The Tuesday that thought it was a Monday

If I had to describe today in a word, it would be green. But more about that later.

For those of you who don't live in South Africa, yesterday was a public holiday here. It was Human Rights Day. So today, Tuesday, was the first day of our working week here. And Tuesday decided that seeing that was the case, it would take on Monday's usual responsibility of being miserable. Here's a run-down of my Tuesday:

12.15am: Lie in bed and have a mild panic attack thinking about how much work I have to do today and this crappy situation with the two women I work with. Attempt to panic quietly so as not to wake TSC - it's his first day of work and he has a massive test at varsity that he'll only finish at 19h30 tonight. He needs his sleep.

12.30am: Have mad dreams about work. Quietly.

01.00am and every half an hour after that: Wake up convinced we've overslept and that TSC will be late for his first day of work.

05.50am: TSC and I are now both awake. We get up. He gets dressed in his "first day at work" outfit. I make coffee.

06.00am: I strip the duvet covers off the bed and chuck them in the wash to rid myself of the temptation of getting back into bed.

06.30am: TSC leaves for work. I sit down at my PC and start typing the longest email ever to my colleague, trying to sort out the messy situation going on.

07.00am: I open the front door for our once-a-week domestic worker and continue with my email.

08.05am: As I'm about to finish the email, the power trips. I yell unmentionable things at my PC and at Eskom. I pace up and down panicking (loudly now) about how I'm going to fit in all my work with no electricity. I decide to go to gym and do an 08.30am pilates class to calm down, reasoning that the power should be back on when I get home.

09.35am: Feeling self-satisfyingly zen after pilates, I float to the locker room to shower and change. Upon opening my gym bag, I find everything is sparkly green. My bright, sparkly green eyeshadow that I hardly ever wear somehow came along for the ride today and burst in my make-up bag, somehow managing to leak out of that too and coat pretty much everything in sight.

10.00am: I am given the evil eye by the gym cleaning staff as I painstakingly wash green sparkliness off my hairbrush, make-up, moisturizer, flip-flops etc in the gym basin, which has just been cleaned, leaving Leprochaun magic dust in my wake. Everything from my black pants to my hands now has a shimmering green tinge to it. The cleaning staff tut. I debate saying something snarky along the lines of, "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

10.20am: I arrive home. There is still no power. Grumbling I pack the laptop into its bag, sort through all my work for the day, pack the papers I need and wipe off green shine from my cell phone. I get in the car and drive to the nearest coffee shop with WiFi, leaving my cleaning lady, Margaret, with instructions to phone me when the power comes on.

10.30: I arrive at the coffee shop, wait for parking, park, pick up the laptop bag and start trudging towards the pavement when my phone rings. It's Margaret. The power is on. I can come home.

11.00 - 15.30: I work like a demon, stopping only to intercept emails that make me cry from my work colleague (in response to the one I spent two hours composing), marvel at the taste of green eyeshadow and panic loudly.

17.00: Having dropped Margaret off, I stop at the haberdashery to pick up some needles for my sewing machine, then return home to start supper, only to discover that the cottage cheese I was planning on using is off (I wanted to make spinach-filled cannelloni with a napolitana sauce). I get back in the car, head to Woolies and pick up a new tub. I make the drive home yet again, waving at the bemused security guards at the gates of our complex for the umpteenth time today.

18.00: I make supper. This entails cooking the spinach, mixing it with cottage cheese, blitzing it with a stick blender and funneling the green mixture into the pasta tubes with a piping bag. Can you see where this is going? Can you tell that I'm going to get covered in green again?

19.00: Having wiped down the green kitchen counters, pots and other utensils covered in spinach mixture that shot out of the piping bag with great force when the nosil clogged, I sit down to write a blog post. Still wiping green streaks off my face.

So that was my green day. On the upside...

• The spinach mixture was nothing compared to the mess that I dealt with last week Wednesday when our pressure cooker exploded soup all over the kitchen walls and cupboards, five minutes before my church small group arrived for a soup supper.
• I no longer have to wonder whether that green eyeshadow suits me, as there's none left to wear.
• TSC made it to work on time and had a fantastic first day (he arrrived home a few minutes ago). I'm going to hear all about it now.
• Supper turned out to be delicious. The kitchen counter tops agree.
  
• I have a brand spanking new laptop, which means I can retire The Sheep*. The new one is also red and shiny. Makes me happy! And it's not green. I shall call it the fox**.
  
• I had a conversation with the colleague this afternoon and I think things are ok. Not sure, but I'm tentatively optimistic, which is pretty impressive in itself after a day like today, methinks.
• The Tuesday that thought it was a Monday is coming to a close.
• I ended on an even number of bullet points.
  

*Our old laptop, so named because it is roughly the size, weight and intelligence of said animal. It was also previously known as Lucifer until I realised that people in internet cafes were beginning to think I was invoking the name of the devil.

**Because it is small, sly and foxy looking. And red. Not green.