Once in a blue moon.

"So, Christopher and I are going out in the boat this weekend, gigging fish.  I'm so excited- he's been spending weeks getting the boat ready. He set up new lights and everything.  Oh, and we have two paddles now." "Oh good, so you fixed the lights so the battery won't die again, and two paddles will make it easier to row back to shore if the battery does die on you?"  "Yep!  But it won't matter.  We're taking his brother too, so if the battery does die, I'll be able to sit back and let the men paddle back.  I'll just be sitting there, drinking a beer, watching the waves, and it'll be so pretty with the full moon."

This conversation had taken place with my boss, as I was passing by to call my next client.  I stopped dead in my tracks, though, when she uttered that last line.  "It's a full moon tonight?"  "Not just a full moon, Kate.  The second full moon of the month, so it's a blue moon!"  <Heavy sigh from me> "That explains so many things about this week."

Now, I don't think I buy into the whole, "a full moon changes your behavior" line of thinking.  I guess I just don't like the idea that a rock orbiting millions of miles away takes you from normal functioning human to borderline psychotic maniacs when it shines brighter.  That, and in my minimal time spent studying this subject, I have found that almost every study works to disprove this theory.  So why buy into it now?  After the week I had, I needed someone/thing to blame.

Allow me to elaborate.  Just during the last week:

1.) CARES- the computer program that basically runs WIC, died.  Across the entire state.  You never realize how much you depend on a program until you don't have it.  So basically we spent two days to complete one day's worth of work.

2.) To my face, I had a mom and grandmother tell me I was stupid.  This was part of a rant against WIC, but still.

3.) I had a child almost pee on me.  Twice.  Within three minutes.

4.) A trail of ants were discovered in my office by a four year-old.  The discovery of ants was bad enough, but the situation was made worse when she took off her sandal, started hitting the wall and screamed, "DIE! I SAID DIE!!"

5.) I was interrupted during a client interview by my co-worker for this reason: "Hey, the police are here.  They want to know who called 911."

6.) While I was waiting for some important paperwork for a client to be returned via fax, I checked my e-mail and saw this: "Summerville will be without phone and Internet from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m."  I asked the IT guy why he didn't warn us before he sent the e-mail at 11:43 a.m.  He just shrugged.

7.) The piece de resistance?  My very own "full moon moment." "Kate, why didn't you respond to my e-mail.  Now I have to call you."   In my best "sounds cheerful but there's clearly murderous undertones" voice, I responded with, "Well, due to massive delays caused by a combination of over scheduling, late arrivals, slow processing, and exceptional cases, I currently have a two hour delay in seeing my clients.  So you can see why I wouldn't be checking my e-mail right now.  What's so important?"  Yeah, this would be the first time I've EVER used this tone with any of my co-workers, let alone one I only talk to once or twice a year.

So for eight miserable hours, I blamed the moon for all my problems and shortcomings.  Then I came home, slept for twelve hours, and returned to my normal belief that a large rotating rock does not affect my behavior.  So there.

And now we stand at the verge of a new work week.  So much happier with this, seeing as how the new week starts on a Tuesday and not a Monday.  Ta ta for now!