Small Losses, Big Wins

1. Lucy and I were headed to the gym. I was sitting in the driver's seat and went to put the key in the ignition when I realized I had no keys. 40 minutes later, after calling Cary's office and interrupting his session, suspecting that Henry snuck them off to school in his backpack, and debating whether it was bad karma to use the valet key to drive us to the gym, I finally found them on the closet floor where they had fallen out of the pocket of my rain coat the night before.
2. A neighbor and I joined Henry and her son at lunch in the school cafeteria today. The school has a policy that you can show up and eat lunch with your child whenever you like. It was mostly enjoyable, but I learned that Henry is the only child who has an assigned seat because of his behavior on the second day of school (like two months ago?!) when he didn't like his classmate's grammar. I think it is a little bit extreme, but he doesn't seem to care. He told me that his "brain tells him to sit there."
   
3. I know this is supposed to be a happy day for East Coast Liberals like myself, but instead of feeling hopeful I just feel like the task ahead is insurmountable, the damage done is so dramatic, and I am incredibly depressed that Dennis Hastert was re-elected. Rumsfeld resigning helped a little. I could almost hear a parental voice in my head saying, "but Rumsfeld resigned, doesn't that make you a little bit happy?" OK, yeah. I can't be completely grumpy.