It Must Be Monday

July 21, 2008

      It must be Monday -----
      Because nothing whatsoever is going right.
      My eyes are dry from the overhead fan (late night sweats). My muscles stiff. I take inventory.
      First - I did NOT finish the return mailing packaging (just had 2 weeks to do this). (Still not done.)
      Second - my calves are rigid! And the treadmill was a disaster. I managed nearly .5 miles at 2.0 MAX - stumbling along - unable to focus on my book (I read while walking - distracts me).
      Then - The news - with the droning old fart reciting his set speech regardless of the reporters trying to ask questions and get him back on-topic was just too annoying. We don't need a senile old man in the white house. We've just spent 8 years with Bubba - who is going down in history as the WORST president we have ever had. Someone shut this wanna-be up. His voice never changes tone. He's like an almost-retired professor giving the same lecture he's given for 40 years. So rote and unvarying it is stultifying. Well - I channel flipped (I do whenever his face pops up) and ended up on a country music station. No relief - not even with Metal Mania! It wasn't on!
      OK - I FELL onto the couch after walking nearly 1/2 mile and read 10 pages (mandatory) then sat up, dropped the curlers and ran for pills and make-up.
  Breakfast was 2 bites of Turkey Kielbasa fried with corned beef hash in a can (yesterday's supper) - consumed cold. One slice of sprouted rye, toasted with Total Control Lite and 50% or whatever jam. Low-sugar red stuff. Pills galore.
      Run for the bathroom and make-up. Check if Chestnut highlighting applied last night did anything (damn little). Dress from laundry pile - fluffed up Slinky clothing I didn't manage to hang up. Try the tank top with the midriff band that you fit at Christmas - looking preggers - and couldn't get into last month. Perfect fit (size 14/16). Good. Means I am being somewhat sensible on my grazing eating habits.
      Summer has cried, been carried, hugged, petted, and cried some more - she doesn't like her food this morning. OK. I will toss the plate and give her a clean paper plate for supper. She has realized - somewhere in that cat-head - that a loud NO means go eat the slop. She's trying to overcome that.
      I ignored the dog (Damn - I should have put out water - she has two bowls).And Ranger (whose windows are wide open).
      I ran to the post office. I paid the ton of bills accumulated when the paycheck went to never-never land. First time in my life that happened! Well - I nagged - they replaced after over 2 weeks of it playing least in sight - and I paid bills. Finally. Tons of them. Every utility in two counties had surfaced. Blue Cross became Anthem Blue Cross. Like that will help them. Or us. A loan payment. Credit cards - TWO Visas. (Business and personnel).
      I hate sitting writing checks (Two checking accounts - business and personal) - so I had watched Colin Firth in Pride & Prejudice (my DVD set) for 6 hours while sorting the pile. Distracted me. I can watch him all day - well - that is obvious!
      I made it to the office. I ALMOST brought my book along - for lunchtime - I am in the next-to last "Bones" book --- or maybe the last one - Amazon wouldn't reset its pee-brain and decided quantity was two for a book on my last order. No matter what I did, it remained adamant. Another return looms.
      Anyway, I love her dialog, I love Ryan (the stud-muffin hero - where are these guys hiding? Why can't I find one?) And I need distraction. It's PMS time and I am going to swear off Progesterone for the next 2 months - bet I loose weight! (Not Estrogen - its companion drug from hell.) I remind myself - need a blood test - Tomorrow?
      Set up Dr. re-check (need more Estrogen since they raised the thyroid).
      Ask doctor why I can push on the ocular bone and it hurts? Why does my nose run, my sneezes nearly cause a prolapse of the lower abdominal wall? Why does my head swell like a balloon and my lungs expectorate ropes and ropes until I gag? And then, 20 minutes later, exhausted but unbowed, I am fine? Why, when ON Estrogen, do I have night sweats? (Well, OK - I get that my dosage needs adjusting.)
      Medicare won't cover that bill either.
      Feeling the need for hot coffee once I settled in at work, not diet soda to start my office morning as per usual, and to fuel the search for ARC documents (I keep that up I will fully understand and be able to program the sucker), I went to the coffee room to get DECAF.
