Hey, Lucy!

Lucille Ball has nothing on me.

Husband and I had a lot on our plates this weekend so we planned carefully to use our time and our gasoline to the best advantage. We planned to talk to the three offspring via long distance, as per usual for Saturday morning, pick up the house, leave when the maid came, drop by the bank to cash a check, gas up the car and fill up the lawn mower can, drive to Lowe's for bags of dirt to build up our planting bed, stop Husband's new glasses off at the optometrist's because something was wrong with them, run by the post office, then pick up groceries at HEB and drop off a prescription next door at CVS.

All three offspring were out of pocket when we called, which put our schedule back an hour. Two of them called back later, one flashing on top of the other, but we have yet to hear from the third one. Then, as I read the paper, I suddenly realized that there were 31 days in May, not 30, as I had supposed when I scheduled the blog I wrote yesterday to be posted on what I thought would be today but turned out to be tomorrow. At least I thought that was what had happened, but couldn't know for certain until I traced exactly what date I had scheduled the blog to be posted on. I searched the blogspot for half an hour and couldn't figure out how to find out what date I had specified.

Two hours after the maid was scheduled to arrive, we gave up on her and left the house. Three blocks down the road she passed us so we turned around and went back home to unlock the door for her and were off again. Husband was running low on gas and didn't want to stop at the bank so we went directly to the gas station, where he filled the tank and the gas can while I ran inside to get a lottery ticket (gotta pay the maid somehow) and a couple of bottles of Ozarka.

We drove toward the big shopping city ten miles away, missed our turn, and had to circle back about five miles. As we disembarked from the car at Lowe's, we smelled gasoline. The full can of gasoline in out trunk had fallen over and was now empty. We fled the car for Lowe's. Poor Robert was nearly asphyxiated when he packed our six bags of dirt into the trunk for us half an hour later. Then, with windows rolled down, we drove across to the optometrist's shop. I sat in the car for a few minutes while Husband took his glasses in. Then as the minutes ticked by and the gas fumes began to congregate inside the car, I escaped to the shop. It took ten more minutes until we left--minus the glasses, which won't be ready till Monday. Meanwhile I adjusted our list. The groceries could wait till tomorrow, but we did need to mail some bills and cash a check to pay the maid (I don't trust the lottery).

Then we headed home. The fumes must have gotten to Husband because he missed the turn to the post office and again we had to circle back. We tried to drop by the bank, but it was closed. At home, we parked the car outside the garage and opened everything openable. Then I had to make a mad dash to HEB to cash a check, stopping at CVS on the way to drop off my prescription.

I paid the maid, and Husband made waffles for supper. As I checked my blog once more, I realized all I had to do was go to the "edit" page to find out what day I had set my last blog for. It was June 1. I owe you one for today, so I have been typing madly for the past two hours, in between planting crape myrtle and cleaning up after dinner.

It was a day when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. As Robert Burns said, "The best laid schemes of mice and men/ Go oft astray." (Well, actually he said "Gang aft a-gley.") But the fact that people have said this sort of thing so often that it's become a truism is comforting to me. At least I know I'm not the only one in the world who has bad days. In other words, we're all in the same boat and misery loves company.