So, funny story. Sunday I did get double-digit miles and I did hang out with my dad for a bit and then got into some weird art happenings where I managed to fall and smack my face on the ground and gave myself a nice big shiner for professional development on Monday! I’ve gotta stop posting things about what I’m going to do the next day because inevitably they go a little sideways, story of my life apparently. We did get some great work done on the Book of the Dead II for the Spiderdead show coming up in a couple of weeks and I had a chance to talk with some people about life and things, all before the fall.

Monday was a tiny bit more relevant at work, we had a chance to talk to some people rather than be talked at for the whole time. I always forget how deep one can get into their own research and forget that there is more going on out there than just what happens inside the office. I remember hearing a Shakespeare scholar talk once about how amazing it was to see the plays performed rather than to just read them, like he had made some profound discovery that the rest of us needed to get into. Yeah. Plays meant to be performed? You don’t say. I went out and ran on Monday and then headed over to Summit for what would be my only climb of the week as things got busier than anticipated the following days.

I ran on Tuesday when I got off work and then headed over to Bess and Trent’s place to play some music in anticipation of an open mic at Rubber Gloves that Trent is hosting. We played for a couple of hours getting some things ready to go but the weather had been shifting around quite a bit and my voice was feeling ragged by the end of the evening. Bess sent me home with some homemade stew and I settled in with some tea and hoped things would be fine for Wednesday. They weren’t. My voice was totally shredded and I was introducing some new information for my classes so I was talking a lot all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, by Thursday I didn’t really have much voice left at all.

I went to pick up the kids on Thursday evening and of course, the black eye (more purple at this point and really not the worst in the world) was a point of some concern. We headed back to the house and made burgers for dinner while the kids got settled in for the night. Friday I was completely without a voice and my phone was being really weird (changed carriers) and my car had a low-pressure light on and so instead of talking all day, we had a movie day previewing the show the local community theatre is producing for a couple of weekends. I spent a couple of hours during the day on calls trying to figure out what was going on with my phone and added Friday rehearsal last week since we missed on Monday. By the time I made it home and got off the phone with Apple and discovered the nail in my tire and the kids and my dad showed up wanting to eat…I was pretty stressed out. I had that feeling of everything falling down at once and me sitting here trying to keep it up. My dad took us out for dinner, my phone finally started working again and my dad offered to take my car in on Saturday so I could spend it with the kids instead.

Saturday we spent a few hours timing a 5K for a volunteer fire station. The kids had a good time, Sam got himself in and out of the firetruck more times than I could count. Things went smoothly and we were out of there by 10 am. We got back to town and took naps, none of us had slept very well the night before, my dad took my car out for the free tire repair and we made pizza bread for the pumpkin carving party we were headed to that evening. Pumpkin carving was a good time! We had some food and enjoyed being around other people and the kids had a blast running around acting like…kids.

Sunday we just took things easy, went for a walk over the TWU and explored the garden and the chapel and then went up to Rose Costumes for a fitting with my students for the show. The kids really let their imaginations run when we at the garden, the last time I was there was when we were taking photos of “Alice in Wonderland” for the TWU tour to Edinburgh in 2008. They found the statue of of what I assume is St. Francis but decided it was something from anime and treated it that way. We walked over to the chapel and it turned out that it was open so we walked in and the kids enjoyed exploring the building and getting a feel for what the acoustics in that kind of space are like.

We spent a couple of hours at Rose Costumes getting things squared away for work and then over to LSA for a late lunch and back to the house for a couple of hours before pickup. Since I picked them up on Thursday, I’ve been getting weird vibes from their mother and while I recognize I’m not responsible for her feelings, I’ve been trying to communicate about the kids a bit more and getting little to nothing back. Sam left his coat at the house and even though I walked out of the house before they drove off, I wasn’t seen. I’ll bring it to them on Thursday but the level of “don’f forget…” or general “I’m going to talk to you like you are mentally ill” vibe I’m getting is making it difficult, even my kids are treating me at times like I don’t know what they need. It’s hard.

I went to climb out the vibes from the pickup and the gym was set for comps so I decided to get a run in instead. I headed out and saw the clouds coming in, half the sky covered in clouds, the other half clear, and thought about the obvious metaphor. On my way back to the house, lighting and thunder started rolling through and I didn’t know if I would make it back before the storm hit. I rolled up to the house just as the first drops of rain fell, sheltered from the storm. This morning, the world was washed clean and the chill in the air made things feel clean and new.