The work day is wrapping up. I guess it’s time to go to work.
Because numb nutz over here forgot his laptop charger in the office yesterday and has to drive the 40 miles to the office to go get it. Or to hopefully go get it. It’s possible someone could have taken it off the desk I used yesterday. Here’s hoping it’s still there.
Numb nutz.
Traffic wasn’t too bad this morning. I made it to work in just over an hour. Now we just have to deal with it until we can go back home where we belong again. Less than eight hours to go!
My mother passed away on Sunday. On Monday, my brother and sister and I met with the funeral director. He gave us a packet of homework. We need to pick readings and music and some other things related to the funeral service. I didn’t do much on Tuesday or Wednesday. We’ve had some discussions on things over text but nothing concrete from me. I am getting back into the swing of it tonight. We bought a suit for my father on Monday. We’re (Jen and I) going to him tonight to let him try it on. It’s probably not going to fit very well, but hopefully it’s close enough. After that, we’re having a meeting to go over the homework. Speaking as an Atheist, I don’t have a lot of interest in the readings that happen during the mass. I’ll give my $0.02 but I might have more input on the music. There is one song that was played at my grandmother’s funeral that brought my mother to tears. That one will be included. They played it at my Aunt’s funeral a few months ago as well, for exactly the same reason.
It might be a mildly long night tonight. We’ll see. I am working today and need to try and have actual food for dinner at some point. I’ve been so dependent on protein bars and supplements for the last few weeks that I expect my stomach to start rebelling at any moment. I just had eggs for breakfast and I hope to have some chicken for lunch. Dinner… we’ll see.
With all of this going on I am starting to think that my RPM Challenge success streak is in jeopardy. Not that that matters at all. I am, however, about to finish season one, episode three of Star Trek Picard. Maybe I should have been working on some recording instead of watching TV. Forgive me, I am a little screwed up right now. Working on Tuesday and Wednesday was a little tough but the normalcy felt pretty good after the insanity of the last couple of weeks. I’m working from home today and tomorrow and then taking three days of bereavement time on Monday through Wednesday next week. I am allowed to take five days, but I don’t want to. I was even hesitant about taking the third day, but I think it will come in handy, mental health wise.
Okay, it’s time to start getting ready for work. Wish me luck today.
I am working in the office today. That’s going to be a regular Wednesday thing going forward. For now at least. It’s 47 degrees out, which on February 8th is an absolutely glorious heatwave. I wish I was outside in the back yard filling up the bird feeders and taking pictures in the woods.
Nope, I’m at the office instead. Not that I would have been away from my desk at home, but you know what I mean. It’s a symbolic thing, dig?
The main point of this post is not to bemoan working in the office, but rather to bemoan the fact that I AM FREEZING MY ASS OFF while working in the office. No one else has complained about the temperature, so it’s probably just a side effect of losing 200 pounds worth of insulation which has left me feeling as though I am on the verge of frostbite 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and somehow that just seems to be exacerbated by being away from home. If I were at home I’d have a fleece jacket on and maybe, though probably not today, a space heater.
Instead we’re in a conference room 40 miles away from home and I am feeling so cold I am almost shivering.
Also, I want to play my damn guitar. Why haven’t I played my guitar in like 2-3 months? What is wrong with me??
Between me feeling sick for a few days and my mother going into the hospital with pneumonia and me dropping the ball on something at work for which I will never forgive myself and our new cat being very anti-social, it’s been a pretty crappy week. It’s only Thursday so you’d think there would be time to straighten everything out and salvage the week, but we’re going to a wake for a 20-something year old on Saturday and that is not exactly a day brightener, you know? We are picking up our new cat’s four month old kitten this weekend so hopefully that will lighten the mood a little. The cats were named Disco and Boogie but we are changing them to Robin (or Robin Sparkles) and Lily after two characters on How I Met Your Mother. Robin is mom and Lily is kitten, even though Robin and Lily were not related on the show. Give me a break, okay? It’s better than Disco and Boogie. I mean, I don’t want a kitten named for a synonym for snot.
I’m not sure what the issue was that made me feel sick. It was definitely stomach related, but it was different than the usual post-surgery stomach problems. I wonder if it just had to do with my eating schedule going down the crapper starting on Saturday and not clearing up until Wednesday. I had two stomach problems on Wednesday but they were the usual you-ate-too-fast-and-your-stomach-couldn’t-handle-it problems. Not a stomach ache that gets worse when you’re standing or laying down and gets better when you are sitting up straight. Yeah, I don’t get it. Hopefully that goes away and stays away.
