What was I thinking?

After finishing supper last night, I was casually sitting and enjoying the news on tv (well, not actually enjoying the news as it was about the tornado down East) but sitting and enjoying being able to relax and watch the news for a change. As the dinner dishes were beckoning me to 'wash me, wash me' I casually turned on my computer to see if I could multi-task and accomplish all three at the same time.

As my computer took time to download, I put dishes in the sink and kept my ear tuned to the next show on tv which was Law & Order, Special Victims Unit - one of my favs. Anyway, as I was doing all three, my Outlook Calendar popped up to remind me of a meeting at 7 pm. TONITE!
It was now 7:05.

My heart stopped. It is amazing how much can go through your head in a short space of time. I remembered this happening before. De ja vous! Actually 2X for the same meeting. The first time was in January of this year. I was hosting the meeting and I was NOT THERE. The others were! They went into the church, found a room and carried on without me. I did not realize it until a few days later when I received the Minutes from that meeting by one of the attendees! Yikes! I was so embarrassed! No problem, they said. They just carried on. No big deal! (except to me!) The next meeting was setup and we all agreed on a date - including me. However, I did not think about it clearly or I would have realized that I was going to be in Phoenix that week. Ooops. Last minute change!

On the day of the meeting, I was on the computer in Phoenix and checked my calendar for updates and sure enough... I was doing it again! At least I had a day to make the change. I suggested they could go ahead without me or wait until I got back in a week's time. They agreed to wait! Of course, you know where I am going with this. Yes, you are right!

Last night, my computer calendar reminder popped up to do just that. Remind me of the meeting I was missing. Why is it that when you need a phone number or address, you can never find it? I am so good at the details and yet this detail was not visible to me. It was like a hand covering my eyes. Every page I read in my Minutes did not display a phone number or address.

So, I head to the phone book. Did you know that the white pages are now divided into businesses at the front and the residential pages are all together? I didn't. When did they start doing that? Anyway, I looked and looked and could not find the business address nowhere, nohow! Of course, I was under pressure too. Finally, I switched to the Yellow Pages, under Churches and found what I needed. That process took precious minutes. Tick, tick, tick. I found the home of one of the leaders hoping to have her husband answer and hoping to hear that she had a cell phone so he could give me the number so I could phone her to tell her I was on my way! No such luck! Answering machine came on. I left a frantic message and hung up! Ok, I thought. I can still do this. It is not that far away. Perhaps they will think I was thinking it was at 7:30 and not 7 pm so they will wait.

YES! I grabbed my books and hollered at my husband that I was late for a meeting and would see him at 9 pm!!! "What?" he hollers back. "Where are you going?" I was gone. I do admit to speeding - thankfully, no ticket. I was careful but I was speeding! It took me 15 minutes to get there and I parked at the west end of the building assuming we would meet where we met before. No, that was not to be. I had to go all the way around to the south east door. One good thing was I saw one of the leader's car in the parking lot. YES!! She is still there. Oh no. The doors are locked. Now what? Of course, just bang on them. Harder! How about on the glass? Yes! I see a face. She answers the door and unlocks it for me. Sorry about that, she said. Guess I forgot to unlock it. I had made it. It was 7:35 and they had just started. They had done their 'preliminaries' of hello and how have you been, etc. That took awhile and they assumed I might have gotten the time wrong so were not in a hurry.

We carried on with the meeting and set up our next one. This time, I am hosting again. This time, I plan to be there. I am marking it down on all the calendars and adding a 'day before' reminder to my computer calendar. Of course, I thought I had done that the last time but perhaps sharing this embarrassing news will make me more cognizant of my lapse in memory and will help me to remember.

There is no moral to this story. My fellow meeting members were gracious in saying I was a busy lady and not to worry about it. Personally, I think I have allowed too many 'little' things into my life that have sidetracked me. But, that is what retirement does to you. A little bit here, another thing there and before you know it...the day is gone. Time gets away on you. I have always been a 'structure' kind of person and with retirement I felt like I wanted to just 'relax' and 'go with the flow'. Well, seems like the flow is more like a river and I definitely was 'up the creek without a paddle' so I'm headed back to the 'organized' way of life. I will be sticking to my hand-written day-to-day calendar/daytimer and hope this will eliminate any of these kinds of problems in the future.

I realize that I will have to actually 'write it down' now but I think I can handle that. Oh yes, thanks to my husband who 'in my absence' was doing the dishes and kitchen cleanup when I returned home at 9 pm. "All I do is work" was his comment to me. I know he was joking but that's another story for another time.