Signs

I woke this morning with an agenda – I have the day off of work, so it meant that I had a day during the week to get shit done on the home front.

First on the list was an eye appointment for Matthew B. After that I also needed to hit the post office for stamps, purchase a new furnace filter, and do some yard work. We have a wind chill of 30° coming (already!) this weekend so I know that I’m not gonna want to do anything outside of the house once that happens, that I’ll go into hibernation mode.

So, first we knocked out the eye appointment. With that accomplished by 930am, I stopped at the post office – after standing in line for five minutes while the two clerks argued with their customers about whatever issue they were having, my impatient ass decided fuck this, I’ll come back later. I got in my car and decided that I would also wait to purchase the furnace filter and headed home for yard work.

I cleaned up my front flower beds, cutting down Hostas and pulling some weeds. I also chopped down the viney things that were engulfing my lamppost – while still gorgeous, it’s a time consuming job that I didn’t want to have to do in the cold like I did last year. After cutting everything down I noted that my house desperately needed power washed – green stuff was staining the blue siding. Not having a power washer, nor any cleaning agent made specifically for this purpose, I threw some hot water, dawn dishsoap and Lysol in a bucket and hand washed what I could reach. Not perfectly clean, but not obnoxiously green anymore, I paused for a minute to talk to Sofia on the phone, and then made my way to the backyard. I had managed to cut down about half of my sunflowers a couple weeks ago, but I still had the real monsterous ones left to cut down, plus some general weeding to do. I started working on chopping down morning glories, worked my way to weeding, and then found I was starting to piss off the now active bees in the garden and gave up the endeavor for the day.

Time for the errands. First, I ran downstairs to check the size of the furnace filter, and discovered that it was most of the way out of it’s slot, not actually filtering anything. Generally speaking I’m the only one that deals with the filter situation, so I was confused – I wouldn’t have left it that way. Wondering if Grandma had had the same thought – did she pull it out to check it recently so she could buy one? – I gave her a call to make sure my errand wouldn’t be for nothing. She didn’t answer and I grumbled, “she’ll probably call me back after I’m already at the store and tell me she bought one.”

In my head I decided car wash, post office and then Menards for my furnace filter, thus giving Grandma time to call me back. But then as I was pulling out of my driveway I remembered I also needed a couple grocery items and changed my plan. Wal-Mart was my ultimate choice since they would likely have everything in one place that I needed, then to the car wash and post office.

Sure enough, as I turned on the street where Walmart is located, Grandma called me back. I asked her if she had pulled out the filter, if she had by chance bought one yet. No to both.

“Did you see where they’re evacuating all the Walmarts in the area because of an active shooter situation?” She asked me then.

“Wait, wait, what?” I asked her, not sure I heard her correct. I rolled my car windows up so I could hear better. She then told me she was at a friend’s house and it had come across her friends phone – there was a threat to a Toledo area Walmart, but not a specific one – since we have several in the area all were being evacuated as a precaution.

“Um, that’s where I’m going. I’m almost there now,” I informed her, not having mentioned it previous.

“Well I mean, it said that there’s no immediate threat, that they are negotiating with the person who made the threat, this is just a precaution.”

“Nah, I’m good.” I said. “I’ll go somehere else!” She agreed and we got off the phone as I drove by the Walmart I normally shop at.

As I came to a stop light it dawned on me.

How if things had played out differently I would likely already be in that store. How if Grandma had answered her phone when I first called she wouldn’t have known about me going to Walmart nor that there are was a threat to the store. How I got behind several slow moving vehicles on my way to the store and my impatient ass couldn’t get around them and just had to drive the speed limit for once.

How I’ve always got someone, somehere, watching my back and keeping me safe.

Instead of going about my errands I came home, and wrote this. During that time the threat was cancelled. But I think I’m just gonna chill here at home today – all of that shit can wait until tomorrow, when the signs I’m receiving are a little more positive.

Happy Wednesday, folks. Please, please don’t ignore what the universe is trying to tell you. If something isn’t going well or doesn’t fell right, there is likely a reason.