The Whole Beard-Lawn

Up at three.  You don’t get up at 3:00AM.  You roll over and go back to bed.  It’s usually a welcome sign to see such an early number on your phone when you roll over to check it.  But this morning I rolled and rolled some more.  Whatever sleep cycle I jumped out of was not interested in welcoming back.  Flip.  Flop, flop.  Roll.  Forget it.  Get up. 

Plenty of time to reply to every email.  Plenty of time to read every major story on front page of the New York Times, run through what the Huff Post has selected, go through the front pages of three other papers at 3:15AM.  No excuses about meditation.  And I’ll get off to the gym early.  I need to.  I’ve a call scheduled at 7:00AM.  Stairmaster with the Heptones and the quickest run through I can on all the leg machines.  Big orange coat on and now I’m on the bridge just before 7:05AM.  I’m the only one there.  Someone joins and explains that all the other folks had trouble downloading the zoom client with their Android phones.  Right.

The one person and I have a chat.  I got home and called all the others on wechat, which I should have done from the outset I suppose.   “Look, the short version is like this . . .”  We’ll make another time to talk.  I’ve got to order up a car and get in the shower.  Get the kids up.  “Hey, yeah, hello.  Just tell them this number when you get to the front door.”  Warm the shower.  “Hi.  I ordered a car.  If he mentions our number please tell the guard to let him in.  Hey, thanks.”  Shower.  Shave. Shave again.  Feel the underside of my chin.  Shave . . . again . . . slowly. Feel the whole beard-lawn one more time.  “Hey can someone tell the driver I’ll be out in a minute?”  No one does. 

I piled out the door early, just as the kids were heading to school with the wife in the Honda.  My driver knew the software park I was heading to, knew the company I was going to see and quickly suggested the sixth ring road.  I considered this.  Normally I would have said “no thanks.”  But I had a map.  And he had a map.  And if you looked at the map, it wasn’t such a bad idea to take the sixth ring road.  He pointed to and I acknowledged a nasty red knot there at the end of the fifth ring road.  “Yeah.  The Sixth.  Let’s do it.”

All this discussion meant we were plodding along rather slowly as we made our way to the compound exit.  Suddenly a call.  My young one?  “What honey?  Are you OK?”  “We’re behind you!  Can you tell your driver to hurry?  I’m going to be late.”  A bit startled I said I’d see what I could do.  As we turned for the compound exit a Honda Odyssey nearly cut us off but was forced to yield.  My wife, the driver was just a bit too tardy and we passed her.  The nine-year-old inside immediately wanted to convey the message “nah, nah, na-nah nah” and I dialed her back to say so.  My older daughter answered.  Joke was on me.  “Hey baba, we’re passing you right now.”  Sure enough, now that we were on the main road, my wife had turned into the oncoming lane and sped past us. 

Friday, 2/08/18