(lest you think my photography has vastly improved the above photo is from iStockphoto)
I am having one of those really trying days where positively nothing is going according to plan. It’s Rick’s birthday and being that I am without a car this week I arranged to secretly rent a car so I could do some birthday related errands. The rent a car place, who shall remain nameless but claims to be enterprising, confirms my reservation for this morning and says they’ll even come pick me up.
I call them bright and early to arrange the pick up time and the girl answering the phone informs me she doesn’t have any cars available and she’s hoping to have a return by 1:00pm or so. That’s pretty much when I want to be home, wrapping birthday gifts and baking a cake so I tell her that will just not do. Sorry she says. I gave her a little lecture about how if there wasn’t expected to be any cars they should allow the reservations to be made. I could have tried, oh I don’t know, half a dozen other rental car places instead.
We left it that she would call me when she had a car come in and in the meantime I might try making other arrangements.
So on to Plan B. I figure if I can at least make it to the grocery store before 1:00pm it wouldn’t throw my schedule too far off. I go on line to a certain brightly hued cab company, who shall also remain nameless, and look to see if they service my little community. They do! They even have a handy fare calculator that indicates my fare will be $7 each way. Excellent since I have all of $20 on me. I figure with tip it would be $10 each way. So I called the cab company and confirm with the dispatcher that they do indeed service my town and arrange for a cab to come get me
Which does about 30 minutes later. I pop into the car with my little wicker shopping basket and give the driver directions to the grocery store two and half miles away. He’s halfway down the street when he turns to me and says "You know it’s a $25 minimum fare, don’t you?" I sputter for him to stop the car because "NO – no one mentioned that – in fact I thought it was going to be about $7 and I had exactly enough to get to the store and back home again." He seemed very put out by this (and is still driving me down the street) but says it’s the dispatcher’s fault. It ended up being way more than $7 anyway so I just gave him my $20 and told him it was all I had.
I did my grocery shopping, trying to keep my chin from quivering too much and walked the two and half miles back home with carrying 15 lbs. of groceries. I do wish I hadn’t picked today to wear my thin soled, pointy toe boots.
Since I had the time I did some reflecting on the walk. I’ve been mulling over what my new year’s goals are going to be. It’s been a trying few years, both personally and professionally and I feel like I’m in a constant state of battle with myself to have a positive outlook and to just have fun and not get too caught up in inevitable stresses and struggles. I’m afraid of becoming a dour old sourpuss if things continue as they are. And isn’t easy to just slip into that poor me mindset?
So my goal for 2007 is simple: Find joy.
Why just on my walk I saw a flock of geese just peacefully pecking in the grass, I saw the sun come out and a teeny little green snake warming itself and I met a new neighbor out tending her yard while the weather was being cooperative. I have a birthday cake in the oven and Belle is enjoying the last few days of the Christmas tree.
2007 is going to be a walk on the sunny side of the street.