"I don't see what this has to do with...uh, do you have any kahlua?"

Lately, the solution to all of life's little problems is a bottle of kahlua and a container of half-and-half.

And life's little problems these days include missed deadlines, uncooperative managers, support staff with no initiative, temps with attitude, and people who aren't my boss wanting to act like they are. I've been staring at numbers for hours on end since last week, with no end in sight. I am part of a group scheduled to go to the main branch on Friday, so that work day is completely shot. (The mananger who planned this will be taking us all to lunch, though, so that might be nice) I had a review scheduled this week, but my supervisor didn't have the paperwork ready, so that's been pushed back to next week. I haven't been sleeping well, so I'm pretty much exhausted and suffering from a slight case of burn out.

BUT -

Generally speaking, life is good. I have plans for my birthday. And for the weekend after. The end of the budget year, although fast approaching and vaguely terrifying, means that there is an end in sight to my currently high stress levels. It will be a giant sigh of relief, come summertime - just in time for my little vacation. Yesterday I helped my husband dismantle the aluminum awning that has covered part of our pool deck since I've lived in my house. When it was all finished, and the sunlight was shining on the back porch and a breeze was actually blowing through a space that used to get hot and stuffy, we looked at each other and said "Why didn't we do this years ago?". It's really open now, and lets a lot more light into the kitchen. Plus, the upside is that we'll be scrapping a decent amount of aluminum for recycling. It's strange how one simple project can give you such a feeling of accomplishment and motivate you to get even more done. Too bad almost all of my "economic stimulus" money went to paying off my credit card, or we'd be planning some more projects. Of course, we have a bunch of almost-completed projects still in process, so I guess we should wrap those up first.

As promised, to M:

What smells like a funeral parlor in here?

This morning when I came in to work the maintenance crew was in the middle of diagnosing a huge ceiling leak that happened right outside my office door. This is the second leak this year, only this time it was from the cooling system instead of from the refrigerator in the break room upstairs malfunctioning. They had a guy come and fix the pipe and replace the acoustic tile that basically had disintegrated all over the furniture in the common reception area (what the temp e-mailed to the maintenance office as a "whole" in the ceiling...). Too bad the leak wasn't in my office. Right over my desk. And too bad I'm going to have to start buying the single serve creamers that you don't have to refrigerate, because someone used up all of the specialty creamer I brought in a couple weeks ago. Again. I don't mind sharing what I bring in, but this stuff went fast, and I didn't use that much of it. Plus, only two of us regularly bring in food and supplies for the office, and it's those who don't really reciprocate who use/eat the majority of what is brought in. I suppose it's a little shallow of me to get annoyed about this, but this is also the person who has used up all of our stock of Lysol wipes compulsively cleaning the top of the reception desk (my desk is usually too covered with papers for me to even attempt to clean it). This is also the person who puts on extremely strong perfumed lotions at her desk, and was miffed when I told her she should not be spraying air fresheners or deodorizers in the restroom since the restroom in this building is considered public, and we have a common circulation system. It's a courtesy to not spray things that are going to make their way through the vents into other departments - the smell of curry and burnt popcorn that I was subjected to when the door to this suite was being kept open made me appreciate that "Summer Rains" room spray may not appeal to everyone, either. This is not a personal residence, after all, and I don't look forward to getting a headache from someone else's need to be cloaked in obnoxious scent at all times.

For Mother's Day I received a really great gift: a new 4GB usb flash drive. I'm in the process of transferring the files from my old one over to the new device, since the old one seems to have become irrevocably corrupted. Considering the massive amounts of files I transport back and forth, it doesn't really surprise me. And my old drive is a couple years old, anyway. It's one of the best gifts I've gotten from my husband in a while, and I was quite surprised that he remembered that I'd mentioned the problems I was having transferring my files. Thoughtful and practical!

A wise man once said: Woo hooo...d'oh!

