Rant-O-Rama

I returned from my lovely vacation earlier this week to be confronted with the following:

*a teen daughter needing four teeth extracted (a three-hour process, it turns out) and, subsequently, a diet of pablum - essentially.

*an employee at work who unexpectedly had an internship turn into a full-time position and put in her two weeks' notice, but stating that she was going to get as many of her shifts covered as possible...not such a big deal, except that she didn't get ANY of her shifts covered and then no-showed, thus putting a managerial schmuck like myself in the position of begging some of our otherwise overworked souls to pick up yet another extra shift and the ones I couldn't fill fell into my schedule. This meant double shifts for me this past week. Yes, plural.

*a partner who was enrolled in a week-long graduate course covering a quarter's worth of information; suffice to say, I got to do everything she typically does around the house, in addition to what I typically do, in addition to the double shifts and the healing daughter relegated to only consume pureed nourishment.

I've barely had two minutes for myself, save for some downtime spent working crossword and sudoku puzzles in between shifts at work. But I did have an opportunity to laugh this week.

I was pulling out of a parking structure downtown into rush-hour, bumper-to-bumper traffic. Well, trying to anyway. Despite inching out bit by bit, nobody would let me in. Grrr. I rolled my window down and smiled at the oncoming traffic, as sometimes this actually works (usually with men). Finally, a friendly-looking businessman slows down and gestures me over. I wave to him as a thanks and pull in behind one of the many cars that did not allow me to exit the garage. Then I noticed the bumper sticker on the back of this car. It said "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty." Apparently this does not include allowing the occasional vehicle to go ahead of you. I had to laugh. Then it occurred to me, perhaps my laughter during an otherwise cranky day/week was the senseless act of beauty they were bestowing upon me.

Nah, probably not.