Latest and Not So Greatest

Today was a frustrating day. It started out OK, a little slowly, because I was really tired this morning. Then I received a phone call around lunch time which was frustrating to put it mildly. I can't really go into the details of it, but basically a person who had agreed to participate in our Anniversary Celebration on October 3, has now decided that she wants to be paid for her participation in the event- "just a few hundred dollars" to quote accurately. Now, we had arranged back in January when she first responded to my posting, that she would donate her time and services and would participate in our event. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and was so angry. The idea that someone wants to change what we agreed to six months ago AND charge a few hundred dollars to participate in the fundraiser (her participation in the event is only a few minutes in duration) for a small non profit that needs absolutely every penny we get it- it was enough to made me want to scream. To make matters worse, a few minutes before she called, I was paying bills and working on financial things, so our financial struggles were already on my mind. I did remain relatively calm on the phone and explained that we had already agreed on the terms of her involvement in the event and to suddenly want to change things now, six months later, was not right. Furthermore, we don't have the budget to throw around hundreds of dollars as if we were talking about pennies (I didn't say it like that). So by the time I got off the phone, I was pretty angry and that unfourtunately derailed a good part of the afternoon. This type of anger is such a useless emotion- anger can be helpful when it motivates one to do something productive, but this type of anger is tiring and useless.

Things did rebound later in the day somewhat, I made contact with some police departments for calendar photos and I spoke with my favorite Lt. at a Boston area police department. I've known him for about 4 years and he is always so pleasant and helpful. I told him today that I wished everyone could be as helpful as him- he said, "no, they should all be like you, then the world would be a much better place." That was such a nice thing for him to say and especially since I was having a lousy day, it made me feel a lot better.

I was planning on coming home tonight and catching up on some work things- I have a lot of thank you cards to send, emails to catch up on, lists to write and more. It's just now I'm really tired. I have an important meeting in the morning, so I should go to bed- that would probably be the best plan. So here's hoping that tomorrow will bring lots of good news. Good night friends...