September 19, 2009

6:26 p.m.

Friday and Saturday

Shortly before 4:00 on Friday

I worked a half day. Every Friday someone brings in donuts and muffins, and mid-morning everyone takes a treat break. There is a large amount of laughing and teasing. I�m not usually involved in this event, as Friday is typically my day off, so it�s fun for me to get involved in the office shenanigans once in a while.

Milinda is out helping her sister in law with a new baby. T. didn�t know this and got her a bagel anyway, then was complaining that she wasn�t there to eat it. I offered, from the other side of the partition, that I was there today so it wouldn�t go wasted. Then D. came in, sat down and commenced eating the bagel, to protestations from T. that it was now mine. D., who wears her sarcastic wit like a coat of scales, announced that I was too late to claim the bagel, and tough luck. I didn�t really want the bagel, so it didn�t matter to me, but I find D�s audacity very funny. She practices non-discriminatory insulting � everyone is a potential target. Later there was some debate between D. and T. as to whether I ought to be allowed to participate in Donut Friday, as I was cutting quarters of different donuts with a knife instead of eating a whole one. Marc strongly objected to such small amounts of each, until I told him I was big enough to know exactly what I wanted, and it was my prerogative to decide to take it. We were laughing so hard. Then this whole cougar thing came up, where D. said she and T. should start an online match-up service for older women and young men. �No, young guys don�t know anything,� T. declared. �We�d teach them,� D. said. �It would be part of the deal.� So I came up with the slogan, �Let Me EnterTrain You!�

Eventually it was back to work. I�m still refurbishing speakers. This order is for a Sheriff�s office in California somewhere. The order has taken 3 years so far, because they have no money and they�re slow to get organized around the project. Anyway the speakers are almost ready, whenever they decide there�s a budget for them.

Then I did a long list of errands, including but not limited to picking up a five gallon bucket of hydraulic fluid for the Dynahoe, brakes for my car (yay!), foot-square tiles for building the platform upon which the stove will sit, and a so far fruitless search for varnish. I am tired. On the way from work I had to pull over into a park & ride lot and just close my eyes for 15 minutes. I have some sleep to catch up on, for sure.

Once home I had to pop over next door because they were getting the corn delivery into the silo. Marc asked me to make sure they could get to it all right, since there�s a muddy patch. It was fine.

Now, I have time for 30 minutes of nap before fetching the pickup truck and the hand truck and going an hour away to pick up my new, beautiful, amazing pellet stove!!! Marc was going to go with me but he got too busy, so it�s my errand. Such big girl pants I wear.

Saturday Evening

Stove got � still in the back of the truck for now. Second rehearsal today; it was good, and I played a new song I JUST wrote, for Dar. We�ll whip it together quickly (it�s simple like a country hymn, lots of G � C � D, which, we all know, stands for �Good Chords, Dammit�) and get a demo recording of it in time for his birthday, which is in two and a half weeks. What a nice surprise � for me and for him.

I let rehearsal go a lot longer than I�d planned, because we were doing good work, but then I didn�t get to finishing priming the ceiling or mowing the lawn at all. I did get some soil samples from out in the rocky field to send to the University for testing, and I watered the new grass. Put away groceries. Put up a sheer curtain in my little writing room (so I don�t have to look at the broken plaster under the window). I had chicken marinating in the fridge, and have brought it over to Rose & Marc�s to add to the chana masala she�s making for dinner. Really a pretty good day. I�m also getting the laundry out of the way, so tomorrow I can move on to other chores.

It�s become like a contest to see how many things I can �do� in the course of a day. I�m sure looking forward to some time when there isn�t any �do,� there is just �be.� At least tomorrow I can sleep in. I�m still tired.