I needed this.

Every so often, running, good nutrition, and adequate sleep just stops cutting it. I feel grouchy, touched out, exhausted, and snappish in the extreme, and no amount of my usual self-maintenance gets me better than a baseline “meh.” I need recharged, to have my wells refilled.

So the opportunity arose this morning to do that, and I jumped at it. Ordinarily, right now I’d be out running, since Tuesdays are mid-length run days, and I do those while Gabe is in preschool. The skies are ominous, though, and they’re calling for at least an inch of rain today, starting any minute now. I decided, instead, to brave the “few showers” forecast for 4:30 this morning, and I lucked out: a light sprinkling around mile seven, but that was it. Now I have the preschool slot wide open, so I’m typing this from Caribou Coffee, a mug of good brew close at hand. My feet are up on a cushy ottoman, and I feel relaxed. No household clutter around me; no chores nagging out of the corner of my eye. My soul needed this, as brief as it unfortunately will have to be. (Have to go run errands momentarily.)

Only drawback is that refills are free, and who can pass that up, I ask you? ::twitch::

Eric is out with buddies tonight, so it’s a good thing this chance came when it did. Otherwise, Mama Bear might have turned on the cubs by dinner time.

Whoa, that was thunder out there! Here she comes! Ordinarily, not a problem, but the darn basement is going to get wet again. I have less subtle expletives than that to toss at the neighbor who redid his driveway last fall and screwed up the grading next to our house. Yes, lots of creative language for that situation. Colorful language; sparkling, even. Pirates go wide-eyed…

C’mere, coffee.