Just Finished Eight Antacids and Four Ibuprofen

Monday Morning, 6:30 am.

Wake up exhausted and slightly hungover after being gone all weekend in Port Townsend. Stumble around.

Work: Very important Monday 8:00 AM Meeting with my boss, her boss, and his boss.

(While I am ON THE PHONE FOR MY MEETING): Work also calls on the other line. "Need your urgent attention for these major parts of the next Korean class, starting in a month."

Work, again: "The director and deputy director of the business unit we were hoping to utilize for our Kuwait plan just resigned."

Work, again: "Have you ordered those books for the Korean class starting on Monday?"

Work, again. "You've scheduled that celebratory lunch for the end of one of your Korean projects already? Oh. Can you change the reservation from 6 to 16? And where's the certificate?"

Barely 8:15 AM, still on the phone with my boss, her boss, and his boss.

St Louis Work: "SHIT WE FORGOT SOMETHING FOR THE MAJOR KOREAN TRIP." I am on the phone with St. Louis for the next three hours.

Tuesday morning.

Kitchen: "I'm a mess. Please clean me."

Bathroom sink: "I've been clogged for a week and I'm still clogged."

Closet: “All your pants are too big because you’ve lost ten pounds and haven’t taken the time to go shopping. You look terrible in whatever you’re about to put on."

Face: “You haven’t washed me since Saturday and I’m going to fuss about it.”

Hair: “Seriously, my split ends are about to grow spider babies, and my roots are four inches long.”

Work: “Surprise! Brand new 8:00 am meeting with St. Louis!”

My apartment manager, who has been on vacation for a week, calls. "Remember that two bedroom you were going to move in to? The couple wants to switch ASAP. Can you move this weekend?"

Roommate calls. "Remember I'm going to be out of town all day Saturday for the naming ceremony for the baseball field celebrating my grandfather's memory?"

Me, calling Eric. "PLEASE let us move NEXT weekend?"

Personal: "Hey, want to go away with me to a sunny and warm location next weekend? I leave on Thursday, right in the middle of the major Korean Trip and over the weekend when you’re now supposed to move.”

Me: “Um...”

Him: "Buy a bikini, no excuses."

Work calls again. "That new six-person Korean class starting on Monday--you have everything for that, right?"

Work: "Also, that major Korean three-day meeting that starts next Tuesday--your customers want those hotel reservations changed to downtown Seattle, and have you booked the Boeing Transportation yet?"

Personal: "Hey," an old flame says. "Are we still on for that Tuesday night drink and catch up?"

St Louis Work: "WE STILL HAVEN’T SOLVED THAT MAJOR THING WE FORGOT FOR THE ST. LOUIS TRIP."

*Long St. Louis Work Meeting*

Vet calls: "Hi, why haven't you come to pick up Titan's medicine yet? We close at six."

Work: "Have you ordered those books for the Korean class starting on Monday?"

Work: "Please also address these five emergencies for Co-Worker #1, who has been pulled away to work India."

Gary Manuel: “Hi, just calling to remind you that you have a hair appointment on Wednesday afternoon."

Personal: "Hey, want to come shopping with me Wednesday evening?"

Blondie #1: "Hey, the girls and I are getting drinks on Wednesday night! Come or be yelled at."

St. Louis work: “STILL HAVEN’T FIXED MAJOR THING.”

Work: "Given that our first plan just fell through, please take a little time and put together a comprehensive strategy for our entire technical approach in Kuwait for the next six years. Should total about 1.2 billion dollars."

Personal: "We’re still on for that movie on Thursday, right? See you at 6:30. DO NOT BE LATE."

Work: "Please write up a contract amendment for the three Korean projects we're going to be short on. Have that ready by Tuesday. Thanks."

Wednesday Morning.

Kitchen: "I'm still a mess, only more so. PLEASE clean me."

Bathroom Sink: "Hi, I'm still clogged. I know you just had the plumber out here two weeks ago, but I'm still very clogged."

Face: “Wow, I look terrible.”

Hair: “You saw an old flame WITH ME LIKE THIS?"

Closet: “Remember how you don’t have any pants that fit you? Piling them all on your bed is not going to help.”

Sound Transit: "Hey, we have your bike down at the bus station--come by anytime that is convenient for you."

St. Louis work: “Congratulations on fixing major thing. Here’s the next six problems.”

