WAITING

As tax season draws to a close, Mike is bored with his job and life in general. He's ready to move on to the next thing, but with morning temps below freezing, it's still too early to "think summer." So yesterday Mike suggested we get out to pick up a few geocaches in the vicinity of the town house – just for something to do. We'd just do a few, he said. We'd be back at the house for lunch, he said. I put some food in Nellie's dish and left her in the house.

Our third stop led us out to the brow of the hill where 15^th becomes Appleside and there's a new bike / pedestrian path. I enjoyed the view of the community from the cache site, as pictured here, while Mike found the cache and did the bookwork. The one of Mike is great. The house in the background belongs to a former co-worker.

It was after noon, and we were still having a good time, so Mike suggested that we pick up a sandwich at Subway and continue caching. That's when I began to watch my day fall apart. The cell phone rang, and office staff apprised Mike of a client waiting for tax prep – a gal from the wilds of Alaska visiting her student son at WSU. She needed to have his taxes completed ASAP. Mike agreed and on the way to the office we stopped at Subway. Subway is great – unless there's a line and you're in a hurry.

Arriving at TaxTyme, we found the tax client waiting as specified. Mike suggested I just wait for him, but as I sat there, two more clients came in. "See ya later," I said, and I went shopping. Now, I was dressed in an old sweatshirt and even older jeans. I was only a little self-conscious. I was also unprepared – no lists, no coupons. But I went to Safeway where I picked up what I could remember from the grocery list and also shopped their clearance stuff. Mike was ready to leave TaxTyme as I pulled up. He had an appointment at 4:00, he said, but we would pick up those two caches in Clarkston's port district and then head home. He would then ride back to TaxTyme on his motorcycle. I noted to myself that the interior of the car was looking disorganized and reminiscent of folks on vacation – jackets we had shed, a cup of water in the holder, geocaching papers on the floor, etc.

We were still wandering the port district when the cell phone rang. A client was waiting and another had scheduled in addition to the appointment at 4:00. Mike started to take me home, but we both realized there just wasn't enough time in the workday for him to do that – five miles to the house and six miles back to the office in awful Friday traffic. So, we just headed back to the office. Mike handed me the cell phone and told me he would call me. Now I was really killing time, but I went to Shop-Ko and Dollar Tree. I was in Dollar Tree when I thought I heard the cell phone above the din of the store music. I answered too late but figured Mike was finished at the office. The store was busy, so I carefully re-shelved my items (training from daughter who once had brief career in retail) and drove back to TaxTyme.

"No," said Mike, "I was calling to tell you I now have a 5:00 o'clock appointment. It was only 4:40, so we sat and looked at each other for a while. Then we remembered that Nellie was out of toothpaste, so I went, back to the Safeway-Ross complex where Petco is located where I was successful in finding some nice doggy toothpaste for Nellie.

When we arrived home about 6:00, Nellie was glad to see us. She has a way of conserving her food if she's insecure about her circumstances. Her breakfast was waiting and she fell to eating it immediately. KW