So much for "great"

I've learned that even thinking the thought "Wow, everything today is just falling into place" is dangerous. It's like an instant jinx. Case in point: today.

For my story today, I had to call superintendents at 15 school districts, plus some teachers and board members. Usually, a story like this takes about three days, by the time everyone calls me back.

Today, magically (I still don't know how it happened), I got ahold of just about everyone before lunch. I wrapped up the story by about 3:30 p.m. This was really good news, because I really wanted to get to the gym for this step dance class that is running only this month — one that is my all-time favorite.

As I walked out of the office at 4:15 p.m., I was already celebrating my "great" day.

But I ran into an acquaintance at the gym as I was getting changed. We ended up talking for awhile, so I missed the class. That wasn't so bad because what we were talking about was worth it. But I only got in a 20-minute work out before I had to run to my online virtual classroom appointment.

This is for the Japanese learning program I'm taking to prepare for the professional exchange I'm going on in a couple weeks to Japan. I already missed the first class because no one at the program told me I couldn't participate using a Mac. I had to set it up on a PC at work. That was a whole drama filled with technical difficulties and about a half dozen phone calls. By the time I got on, I found out the class was mistakenly cancelled.

My exchange team and I decided to bump up a conference call we had planned.

That worked, but by the time I got off the phone it was 8:45 p.m., and I was feeling a little worn out from running to one thing to another. And I still had four messages on my cell phone's voicemail. And all I had for dinner was a peanut butter sandwich in the car on the way to my class and a piece of cake left over from cake day at work.

It's all good, I thought, "Grey's Anatomy" is on.

Well, it's a rerun.

Lesson learned: So much for optimism.