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14 days to go

Feast Day Blues

OR
Today is my feast day.
It doesn't mean that much anymore...typically I hear from my parents that they remembered and prayed for me (thank you!) and that's about it. But I always feel like it's a secret birthday. My real one falls just days after Christmas...one of the worst periods in the calendar. However September 8 in Minnesota is beautiful and today was one of the best. Cool, crystal clear blue skies, and a Saturday on top of it. A friend was coming over in the morning to tackle the last of the Ikea projects and I was planning on taking my niece to lunch. A lovely day. Ha.
First a little back-story. Thursday night we had a brief storm. It didn't seem like much of anything until I let Bella out before going to bed. One of the long branches from my enormous silver maple had cracked and was lying on some power lines (though I still had electricity). I called the power company and they said someone would be over soon. The next morning I alerted my neighbors (the branch was on their line as well) and waited.
This morning it had been 3 days and I had heard through the neighborhood grape-vine that my next-door neighbors were quite upset that the branch was still there. I gave the power company another call and this time they told me that since the branch was still partially attached, it was my problem, not theirs. This seemed like splitting hairs, so to speak, but what really bothered me was that I'd been waiting for 3 days and could have taken care of it in the meantime if they'd given me the right information in the first place. So I had to cancel my niece's lunch and try and find a tree service which answered calls on a Saturday. When one finally showed up, the dollar figure they gave me to cut the branch made me lose my breath. But the branch is up at least 25-30 feet and no one else can get to it. The sun began to shine a little more dimly.
Then began a day of errors and small accidents: grease spilled on the floor (ycch), I tripped over Bella's water bowl, the fresh Mozzarella I had planned on for dinner had spoiled.
Now here's the absolute worst thing about today. I just learned that Bruce Springsteen is coming here in concert on November 2. Wonderful, right? Except I'm supposed to be in New York that night to take a weekend class with Hedi Kyle. How am I supposed to make that decision? Sometimes life is just too cruel.
(I wonder if my parents forgot to pray for me?)