Irritation
Everything's irritating me today.
I woke up early to take Clyde to be groomed. They make you drop him off between 7 and 8:30, which really isn't very nice because that means he has to just sit there in a crate or wherever they put him, feeling anxious because he's Clyde and Clyde is always anxious unless he's sleeping, waiting for hours till it's his turn. He was really not feeling it today – the groomer had a hard time getting him to come back behind the gate.
Before I dropped him off, though, I had to get a poop sample for them, which means I had to take him on a walk. Sargent Rd is not the most walker-friendly street, especially at the moment, because traffic from construction closures on two surrounding streets are sending a bunch of cars down our little, sidewalk-and-shoulder-less road. So that was stressful. And I got mud and rocks in my shoes. Then when he finally pooped, it was smelly and messy and gooey, because, duh, it's poop, and I had to scoop it into a little plastic tube with a little plastic spoon. Pretty sure I got some on me.
Then Clyde wouldn't sit still while I brushed the mats out of his neck so they wouldn't cut his hair so close it irritated him, the construction made me later than I wanted, and Clyde was in general just a giant spaz. It always upsets me to leave him at the vet. It'd be better if I could talk to him and tell him what's going on – "You're just getting your hair cut, it'll be over in a couple hours, I'll be back to get you and we can get a treat." But I can't, so I just end up feeling bad imagining him there scared and anxious.
And then I went to the bank right down the road – via a 10 minute detour, of course, because of construction – to deposit a check because my app wouldn't do it, but of course the bank wasn't open yet. So I went to Starbucks to start working, where I promptly got yogurt all over my phone.
These are all first world problems. When I have days like this I need to remember how much worse it could be – maybe this is some kind of cosmic compromise, like "You can either have one giant, horrible, tragic thing happen to you, or you can have all these little annoying or small time things happen right in a row." Of course I'd choose the annoying things any day.
Instead of dwelling on the fact that I have two projects to get done today that I don't really want to work on, or that I'm not making as much progress as I want on either writing or Olive & Clyde, I can instead focus on the fact that I'm sitting in Starbucks on a sunny Friday, eating yogurt (what didn't make it on my phone) and writing a blog post, that Michael will be home tonight and we have no obligations this weekend, that I can sleep in tomorrow, that I have a check to cash, that I can pick up my newly non-smelly dog in a few hours, that I actually have orders to fill, that I'm living a life where I can pick up my dog in the middle of the day, that I can afford Starbucks, that I'm not sick, that I have a computer that works, etc etc etc. It's a little corny to do the whole "focus on the positive" and "be grateful" thing, but it does work. We get so fixated on what's not perfect that we ignore what already is.
So anyway. Time to work on consulting projects.
I woke up early to take Clyde to be groomed. They make you drop him off between 7 and 8:30, which really isn't very nice because that means he has to just sit there in a crate or wherever they put him, feeling anxious because he's Clyde and Clyde is always anxious unless he's sleeping, waiting for hours till it's his turn. He was really not feeling it today – the groomer had a hard time getting him to come back behind the gate.
Before I dropped him off, though, I had to get a poop sample for them, which means I had to take him on a walk. Sargent Rd is not the most walker-friendly street, especially at the moment, because traffic from construction closures on two surrounding streets are sending a bunch of cars down our little, sidewalk-and-shoulder-less road. So that was stressful. And I got mud and rocks in my shoes. Then when he finally pooped, it was smelly and messy and gooey, because, duh, it's poop, and I had to scoop it into a little plastic tube with a little plastic spoon. Pretty sure I got some on me.
Then Clyde wouldn't sit still while I brushed the mats out of his neck so they wouldn't cut his hair so close it irritated him, the construction made me later than I wanted, and Clyde was in general just a giant spaz. It always upsets me to leave him at the vet. It'd be better if I could talk to him and tell him what's going on – "You're just getting your hair cut, it'll be over in a couple hours, I'll be back to get you and we can get a treat." But I can't, so I just end up feeling bad imagining him there scared and anxious.
And then I went to the bank right down the road – via a 10 minute detour, of course, because of construction – to deposit a check because my app wouldn't do it, but of course the bank wasn't open yet. So I went to Starbucks to start working, where I promptly got yogurt all over my phone.
These are all first world problems. When I have days like this I need to remember how much worse it could be – maybe this is some kind of cosmic compromise, like "You can either have one giant, horrible, tragic thing happen to you, or you can have all these little annoying or small time things happen right in a row." Of course I'd choose the annoying things any day.
Instead of dwelling on the fact that I have two projects to get done today that I don't really want to work on, or that I'm not making as much progress as I want on either writing or Olive & Clyde, I can instead focus on the fact that I'm sitting in Starbucks on a sunny Friday, eating yogurt (what didn't make it on my phone) and writing a blog post, that Michael will be home tonight and we have no obligations this weekend, that I can sleep in tomorrow, that I have a check to cash, that I can pick up my newly non-smelly dog in a few hours, that I actually have orders to fill, that I'm living a life where I can pick up my dog in the middle of the day, that I can afford Starbucks, that I'm not sick, that I have a computer that works, etc etc etc. It's a little corny to do the whole "focus on the positive" and "be grateful" thing, but it does work. We get so fixated on what's not perfect that we ignore what already is.
So anyway. Time to work on consulting projects.