A VERY BAD DAY

Dear followers, I had a "terrible, horrible no good very bad day."* 

I woke up to the home security alarm chirping.  All I could think about was the Friends episode when Phoebe's fire alarm goes off.  I was hoping to be more successful than Phoebe.

When I approached the control panel, I found a flashing message:  NO WI-FI.  I disarmed the alarm and the message disappeared.  Voilà!  Problem fixed—or so I thought.

I soon found out that I still didn't have Wi-Fi. Which meant, I couldn't read the digital newspaper or watch tv (not a big deal) or use the internet (a very big deal.)  Having no Wi-Fi bummed me out.  Not even the sweet and loving attention of my cats Ozzie and Lizzie could cheer me up.

To make matters worse, I'm not tech savvy and my husband was on a cycling trip out west.  I remembered to reboot the router, but it was unsuccessful.  I sent a text to my daughter who was able to facetime me and show me where to find the icons on the computer that help to connect to Wi-Fi, but this didn't work.  There is a 2 hour time difference between Kentucky and Montana.  I didn't want to wake up my husband.  My back up plan was to drive to the library, but it wouldn't open for another hour.  So in the meantime, I worked on the things that didn't required using the internet and then texted my husband a couple of hours later (Eastern time vs. Mountain time).  He encouraged me to call our provider.

After contacting Spectrum, the automated phone message said they would connect me to Wi-Fi on their end.  And...no success.  

I was feeling hopeless and frantic, but my husband (ever so patient) told me to reboot the router again.  And then I realized I had unplugged the wire to the Internet (which made sense to me) instead of the power wire.  After rebooting correctly and following my daughter's instructions, I was finally able to connect to Wi-Fi. 

This literally took all morning.  

By now, I was disappointed that I had lost so much time.  And on top of this, my daughter was supposed to fly from Atlanta to Boston.  Takeoff was delayed by 2 hours.  As any mother would feel, I was worried for her.  She'd be landing very late at night.  My anxiety mounted.  By the afternoon, I had a migraine, which was bad timing.  I had ballet class in the evening.    

Fortunately, the medicine Imitrex works well for me.  By the time class started, I was headache-free.  Being with my teacher and friends, concentrating on my technique, and performing dance movements lightened a troublesome day and then...

After class I learned that my teacher's husband would need open heart surgery.  Thinking about this serious operation got me thinking about the people in my life who are dealing with difficult situations:  my sister-in-law is mourning the loss of her brother who had died when he tried to move his car to the side of a highway.  My husband will need major wrist surgery.  I was flooded with guilt.  

Who am I to complain about having a bad day when others I care about have hardships?  

We all have our challenges.  Mine was small compared to others.  With the help of family, I managed to handle this rough morning.  And I gained insight into a few things, not just how to reconnect to the internet.  In the end, I learned to always try my best, have a backup plan, to look forward to dance, and to appreciate the love of friends, family (and cats).  I know there will always be problems that will crop up, but ultimately, there are solutions.  I'll get through it.  The biggest things for me to remember is to appreciate life and good health.  Every day is a treasure—even if it's a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day. 

À la prochaine! 

*Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Voirst