God Bless America

And I mean that in the sense of, "God bless him, he's an asshole but he's my uncle so we'll have to invite him to the wedding."

On this day before I have some whittling done to my face I've had no less than three people ask me, "Are you nervous?" Quite honestly, no. Keyed up in that way you get before you do something you know nothing about but not so nervous. Then 2 things happened to just explode nervous energy all over me like spaghetti-os on a toddler.

1. The doc's office called to say that I needed a referral. Well, if I wanted, I could always pay the higher non-referral price of course. Oh, and by the way, the girl was sure to remind me numerous times, she was doing me a favor by giving me this courtesy call because I was a first time patient, it was entirely my responsibility/fault. I got it taken care of but not before my blood pressure went through the roof and I called my regular doc's office and got no answer and a bunch of stuff like that. Health care in America is patient-centric and awesome, oh yeah.

2. On the way home there was a weird and seemingly causeless traffic jam on a major thoroughfare alongside the park. When I got right up to it I saw that there was a large lab-adjacent dog standing in the road not doing much of anything. He had tags and a prong collar and he looked familiar so I called and whistled and sort of got his attention but he wouldn't move. So I moved toward him slowly. I didn't get more than a step but he barked at me and jittered out of the street and onto the sidewalk ahead of me. When I approached again he lit out into the park. One lone dude was up on the hill and it turned out they belonged to each other. They got reunited and the guy was freaked and thankful and I ran into him again nearer to home. He still doesn't have a clue how the dog got that far away which is weird since it isn't off leash time so he should have been keeping a much closer eye on his dog...but anyway, crisis averted after again putting my actual heart into my actual throat.

Coming home after that afternoon/evening was anti-climactic. If we don't get home in time to buy cat food tomorrow (special food, gets delivered on Tuesdays, until tomorrow they're out) then they'll eat dog food. If I can't figure out what to bring for a snack I'll buy a snack later. None of it will be as bad as watching that dog get hit would have been.

I was talking to Chili today and a lesson I learned in drama school kept popping up: Think. Breathe. Speak. I write it at the top of any reading or public speaking I ever do. I think it's going to be the watch phrase for the week.