All By Myself

The Professor's gone to do his summer duty of grading AP exams (it's good money, but dear sweet baby kittens, the boredom of grading papers in Missouri for a week cannot even be exaggerated) and so I have a weekend alone to stew in my own juices.

That sounded a lot better in my head. Now I feel like a pile of strawberries in sugar.

ANYway, I have a Saturday ahead of me with absolutely no plans. The only thing on my to do list is "clean litter box", which isn't the most fun chore I can think of but at least it's not exactly time consuming. I have it in my mind to sit on the couch and watch Star Trek on Netflix all day. Because I know how to rock this house.

Update: Saturday morning:
Hey! I forgot to hit publish. You know what happens when you don't hit the "publish" button? Your blog post stays locked in Blogger and no one sees it.

I'm paying a large chunk of my income to the government in the form of student loans because they put me through 2 degrees and 9 years of 2 Universities. Yet I still forget how blogs work after the ... *cough*...um, well, let's not get caught up in how many glasses of wine I had last night, let's just say "after the last glass of wine".

9 AM: The litter box is cleaned.  Also, the cats completely agree with the Saturday Couch Plan.

11:30 AM: The Hallmark Channel is running a marathon of The Waltons,which may be dangerous to my tear ducts. At this point, to get off of my couch would be an insult to the universe.

11:50 PM: Holy Slothfulness, there's a Little House on the Prairie marathon tomorrow. I may be dehydrated by Monday.

One of my employees is getting a new computer, because her old one stopped playing nicely with others. Since I know how to plug the damn thing into the wall, I get to to be the one to deal with our IT people. This requires an advanced degree all on its own.

Step 1: File a request with IT:  "I have a brand-spanking shiny new computer - still in the box! - that needs to be hooked up to the network. The employee is at work stoppage due to broken and exploded old PC that has gone to a better place. Please help."*

Step 2: Negotiate
Email from IT: Can you give me the computer's MAC address?

My reply: Sorry, it doesn't have one because it's brand new and has never been on the network.

Email from IT: Can you give me the computer name?

My reply: Sorry, it doesn't have one because it's brand new and has never been on the network.

Email from IT: It should be on the paper attached to the front of the machine from the last workstation that had it installed.

Me: It's never been installed at another work station. It's brand new. I still have the box. Will that help?

Email from IT: the address and name would be helpful.
 
My (Silent) Brain: IT DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING BECAUSE IT IS BRAND NEW AND YOU ARE INCOMPETENT AND WE WILL JUST DO WITHOUT COMPUTERS FOR EVER AND EVER AND MY BRAIN IS LEAKING OUT OF MY EARS.

Right now, the employee is computer-less. I don't know if IT wants me to break out a Ouija Board to divine the address and name for this machine, or if they have a method that will involve me being allowed to turn the damn thing on at some point in the future. They've stopped communicating.  Honestly, it's a lot more calm in my brain now that I'm not retyping the same information over and over. Hey, did I mention that this is a brand new computer? Could you tell my IT people?

*The original request may have been more formal, but it was certainly clear that it was a BRAND. NEW. COMPUTER.

Unleashed

I've started having waking nightmares - or maybe they're fantasies - that my tongue is going to completely break free of the leash my brain has on that keeps me from saying exactly what I want at completely inappropriate times. I can't tell if I'm horrified at the thought or unbelievably tempted.

I'm never one to tell you that I like your skirt if I don't (do you like it? that's what matters, not my inadequate opinions! Why are you crying because I don't like green tweed???), or pretend for very long that I like a person that I'd rather never set eyes on again (I'm pretty good at leaving rooms just as certain other people enter, as I inevitably must leave to look at that invoice I need check on or that wine glass I need to fill. Sometimes both things may happen at once).

 But somehow even thinking about telling a lady in a wheelchair to mind her own business just seems over the line. Even if she was being an interfering busybody in the first place, even if she followed me through 3 different aisles in Publix telling me that I was carrying my purse wrong, my hair was "cheaply dyed" and god knows what else... Still, it felt like yelling "How much I spend on wine is none of your damn business!" in the middle of the grocery store would be a tad harsh. She probably would've run me over with her Rascal, too, which would not have made the hair situation any better.

Yet still, my brain introduces the image and I'm immediately scared that my tongue will be lured into action, jumping into the fray with no helmet to protect itself from the wrath that will surely follow. One day that leash is going to snap and God, I hope it's worth it. Will someone remember to sneak some contraband rum into whichever asylum I end up?

