Running on Fumes

Thankfully I'm packed and ready to go and it's not midnight yet. The shuttle comes to get me at 6:30 AM for a 10:30 AM flight that arrives at 5:30 PM. I have gorp, mentos and a twix and a pile o cash to get me through tomorrow. Fortunately, I had an admin and IT support to help me get through today. Barring catastrophic injury or similar damage, it could not have gone worse.

Without even considering my grandma dying, it's been a pitiful, miserable week. For the gory details,

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It started off well - I made the monetary transfers to pay off the Lasik in full. I read a good book.  On sunday my organizer and I got pictures of my dress options for the wedding and cleaned up something that was bugging me and now the cluttered space is empty and all my (external) loose screws are findable. A project at work made headway. I donated a scad of things to people who lost everything in the recent Guatemalan storms. Remember a few weeks ago when I ransacked my place and in about 2-3 hours complied almost a whole second household of goods? I did it again. It wasn't quite so comprehensive but it's still mostly stuff I'll never miss. And it's now gone off to people who need it. I met up with a friend to see a movie and wound up with pleasant eye candy and a laugh out loud viewing of Killers with Ashton Kutcher. We ate enough popcorn to pop, then hit the cheesecake factory.

Perhaps it wasn't wise at the time, but those cheesecake dinner leftovers have sustained me through 3 full meals now.  Monday started when my computer wouldn't boot up fully and wouldn't let me copy any files.  The tools that had been running over the weekend were down - one for routine maintenance that's happening too early, the other for catastrophic failure of a $10,000 pump.  Not my fault, but my fallout.  Being computer disabled, that project that I put off last week became even more delayed and I stressed out more.

The admin managed to take care of changing my flights so I didn't have to, and the fallout didn't take a lot of time.  I managed to inch some projects along,  but it was a hell of a day nonetheless.  I got a beer after work before hitting the gym. Since a light buzz makes me like to run, I beat my trainer to the gym and ran flat out on the treadmill for a while, then did burnout strength exercises with the trainer until my leg shook as I shifted the car on the way home.

Today they managed to set me up with the worlds largest laptop which I will have to bench press through security tomorrow instead of this lightweight netbook I'm using right now - taking both would be silly.  But the wireless wouldn't connect to my email for half a day although the internet would.  But guess what else was broken?  Southwest's computers.  The admin and I spent 6 hours trying to get me boarding passes.  And I found out I'll miss the actual funeral anyway because it's pushed out a day. Our internal website put up a list of papers published in May and left mine off the list.  (That's insult, not injury, and not a big deal but I chose to find it annoying.)  My firs priority task needed me to do number data entry, and the laptop had no number pad and no place to plug in my ergo keyboard.  I managed to find a conference room and use that keyboard to access my shared drive files and do the update, which wasn't too bad until I broke my badge.   Stupid thing is 4 years old and waits until my last day at work before I travel to another site where I'll need it before crapping out.  Really?  I had to deal with a broken badge today too?

Yeah, that might not sound like much - not having 3 of the main programs I need to get my job done available, no number pad, no printer connection, hard fought B27 boarding rank, and a broken badge. 

Add to this:

• I have poison oak on my right leg and have been fighting it for most of a week.
• From the stress of last week, cold sores are trying to break out on my lip.  I've managed to stave off a big outbreak with applications of wintergreen alcohol and witch hazel,   but it requires *constant*vigilance*, loading up a q-tip or cotton pad every 2-4 hours and stinging the hell out of my lip for as long as I can stand it.  And this has been going on for several days.
• I'm also starting my period.  It's past the point where I should be back on the pill.  The horrors of my pre-pill periods are back.  I'm completely non-functional without painkillers.  Four tylenol take the edge off enough that I can mostly not think about how much I want to throw up.  Six seemed to actually make the pain and nausea recede.  But I'm still going to bleed like a stuck pig for a coupla days, and need to keep the Tylenol close at hand.

As you might imagine, fighting a coldsore that I feel constantly, a persistent leg itch and abdominal cramps do not put me in the most tolerant mood to start with and I'm going to a funeral.  I drove home very, very carefully.

I chilled out with some cheesecake food, a salad and some steamed veggies and read some of the first book that the library here has held for me. I started laying out clothes thinking that I'd just put out the easy stuff then take a nap.  But the easy stuff left few gaps, so I filled in the gaps and matching socks, shoes, and undies to outfits takes no effort. Putting the stuff in spacebags took even less thought.  I traveled recently enough that my toiletries were mostly all assembled.  It was just as easy to put the stuff in suitcases as it was to haul it to the couch, so here I am, packed and ready to go after a quick errand trip for allergy meds, cash, and gas that went more smoothly than the rest of the day would have indicated.  Well, except lunch.  I went to the place I usually don't like so in case something bad happened I wouldn't hate a favorite place but they treated me great and the food was delicious and they didn't rip me off, so some things went right today.

God willing and the creeks don't rise, I'll be seeing the family tomorrow and hitting Boston about 5 hours earlier than the original plan, which will allow for more sleep thursday night/friday morning.  If you need me before friday, though, call.