The Dreaded "A" Word

That's right, I'm not even going to say it. You'll just have to figure out the word yourself. However, I will give you some clues. Take for instance this weekend when I had scheduled to chat it up with an awesome friend of mine (Hi, Kelly!). The day before I was thinking of her and thought we really need to plan to get together. Come Saturday night at around 10:30 P.M. I checked my email and lo and behold there was one from her cell phone asking, "Are we still on?" sent at 10:30...A.M.! Immediately my mind heard the epic words of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, "The HORROR! The HORROR!" and then my mind raced to the horror of the "A" word. A word that signifies you are forgetting important things and you're slipping fast into the perils of old age.

To continue with my major slip-up, I raced to locate what I consider my bible of organization - my beloved planner. That little book keeps my schedule (and my brain) straight. When looking at this week I could barely read anything because there was so much crossing off, circling, and re-entries. No wonder I messed up on meeting up with her. Listed were several days of my cousin visiting from Washington state. She arrived just as school was winding down while my fabulous car (NOT!) had the engine light icon light up so a choreography of coordinating my car with my mom's and my sisters was implemented in order to make various appointments such as seeing my bank rep because of a major fiasco that happened with my renting a car. Don't get me started. That story is at least as long as the week. Suffice it to say, I had money transferred by phone so I could have immediate access to rent a car and nothing was processed for 10 days - including the day I needed to rent a car. In order to make funds available that morning I was advised by Chase to deny payment (Say What?!). No, it didn't make sense but it worked...until 7 days later when my credit card said I was $200 over limit. 

I could go on but instead I'll just continue with the fact this week I joined Spence for two appointments with two UC Advisers, I met with a woman interested in ASAP, I created a vegetable garden for my mom, I took my sister to and from the airport and looked after her place. Throw in the fact that the previous weekend I traveled to L.A. on Friday (with the rental that 'caused a major financial domino effect!), attended a wedding in San Diego on Saturday and Sunday traveled back to L.A. with Spencer and then started up my last week of school. Tired by just reading this stuff? Me too! And last but certainly not least, add in that my mom has been to and from emergency a couple of times because of a brain aneurysm she had on the night of Spencer's graduation. No lie. Luckily, she is doing fine but man, what a scare!

So I'm concluding this entry with the optimistic point of view that it was not the dreaded "A" word that caused me to totally zone out on an important chat fest with my hilarious friend Kelly but it was the "O" words - over scheduled and overwhelmed. Perhaps I should do what most people do in the summer and schedule out a little bit of R & R time. It's going to be a little difficult though, considering this week I'll be traveling to San Jose for an interview with KQED, possibly another job interview in L.A. and then attending Orientation Day with Spence for UC Davis. The next week I'm scheduled to be working two jobs, setting up a grad party for Spencer and looking for a new car. Maybe the trick is I need to just get rid of my planner!