Early Retro

CURRENT MOOD: Annoyed

PAGES WRITTEN: 0

CURRENT MUSIC: none

DAILY AFFIRMATION: I'm learning to manage my time wisely.

DAILY ACTIVITY: Walked son to school and back total = 1/2 mile (30 minutes). At the gym: 5 miles on the bike (25 min), Tai Chi (30 min), Pilates (45 min), Step Aerobics and free-weights (60 min), stretching (15 min).

To Do List: Rush order at work and to post office = 2-1/2 hours.



Mercury goes retrograde on Oct 22, which means trouble with communication and transportation of any sort. And I've already seen the beginning effects, which can start up to a week early. Yesterday at the fabric store, I was standing in the checkout line and gazing at all those cute "can't live without" items on the stand.

Well, I happened to remember my 5-yo had what looked like a black ink spot on his white shirt, and I picked up a little bottle of interesting spot remover and decided to buy it. The folks in front of me tried to complete their checkout, but the computerized register system hung up. After about five minutes, the cashier (nice and smart lady I've dealt with many times over the past several years) called the manager and moved to the second register to check me out. I had a debit card, which also hung up.

Another ten minutes passed, and the first register finally cleared itself and a new cashier found she was able to accept cash, then checked several more people from the growing line. But, she also got hung up when she tried to run a check.

In the mean time, I still had a RUSH order at work to get back to and complete and get into the mail by Priority TODAY. I told myself to be calm, and that things would work out. The "help" desk for the register system was on the phone to the manager and offered no help, just thinly veiled accusasions the cashiers weren't doing their jobs right. Arrgh!!

Then the first register cleared, and the cashier was able to again accept cash payments. I didn't have enough cash for my purchase, which is why I wanted to use my debit card. It dawned on me that if I didn't have Granny's spot remover, I could make my purchase by cash. I told my cashier this, and she moved to yet a third register and got me checked out quickly with a cash sale.

Fate tends to work in mysterious ways, I've found, for our best interest (though we might not see it as such right away). Maybe I didn't need the spot remover, and by the computer system malfunctioning plus my not having enough cash, I was kept from a frivoulous impulse purchase. I have two other spot removers at home already, I just meed to dig them out and see if either will work on the ink spot.

The RUSH job was completed and mailed on time, but again, not without incident. My printer said it was out of ink, but it printed my mailing label anyway. Not a great print, but still readable. I had a bad feeling about it. Since this was an important order, I stood in line at the post office for an extra 20 minutes (typical, but not too bad) to get my package checked in. I got the counter, but the label wouldn't scan. It wouldn't acknowledge the manually keyed number code either.

The gal knows me and also knew from my label I had paid for my shipping online, so she kept at it. About the dozenth time, the system accepted the number, and she added her little coded label to show she had already seen it at our end. I walked out of the post office after thirty-five minutes, or what usual would've taken me two minutes to drop the package on the check-in counter and get back out to my car.

Mercury's at it again. The Retro in March '06 was more frustrating then problematic for me, and this summer in July '06, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been, with mostly only delays. Since in Astrology my Sun is in Gemini (ruled by Mercury), I learned very early in life to duck and cover during these times so I could avoid as many problems as possible. Three times per year for three weeks I don't force issues and try to go with the flow more than usual, which sort of gives me a bit of a rest anyway.

Starting on Oct 28 to Nov 18, watch out for communication and transportation problems. Arrange a little extra time for things to save you headaches.

~A