Lemonade

Yesterday was a dark day.
Numerous "salmon days" at work. I was on the receiving end of a bit of "seagull management" on top of that.
Palpable feeling of doom.
Traffic caused us to decide to stay in town until later (blowing my plans out the door). When we got home at around 10:30, the sprinklers for the back back lawn were still going. From 7. Not knowing anything about sprinkler systems in general, I proceeded to press most of the buttons on the sprinkler controller. Starting in a methodical manner. Each change on the control box was followed by a walk around the house to see if the sprinklers were still on. Back to the box...press some more buttons.. walk back around the house. Turning the control box o the "off" position failed to turn off the sprinklers.. WTF?!?! Is the term "off" used differently in landscaping lingo? After about an hour of making changes on the box and walking around to the back to find the sprinklers still on, I was ready to kill something. I reprogrammed the control box. All 6 pumps were turned OFF. All of the watering times for each of the 6 pumps were turned OFF. I even changed the date. (Figured I fiddled with everything else, what the hell?)
The damn sprinklers were still going.
It's now 11:45. I've had a shit day. (I'd planned to go for a bit of a bike ride too.) I'm filthy from messing with the sprinkler controls and every walk around the house to see if the sprinklers were still on took my rage to a new level.
Frustrated beyond rational thought, I decide to turn off the water to the whole house.
The grass has wedged the cement cap on tight.
I'm now in a complete blind rage. This is how people get murdered, they mess with people when they're in this state. I've taken off my shirt because I'm sweating furiously, standing in the front yard tearing clumps of grass out by the fist-full. Savagely. I jam the handle of a set of pliers into the hole in the cement cap and wedge it in there tight and yank with both mud covered grassy hands. It barely pops free. Slightly relieved, though no less calm or rational, to find out that the valve does not require some special took to operate, I crank the valve closed.
One more trip around the house thinking "I swear to god that if the sprinklers are still on I'm going to kill everyone".

The sprinklers were off. (at least some of the laws of physics are working)

I walk into the house and use my elbow to turn on the water in the sink.
Nothing.
I swear the room just faded to white.

I really can't remember the last time I'd been that furious. In retrospect, it sounds comical.

Stepping back, it's just a bunch of things adding up and I don't really have an outlet.
My Cat's sick and the Doc has no idea what's wrong.
My 180 HDD is dead. And all the data with it.
My job has turned from something that I looked forward to, to something that causes me to blog on company time.
I'm totally broke (partially because my job pays next to nothing - it was a labor of love to begin with)
I'm averaging 3.5 hours of sleep a night.
All I want to do is go ride - and unless I want ride in the dark, which I'm less than fond of in my area.

Maybe today wont be another dark day. (I'm not holding my breath)

P38Pilot
N21 19.190' W157 51.734'
(accurate to within 91ft)