I cried and then I put out a fire.

Life definitely does have a sense of humor. Here's why:

Today was my last day of work. Because I am not returning there next year, there were a lot of people that I came to really like, admire and bond with throughout the past year to whom I needed to say goodbye. Leaving the building was almost an hour long process with many goodbyes, see you laters, hugs and parting words of wisdom. By the end of the goodbyes I couldn't hold in the emotions anymore and I began to cry. And it wasn't the pretty sort of crying where one or two nice big fat tears roll down your cheeks. It was the trying-not-to-but-can't-hold-back-slightly-sobbing-can't-talk kind of crying. I knew I needed to get out of the building before I would be able to pull myself back together. So I left and on my walk home is where the humor part happened.

As many of you know, my walk home from work takes me by the Market Basket supermarket. Upon approaching the supermarket I noticed some smoke. The smoke appeared to be coming from a parked car's exhaust pipe. As I got a little closer I smelled the smoke and it smelled like a campfire. That seemed strange being that it looked like it was coming out of an SUV. I know they are all rugged-like but I was pretty sure they don't run on burning wood. Once I was next to the source of the smoke, I realized that the mulch was smoldering. For those of you that read the Yarn Harlot's blog, you know that smoldering mulch can be pretty persistent. As I stopped to ponder how to handle the ever-increasing firey mulch, a couple of customers noticed and walked over to the area. The customer man had a partially full (notice the optimism there) bottle of water with which he attempted to put out the flames. He didn't have enough water and so I came over with my bottle of water to do what I could. I had enough to put the rest of it out. The customer lady said, "Dasani saves the day! They should use that as their slogan." To which the gentleman replied, "This happens all of the time. People and their dumb cigarettes." In my experience I haven't come across many instances of smoldering grocery store mulch but he apparently has a long history of firefighting at grocery stores and is fed up with it.

Needless to say, it was hard to feel all sad and emotional after Dasani saved the day. Thanks Dasani.

I can now start being excited about how I get to have a summer. A real, back to being like a little kid, play almost all of the time summer. It is the first time in my life that I get to have this sort of time off from work. There are bets on whether I will be able to enjoy the idle time or whether it will make me a crazy, must-be-productive, can't handle not being overly committed lunatic. I'm hoping for the best.

Happy Summer Solstice!