All The Live Long Day

The chaos continues unabated. I should really write down the stories so they are never forgotten, but it seems almost cruel to the people who don't realize how ridiculous they are being. How anyone can be that un-self-aware is beyond me, but there you have it. I guess if you're the kind of person who needs to call someone in another department to yell at them for 5 minutes for not turning off the bathroom light, you're also not the kind of person who does a lot of thinking about good time management skills.
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There's a growing misconception that I have direct access to my boss' brain waves. I keep getting questions that start with "Is he going to___________?". I always - and I mean always - have to resist the urge to say "How the hell would I know?", because I try pretty hard not to even mildly curse at my employees. Rest assured - if I had a telepathic link into his brain, I would spend my time trying to get him to bring cheesecake to work every day. I would not be worrying about where he's thinking about placing the clock.
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The entire organization - ~75 people - had a team-building day a couple of weeks ago. One of the "games" we played was a version of bingo that's pretty popular around base. Each space on the bingo card lists something like "Born in the same month as you" or "has the same favorite color as you" or "has visited at least 3 other countries". You have to find a different person to fill in each square. So I had to find a person born in November, and a different person that likes the color blue, etc. I learned 2 things about how people think of me that day: 1) One of the squares was "Likes to cook". Now: I know I love to cook, but I didn't realize a) how many people know that, and b) how many people do NOT like to cook. I think I was the name on about half of those "likes to cook" squares. 2.) One of the squares was "has at least 1 tattoo". About 5 people - and these were people I actually spend breaks/lunches with, not people I barely acknowledge - have always assumed I had a tattoo somewhere and asked me to put my name down. At least I had the cooking thing to fall back on.

Heat

Reason 1,628 why I am glad I am working in the trailers and not in the building: This just came through email: "Group X & Group Y* are trying to determine if one or both of the boilers in Room Z* are operational and whether any heat can be generated for the main library." *Not their real names

New Year

I woke up on January 1st with a head stuffed full of ickiness. No, it wasn't a hangover (at least I've never had a hangover that involved snot, but I guess there's a first time for everything). So let's hope I'm getting any and all illness for 2012 out of my system right out of the gate so that the rest of the year can be snot-free. There's a new blessing for you: "May your new year be snot free". Amen.

I got my greedy little paws on my new eReader yesterday. Charged it up, took some [expired] cold meds and then tried to transfer books from my laptop. Anyone else see a problem with that sequence of events?

So I've put the eReader away until cold meds, expired or otherwise, are no longer needed. The SyFy channel has a Star Trek marathon on, I have cold pork chops to keep me hydrated(?) and my cat is in desperate need of some snuggling on the couch after four days without me.

Happy New Year! May it be snot free!

New Year

I woke up on January 1st with a head stuffed full of ickiness. No, it wasn't a hangover (at least I've never had a hangover that involved snot, but I guess there's a first time for everything). So let's hope I'm getting any and all illness for 2012 out of my system right out of the gate so that the rest of the year can be snot-free. There's a new blessing for you: "May your new year be snot free". Amen.

I got my greedy little paws on my new eReader yesterday. Charged it up, took some [expired] cold meds and then tried to transfer books from my laptop. Anyone else see a problem with that sequence of events?

So I've put the eReader away until cold meds, expired or otherwise, are no longer needed. The SyFy channel has a Star Trek marathon on, I have cold pork chops to keep mehydrated(?) and my cat is in desperate need of some snuggling on the couch after four days without me.

Happy New Year! May it be snot free!

On the radio as I drove to work this morning...

I heard this traffic update: "There's also a lot of fog rolling off the river, so be careful if you're southbound on I-65 this morning." Do they not warn the north bound drivers because they want them to just drive off the bridge? Does the fog only matter if you're driving south? Do the north bound lanes have magical fog-repelling features? If they do, wouldn't it make sense to put them on the south-bound lanes, since that's the direction of rush hour traffic? Am I the only one who thinks of these things?

Tornado Warning!

Working from trailers, there is nothing to compare to the rush of hearing the tornado sirens go off. The excitement never ends around here. PS Don't worry Mom, we went into a safe place in the building, from which I am blogging.

Incomprehensible

5:55 AM: I leave for work.

6:16 PM: I arrive home.

6:30 PM: I try to catch up on emails.

6:45 PM: Brain transmits the following: "Bleep. Blurp. Ghag. Wine?".

Bottom line: I'm glad tomorrow is a federal holiday.