Knitting? Are You Kidding Me????

This has been one of those days where it has paid to have a sense of humor.  Sometimes you just need to chuckle or you will suddenly be overwhelmed with the need to repeatedly bash your head against the nearest solid surface or tell the local biker gang that their leather vests make them look all sissified.  

It's better to find your inner third grader and make a few fart jokes.  Trust me.  

I woke up in the wee hours today following a somewhat detailed dream about gigantic spiders taking over the earth.  That, in and of itself, isn't all that unusual.  I do not care for spiders and would not be surprised one little bit if they suddenly grew to epic proportions and then trapped me in my home.  I probably would have just gone back to sleep had it not been for the other little problem that manifested itself:  

The excruciating pain in my right shoulder and (to a lesser degree) side.  

There is no reason to help me out with this one or try to educate me any further on the matter.  I know what this means.  And the health care plans are being adjusted accordingly.  I have gone from zero to full-on "Monkey Pox" in a shorter time than I thought.  And I am not happy about it.  It hurts.  A lot.

I was able to get back to sleep for a bit, though.  That was good since I had to be present and with a pencil at the ready for my scoring duties at this year's Maine Academic Decathlon.  I've assisted and/or worked for this organization for many years and had no intention of letting a little thing like lack of sleep or a possibly life-threatening disease get in my way.  My more recent responsibilities are of the "paying" variety and also usually allow for some knitting time in between having to record scores for the various events.  It's not hard work.  I could sit there just as easily as I could sit at home.  And "there" came with a paycheck and a free lunch.  You do the math.

Besides, I figured that if I collapsed from all the illness there'd at least be witnesses.  It would be nice to have someone call the ambulance for me, right?

I am often late for this event, though.  Today was no exception.  I probably would have made it almost on time had I not missed the turn to the high school where the Decathlon was being held.  Or if I hadn't thought that I was going through a yellow light when I tried to turn onto a side street to get myself back to where I needed to be.  It was a stupid move.  As the nice police officer who issued my ticket said:

Seriously...I had to go back and look at the video of it before I came to talk to you.  You really didn't see me sitting right there???

No.  I did not.  What can you do in this situation except own your behavior?  This is especially important when you have forgotten to switch out your insurance card for the current one and are busted on many, many levels.  Officer Friendly was good about it, though.  He let me go on the red light issue and explained how I could contest the insurance matter.  He promised he wouldn't fight me on that one as long as the car was insured.  I have decided to look at the whole matter as an adventure.  I've never been to traffic court before!  I'm like a real Bad Girl now!!!

I arrived at the Decathlon, (now very late), and made my way to the scoring area.  There I found my friend Mike poking half-heartedly at a dissembled scanner machine and surrounded by people offering suggestions that even I could tell were overly optimistic.  Long story short, the machine that scans all the test forms had died an unfortunate death.  It was beyond repair.  The replacement machine we brought in was incompatible with our test forms.  This meant that literally hundreds of tests were going to have to be scored by hand.  By two of us.  Within a very short time frame.  

We did it.  There was nothing else to do, really.  We scored tests and input data all day long.  I took a fifteen minute lunch break, Mike took three to scarf down his pizza.  We were behind our normal time for getting the scores out to the coaches, but not as off-schedule as everyone thought we would be.  We caught a few lucky breaks once the nonsense was over with.  And the good news is that when you are scrambling to do by hand what a machine normally does for you, you don't have time to worry about being sick.  See how I found that silver lining?  

But if you are looking for knitting, you'll have to go elsewhere.  Between battling the plague, the long arm of the law and technology gone horribly awry, I have had little time for such pleasant pastimes.  Tomorrow is another day, though.  I will probably still be sick, but I know I won't have to hand-score a thousand test forms.  And I'm reasonably certain I won't have to bat my eyes at the cute, little policeman looming over me through the car window.  At least I hope not...

If you need me, I'll just be here on the couch.  I'm easy to spot.  I'm the one breathing shallowly so as not to hurt my lungs and wearing an I Fought The Law And The Law Won t-shirt.

SA