Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. I appreciated the thoughtfulness of the comments.
The school didn't respond directly to my email but the gym teacher told my son that he "got my email and it was fine."
Wow, that's sort of anticlimactic.
;)
I don't know why I didn't post yesterday. I've been trying to be better about posting every day.
Actually I do know why I didn't. It's because I thought I did but I was wrong.
Oops.
Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my Thursday because it was fantastic (and I'm hoping it gets more fantastic still.)
It started out not so fantastic in that I had to get up at 6am - I know that this is a typical wake up time for many of you but it's early for me.
I showered and dressed and snuck out of my house into the driving sleet at 7am. I had an interview! I'm not ACTIVELY looking for a job but a headhunter called me and practically BEGGED me to take the interview and I figured, "What the heck!"
The weather was abyssmal but traffic moved steadily and I had allowed 2 full hours for the commute. I even had enough time to get gas. And yes, I SPLURGED on full serve because the 30mph winds were blowing the sleet horizontally.
It took me a leisurely 90 minutes to get to the appointment and I listened to music in the car while I waited.
The interview went great. The person I interviewed with was very nice and I already received feedback from the headhunter that they want me to come in for a second interview. WHOO!
I got out of the interview in plenty of time to make it to Boston for my next appointment - at the courthouse! I was hoping to appeal a speeding ticket that I got last month. The last ticket I got was 15 years ago - or more. I appealed it and they threw it out. In Massachusetts it's not the fine that gets you - it's the insurance surcharge - so I was hoping for a repeat performance today.
Of course when you appeal a ticket you aren't really arguing that you weren't speeding. It's hard to argue with LIDAR. All you can do is throw yourself on the mercy of the magistrate.
And if you're ever in this position I have a few words for you:
1) DRESS UP. You do not want people in the lobby of the courthouse proactively giving you directions to CRIMINAL COURT. There were people in the room wearing ripped clothing and with their jeans hanging down their ass and their boxers hanging out.
2) APOLOGIZE. You messed up. Admit it.
3) PROMISE NOT TO DO IT AGAIN. Really, this should be pretty obvious right?
The woman before me was fined for talking on the phone and texting while driving. How do you even talk and text at the same time? Then she made up some elaborate story about how she wasn't actually doing that. If Massachusetts State Troopers could laugh I'm pretty sure he would have before he stamped her appeal with a huge DENIED stamp.
Then it was my turn. I walked to the front of the room, sat in the chair and said, "I'm sorry. I was stuck in stop and go traffic for two hours and when I hit the exit ramp I accelerated. The trooper was at the bottom of the hill and he pulled me over. I haven't had a ticket in over 12 years - since my first child was born. I'm sorry and it won't happen again."
"Ok miss," he said. "We'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time." And with that I saved about $3500. *phew*
I texted my husband, "It's my lucky day!"
From the courthouse I raced to Tiffany's. I have a necklace that I got 12 years ago and it broke so I wanted to drop it off to have it repaired. Tiffany's - as you might imagine - is in a fancy mall in Copley Place and parking is non-existent. I pulled into the valet area of a local hotel to find a big "VALET FULL" sign. "UGH."
I said to the valet, "I'm just running in for 15 minutes."
"No problem." he told me. "Leave your car right here."
I ran to the store. Honestly, I was expecting the repair to be expensive but it was only $25. I'm sure I would have paid that for a lousy repair at my local jewelry store.
I ran back to my car.
I handed the valet my credit card. "We don't take credit cards." he told me. "But that's okay." he said, "You were only gone a couple minutes."
I handed him a $20 and asked for $15 back. In retrospect I should have probably tipped him the whole $20 because I would have paid that much to park but honestly I wasn't thinking.
I called my husband from the highway to tell him how well my day was going. "Buy a lottery ticket." he said. "I should." I answered.
40 minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of my local grocery store to buy comfort food for dinner because the driving sleet had changed to howling wind and was coming down hard. There's a good chance we'll lose power tonight.
I threw steaks, mushrooms, potatos, asparagus and rolls into my cart and headed toward the checkout. I got in line behind a woman with 5000 items and resigned myself to a bit of a wait.
"Excuse me." someone said. I turned. "I'm opening up on register 3." the kind woman said. A minute later I was on my way.
"Oh snap!" I thought. I DID want to buy a lottery ticket but I'd left my purse in the car (with the $15 cash) and had only brought my debit card into the store. Oh well, I needed more cash anyway. I grabbed $100 from the ATM and headed toward customer service.
Confession: Despite the way this post sounds, I'm not a huge lottery fan. A friend once told me that the lottery was a tax on dumb people (who don't realize how bad the odds are) and I agreed with him when I was young and single and making more money than I needed. Now I think of the lottery as entertainment and the $2 cost of the ticket gives me permission to dream anything I like. That's a much better ROI than a movie.
Still, since my kids have gotten a bit older my husband has taken on more of the grocery shopping and I dont buy many tickets any more so I had no idea what drawing was tonight.
"Give me two powerball and two megamillions" I told the woman. She did.
"Which one is tonight?" I asked her.
"Neither." she told me.
"Well what drawing is tonight?" I asked her.
"Lucky for Life" she told me.
I'd never heard of it. "I've never heard of it." I told her.
"It's new." she told me.
Hm. If I was buying a ticket because it was my lucky day, "Lucky for Life" seemed like the right ticket to buy.
"Give me two." I told her.
I handed the woman one of my 20s and got $10 in change.
I carried my steaks and my hopes out to the car.
Suddenly I noticed something fall out of the corner of my eye. It was my $80! I'd stuffed it in my coat pocket and the whipping wind had blown it out. It landed in a 2" deep puddle. I pulled it out and held onto the sopping, brand new bills as I walked to my car.
"That wasn't lucky!" I told myself.
"Noticing it was!" I argued back.
"Fair enough." I conceded.
As I approached my car I was puzzled to see that there was a HUGE scratch on the back bumper that hadn't been there when I'd gone in to the store. "UGH!" I thought.
I'm not much for cars. I figure that eventually they will all be dented and scratched so I try not to worry to much about it. Still it was BIG SCRATCH.
"THAT'S NOT LUCKY!" I thought.
Then I glanced up. "That's not my license plate!" I had been so distracted by the money falling out of my pocket and into the puddle that I'd walked up to the wrong silver sedan.
I hit the unlock button and turned toward the sound of the beeping. There was my car - in the same perfect condition I'd left her.
I got in, drove home and told my husband what a lucky day it had been.
The lottery drawing was at 10:38pm. It is now 10:47pm. I COULD go check to see if we are winners but that would be the end of my ticket to dream.
The prize is $1000/day for life.
I'll let you know if I won at #wineparty.
What would you do if you won? Would you quit your job and live on the money or would you keep working and build up a nest egg? I *THINK* I'd like to keep working for a few more years and save up some college money and some retirement money but that would probably only last a couple days until my boss said something ridiculous and I answered with a big "I QUIT!"
$1000 a day for life? I might email my ex boss if I was around a computer someplace.
Posted by: joeinvegas | March 08, 2013 at 09:47 AM
can't wait for #wineparty to see what happened!
Posted by: Katie_LF | March 08, 2013 at 01:25 PM
I missed the wineparty but I'm hoping you had good news to share :)
Posted by: Ian McMillan | March 09, 2013 at 12:30 PM
Oh I would quit this job but I would find another one... I can't imagine not working but I think I would do something more on my own terms. :)
Good Luck!
Posted by: Aimee | March 11, 2013 at 12:41 PM