Because my family pretty much *is* The Simpsons (yes - seriously...my son is Bart, Lisa and Maggie combined), courtesy of The Laughing Squid blog, practically every opening credit couch gag from the show (in supah fast mode, so pay close attention - and yes, there probably are some missing):



(hint: the extended 19-minute normal speed version of this also exists...somewhere)

Little fish, little fish, swimming in the water

I have a new routine. Every morning, before the sun gets too high, I wander down to the seawall at the harbor next to the sandbar and watch very small fish being eaten by larger fish (mullet and the small sheepshead that hang out by the pylons). I do this for at least five minutes, and I think it's kind of cathartic and peaceful. It reminds me that the world around me keeps going in its own natural rhythms, no matter what else is happening during my nine-to-five. It's my little moment of zen. Of course, everyone I've told thinks it is more than a little strange, and my response has been to just shrug and figure it beats getting blotto at lunchtime to save my sanity. Orrr...maybe it doesn't.

Someone asked me yesterday if I'd seen the alligator lately, and I had to admit that it has been a while. Yes...we have had an alligator living in our harbor. And it was a great one-two punch back in the day when our old manager was here, because he had a deep abiding fear of both gators and hurricanes. So we tormented him more than a little every hurricane season with up to the minute tracking of projected landfall predictions. I used to post the NOAA images for the really big ones as my desktop background when I sat in the reception area, so that every time the boss walked past my desk he saw that giant spiral of ominous weather staring back at him. We also used to put pictures of alligators up in his office as a prank, and I secretly imagined that one day a storm would wash the alligator over the sea wall and it would end up in the first floor corridor for the boss to stumble over first thing in the morning (kind of like the alligator that recently showed up in a local woman's kitchen in the middle of the night). Oddly enough, that boss left to take a job even further south into the swampland.

"Oh hai...Candygram?" (photo: SP Times)

Oh - yesterday there was a courthouse shooting incident just a few blocks from where I'm sitting. I had no idea it had even happened until last night. Another summer in Florida - we have giant lustful reptiles...hordes of flying, stinging, biting insects...nuclear grade heat...and the unbalanced waking from their winter time stupors. But the beaches sure are beautiful! *smirk*

I'm trying to distract myself from the feelings of drudgery and despair that work currently inspire in me by focusing on upcoming plans and exciting goings-on. This weekend is Mother's Day. I'll spend tomorrow morning having "tea" with my son at school. Then I may play hookey for an hour to get a haircut (what - it's already submitted as part of my presonal leave request). I'm going to M's graduation party on Saturday and visiting my parents and sister that evening, too. Sunday is lunch with the in-law's. In a little over two weeks it will be my birthday, which will more than likely not be met with a whole lot of fanfare but will probably involve some drinking. By "some", of course I mean "a great deal". That will be a three-day holiday weekend and I'm trying to coordinate a trip to the zoo for that Sunday. Then at the end of the month is my husband's birthday (it's his turn to mark this year as the transition into being a "thirtysomething"), and a painting convention that my mom wants me to go to with her. And plans sometime this year to go to Universal maybe, the upcoming family reunion in Georgia, and a possible trip to Pennsylvania around Thanksgiving. So yeah - trying not to think about the quagmire of my "career", and focus on the things this job actually pays for (i.e. - following the philosophy "working to live, not living to work").

Why is the floor as low as I can go?

I woke up Sunday morning to get my son ready for church, and I knew something was wrong. I asked my husband to take over while I ran for the bathroom, and I spent the rest of the day alternating between near catatonic sleep in my bed and miserably cursing the misfortune of catching what my son had last week. As a result of the bug I was suffering from, I missed my friend's college graduation and dinner. Which I was looking forward to, so I'm pretty disappointed about that. I finally crawled out of bed at around ten last night, and went back to sleep at midnight. I woke up this morning with a backache, sore ribs, a stomach ache, and a sinus headache which has lasted all day. I decided to take the morning off from work to get a little bit more rest and make sure I'd passed the contageous phase of my illness. Once I went into work I got quite a lot of filing done that had been piling up, despite my headache. I have lost a couple of pounds over the last two days, from living off of toast and ginger ale, and one of my new co-workers said something to the effect that it's all coming off of my rear (so nice to know she was looking...). My stomach is still a little sensative, and the sausage my husband is cooking for dinner is not helping. And the tylenol with codein is calling my name...