A grand night for dancing

If you’ve got a good reason to be annoyed, but honestly you’re not, does it still count?

That’s what I asked myself this afternoon, Day 5 of The Annoyance Challenge, as I sat on the low wall looking out into the school parking lot knowing I might have an hour to kill before David returned to pick me up. Normally at this time I’d be mentoring an 8th grader, but today, she stood me up after calling on Wednesday to let me know that she wasn’t going to make it to our weekly Thursday meeting and then agreeing to reschedule for today. And yet… after David dropped me off to do a Trader Joe’s run (we were out of chocolate) it became clear that my mentee had gone straight home without telling me or the afterschool program director. In her defense, tonight is the 8th grade graduation dance and I’m pretty sure our meeting wasn’t on her mind as she rushed home to get ready.

Of course I called David to update him on my situation, but he wasn’t answering his iPhone. (Can someone please explain what is the point of having a phone that can shoot video and find you the nearest Korean BBQ if you don’t pick it up when your wife is sitting in a parking lot trying to reach you?) I suppose I should have been annoyed by all this, but I wasn’t. Could it be that after only five days of The Annoyance Challenge I was no longer annoy-able? Nah. More likely I was just in a good mood because it was a lovely Friday afternoon in June, I knew David would be back for me in less than an hour and… I love clouds.

Waaay up there were the high wispy ones (AKA mares’ tails). And there and there and there… so many bunched up little pouffy puffs, no wonder they’re called les moutons, ie., French for “sheep.” How cute is that? And to the north, wow! Such strange and wondrously shaped celestial masses you’d swear they’d been air-brushed.

Four hours later across the Bay, David and I walked back to the car after a fine meal at an Indian restaurant and spotted a shard of rainbow in the eastern sky, illuminated by the setting sun. It was a perfect night for a 13 year old to dance her heart out.