Monday morning adrenalin

The week began with a bang. I had to be at New Employee Orientation (for that on-call chaplain's position I mentioned a while back) at the hospital yesterday morning by 8:00 am. It's a 40-minute drive (during morning commute time), and I don't like to arrive at the last minute, so I needed to leave by 7:15. That meant getting up around 6:15, so I can take my time getting ready (and monitor the kids' progress in the bargain). A simple thing, for this morning person; I rarely sleep later than that anyway, especially on a school day.

Except that I didn't sleep well the night before. It was just one of those nights where I woke up with too many thoughts and details in my head, and couldn't get back to sleep. I finally gave in and got up-- prayed a little, wrote a few things down, sent a couple of emails-- so I could relax and get another hour or two before the alarm went off.

The alarm didn't go off. And when my eyes opened, the clock said precisely 7:07.

ACK!!

I said something distinctly unclerical, and ran.

Yes, I made it-- out of the house at 7:19, into the hospital parking lot at 7:54-- but it wasn't pretty. And wouldn't you know, the chair of the Pastoral Care Dept. met me at the door, digital camera in hand, so she could take a picture to post on the hospital's Intranet system.

Oh, well... at least they'll recognize me when I get paged in the middle of the night.