My mother will be in the hospital into the weekend at least. They are giving her antibiotics for pneumonia and a UTI. On her second night they found that she was a little anemic but as of yesterday they haven’t figured out why yet. It’s all really scary and stressful, but we know she’s in good hands. We just need to put our faith in the hospital. I’m still worried though. My brother spent the day with her yesterday, and my sister will visit her today. I’ll be going back tomorrow. After that, I don’t know. There’s a chance she could be going back to the nursing home on Saturday. I don’t know how good of a chance, but there is a chance.
As for the cat, the two year old cat I mean, Robin Sparkles, she spent the first few days hiding, but she’s starting to do a little exploring now. She was very friendly to me for a while, but now she seems scared to death of me. I don’t know why, but I hope she gets over it. She’s more friendly to Jen, but still not too friendly. I want to give her a month or so to adjust before I pass judgement on her behavior. I’m curious to see how she behaves when the kitten gets here (on Sunday… or maybe Saturday if the stars align). When we first met them at the shelter, the kitten was the friendliest feline I’ve ever seen. Here’s hoping that hasn’t changed in the intervening week.
Okay, it’s 9:00am. Time to get to work. May your Thursday go better than my Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday have gone. Thumbs up, brothers and sisters.
I haven’t written about all of the “fun” I had last night, but let’s summarize by saying yesterday ranks as one of the shittier days I’ve had of late. I was feeling sick, then the cat was looking sick, then after four hours at the vet hospital the cat dashed out of it’s carrier and hasn’t made a public appearance since, then I started feeling REALLY sick and the clock struck 3:30 with no relief in site.
I mentioned yesterday that I needed to work because I had a mountain of paperwork to do. I didn’t get to any of it until 8:00am this morning and I’ve maybe done 33.3% of it. It’s all due tomorrow morning. I would say that I am going to need the whole night tonight to get through it, but I still have 2.25 hours left in the work day and I am seriously running out of gas. I told my boss that if I did not have this mountain of stuff to do I absolutely would have called in sick. He told me to call in sick anyway. I didn’t because I don’t want to dump all of this stuff on him.
Oh yeah, and the cat has pink eye and needs medicine but she’s hiding and we can’t find her. I think she drank some water. I think she might have eaten a little. I think she might have used the litter box, just a little. Those are good things, but really I am ready for her to stop being scared shitless of everything in the house. She had had two episodes of cuddly, lovey, sweetness, one of which was at the vet while I was in a waiting room alone with her and the other was at 2:30am on Sunday morning when Jen got up for some reason and the cat was super affectionate to her. Other than that, she’s been in hiding ever since we took her home and it’s frustrating as hell and pissing me off. At least come out and eat some food, cat.
Okay. I need to push through more of the paper work. Let’s get through it tonight, shall we?
Well, the new cat is back under the vanity. Jen tried to coax her out of the bedroom and she got spooked by a noise from the dishwasher and back to the vanity she went. I am about to go and sit with her and try and get a response. I think we just need to be patient, that’s all. She’s a good kitty but she needs time to adjust. Poor little thing.
I took my father to see my mother today. It was rough. She was completely unresponsive. He held her hand for a while but she didn’t stir, not even a little. It’s heartbreaking and gut wrenching. I miss my mom.
I haven’t done any work today. I will, but I just can’t dredge up the motivation to get anything done. My stomach is bothering me. Sometimes when I feel this way having some food straightens me out for a while, but that doesn’t seem to be working right now. Crud. Also, it’s starting to snow.
Crud.
My first day in the office for 2023. I left the house at 7:30 and parked the car at the office at 9:10.
Fuck you, traffic. Looks like I am going to be in a grade A shitty mood today.
Well that was a kick in the scrotum.
No turkey for me. They closed down the gift distribution system at 2:00 without ever telling us whether the small turkeys had arrived or not. I take that to mean they did not. If they tell us to come in another day to pick up our turkeys I am going to blow it off. Any unclaimed gifts get donated to a shelter, so that works for me. I really love me some xmas turkey though. I’m a little ticked off. Hooray.
What was even better? I left the office at 2:00pm. Waze told me I would be home by 2:45. Well, 2:58 is what it ended up being. You see, I hit me a traffic jam on route 93 North. Yup, pre-3:00pm traffic jams. Oh yeah. The accident I was stuck behind wasn’t the cause of the traffic, it was a symptom of it. Hooray.
I tried blindly taking a picture for my photo a day thing as I was crossing the Merrimack River. All I got was the upper left corner of my passenger door frame. Oh well. Hooray.
As mentioned in a post earlier today, I am in the office for holiday gift distribution day. My company gives out food for xmas. Turkey, ham, lasagna. It’s your choice. This year they gave us multiple turkey options. Big, small, or kosher. I signed up for small. Our freezer is little and I wanted it to fit.
The announcement said the distribution would start at 9:30. At 10:30 they announced the small turkeys haven’t been delivered yet.
Oh, come on.
Inside the Red Head's Head 