Little Things

So, yesterday was a contrast in opposites, in that I learned that there can be little good things and little bad things. (Duh, right?) I mean, little things that can REALLY piss me off, or little things that can make me think, "so this is why I'm so glad I'm alive!" Cases in point:

THE BAD THING

Yesterday I went grocery shopping, which in itself can be filled with good and bad little things (helping someone reach something on a top shelf--good thing; person on cell phone blocking the whole aisle with their cart while they tell someone about their great date the night before--bad thing), but yesterday was the best (worst?) bad little thing in a while. I got the things from my list relatively unscathed (and saved almost $5 on store specials of things I was buying anyway--don't you love when that happens?), and walked out to my car...just in time to see the man who was parked next to me finish putting his groceries in his car, then push his cart away. Not away to the cart corral thing. Not away to the front of his car in that certain spot where the fronts of cars parked facing each other meet and there's usually enough room for a cart and for people to still get in and out of the spots (oh come on, you've all left your cart in that spot at least once, haven't you?). No, he wheels it away from his car and positions it directly behind my back bumper. Which makes a lot of sense...well, not to me, but maybe to someone in Backwardsland. So I blurt out, "Excuse me, you'll have to move that cart. I can't get my car out." So the stupid jer...I mean, elderly gentleman, does what anyone would do--turns and glares at me like I'm speaking Martian. I then repeated myself, a bit more forcefully (sans profanity, though), and he mutters something. "EXCUSE me??" I asked. "I said just a second!" he said, like I asked him to disrobe and dance the hokey pokey. He finally moved the cart, and I got in my car and got out of there before he could key my door or something.

Now, I am not usually a confrontational person (I said USUALLY--ask me what happened when a girl pushed her way through the line to get ahead of us at a theme park recently), but the sheer idiocy/lack of consideration of this guy before my very eyes just astounded me. So, yes, the ratio of the positioning of a shopping cart to how angry it made me is my example of a Bad Little Thing.

THE GOOD THING

Also yesterday, I took a bit of time out of my day to finish up a book that was two days overdue to the library (The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer--excellent!), because I was more done than not and I couldn't bear to not finish it just because I couldn't renew it, so it cost me .50 in fines (a small price to pay for the joy of reading a great book, I think). So, I was sitting on my couch, no TV and no music--so I wouldn't be distracted and could just READ--and one of our cats decided to join me on the couch, a cushion away (she's like a teenager sometimes--"I want to be near you but not THAT much"). Then another one of our cats climbed up between me and the first cat, curling up against my leg. She's not usually very cuddly, so it was a particular treat for her to deign me with her presence. Then, to my great surprise and pleasure, our third cat, who's even less cuddly than the second cat, decided he needed some "mommy time," and proceded to climb onto my lap and happily make biscuits (you know, when kitties are happy and contented and they knead whatever's in front of them that reminds them of nursing on their moms when they were little). Then, he started making biscuits on his nearby sister, who in turn turned to the first cat and started licking her head.

So I'm sitting in my quiet living room, curled up with a good book, purring kitty on my lap and surrounded by other kitties, a lawn mower droning outside that reminded me of spring childhoods, for some reason, and I thought, "this is the perfect moment." Which is why it was a Good Little Thing.

And I started working on my novel again, which is a Great Big Thing--for me, anyway.