With a little help from Schadenfreude

How to snap out of it?

As you'll remember I was feeling inexplicably blue yesterday. Or alternatively I just wouldn't say why I was blue, and was being uncharacteristically coy about it, which is just extremely annoying and I should be ashamed. Yah.

I was blue too. No fun anywhere here. And I even looked in all of my pockets, under the bed, and in the closet where everything that has no firm place, use, or purpose gets stuffed into, and then possibly leaks out of the back causing the fridge, which is placed directly on the other side of that closet, to moan. Sorrowfully indeed.

No? Just a thought.

All I found in my search were shuttlecocks. And those only make you laugh for about 8 minutes at the absolute max. Possibly even less if you're just by yourself.

Shuttlecock.

*Giggle*

Hello 6-year-old Extranjera!

Then, I got stuck with the car in the garage, behind the first set of gates, with happy-not-to-be-working-for-a-change, lounging-in-my-garden-loungers garden service folks in my back yard, as the power went out.

Yes again.

It happens. And I don't learn.

And I only had decaf coffee in the house.

Feel the earth move?

A recipe for a disaster of epic proportions. Me all caffeine deprived trying to concentrate on a book, while the garden service guys watch my every move through the patio doors, as if I'm playing the lead in a soap called Boredom Central that chronicles the adventures of a woman whose main daily activities involve taking a shower and making coffee, and the unraveling of said life as the power goes out.

Okay, so technically I do other things besides take showers and drink coffee (did someone say wine?), but when I'm deprived of caffeine my mind plays tricks on me.

The garden service guys seemed enthralled too, and waved at me every once in a while when I happened to glance out at them.

Finally, after I'm pretty sure one of them pointed at me with his crotch and everything that goes along with it, I decided to take a bow and relocate upstairs.

And I'm glad I did. Not only because crotch-pointing can make a person uncomfortable indeed, but also because Schadenfreude decided to extend its clammy hand out to me and pull me out of my funk.

I ended up watching the neighbor's pug and another dog that seemed to be of no specific breed destroy further an already in-million-pieces sprinkler system and some laundry that had flown off the balcony. Until the maid came out to chase them around, which made the dogs run around wildly through the flower beds and rip apart a towel. But only until the lady of the house came out in her skimpy, I-wonder-what-line-of-work-she-is-in dress and chased the dogs around some more, which made her boobs hop in and out of her dress in a very unfortunate, but rather amusing way. But only until the man of the manor came out in his suit and tie and the dogs were so excited to see him that they hopped on him and his suit, finally leaving the towel and the sprinkler system alone. But alas, at that point it was already too late.

It was like watching my own little telenovela, called The Dogs of our Lives, episode 246: Karma can take dog form.

I don't know what it is about schadenfreude and Finns, but for some reason this specific emotion seems to come pretty easy for us. Especially if the target of the emotion has previously shot arrows in the direction of our back yard and study window with an actual compound bow, while his wife has refused to open the door for us to officially complain of said archery, leaving us no choice but to lurk in the study and finally ambush the a-hole hunter and yell at him from the window.

Five arrows in, you stop giving a shit about the neighbors' property and start relishing in its destruction instead.

Sometimes, Karma really gets it right. If only the dogs would chew away that absolutely hideous mock Greek mini-pillar. Now that would be the cherry on top.

I wonder, if I coat it with lard when they're not looking...

But sometimes it's just so hard not to.