I’m as surprised as you

Bad news all morning.

First, it was off to the dentist. I have cavities. By the end of October, I will have paid this office $700 out of pocket, with dubious prospects for reimbursement. Yeah, I totally have that to spare.

Next, it was off to the Circuit Court in the county where I live to pick up my notary commission. Since my name changed, I had to get my name changed on my notary commission; I applied for the name change before my new Social Security card came, and I was not allowed to pick up the commission when my driver’s license still had my maiden name. It took many weeks longer than I expected to get the correct Social Security card, and the frustration I experienced with this process over the summer is something I would have written a great deal about if I had been blogging at the time, thus boring the internet to tears.

In any case, I asked the court to hold my commission until I got my Social Security card and then my new license, which they are really not allowed to do for much longer than 30 days, and they said they would make an exception. Today, I went to pick up the commission, and they had sent it back to the Secretary of State, which means I probably have to reapply and likely pay another fee. I am not mad at them; they couldn’t hold the commission for me indefinitely, and it had been about two months. But it was a sincere annoyance that I couldn’t take care of it today, because it means I’ll have to take another hour off in the morning sometime in the next month or so to take care of it.

So, finally, off to work. Learning about bureaucratic hassle and dental work in my future before it was even 9:30 on a Monday did not make me enthusiastic to get to this job, which I dreaded all weekend.

But, strangely, I’m in a pretty good mood. I was feeling conflicted and depressed all morning, and I was deeply unhappy on my way to work, but now that I’m here and settled a little, and the stuff that I missed doing this morning isn’t really piled up or so terrible, and my perfectionist attorney was actually very friendly to me on the phone, life just doesn’t seem so bad, right now. Home is only 6 hours away.

Of course, in 20 minutes something will probably happen to change my mood again.

Think I’ll drink me a cup of tea to stave it off.