"All those things I can do. All those powers. And I couldn't even save him."

Monday morning and up by 4:30; hand-washed a half dozen pots and pans, packed lunches and moved a couple loads of laundry through various transition points.  Escorted my four young children, with kindness and patience, to the car and delivered the baby to his daycare by my self-imposed deadline.  Took the other three to the YMCA and cruised to the Park-n-ride with plenty of time to catch my bus.  And then commenced my reunion with the ever-reliable unreliability of King County Metro.  As I walked into the office, I fought off a raging bitterness that was ushering in faster than I could hustle in my black leather boots.  Being late to work isn't a matter of life or death, after all.  9:02 am showed on my desk phone and as I hit "Clock-in" I saw the last digit blur and become a 3.

This morning I finally understood exactly why Superman was furious when confronted with Lois's suffocation death in the first Superman film.   He was three minutes too late.  He had managed to hold continents together with his sheer strength, saved and smiled at a bus full of school kids on the swinging Golden Gate, and caught the foolish photographer who fallen off the damned dam.  But time moved too surely and wouldn't wait to sync with his imprint of action, heroism and self-promoting PR niceties.  The dirt piled up in Lois's car like sand in an hourglass - an analogy that obviously didn't impress me as much as the drama of her death until now.  And soon after Superman was confronted with the simple equation and conclusion, Lois's dirty and breathless body, he exploded.

I kind of wanted to yell like that as I hurried past the quiet introverts I work next to, although I admit it seems overly dramatic to compare my Monday morning tardiness to a Superhero's disappointment at not being able to save the life of his major crush.  I vented to a coworker 10 minutes later in the kitchen  and got over it.  Funny thing is, after this morning when I consciously recall Superman's yell in that scene from the movie (I watched it with my kids a few months ago), I feel like I am inciting a soul serenade.

There is in fact, a great depth of drama to my mornings (and evenings), and I don't feel like I'm in a position to minimize the importance of performing well at the job.  Kind of like a crush, I welcome it!