From falling trees to failing teas

If a tree falls in the forest and I'm not there to hear it, does it still make an impact?

Yes, and you could have heard the long-term effect of this impact early this morning if you'd seen me bonking my head against my car's door frame. It may not be immediately clear how these two events are related, but one led to the other as inevitably as washing the car leads to rain.

So the resident woodsman cut down a tree, a lovely tulip poplar that unfortunately grew too close to the driveway and interfered with delivery trucks' ability to get around the last steep curve. I'm amazed that he brought this massive tree down without doing any damage to nearby rhododendron bushes or the bottlebrush buckeye, but there was nowhere to drop it but across the driveway so there it still sat when I got home last night. I parked my car further down the driveway and clambered up a wet, muddy slope to get to the house, too tired to think about how I might eventually get the car out of its tight spot.

This morning the rain was pouring down when I went out the door laden with umbrella, tote bag, flashlight, and a loaf of zucchini bread (for a retired colleague who's coming by for a casual colloquy this afternoon). My husband helped me get down the muddy slope and then executed a perfect 14-point turn to get my car facing the right direction--and off I went, never even noticing that I'd left the house without my usual travel mug full of tea. Yes, I blame the tree for that, because if the tree hadn't been in the way, I wouldn't have been too distracted to notice the travel-mug-shaped void at the center of my being.

But I didn't notice the absence until I was halfway to town and I can't get through the morning without my usual quota of caffeine so I decided to stop at a convenience store and pick up a jolt of Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi, which is not my usual morning quaff but there really isn't anywhere in town to get real chai brewed from loose tea leaves or even bottled unsweetened iced tea, and beggars can't be choosers.

So I walk out in the rain and open the car door and the slippery plastic Pepsi bottle slips out of my hand and starts rolling away, at which point I lunge after it but miscalculate the angles and bash my head against the door frame. Ouch! (Again, I blame the tree. Obviously!) And there goes my morning quota of caffeine rolling across the parking lot into the path of a car, whose driver stops and looks at me where I'm holding my aching head and nods to indicate he'll wait while I retrieve my drink, which is just about to roll into the road. This is a person who understand the power of caffeine addition. 

Did I go running across a rainy parking lot this morning to chase a bottle of Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi? Yes I did. I may have sacrificed my dignity, but I salvaged my caffeine.

Now I'm in my office preparing for tomorrow's classes while the resident woodsman disassembles the tulip poplar's trunk to move it out of the driveway. If all goes according to plan, I'll be able to drive all the way up my driveway when I finally get home. If not, I think I'll just leave my car in a ditch and drop out of the rat race, wandering off to become a woodland hermit. 

(But who will bring me my morning tea? If my tea fails in the woods--trust me, you'll hear it.)