I got up this morning, as usual, brushed my teeth and got in the shower (after scratching all the excess skin flakes off my back, shoulders, and arms—I’m peeling again). Got my things together and headed off to work, as usual. I made pretty good time on the highway and enjoyed singing along to the new mix album I made for the car.
Then I get to work, try to clock in, and it tells me that I’m not scheduled to work today. WTF? Last time I checked the schedule, I was scheduled for 48 hours this week, working Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Well, now I look in the schedule binder, and, hmm, this is interesting. I’m no longer scheduled on Monday. Again: WTF?
I was kinda pissed that I had blown about two hours and $8 for the day. But I decided to make the best of it, and went for a walk around town. I made some long-overdue phone calls to Amy and Laura, walked around a bit, and then realized that I was sweating through my shirt. 80-something degrees and nasty humidity make for not-so-nice a day for a walk in the city. I decided to head back to the air conditioning and head home.
The ride home was glorious, minus the midday congestion around the construction on Herald St. One of the traffic lights stayed green for about five seconds at a time, which meant that everyone blocked the intersection out of sheer frustration at not being able to make the light on time. Which meant that everyone going in the other direction blocked the intersection as well. And then it went down to one lane due to the construction. So it was generally a mess.
The drive home on the highway was magical. I got to the Braintree split, where I-93 becomes MA-3 South, and the sky went from brilliant sunshine to dark grey storminess. All the traffic came to a stop, and as we rounded the bend in the road, everything was soaked. We had just missed the rainstorm, which was south of us. It was so strange to see the mist flying off the cars on the other side of the highway when the cars on my side were totally dry. It was like two separate worlds on either side of the highway. I got off at Braintree at decided to take the long way home to avoid the highway traffic.
The rain in general fits into a recent pattern. Over the past three or four days, the days have been really hot and muggy, and generally sunny. But by mid-afternoon, really dark clouds roll in and random, quick downpours will roll on through, sometimes with a big clap of thunder. We have an inch or so of rain dumped on us in about twenty minutes, then it’ll clear up for an hour. Then another storm will run through. It’s weird.
I made myself a sandwich, then had to drive my dad home from the Saab dealership. There’s lots of traffic everywhere. Driving on the South Shore during the day is no fun anymore.
After dinner, I fell asleep. That’s also a recent pattern. I slept through lots of phone calls and, when I woke up around 11 o’clock, I read the paper. The Patriot Ledger still hasn’t printed my sex-ed editorial. 
