An Otherwise Depressing Day

I started my day looking at the returns on the CNN and NBC News sites. Neither were great fun, and because I saw the beginnings of the returns last night, I didn't sleep that well. Then again, almost anything makes me sleep not so well. I'm not good at sleeping.

Next up was an employee training session. Imagine sitting in a smallish warehouse with the roll up door open at 9am. It's cold and I'm trying to pay attention to the intricacies of Medicare inspections as they relate to rental depots.

After that I'm off to deliver things. I usually listen to NPR, but it's being overrun with Bush's acceptance speech. I switched back and forth between that and Absolution, by Muse, thinking that I would much rather listen to Muse, but that this might be kind of an important news snippet.

My day ended with a delivery in Napa where a nursing home resident decided to regale me with the tales gathered wisdom of her life. She likes dogs. She lived in Egypt for 3 years. She assures me that Egyptians steal dogs, among other things, which they sell to the zoo. But they can't help it because they are poor.

Then she told me that it was coming up on her 79th wedding anniversary, except that her husband had died in the 80s. He worked on airplanes and loved his job. He wanted to make sure that everyone who got on one of his airplanes felt safe. Whenever she rode on one of his airplanes, she felt safe. She crossed the ocean so many times she lost count, and never felt afraid. Now, she says, she's afraid of everything. It's terrible to be afraid of everything all the time.

The only way to end a day like today is with a stiff drink. So I stopped by Jack and got a pumpkin pie milkshake. A little sweetness with which to end an otherwise depressing day.