Manageable Mondays and Sewer Drain Mysteries

I’m happy. My Monday was not too Mondayish today, after all. I’d like to salute the power of positive thinking for that. It could have been a bad Monday. After all, when you wake up at your normal time and it’s still dark, that’s not a great incentive to get out of bed.

I don’t do well with Daylight Savings time. I’ve mentioned that before. As I said yesterday, you can change the clocks all your like but my internal clock KNOWS it’s all a big, fat, mean trick. I think I’d prefer it if, perhaps, we got to spring forward with the clocks at a more appropriate time than 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning. For example, how about we do it, say, at 3 p.m. on a Monday? Wouldn’t that be nice? One minute it’s 3 p.m. and you’re dragging but you still have 2 hours to go and then, boom!, the clocks skip forward and it’s 4 p.m. and there’s only an hour left!
You may wonder why I don’t say it should happen at 4 p.m. so that the 9-5’ers can just leave but, well, in my odd way of thinking, I think it might be harder for supervisors to just let you leave. If you do it at 3 p.m., it gives everyone an hour of looking at the clock, cheerfully counting down that final hour and it’s not so…sudden.

Hey, it makes sense in my head and that’s what’s important, right? Of course, since this won’t ever happen, it’s all theoretical anyway which means we’re stuck with the cruel trick of losing an hour ON A WEEKEND and then being abruptly awoken by our alarms on a Monday only to discover it’s still nighttime outside but we still have to get up.

It didn’t help this morning that I had two dogs that also did not want to get up and couldn’t understand why that horrible alarm clock went off so early and interrupted their sleep. Believe me, Rory and her Moaning Myrtle impersonation let me know that it was quite rude to disturb her and she did NOT want to get up.

But we did. I’m glad we did. The day, as such, has not been too bad for a Monday. It’s not sunny but it’s also not gloomy outside. It’s just grey with a side of brightness. My day has actually been busy which is rather nice on a Monday. It means that the day went by quickly and I didn’t have time to sit at my desk in a funk, wondering if the phone was going to ring.

Of course, I did sit in a bit of a funk. I felt like I didn’t really wake up all morning. I moved in slow motion and had trouble focusing for the first part of the day . However, thanks to far too much tea, coffee and Sprite Zero, by lunchtime I was mostly awake just in time to run home to spend 30 minutes with the dogs.

It’s nice to have a doggy diversion in the middle of the day. When I finished up my lunch, I went outside to see what the girls were up too. Sookie came bounding towards me in greeting which is always a lovely thing. Rory, however, was riveted to our storm drain.

I’m a little perplexed by this. She’s become absolutely fascinated not only with our storm drain but all of the storm drains along our street. It’s a little disturbing. Sometimes, after it rains, there is an odd banging from the drain in our garden and I can see why she and Sookie might want to investigate. Today, however, the drain was quite quiet. Yet Rory stood there, looking into it. When I went to see if I could see/hear anything, I couldn’t hear anything but I did notice that Rory was trembling.

This, of course, alarmed me. What was she seeing/hearing/smelling that had her rooted to the spot and afraid? I coaxed her too me and she backed up so that she could press herself into my bent knee for comfort but she still stared down into the drain.

I never did figure out what she was waiting for in that drain. With my vivid imagination, I confess I was a little alarmed in case Pennywise the Clown appeared. Yes, I’ve read/watched Stephen King’s It one too many times. Given that Rory is a) a dog, b) can’t read and c) has no comprehension of who Pennywise the Clown is, I don’t think that could possibly be that which fascinated her but I’m still curious.

My non-Pennywise theory is that there may have been a creature down there at some point. I’ve seen an elderly raccoon amble its way across the street and disappear down a storm drain so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it tried to get up into our yard. I’m glad it didn’t. I have a feeling Sookie and Rory would like to think they could take on a raccoon but having had quite a bit of experience with raccoons in my life, those things can be quite vicious and I think it’d give the girls a run for their money.

I did finally manage to distract Rory away from the sewer. I’m sure that when we go for our evening walk, she’ll once again pull me towards each drain along our route but since she’s on a leash and can’t actually go down the drains, I’m not too worried.

When I went back to work after lunch, the afternoon passed quickly. We’re supposed to have heavy rain later on tonight so tomorrow is likely to be grey and soggy. I’m just glad that it held off today. Wet Mondays are not fun, they elude the power of positive thinking which is hard to get going on a Monday anyway.

Although, today it worked. Phew!

Happy Tuesday!