So, anyway...

I got some puttering done around the house, and tried to motivate the kids to help a little. I finally accepted reality and stored the rest of the summer clothes, pulled out the long underwear and sweaters, and stripped the bed. As long as I am doing some drying at the laundromat now and then, I figured I may as well do my comforter in the big washers there, too. As the zero-hour approached for depositing Thing 1 at her McDonald's job, she seemed to exponentially move slower. Of course, I mistakenly thought I was ready to go until I couldn't find my keys. So I grabbed iPastor's and took off. As it happened, Thing 1 had fudged her start time (some sort of reverse schedule psychology, or something) so she had plenty of time. I dropped by MIL's to pick up some clothes I'd dried there, and a load of thrift store donations. I headed for the nicer laundromat, and found it packed to the rafters at noon on a Friday. Hm. So I wandered to the other, deserted, broken-down laundromat. There, the change machine would not function, and there was nowhere in the congregate shopping facility to get change. I drove the couple blocks to pick up some dry cleaning, where the oldest, most confused woman in the world helped me at the counter. Poor little thing. I dropped the load at the thrift store, then realized I left the soap at the laundromat. My day was quickly becoming an exercise in futility. I headed back (thank heaven for small towns) and passed iPastor at the railroad crossing. I thought he might be looking for his keys. Of course my cell phone was not in my purse where it was supposed to be. As I headed back in the other direction, I saw him turn up the hill, so I followed him. He's quite elusive, so I jogged a couple blocks over to a friend's house and gave him a call. He told me he was on his way to the ER with chest pain. Construction on the main route through town adds a few minutes travel time even in a little place, but I made it there nearly as he sat down. After lots of scary tests and machines that go ping, he was pronounced nearly normal, presenting with "atypical chest" pain, most likely due to inflammation. They started him on treatment for that, and let him go. So the good news is, we got no vibrant, flapping red flags, but he still feels pretty crappy. The rest of our day was fairly subdued, and I'm ready for bed. Wrings a body out.