later the same day.........a happening.......

Here I am again, but this time I'm sipping on a well earned glass of wine...or two. I've mellowed since this morning when I began what I thought was a happy little ditty of a piece and turned into a sourpuss rantsy pants piece. What has mellowed me beside some crushed grapes? Well, it turns out, I'm psychic. I've always known that I had intuitive powers, but now I believe I'm psychic. I was also bit on the arse by my own predictions.........my own desire to avert yet another freaking "happening."

Before i get into my little admission.......my explanation of my psychic arse biting episode, let me give you a chance (if you haven't already) read my earlier post this morning........ I'll wait......

Scroll down and give it a read...... I'll just sit here and hum a Bay City Rollers song, take a few swigs, fill up my glass............while you read.

s-a-t-u-r-d-a-y NIGHT.......

Ok. Caught up? Good.

So.........I was writing about the dread I was feeling about waiting for a happening?? It happened. And, if this is the intensity of the happening I have to deal with, I'm going to be alright. Not only that, I just may get to laugh at the absurdity of life.....how if you wait long enough, you learn that holding pride too close knocks the stuffing out of that notion and quick.

This afternoon, the much anticipated overdue birthday party for my number 1 son took place. I had arranged to have the school gym for a couple of hours. This was the preferred site for all involved. Given the precarious weather we have had since July, an outdoor fiesta was too dicey. 11 year old boys are too darn rambunctious to be bouncing indoors in my house with hockey sticks and bouncey balls. Been there done that.... So, the gym was a GREAT venue. As a huge bonus, I was offered full access for free because of all the years being head honcho fund raiser at the school.

Last Wednesday while doing my best to multi-task my way out of drowning in my list of "to-do's", I stopped at the school to fill out the necessary forms for access to the gym.....you know the ones designed to sign your life away and to cover their no fault asses. I hadn't been in the school since last June and got caught up in a variety of conversations with staff.....catching up, filling them in on the kids.......me wondering how the annual Christmas bazaar planning was going and feeling a keen sense of belonging as well as continuity. So, yappy, yappy........somewhere along the line, the principal gives me the key to the school. I think. 'Cause I can't remember. I know there were keys involved in the discussion but whether or not I was given one or was told that the school would be opened on Sunday is a bit blurry.... it still is. Usually that was the case. If I had needed to use the school facilities for a meeting or setting up for the bazaar in the past, someone would be there to unlock it.

Papers signed, off I head back to work....with my list of todo's.........content that things were set up for Sunday's boy basketball birthday bash at the alma mater. The next day however (thursday) I get hit with the stomach flu and am out for the count for an intense short period. All bets are off on the completion of the to do list let alone my ability to focus and organize. It's all put aside until I can get back on my feet.

Fast forward........everything is ready for the 2 hour gymfest.....sports equipment.....drinks, cake, cut up watermelon, loot bags, and all the essentials packed..... I had arranged to be at the school 1/2 before the boys arrived in order to take charge! Charge! What a funny concept that is?? I mean who really is allowed to take charge when destiny is in the cards?

As soon as we pulled into the school parking lot, I'm struck with a lost and foggy thought.......hmmmmm...........I think I was given a key to the place.........hmmmmm...........

Let me tell you............the level of anxiety I was feeling right at that moment turned me into a peri-menopausal hot tamale.......knowing 10 boys and their parents were about to show up and I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had put the key???? It was then and there when I realized that not only was I psychic, I had been bit in the arse by my own prediction of a happening taking place. I caused the damn happening......... I had this urge to run away and choke myself.

Mad dashes ensued.... The "goods" and the family were dropped off in the parking lot and I rushed home to tear apart the house in search of the key all the while bashing my memory trying to remember what I had been wearing the day I had visited the school and got all caught up in conversations and catch up.......the day before I ended up praying to the Porcelain Gods. Scramble, scramble searching in pockets, under the bed, in the washing machine....I dug into my bottomless pit of a purse to no avail. In a flash of insight, I grabbed a bunch of sweatshirts for the boys who would no doubt show up in gym shorts so that the party could take place outdoors in the school playground and the telephone book to try and track down a teacher to save the day. This was plan B. Thank God the weather was nice albeit a little coldish.

I arrived back to find everyone assembled.......the boys trying to figure out what sport they wanted to play and not having much agreement.......my son on the verge of tears because of the chaos...........and the male parents standing around talking men talk. My daughter had put in her i-pod buds and removed herself to a picnic table to work on her art project. I had to face my own music and admit that I had completely fucked up my son's birthday party. I also informed everyone that this would be my very last kid's birthday party.

Once I got the boys set up to play road hockey in the parking lot, I made a bunch of phone calls to no avail. But, the boys were focused and I focused on trying to find my happy hostess persona while organizing the goods on the steps of the school. There was an air of disappointment for sure, because they were all so pumped to return to their old school gym and have it to themselves for the afternoon, but somehow we managed to keep them moving along scoring goals. There was one sourpuss (isn't that always the case???) who kept making mean comments and not wanting to play along. It was very tempting to choke him or at least restrain the little shit. Instead, I kept the thoughts to myself ...... well until his comments were heard and felt by the birthday boy, and then during a pep talk with Max to try to buoy him up I think I may have used the term dickhead to describe his friend. ah well.............Max has heard worse. He watches Will Ferrell movies. He hangs out in playgrounds. He has the ability to read the lips of pissed off hockey players on the ice.

Off to the field after the road hockey game slowed to a halt........and the urge to play soccer baseball was voiced.....except by sourpuss boy whom I'm tempted to ask who it was who peed on his cornflakes, but held my momma role model tongue.

It took a bit to get them organized again........teams and all that, but success was achieved. All of a sudden, a car pulled into the parking lot and out popped an eager beaver teacher. She very smilingly and lovingly believed me and my plight and opened the side doors to save the day and then headed up to her classroom on the second floor. While the boys are attending to the game, I moved the cake and other sundries into the foyer. Then, I placed someone's sneaker in the door to keep it ajar and went up to the field to announce that we had access to the gym. The boys, all full of vim and vigour, raced past me to the door. The first kid there is the dickhead sourpuss........turned out I used his sneaker to keep the door ajar. Unthinking, he grabbed his shoe and let the door shut.................LOCKED out again with the birthday cake inside glaring at us!!

I couldn't believe it. I felt like I was in the middle of some Abbott and Costello meets Seinfield sitcom........A happening that continued......I felt a bigger bite in the arse and cursed my psychic abilities. My desire to choke the sourpuss kid escalated but this time I'm not alone. Every single kid wanted to pile up on top of him. My son Max's tear ducts are ready to explode. I'm ready to sit down to laugh and cry at the same time. Off went my husband to circle the school to find the teacher's classroom window to try to yell up to her and get her attention as I try to unsuccessfully re-engage the boys to return to the field to pick up on the soccer baseball.......

It all looked lost until all of a sudden, we hear a whoop from the back of the school. My husband was a success......the teacher had been alerted by his incessant yelling up to the second floor and she came down again to re-open the door. THANK GOD!

In we ALL went.............and I breathed a very big sigh of relief as I threw the basketball in the air to start the game. They all stayed way past the end of the party. That's a good sign of a successful one isn't it? Think I'll refill my wine glass.....and toast to the end of a day.