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"Fine," he lied.
No, really, I'm okay. Thanks to Joni Mitchell, I'm all right. After my trip to the bank and the post office this morning, I was lost in a wild-eyed frenzy, but music hath its own charms. Ah, Night Ride Home. Come in From the Cold. Ray's Dad's Cadillac. I feel better.
I don't know why everyone out there was crazy today. People were starting their weekend early, I guess. The Safeway lot was full, so I had to drive around until a space opened up. I hate that, and I refuse to follow someone who's walking to a car, hoping they'll back out and let me in. I won't do it. I'd rather drive around for an hour than put pressure on someone like that.
It didn't take an hour, but it was a good long time. I wasn't even there to do any shopping, just to stop in at the bank and make a couple of deposits. I won't go to any of the other branches after the way I was treated the last time. Now that we're flush with the big bucks, I don't even have to worry about our deposits being put on semi-permanent "hold," but I don't want to have to argue about it, either.
The big bucks won't last long. The jobs we're collecting on are all coming to an end, and there's not much new construction going on, at least not the kind we do. It's a cyclical thing, like everything else. Everything is cyclical, isn't it? If I'm down today I'll be up tomorrow, or the next day or the next. I don't know about biorhythms, but I believe in cycles.
After I left the bank the traffic on the street was almost as packed as the parking lot. Inching along a car length at a time drives me around the bend, a lot faster than it gets me from the bank to the post office.
It was mostly this one guy. He was nudging his Bronco along in front of me, and I kept hoping he'd turn off somewhere, because there were acres of room in front of him. I couldn't get around him because of the traffic in the other lane, and because I was ever hopeful that I'd lose this guy. Every turn I was going to make, he made right in front of me, all the way to the post office.
You're darn right I glared at him. He didn't see me, though. He didn't see anything — that was pretty obvious. He parked in the post office lot and I parked on the street, for a quick getaway. I got home as fast as I could, but by this time it was after noon and the school buses were on the streets. Stops every few driveways, is what that means.
So I was in a kind of a state by the time I got home, and the soothing voice of Joni Mitchell helped get me through the afternoon. The Only Joy in Town. When All the Slaves Are Free. I even got more work done than I'd ordinarily expect to do on a Friday.
By the time David dropped by for a few minutes, I'd sloughed off my own problems and was ready to listen to his. I still had Joni on the CD turntable, but I'm not sure she had the same effect on him as she'd had on me. | 
