Journey to the Center

I’m trying to be very careful today. I have this sense of impending doom that I just can’t shake. There’s a very good reason for this, beyond the waking up crabby and trying to hide from the world.

This morning, a crow ran into the side of my car.

Note the phrasing there. The CROW ran into the CAR. I was just driving along, assuming that the bird taking off on the patch of grass to the right would be able to get his crap together in time to make it off the ground like every other bird in existence. Somehow, that just didn’t happen. The bird ran head first into the passenger window, trying to splat himself on my car.

Crow attempted suicide isn’t that common, is it? Are all the other crows going to attack my car because this one who knocked himself silly is going to tell the rest about how evil it is? I just have this terrible feeling that this is some sort of omen…

Today is funny, mostly because I’m crabby. There’s a lot going on today, in a mental-overhead sort of way and it’s taking some weird sort of toll on my brain and my ability to concentrate, making the day fuzzy and indistinct. It’s also making things funnier than they would normally be.

Take, for instance, the hallway yawner.

I’m walking along, minding my own business, headed off to heat up my lunch in the kitchen. Around the corner comes a big man in a bight yellow sweatshirt with his mouth wide open. The first thought I have is that he’s trying to eat the world. And then I wonder where he’s going to put it all, since it doesn’t look like the sweatshirt will expand that much.

I had to stifle giggles until I was safely in the kitchen and away from him. Passing his office has been dicey since then, I’m seriously tempted to let him know that he just shouldn’t try it. Too danged risky.

I now know that my neighbors use clumping clay cat litter. The kind that’s grey with little blue flecks in it. I also happen to know that this stuff stains beige carpet.

It all started out innocently enough. Wednesday, I stopped at the end of the driveway on my way home from work to pick up the mail. This time of year it’s dark when I leave for work and dark when I come home, so pulling into the driveway and walking along the semi-slimy side of the gravel driveway is always a challenge. There’s no sidewalk and the grassy/muddy edge along the driveway is full of potholes and giant rocks. Normally I don’t drive far enough down the driveway for this to be a problem; pop out of the car, walk 10 steps, grab the mail, and jump back in. A minute tops.

However, this Wednesday was special. I was stomping around in the dark, trying to avoid the puddles and the big ankle-twisting rocks when I stepped in something squishy. At the time I assumed I’d hit a nasty mud puddle, but since I didn’t slide too much or twist any ankles, I didn’t worry about it. I just grabbed the mail and got back in the car. I arrived at the house in the dark and climbed the stairs to take off my shoes and crash for a bit. I paid no attention to the weird sticking of my right foot on the carpeted stairs, I saw nothing unusual. Not until the next morning.

On my way out Thursday morning, my husband noted that there was a weird stain on the carpet. I vaguely remembered stepping in something odd and figured that I should check my shoes. Why yes, the arch under my foot had trapped some foreign substance that required removing. And man was there a lot of it. I cleaned off my shoe with about a dozen tissues, washed my hands and trundled off to work.

When I got home that night, my husband told me that he’d discovered the cause of the problem. He was cleaning up the stains on the stairs and the smell got him thinking. So he went down to the street and discovered that his hunch was right. The trash collectors had managed to drop a bag of one of the neighbors cat litter cleaning out of their trash can, and just left it where it fell. This sat in the rain for a day before I stepped in it, thus the slimy texture. So I’d been tracking some other cats pee around the house.

At this point, I’m just thankful that our cats haven’t decided that this is cause for a pee-war on the stairs.

At the company party earlier this month they had a photo area set up so all of us in our fancy clothes could get our pictures taken. This is not my favorite thing in the world to do, especially because I invariably gain 50 pounds for the camera. I have not yet mastered the angled stance to actually look my weight. But I can fake a smile with the best of them after years of school pictures.

My husband is another story altogether. He is convinced that he can only smile if he’s genuinely having a good time, and taking a picture is not fun. So instead he bares his teeth at the camera. He ends up looking like a wild animal ready to kill the photographer, even in his fancy suit. So in this picture of our fancy clothes, I look fat and he looks like he’s ready to eat someones head.

We discussed his inability to smile last night and the discussion went something like this:

Me: You need to practice smiling for the camera. You look like you’re baring your teeth here.
Him: I don’t like to smile for the camera.
Me: This is not about liking to smile for the camera. Or liking having your picture taken. This is about making a good picture.
Him: But I don’t smile. I laugh.
Me: No, you smile just fine. You just grimace at the camera. Try letting the smile reach your eyes.
Him: It’s still bad. See? *squints and bares teeth*
Me: Ok, try being cooperative for a minute. Pretend you’re happy for the camera.
Him: Pretend?
Me: Or just imagine the people who are going to enjoy seeing this picture.
Him: Hmpf. Don’t wanna.

Yeah. So we’re going to be practicing the smile some more tonight. And I’m going to be pretending his face is silly putty and molding it appropriately.