Those Long Black Clouds are Coming Down...

I've been pretty damn miserable for most of the day.
Here's the thing. My boy is sick, so the sitter won't take him. Now she's just called to say she can't take him tomorrow either. I've missed quite a few hours of work over a lack of childcare in the past few days, and so has Janet.
Today we made the decision that since I'm the Big Kahuna at my work, and she's just the number 2 Kahuna at her work, she should be the one missing shifts. So tomorrow she's calling in and I can get a full day in before my kitchen goes out of business.

Today I was venting to Janet, about what I perceived to be a deteriorating quality of life across the board, and she kind of peshaw'd all my complaints. I was actually getting a little bothered that she wasn't validating any of my negativity. After bitching about work and childcare and fuel prices and food prices for a while with no concurrence I moved on to the impending winter.

I was talking about how bleak and bare and dark all the trees were starting to look today and she laughed at me. She said "I can't believe this happens to you every year and you can't see it. Yesterday was sunny and you were talking about how beautiful the leaves were."

I argued with her a bit. "Yesterday there were a hell of a lot more leaves on the trees. It's like 90% of them fell off since then. Look, the trees all look morbid and skeletal."

She laughed again. "Morbid and skeletal? Yesterday they were 'twinkling like crystal-y wood chips and all snake-y and gorgeous."

"They weren't twinkling..." I said, "they were 'tinkling', it was a sound thing not a twinkle-y light thing."

"Whatever, they weren't morbid and skeletal. Snap out of it."