St. Louis work: "I can’t change hotels to stay with our Korean customer—too much to do in Kent. Since you live in downtown Seattle, if we rent you a van, can you walk to their hotel every day at 7:30, and drive them to Kent by 8:30? Thanks. I don’t want to pay over $140 a night."

Work: “Please attend five hours of meetings today.”

Work: “How’s the $1.2 billion Kuwait strategy coming along?”

Work: “What about all these other things for the Korean class that started in a month?”

Blondie, Personal, and Gary Manuel, in unison: “COME SEE ME TONIGHT!”

Thursday Morning.

Kitchen: "I'm now completely unusable and it takes ten minutes to get a glass of water. Let me remind you that you're supposed to move this weekend."

Bathroom Sink: "I'm now going to add ten minutes to your morning routine due to clogging, because I hate you.”

Closet: “It now takes you an additional ten minutes (after the additional ten minutes for the unusable kitchen and the additional additional ten minutes for the clogged bathroom sink) to find anything to wear because you’ve lost ten pounds and nothing fits and you still haven’t gone shopping.”

Acne: “Hi, just showing up to join the party! You haven’t washed your face in at least four days and I hate you! LOL!”

Work: KUWAIT KUWAIT KUWAIT.

Stomach: “I'M GOING TO CRAMP UP NOW.”

Work: MAJOR KOREAN TWO-HOUR CELEBRATION LUNCH.

Me: *whimpers*

Analogy

We were having breakfast at Cyclops.

“I have a hard time letting food go to waste,” I said, as my date eyed me boxing up my one lonely triangle of polenta cake and accompanying tomato romano sauce.

“I’ve noticed that,” he said drily, not needing to mention that I had boxed up most of my chicken dinner the night before at Shelter and insisted that we leave Ballard and take it back to Capitol Hill to put in my fridge, even thought we had to go all the way back to Ballard for the Moisture Festival. It wasn’t a new thing. On our third date I had boxed up most of my carbonara at Café Bendodi and insisted on carrying it around all night, finally getting it safely to his fridge in Belltown but of course forgetting it when I left. (He ate it, of course, and promised to buy me more, a promise I hope to collect on soon.) Hence my recent insistence on getting my leftovers all the way back to Capitol Hill. I had carried boxes of food around on MOST of our dates, except the ones where we ate at Happy Hour or with other people.

“It’s not that I grew up poor,” I said. “There was always PLENTY to eat, and my parents love good food. It’s that food is such a lifeline for me. If I don’t get it, I pass out. I can’t possibly waste it. If I give up this food now, what if I NEED IT LATER?”

He nodded, trying to understand. Being a previously house-trained man, he knew it was important to at least pretend to listen to the woman sitting across the table from you.

“It’s like drugs,” I said, using a metaphor I’ve used before, and one that I knew he’d appreciate. “You just can’t let ANY go to waste.”

The light bulb clicked on, and he laughed. “HA! No kidding. I could have just crumbs of [censored] left in the [censored], but damned if I’m going to throw it out. And that’s probably way less valuable, monetarily, than that amount of food that you just saved. It’s not about saving money.”

“No. It’s about the intrinsic value of the substance to you. The phrase ‘worth its weight in gold’ comes to mind.”

“Yes. It’s worth WAY more than the money itself.”

“Yes.”

“Good analogy, engineer. You broke it down so a sales guy like me could understand.”

“Thanks.”

Blogging The Brainwave: A Passage from Daniel Gilbert's "Stumbling On Happiness".

"What would you do right now if you learned that you were going to die in ten minutes? Would you race upstairs and light that Marlboro you've been hiding in your sock drawer since the Ford administration? Would you waltz into your boss's office and present him with a detailed description of his personal defects? Would you drive out to that steakhouse near the new mall and order a T-bone, medium rare, with an extra side of the really bad cholesterol? Hard to say, of course, but of all the things you might do in your final ten minutes, it's a pretty safe bet that few of them are things you actually did today.

Now, some people will bemoan this fact, wag their fingers in your direction, and tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to show that some people would spend their final ten minutes giving other people dumb advice."" (End emphasis mine.)

-Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling On Happiness

Note To Self

One of these days, I'll figure out how to make photos from my App Cameras rotate properly BEFORE publishing them through Blogger-Droid.

Fairy tale fountain

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Completed to do list.

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