A Perfect Storm

7:30 a.m. Sienna and I are eating raisin bran at the dining room table, while Parker batiks like mad in the kitchen. He has a craft fair show coming up on Saturday, so there are piles of shirts in various stages of the waxing/dyeing process all over the place, and the whole house smells like beeswax. Denali, earbuds in ears and backpack on back, is heading out the front door. “Bye guys,” he says, and I have this nagging feeling I was supposed to nag him about something before he left this morning. But it's too late – he's gone to catch his bus, and I still can't remember what it was.

Between 8 and 10 a.m., I make or receive at least ten telephone calls.

1. To Barry, Parker's first cousin once removed, who doesn't pick up. (I'd just gotten an email from him, saying he was in town with his mother – the notorious Great Aunt Mattie – and that he hoped they could drop in for a visit in the afternoon, which was the only time that would work for them.)
2. From Helen, my mother-in-law. (She wants to know why it was that Denali had never gotten in touch with the bass player guy who was supposed to be giving Denali his first bass lesson today. Oh, that's what I was going to nag Denali about....)
3. To my friend Georgia. (I've promised to help her cook dinner – lasagna, salad, and apple/pear crisp for 18 people – and I want to make sure we are on the same page about how many people we are feeding.)
4. To Travis, who is at work, and who asks if I can call him back on his land line, which I do.
5. From my mother.
6. From Georgia, who is at Trader Joe's, and who wants to talk ingredients and portions.
7. From Barry, who hasn't listened to the message I left him. (I basically explain that he's picked a day from hell, but that we'd love to see them before 1:30 or after 4:30; we finally settle on 5-6 p.m.)
8. To a lady whose car we are interested in buying. (I leave her a message saying to call me before 11:30 if we can come look at the car at noon, which is the only time that will work for us.)
9. From Helen, who says that she and Liz (Parker's sister) are writing a play together. (“It's partly about polyamory,” she says. “Is that okay? And do you want to help us write it?”)
10. To Georgia, who tried to call while I was on the phone with Helen. (She's ready to get started on the dinner prep, and wants to know if I can bring over some herbs from the garden.)

10-11:30 a.m. Sienna and I go over to Georgia's to help her with the cooking. Georgia and I manage to layer two pans of lasagna and make the topping for the apple/pear crisp – meanwhile, Sienna is going to Georgia's fridge every two minutes, helping herself to yogurt, apples, etc. Either that, or she's asking for things she can't reach, like frozen mangoes, which she nibbles on and then daintily discards. At 11:30, the lady calls about the car, and I grab Sienna and rush back home.

The noon-1:30 p.m. time slot is taken up by car stuff – a test drive, some rapid-fire discussion between me and Parker (who hates having to make these kinds of decisions), and the final wheel & deal session, in which I offer $500 less than the asking price. The lady says she'll get back to me on that.

At 1:45, I am headed to an elementary school, where I am supposed to be tutoring two fourth graders in reading. When I arrive, I am informed that I will be tutoring one second grader in reading, and one fourth grader in math. Although I have no math teaching expertise whatsoever, I do my best. So I'm alternating between “Little Critter has a puppy” and “Expressing rational numbers in standard and expanded form” until 4:15, when – oh joy! – the school day is finally over.

4:30-5:00 p.m. I arrive home to find that Parker has set up his batik booth on the lawn. He wants my input on the placement of items, the wording of signs, pricing, and a bunch of other things. Meanwhile, Sienna, who looks like an absolute ragamuffin, keeps taking off her shoes and her jacket and attempting to follow our neighbors into their houses.

5:00 p.m. Barry and Great Aunt Mattie arrive. They dutifully consult with Parker about his booth mock-up, and then I lure everyone inside the house for a cup of tea (the only hospitality I'm set up to offer). Mattie, normally vivacious and extremely friendly, seems subdued. Troubled, even. It's hard not to chalk her behavior up to the fact that she's recently become privy to the fact that Parker and I have an open marriage. (Parker's mother took it upon herself to spill the beans. Now, why in the world would Helen out our story to Great Aunt Mattie? Read my “It's a Small World (Redux)” post for the gory details – this afternoon's visit was the Scene Three I was dreading.) Barry is keeping up his end of the conversation with great aplomb, though, and so are Denali (who has a clever comeback for every statement uttered by anyone, leading Barry to conclude that Denali will probably become a lawyer for a Fortune 500 company, just to spite his hippie parents) and Sienna (“Mommy, can you tell me the story about Rosemary and the lion? Mommy, I SAID, can you tell me the story about Rosemary and the lion and the yeti and Malificent? Can you, can you, CAN YOU?!?).

6:15 p.m. Sienna and I bid a rushed adieu to the relatives and rush over to Georgia's dinner. The food's not quite ready, so I rush around the kitchen madly for a few minutes, chopping radishes, checking lasagnas, mixing together the salad dressing, etc. Parker and Denali join us all a few minutes later.

It's 8:30 p.m. by the time the dishes are all washed and the kitchen is cleaned up. I head home, where Parker has put Sienna to bed and is already elbow-deep in the batik again. We have a scattered 10-minute de-briefing session, after which I get in the car and drive the 15 minutes to Travis's place. He gives me a glass of ice water, listens sympathetically to my litany of “busy day from hell” woes, then leads me to the bed, which he's made up with fresh sheets. He's even got the covers turned invitingly down. Ah! That Travis is a very clever man: after the day I've had, his bed looks very inviting.

11:30 p.m. I don't really want to get out of Travis's bed and drive back home, but I finally make myself do it, because Parker wants to leave early in the morning, so he can go on a long hike. I get home just before midnight.

So, that's the story of yesterday, and days like that have been descending frequently, it seems. From my point of view, the trouble with such days is that 1) they give me no time to write, and 2) they don't make for very interesting blog entries later.

Why am I so obsessed with this whole blog project? I don't know, but I'm impatient for things to settle down a little, so that I can address that very question (not to mention the ten or eleven other topics I have in queue!).