I am a woman with a dilemma.  As I stood in my barely useable kitchen, having to move a stack of chairs with a giant cardboard xBox character (as a mom, I’m not so hip) brandishing a weapon stacked nearly to the ceiling (the character, not me), to put brownies in the oven (I am running a day late) for my 19-year old’s birthday dessert, wanting to have a day of rest but knowing that I should seriously start cleaning (or is that start serious cleaning…on the Sabbath, no less!), wanting desperately to take a nap but knowing that no one else will hear the timer go off, let alone go pull the browines out of the oven, all the while wondering how I ever got myself into this situation and how I will ever get out.   

It reminds me of that old black and white silent film series, “The Perils of Pauline” – and no, that isn’t from my era.  But I feel much like a damsel in distress, tied to the railroad track with a train speeding towards me or maybe I’ve been tied to big log and I’m headed towards the giant saw (oh…that sounds like it came from a more current movie that I will not watch); or maybe I’ve been blindfolded and tied up and kidnapped by wild Indians (in the form of my family) and tossed down the hill with a big boulder tumbling after me…

WAIT!!!  Does my distress all involve being tied up, hands tied, or tied down?  I wonder where a pysciatrist would say where my deep seated problems lie.  That will have to wait for another time, another session.  My timer just went off.  The brownies are done and I’d better get down there or someone will be in SERIOUS trouble if they burn.  Enough of the melodrama and mid-life crisis…I don’t have time today.  This “crisis” short will have to remain a cliffhanger until next time’s installment, where I hope the villan, twirling his handlebar mustache, will chime in with a “Curses…foiled again!” 

To my family: “Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”  (Another quote from a famous duo…do you know who?)  I accept a portion of the responsibility.  I am sure that this, too, shall pass.