So here it was, my no good icky bad terrible day.

This morning my first major decision was that I will no longer take business calls while using the toilet. The first test of my resolve came at 7:40 a.m. Tune in and log on next week to see if this supremely early but important resolution is still hanging unshredded.

Next, walk the dog, who said its too early, too cold. And he simply won't wear that ridiculous red coat that is supposed to protect his arthritic shoulder. Off we go, him looking cute as hell and me looking dowdy, frumpy and - as usual - TIRED, the phone carrying on heroically in my coat pocket.

Next major decision: "Is it too cold to be using a phone with my bare fingers?"

The messages keep coming, from people I've never met and agencies I'm sorry to admit I'm not on speaking terms with. Everyone wants something - time , money, favors, meetings - it's worse than Santa's gift list.

It's a food bank morning. First pickup, at the same time as a grant writer is calling and a baby screaming in the car - he does not want to be confined to a car seat while I'm hoping for permanent confinement in a splashy posh institution.

Numbers (budget, of course) are wrong. I had been so smug; can't do math but watch me (for once) get it right, first time out. Wrong again.

Of course, the deadline is tomorrow, the date of my root canal (I am not joking; I would never joke about something as serious as a root canal).

Creesha calls. "I forgot we were going. Could you pick me up?" Now I have two adults and a 14-month-old in the car, driving to Creesha's. Get there, ru in, use her bathroom, pick up one more adult and a 9-week-old.

Tasha arrives, and everyone talks about yucky stomachs. I sigh. We all head to Quest. Wait, is that Michael skateboarding down the street? It is, and I pick up Michael and skateboard and slide into the parking lot.

It looks like a garbage dump. Someone has left a mountain of garbage next to our locked Dumpster, which we locked just so things like this couldn't happen. Sigh again, unlock dumpster, heave someone's chicken bones and other interesting remnants into Dumpster.

Drive off to the food bank after jettisoning various adults and babies at Quest. Fifteen minutes down the road, J calls. "Where are you? I'm waiting in the parking lot." I answer succinctly "Gone" and keep driving. Back at my house, me and my designated driver pick up my husband's old pickup.

And off we go, me, who can barely see over the steering wheel, and my designated driver in the van. We arrive at the food bank, which looks like Macy's on Black Friday. The lines, the grabbing, the moldy blueberries. We cope well, I think, and manage to pack up and leave only 50 minutes behind schedule.

I am jubilant. We snagged two Christmas trees - well, we had 2 Christmas trees; I watch in horror as one shears off the back of the truck and lands in the middle of Route 7. I call my backup van and they manage bravely to get it back after having a giant confrontation with a brazen woman who insists it's her Christmas tree.

Meanwhile, my salvaged diaper box has come unglued, and I am watching cute little patterned bottom covers whistle merrily by me on the highway. I pull over, I recoup, I reshuffle, I bang on the hood. I collect myself and the diapers and look the windshield straight in the eye and see an expired inspection sticker, expired in September, the month of my birthday. I grit my teeth, call my husband, we exchange some not too pleasant pleasantries and I drive on.

"Where are you? Why aren't you here?" It's the folks at Quest, whom I suspect are probably reading magazines and eating expensive bonbons as I continue my miserable drive.

We arrive, and J has to leave immediately for work, the 14-month-old has a doctor's appointment and I have a headache and a stomachache. The diaper box finally falls apart and someone drops a squash, which (of course) explodes.

I enter my office, dazed and unsteady "It's the guy, he needs those figures." "Toys for Tots is not coming out, I can't get on the Web site, they say it's full, no toys for Quest. What will we do?"

No six-month reports, they're only due Dec 12 - but they are not there. I stare at the empty screen. "Breathe , steady, breathe" The church is here about the garbage, the lights blow, all circuits are down.

I am trying to find a quiet niche to do budget figures while getting lectured by my grant writer about fiscal responsibilities. Does this sound like a glamorous, fun job to you?

Then there are the constant non-phone related interruptions. "We need a second key for the kitchen and also one for the garbage shed." And of course we need those keys now. Urgent e-mail from CARES. "We need verification from your partners by the end of today please."

Oh please. "Excuse me. I need a ride home, me and my baby." "Can I get a box of food?" And as I am segueing into early evening hours, it's "Do you know where my children are? They never came home from school."

Later, much later, five children found, they were sitting in the Quest office having a snack. I had driven right by them when I was driving someone else home. An honest mistake, the kids knew it was food bank day and thought their parents would still be there stashing food.

I can't go on with levity any more.

In the midst of writing this, I got a frantic phone call. One of our girls, just a beautiful young woman, has taken her own life. Too beautiful to be gone. Not just beautiful but smart and charismatic and beautiful.

I am sitting here struggling with this scenario, my beautiful girl, with her sassy smart mouth, and her street garb, mostly in pink, her favorite color. And her father dead, shot in the streets, and her older brother in jail and her younger brother just coming up, coming up to what?

I keep thinking its got to be wrong, it's got to be a mistake. Jesus God how can this happen. It's like she's a cipher, a nothing, a number. Hello' is there anyone out there who can speak for her? Tell us her favorite food, what TV program did she always watch? Who was her best friend? What was her biggest wish for her life, her future? Gone, all gone.

This slim girl with the commanding eyes and an uncanny ability to make everyone follow her bidding. What a politician she would have made. What a captain of industry. What a cinema star. I close my eyes and she's still here, she's everywhere. Her presence is uniquely connected to the Hill. Everyone knew her, we all wanted to get close to her, bask in her beauty and persona.

I rage, "It's not right, it's not fair." This is a child whose life was so bleak, so isolated, so unfixable that she chose death. No blaze of glory in this demise, just a sad little girl who just couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't be alone so she left. Left the stage, left the drama, left the false mask she always wore, the one that said "I'm tough." Not so tough at all, but vulnerable, scared, simply needing to have someone, anyone love her.

And I ask myself are these the children we look at with distaste? The ones we keep out of our schools and programs and lives. Just children after all, much like all the rest of us, ordinary people wanting ordinary lives. Ordinary lives which to her was extraordinary.

QUEST is a community-based organization that provides a safe environment, free meals, counseling, art and recreation programs that keep Hamilton Hill children in school, out of trouble and on track for better lives. For more information on QUEST, visit www.questkids.net.