out of six couples, only two marriages remain ... makes that fifty percent thing look pretty good.

It takes a lot of emotional energy to put the best face forward. I am tired. It's really good that I have a ground school (maybe) to plan for ... otherwise I think I'd have to pack this stuff away. Is there some stone I've left unturned? I wonder.