Lessons in Humility on a rainy day

Yesterday as I went down the drive to cross the street and pick up Jacob at school, there was a car parked diretly across my driveway. My one peeve about living across from a school, and it's a big one, is that parents are rude. So as I skirted the car and headed across the street, I was in high dudgeon. My friend Booker, the crossing guard, must have guessed my mood because he came over to me and just as I was saying, "Now that's rude in the extreme," he said, "She's handicapped. I told her you don't go anywhere this time of day." Not the first time he's made me see things in a different perspective.
And another lesson: last week when friends were here, Jordan came by and we were talking about an acquaintance whose behavior we didn't exactly like. Jordan said, "She's ... wait I have to think how to say this." Five-year-old Jacob piped up, "Yeah, because there's a child in the room." It made me realize we were being petty to talk about anybody in terms we couldn't say in front of him. Was it Mother Teresa who said if you judge others you don't have time to love them?
Seems to me I get a lot of similar lessons in humility but I'm a slow learner. I look at others who are dealing with illness or unhappiness or aging parents or other family problems, and I'm grateful for my healthy, happy family, my satisfying life as a writer, my house, animals and garden. But I still need to learn to translate that deliberate thanksfulness to automatic response to other people. Hard to do. Don't get me started on some politicians--I may draw the line there:-)
Lunch today with Melinda at our favorite Italian place, Patrizio's. We each had a half grilled chicken salad--their salads are huge and half is just right. As we always do we laughed and hooted and had fun. It was a sunny, pleasant day. By three, when I got Jacob it was gray, and we felt the first few drops.  Tonight it's outright raining, and I'm going to forego my weekly Tuesday night meatloaf fix. Maybe I'll sneak down to the Grill Thursday night and get take-out before my class. This is a good night to stay home, warm and dry.

A new book plus a food lesson for Jacob and a small triumph

My mystery, Skeleton in a Dead Space, officially launched today, though it's been on Amazon and Smashwords since Saturday. Still this was THE day--and it was anticlimactic. Yes, I'm excited, but I've been excited for a long time. And yes, I got notes of congratulations and all that. Not sure what I expected. Maybe I'll feel different about it when I hold a print copy in my hands. My goal for so long has been to write and publish a mystery, and it's been a long road, maybe five or six years, so I guess it's hard to feel that it's really happened.
Meantime, I'm editing a young-adult manuscript by another author and fighting with Word--if I center the chapter title, it centers the last two or three lines of the preceding chapter; if I go back and justify them, it justifies the chapter title. Plus the track changes function is unforgiving--if I change something and  then change my mind, there's no going back. You end up with red all over the manuscript and it looks as though, as a prof once said to me, somone had bled on it. The one thing I remember from that class is "Never use red ink on a student's paper."
Jacob had a food lesson. While he ate his after-school snack of yogurt, I trimmed the ends off a whole pack of haricorts vert that I got at a bargain. I gave him a raw one to nibble, and he loved it, waxing eloquent over and over about how good they were, the best green beans he ever ate. He practiced saying haricorts vert but decided he would just say haricorts. Then when his mom came, he forgot it, had to be prompted, and ended with "But they're really carrots!" He tells me though that he's looking forward to eating them tomorrow night.  We'll see. I used this little teaching moment to talk about green is good, since his dad generally thinks if it's green and/or a cooked vegetable, he doesn't want to eat it. Salad and green beans are exceptions. Jacob and I talked about how good carrots and broccoli are and I promised to make him carrots Friday night.
Sophie has destroyed the jacket on yet another book, which means a lot of yelling from me--and then guilt. But we make up afterwards. She's clever--she piles all her toys right in front of her target spot on the bookcase bottom shelf, so I can't be sure if she's chewing a toy or a book. She's had three accidents today, all in my office, which I consider too many for as long as I've been working at this. If I happen to catch her at the right moment, she potties outside; if not, the corner of my office is convenient. But tonight a small triumph: she and I spoke the same language. I recognized her signal, rushed her outside, and she pooped. That may make up for the lethargy I felt earlier in the day. Now she's romping with her toys. Me? Chew books? Never!