The strange, the good and the tragic

(i) I get up this morning, and there's a pumpkin floating in the pool. We don't have a vegetable garden or any pumpkins. (Well, we have one now!)

(ii) Sir Talkalot wants to enter a competition. He's not completely happy with his entry. Segue to yesterday: we run it down to our local PO right on closing time to find out about express posting it. We compare this to the option of running it in by hand ourselves, which would give him time to improve his entry. The PO people explain if it has to be in at 5 pm, it can be picked up at any time during the day because the post is delivered at 6 am, so the boxes can be cleared any time after this. I get their point, but it seems a bit immoral if the conditions say that 5 pm is the cutoff, that the judges (or admin people) might turn up eight hours earlier...

Sir Talkalot decides to go the hand-delivery option. We are supposed to run it over this morning, only he decides to completely redo the entry. We have other commitments today. Finally, it's ready, but we have to run to catch a train and can't take it. We just miss the train home and get back at 4.20 pm, which gets us home a few minutes later. It's a half hour drive to where we have to go -- on a good run. We'll be picking up peak-hour traffic. But we can use the pay road, which may get us there a bit quicker. We leave the house at 4.35. It's really why-are-we-bothering territory now. We get stuck in traffic where we shouldn't, but then also have a good run where we shouldn't. We get there at 4.59. Pull over. Dash across busy road. It's 5.00. The PO is shut, but there are people inside. One in leaving lets ST in. He holds up his parcel, and the lady behind the desk nods. Strangely, it costs him $5.40 just to pass it across the desk! But it's in. He made it. He's happy.

(iii) A friend's daughter rings up to say her mum is really ill. In the last six months the daughter has lost her father (who didn't live with them) and her grandmother (who did). Now it looks like she might lose her mum. I'm really sad. I can't believe it.

Recently, another friend was talking about a mutual friend of ours who has this same illness and said our friend doesn't deserve it, and I said no-one ever does. And it's true. Life just sucks sometimes.