Frustration

Life is frustrating - all the time! I spent a long holiday weekend with my nephew's family while he and his wife took a short, ten-year anniversary honeymoon. They have three wonderful children. All equally bright and each completely individual.

Sam's sisters, Susanne and Summer, took me with them while they "baby-sat" for their brother. The weekend was nice and the kids fun, though exhausting. They range from 14 to 5. But they, nor the visit, is the frustration I'm referring to - it is the return to reality that's frustrating.

About an hour and a half from home, I got a phone call from my mother. My aunt's daughter had been taken to the emergency room and my aunt needed a ride to go to her. I'm 90 miles away, what am I supposed to do? They had been calling around to try to get a ride but had not been successful. I told them I'd be home as soon as possible.

About 40 minutes from home, I called to check. My aunt's daughter-in-law had responded and taken her to the hospital. My niece, Summer, and I decided to stop for dinner in that case. We'd only been back on the road about 10 minutes when my sister called checking to see if it was okay for her to use my car to take my cousin home when she arrived from the hospital with her mother via taxi. She apparently couldn't wait for anyone to drive over to get her, so they were taking a $40.00 taxi ride from town to my house.

We arrived before my cousin and my aunt, so I ended up driving her home myself. My sister needed my car because she drives a tall truck and my aunt and cousin couldn't maneuver themselves into it.

So with that situation settled at midnight, I got online and went through over 500 email messages. At 2:30 a.m. I finished and started to go to bed only to realize that my cell phone was dying and my charger unit was still in my niece's car, locked, and she was asleep with the key to the car in her possession. Not wanting to waken her, I decided to take my cell phone for a drive to charge it up so my mother could call me if she needed something while I slept.

Thirty minutes later I returned home and climbed into bed. Turning on the VCR I started watching Eureka, which I had taped earlier. After falling asleep and waking and rewinding the tape three times, I decided to forget it and go on to sleep.

New day, multiple phone calls to distrub my sleep, and I finally wake up around noon. Good thing I'm retired isn't it? Got up to start critiquing the things for tonight's critique group. Sat down in my chair and plop, down it went. The pneumatic unit has finally bit the dust. It's been a good chair - I've had it about 4 or 5 years. But now the search begins for another to take its place. I hate shopping!

Then along the way my Internet Explorer decides it's time for an update and refuses to allow me to access my Hotmail account without it. It took about an hour to update because my computer kept freezing, and I'd have to shut down and restart. So now my arms are aching because of the low height of my chair, and it's time to get ready for critique group, and I just want to go away again where things were more simple and my real life ceased to exist.

Life is so frustrating.