It Was A Strange Day

Yesterday was a very strange day for me. On my way to work, I was on the phone with my mother, who asked me what I’m currently writing. I moaned and groaned, as her usual words ran through my head, “paranormal? Why would anyone ever want to read or write that? Can’t you write realistic fiction, something about real life, like all other serious writers?” My mother isn’t one to candy coat things. If she hates something, she will say it flat out. Whenever I tell her of a plot idea or a story I’m writing, I get varied responses from “I like it, but maybe you should write this instead of that” to “I hate it.” Still, I told her what I’m writing; a paranormal erotic romance.  Although she was silent, I could almost hear her calling me an idiot. Honestly, I wasn’t too sure about the story anyways so I summarized the plot to her, minus the sex scenes.  Surely she will tell me it’s my worst story to date. Imagine my shock when she said “Wow. I love it.”

Really? I was speechless.

“You do realize this is a paranormal?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she answered. “But it’s so much better than any that I’ve read. I love the idea and the characters.”

A day later, I’m still shocked that she liked my idea without giving me pointers of what to change.

Moving on, work was relatively easy yesterday. I enjoyed that. Normally, I get frustrated with all the customer demands and my boss for assuming I could read her mind and just know what she wants me to do without her telling me. Yet, yesterday, I didn’t have to deal with that.

On the way home from work, I called my husband who informed me that his ex-wife and daughter were coming over.

Oh, no! That could only mean one thing. She wants us to babysit her and instead of telling us ahead of time so we don’t make any plans, she tells us like an hour before, so we’re stuck canceling what we had planned so the ex wife could go to ‘work’ and then we learn from a mutual friend that she was out partying instead of ‘working’. My husband doesn’t mind seeing his child, we just want her to tell us a few days ahead of time so we don’t make any plans or so we could cancel the plans earlier then the last minute.

So they came over. The ex-wife carried a tiny purse. She opened it and spilled all the contents on my kitchen counter.

“Any of this looks familiar?” she asked.

I looked at the array of lipsticks, eye shadows, and nail clippers. Yes, some of it looked a lot like the makeup I had that mysteriously disappeared. Most of it wasn’t mine though.

So my husband and his ex-wife gave their kid a speech about stealing things and some of the other issues we all have with her like lying, her attitude, bad grades, messy room, ect. Then, to my surprise, the ex-wife came to stand beside me and told her daughter that she should show me the same respect she shows her mother, as I am also a mother figure to her. I’ve never expected his ex to say that or to even see me as a mother figure to her child.

So yesterday was a very, very strange day. Any strange days with you?