      In Silicon Valley, companies provide free coffee. We have these 2-foot tall "urns". We make it in bulk. Larger companies provide free soda as well. CISCO has STARBUCKS or its clone in the Cafe. There are no less than 3 Starbucks stores within blocks of my office. I have been known ----.
      As per usual, no one has made coffee. Guys (and young gals) will WALK TO ANOTHER COFFEE ROOM at the other end of the building or on another floor (or across the street to the big cafeteria) rather than start a coffee pot! Certainly not decaf. And, on lifting the real coffee pot out of the way, sometimes not even real coffee. Not my job to make real coffee. I am not supposed to drink it. I will make DECAF.
      So I proceed - ignoring and patiently putting up with the guys and gals who walk in, see that (due to a very poorly designed safety-hazard set up) I am - by virtue of setting up a coffee brew session - blocking their access to a cup, the water unit, or am too close for comfort to the tall Espresso vending contraption. And they are in a hurry and cannot possibly wait. Oh no! Especially the imported foreign engineers - to whom a woman is still chattel. Probably feel I should be out with cows or daubing dung on the hut roof. Probably where (at times) I feel they should be.
      I am fast. Evidently not fast enough for these guys. I try to ignore them. I have gotten pretty good at it.
      I put in the filter, the decaf grounds, I assemble the pot, I set the pot in place, I put the ground holder in place, I push brew, and get the surprise of my day.
      Or another one.
      The coffee pot has decided that you do not need to depress the bottom lever to fill a cup - it is going to dispense the coffee all by its little self!
      Fortunately, I have a large cup and good reflexes. I mop the floor and the counter. Another person comes in, looks, leaves. I have a coffee river running from pot to cup to floor. I switch cups, pad with paper towels, run for the admin. (She knows who to call.) I run back, I re-mop the floor, having switched out another cup. This cup walked to the back of the "seat" and the coffee flowed some more. I put the cup back in place and wedged it. This thing will not stop and I have no idea how to stop the brew process once it is in motion. It runs in the top - and right on out the bottom.
      Eventually, 4-5 BIG cups later (there had been a meeting - these cups are twice our usual size - Thank the Lord!), the brew cycle stops. No more coming in. So I grab the pot - again - others watch - do not help - it is still draining out the bottom. I have the pot (tall), a cup, and dragging towels. No one raised a hand. I managed. I put the sucker into the sink, cup and all, where it can now run down the drain - and empty the pot.
      The admin arrives to check things, asks if I thought to mention to the crew wandering in and out and not helping that this isn't really what my PhD topic was. (See - to the men in the building - my PhD entitles me to make coffee, fix the printer, fix the scanner, explain their uses, and operate a fax. Always has. Gee. I never thought of that!) I hadn't bothered to comment. I was too busy being a good little woman and cleaning up the mess.
      I now have an over-fill cup, which I pour some out of. I have my coffee. Decaf.
      I mop up the remains of the mess on counter and floor, more people in and out. I lay the errant pot on its side. Dead pot!
      Grabbing Sweet & Low, the admin off to call for service, I escape to my office.
      Cups normally sit on my desk and grow cold. Not this one!
 
      Two hours later ---- some idiot (ok - some highly distracted brain-damaged one) had reassembled the pot and made coffee again - letting it run all over the place with only a minor effort of control ----- and then walked away -----
      I refused to clean it up.
      Think I will stroll across the street for a decaf. (I did.)

      Of course, they came and replaced the pot. Now - remember that these are 24" tall pots - not your little glass pots . This new pot - has a new step. A button you slide up to "open" to pour and down to "close"when finished. After "opening" the pot, THEN you press the dispensing lever. Took me a minute. (Probably because there are not 1 but 2 light bulbs out and the room is dim and the pots are dark.)

      Love to be a fly on the wall watching the guys figure that out. Evidently they haven't - the pot didn't run out and when I came in it was stuck on "open".