On the way back from the soccer field tonight I saw a ton of very black smoke in the area of downtown.  It is now 3 hours later and 2 miles away I can smell the burnt-rubber smell at my house.  The fire was at a recycling business, and because it was on both sides of the train tracks I’m sure it caused quite a mess for the commuter rail.

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/homepage/x593046448/Fire-burning-at-downtown-business

This morning when I said that yesterday had been a long day, here’s why:

7:00 a.m. – Naima (SIL) arrives to get Aliya and Adlani on the bus and take care of Norah.  I am making lunches and snacks in my underwear.
7:45 a.m. – Drive to Boston (now showered and dressed) for a meeting at the W Hotel.
9:00 – 11:30 – Walk up and down all stairwells at the W to look at the doors and figure out why certain electronic components are not doing what they’re supposed to do. 
11:30 – 1:30 – Go to Revere to pick up Norah, drive back to Framingham and feed Norah while answering phone calls and emails on my Blackberry.
2:00 – Norah’s swimming lesson at the Y, more phone calls and emails.
3:00 – Pick up Aliya and Adlani at school for a 3:45 doctors appointment.
3:30 – Meet Ben in the doctor’s parking lot to hand off Adlani and Norah, take Aliya to doctor’s.
4:15 – Head to the hospital for a chest x-ray on Aliya (clear).
5:00 – Leave hospital (in record time), call Ben to round up Aliya’s soccer stuff and meet us at practice.
5:30 – Soccer practice.
6:00 – Take Adlani and Norah and pick up Majda (our niece) at Riverside T station, which became a 2-hour round trip because of traffic.
8:00 – Pick up dinner at Burger King.  Majda has not eaten for 24 hours because of Ramadan.
9:00 – Put kids to bed and accidentally fall asleep so I didn’t do the work I had planned or get my act together for the morning.  Hence the rough start this morning.

I guess I’ll be working this weekend.
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Yesterday was an extremely long day (more on that later), and I fell asleep while I was putting the kids to bed.  This morning I woke up to a mound of dishes in the sink, no clean drink bottles or snack containers in the cabinets, and backpacks, lunch/snack bags, and drink bottles still in the car.

By the time I got everyone semi-clean, dressed, and downstairs, I had 20 minutes to make 3 lunches, 4 snacks, 7 to-go drinks, and 3 breakfasts.  I know a bunch of you think that I have my act together, but that’s what it is – an act.  Just ask the kids.

This morning I exhibited every form of unmommylike behavior.  I cried, yelled, spanked, swore, threw dirty dishes in the sink, lectured on the number of hungry kids there are in the world, and used the sink sprayer on Adlani.  I ended up with a pounding headache, Norah was late to “Circle Time” at school, we missed the bus by a long shot and Aliya and Adlani were also late to school.  It’s amazing what one sinkful of dirty dishes can do to your day.      

And by the way…Ben…if you’re reading this…putting the drink bottles with the plastic ice still inside through the dishwasher and back into the cupboard is not helpful.   
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After the restaurant alarm was activated around 4:30 a.m., police arrived to find Asher Woodworth, 23, of North Bennington on top of the Chili’s roof after allegedly removing the bolts that secured the chili to the roof with a hacksaw and power drill.

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That won’t come as a surprise to many of you.  I had a really busy day today…kids to school, meeting at the office, then a couple of hours to clean up the day’s email before I went to the chiropractor.  I was in REALLY bad shape…he pretty much gave me a complete overhaul.

Then I headed to the Natick Mall to buy Norah’s birthday present at the American Girl store.  The parking there is always terrible, but today I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT!  In addition to the 8 empty h/c spots, there were 11 “valet parking” spots blocked with cones…not a single spot was taken.  There were also 8 empty spots for curbside dining, and 10 parking spots for low-emissions vehicles!  In one row they were completely empty, and in the other they were filled with non-green vehicles, unless Ford makes a hybrid F150 pickup. 

After driving around for 15 minutes I finally found a spot about 3 miles away and dragged my hunch-back to the door of the American Girl store, where I was met by 2 men who were preventing anyone from entering unless you were registered for “the event.”  I know in the grand scheme of things this isn’t a big deal, but I almost cried.  I shuffled back to the car and pulled up the American Girl website on my Blackberry to see if I could crash the party.  It showed the “special hours” for today as closing at 7 p.m. for “the event.”  It was only 6:25!!!  I could have been in and out of there in 10 minutes!  I may have to file a formal complaint.  If the posted hours state that they’re closing at 7, shouldn’t that mean that at 6:25 they’re still open?

I drove from there to the soccer field to wait for Aliya to finish with her clinic so Ben could go home and eat (he’s still fasting for Ramadan).  As soon as I arrived, 4 fighter jets started circling above us.  They made 6 or 7 big circles and a few times they were pretty low…you could see the orange glow around the engines.  At one time I would have thought that was really cool, but seeing them circling like that brought me right back to the days following 9/11/01, when they were constantly circling overhead.

Aliya and I stopped and picked up dinner for ourselves at Big Fresh, and walked into the house at 8.  The other kids were still up so I took them up to bed.  That’s when I realized that I forgot to stop and get the ingredients I needed for Norah’s birthday cupcakes for school.  As I was rocking Norah I remembered that I always make special t-shirts for the kids on their birthdays (“Yahoo!  I’m TWO!), and I had no idea where the puffy fabric paint was.  I was all ready to run out to AC Moore, when Aliya pointed out that Ben had left the house headed for who-knows-where so unless I wanted to take 3 kids to AC Moore at 8:30, I had to come up with Plan B.

When Ben came back at 8:45, I went to Stop & Shop to get the cupcake stuff except that I couldn’t find  the self-rising flour that the recipe called for.  So I bought cake flour and then came home and tried to find a recipe that I had all of the ingredients for.  I didn’t want to use a mix because one of the kids in the class has a food allergy.  What’s crazy is that never once while I was at Stop & Shop did I think of swinging by the bakery department and putting myself out of my misery. 

I got the cupcakes in the oven, and started thinking about how I would improvise the celebratory t-shirt.  Here’s where the insanity starts.  I actually thought, “HEY!!  I have that BeDazzler that I got at the What’s-In-Jenny’s-Nightstand Yankee Swap!”  And yes, I have BeDazzled a purple t-shirt with a big number 3 and let me tell you…it’s not as easy as it looks on TV. 

And now I have to go to bed so I can wake up early and put the butterfly bodies (half gummy worms) and wings (mini pretzels) on top of the cupcakes, deliver them to school, get Adlani to the bus, take Aliya to have her braces put on, take her to school, and go do a fire door inspection on a church that is now home to a Chinese restaurant.  I also need to squeeze in a stop at the American Girl store.  I’m tired already.
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