Today is not the best of days.

True, the sun was out.

But the quality of my experience had nothing to do with the weather.

It had to do with watching the van slide down hill a couple feet and many minutes of terror that Adam would flip the van trying to get up the slick lawn. You see, there was this idea. To use the van as a very large wheelbarrow so that the mountain of firewood would be a cinch to move to the back of the house here in Rockland. And it seemed good at the time, and it seemed like a 4-wheel drive vehicle would go down a slopey lawn and back with no problem. Kevin was a little doubtful, and it turns out he had good reason for that. The stress of the slide moment stayed with me for a few hours, really. I was without the structure I create for myself every day, having poured all this adrenaline and unexpected time into helping make sure the Adam and the van made it up to the front yard unharmed.

I retreated to the now level van, parked at an odd angle, to write a bit and to read. I'm reading The Opposite of Fate, by Amy Tan. It's a creative non-fiction book about her life as a writer. It's entirely fascinating and keeps me drawn in page after page. I felt a little better after a few chapters of a life far more outlandish and harrowing and grief-stricken than my own.

Then I made it to the post office to mail my absentee ballot overnight, since the Registrar's office didn't get the ballot out to me until yesterday. (Apparently all the voter deadlines for registration and requesting absentee ballots change when you're past the CA border). At the post office, the kind postal clerk told me that it's only guaranteed 2nd day. I asksed what could be done about this. She said nothing--Express mail is the fastest they've got. Something to do with the origin and destination zip codes made it impossible to guarantee overnight delivery. It was 4:30. I needed to get back home to start dinner. I grimaced and decided to hope for the best--why stop now when I've spent all this energy getting the damn thing here? There is a chance it will make it there tomorrow, she told me. Sigh.

Back home, I prepared my first ever stuffed, roasted chicken. It took a lot longer than I expected, partly because I misread the cooking time. Then the stuffing wasn't hot enough. I waited longer. The temperature guage poking out of the thigh (my cookbook said that was the place to put it) reaced 200 degrees. I decided to take the stuffing out and keep cooking it, so the chicken wouldn't get overdone. I carved the chicken with some difficulty, as I've done it all of 3 or 4 times in my life, mostly with raw chickens. Dinner was finally on the table nearly 2 hours later than anticipated. Then Kevin notices a slightly pink portion of his chicken leg. Adam gets this horrified look on his face. I can't believe the damn thing isn't cooked all the way. Adam points out the pink juice on the plate of chicken parts. Oh, for crying out loud! At some point I put a napkin over my head while everyone laughed about Adam's paranoia. Raelin came over to get under the napkin with me. That made me smile. I fought back the urge to give up and go to bed right then and there--cry myself to sleep.

Now I've had some chocolate and we're about to go to bed and watch our favorite distraction from life--Lost. May tomorrow bring some emotional tranquility and a better turn of events!