Beg My Pardon Five

Today is a beautiful day.

No really. The weather is perfect with its deep blue skies and light autumn breezes. I've had plenty of sleep. I've invented a new food. (Fresh peach banana smoothy with yogurt, milk, and a spoonful of Nutella, effing delish). My quarter-back didn't do so well last night, but that's fine because the guy who kept tackling him all night happened to also be in my line up, so, quite a wash.

There was eggs and ham for breakfast, I got through all 23 minutes of my 25 minute work out. Went to the archery range with my wife and proved to her I could easily kill an African elephant as long as I had those grenade tipped arrows that Rambo was using. I have reached my weekly goal for applying to seven different venues not including a last minute application for 2014's Whole Earth Festival at UC Davis. I like my chances just about everywhere.

So in pure kingly fashion, I have decided to pardon all the things that might have made this day less than perfect:

Top Five things that get to live today:

The Spider:
There is a terribly frightening spider the size and shape of a black widow making a tennis court sized net across my salsa garden. I picked at its web the other day, and I shit you not, it was taught as a guitar string and I had to use both hands to snap it away from the last of my tomatoes. I looked it up the other day, and thankfully it is just a harmless garden spider that has kindly been sucking the blood out of the kinds of pests which I don't want buzzing around my bell peppers.

But it's gross and I want it dead.

Except not today, today it lives.

The guy who took my spot:
At 2:00pm, I stop all progress, all writing, all projects, all experimentation, so that I may load up into the car and stand outside in the sun with fifty other jobless (self-employed) schleps waiting for our darling children to be excused from school. At the sound of the bell, I wade through the throng and scan the crowd for any hint of my wispy toed headed progeny so that I can make eye contact with him before he considers himself abandoned an proceeds to have a panic attack.

I take his hand and we walk almost an entire block to where I've parked the car.

I have a very specific place I like to park the car. I like to park on the side of the road that the school is on and pointing in the direction of our home. I do this so that I don't have to make an unrecommended u-turn in the middle of the chaos. I also like this spot because it happens to be at the apex of a curve in the road and I can see very clearly what is in front of me and what is behind me, which is essential when you have hundreds of children darting in an around your car trying to get home to play video games.

This spot is exactly twenty feet further than where his mom likes to park. She likes the shady spot.

But today, someone took my spot, even though there were several perfectly reasonable spots available elsewhere.

The shady spot was also taken. So I was forced to take a spot one driveway further down, where the sight lines are less than perfect.

The person who took my spot should be stabbed in the neck with a barbecue fork.

But not today.

Today he lives.

Calvin:
Upon seeing the car twenty feet further away than yesterday, he exclaims "Daaaaad? Why did you have to park so faaaaaaaaar?"

I could very easily have grabbed him by his back pack and the seat of his pants and thrown him in front of the car driven by the homocidal maniac who took my spot as he sped off into hell.

But I didn't.

Cause today is perfect.

Today Calvin lives.

Apple Inc.:
I have five Apple devices that had to be upgraded due to the release of iOS 7. Had it been six I would have released 2,417 eight-week old puppies into the think-tank offices of Infinity Dr. thereby destroying productivity and rendering Apple's market share to less than 1%. And I would continue to do this every friday until my Wifi caught up.

But I won't do that today.

Today their stock price lives.

And lastly,

Hope:
I have been able to do things this week that would have taken me many months to accomplish otherwise. I am in no way out of the woods and I never before in my life had a task list this monumental and unscratched. But I'm working hard and dreaming big and today is the perfect day to feel good about it.