Choose your battles

I have a huge story to tell you about the aftermath of this event, but I am tired of hearing myself talk about it. So I'll just give you the abbreviated version. Carlie is fine and dandy, with nothing to show for the accident but a little scar on her eyelid/brow area. THANK GOD.

Eight days after the accident, I received a call from the insurance company for the grocery store to tell me that my "claim" has been denied. I didn't even file a claim! But that doesn't really matter, they just wanted to give me a courtesy call and let me know that, after investigating, they are denying liability.

I don't even want to go on any more about how they have their wine bottles precariously teetering on the end-caps of their store, or about the fact that I DID NOT FILE A CLAIM. But in the span of two harassing and unsolicited phone calls from "the man," I went from "accidents happen" to "OMG I will own your ass when this is done." And that? Is a place I do not want to go.

So let's take a poll. Does this look safe to you?

Wine bottles, stacked upon other cardboard boxes full of wine bottles, with nothing but a one inch rim of cardboard holding them in place.
Do you know how easy it is to round the corner at the end of the aisle and bump these displays? And when I took the photo, I gave the middle box a tiny shove and the bottles started to topple. I stopped them from falling. Because I am not 11 years old and saw it coming. But I digress...

I am so not looking for a legal battle. I have insurance (thank God) (but it's shitty insurance) that will hopefully cover the cost of the E.R. visit (if our deductible has been met). But I still have a $100 ER copay and the cost of the doctor's office visit co-pay (stitch removal) and whatever portion the insurance is not going to cover (I think best case scenario, they cover 70%. Like I said, shitty insurance).

And let's remember, I have yet to receive a hospital bill OR submit a bill for reimbursement to the store or their insurance company.

So can someone please tell me why they would choose to call and fuck with me? Really, I'm dying to know.

Also... how awesome are are my iPhone photos. Thank God I am easily distracted...

Cautious Optimism

The perfect family looked at my house yesterday. Young, urban hipsters with a two-year-old child, living in a small house nearby, looking for more space. Pre-approved. Familiar with the neighborhood. They loved the house. If they don't buy the house, it's time to give it up and acknowledge that no one is going to be buying the house right now.

And so that is the plan, the acknowledging that the time may not be right for us to make our big move. We've lowered the price, we're bombarding Craigslist and Zillow with our ad, keeping our flyer box full, St. Joseph is perched on our mantle. And on November 30, if we have not received any offers, we're taking down the sign, pulling the MLS listing and unpacking the boxes in the garage (you know, the ones where I so optimistically hid all of our winter stuff in July, when I was sure my house would be sold in two weeks, max).

This FSBO business? Is hard work. Keeping the house *ready to show* at all times? Is a full time job. And my housekeeping skills? Are sketchy, at best. All in all, not a winning combination, wherein *not* = EPIC FAIL.

My holiday funk is setting in. I want to move. I don't want to move. I want to unpack my stuff. I don't want to unpack my stuff and kind of want to light the boxes on fire. I want to go to New Orleans. I don't want to go to travel. I miss my mom. I miss my big kids. I need to be busier with work. I can't handle working more than I do now. My pain in the ass cats are making me insane. I want to get back into a good running routine. I hate to run. I need a good night's sleep. My brain hurts.

Oy.

Cross your fingers. Cross your toes. Cross your eyes. Say a prayer. Send positive energy. Whatever is that you *do,* please do it now. I'm not exactly sure *what* I'm wishing/praying/hoping for. But something needs to happen.

Looking for some un-suck

Things that suck:

I had to LAY on the BED to BUTTON my JEANS. For real.

The only food that sounds appealing to me AT ALL is CANDY. In Mass Quantities.

My house is STILL not SOLD. We're taking it off the market at the end of November and my dreams of downsizing into a cute townhouse on the riverfront will be DEAD. For now.

Carlie has a tummy ache. AGAIN.

We have NO GROCERIES in the house and NO PAYCHECK on the immediate horizon.

I have ZERO jobs scheduled for the next two weeks. ZERO.

I REGISTERED FOR and PAID FOR another HALF MARATHON in January. Immediate buyer's remorse after clicking PAY NOW. WTH was I thinking? Ack.

I can feel my holiday funk creeping into my bones. This is always a difficult time of year for me. I need a strategy to head it off. How do you beat the blues? And quick -- name something that DOES NOT SUCK. Puppies and kitties don't count.

Overwhelming much?

One tiny corner of the huge computer section of Fry's. Is your head exploding yet?

I hate shopping for a new computer. I hate getting new computers. I would be happily plodding along on my 7-lb IBM Think Pad running Windows 98 if the world would let me. Have I mentioned that I am adverse to change? Wherein adverse to change means leave me the fuck alone, world.

But my PC died. And I need another. And there's a lot of drama and expense and blah blah blah involved in that with the end result of a field trip to Fry's 7th Circle of Electronic Hell for a new computer, with an operating system that I loathe and which is incompatible with much of what I do, but with the promise of a snazzy new Windows 7 upgrade on October 22. Whatever.

Lest I mislead, I should also clarify that I ONLY hate shopping for new computers. I pretty much love shopping for anything else. Especially purses. And shoes. And cars. And furniture. And... you get what I mean. I am a firm believer in more expensive REALLY DOES equate with better quality, and also that bigger REALLY IS better, as well as gluttony, sloth and excess.

But new computers make me feel old. Old and feeble. Old and feeble and mildly retarded. And mostly old. Old, as in what I thought of my mother when we introduced her to the concept of the newfangled *cordless phone* and she really did not want to part with that curley-cue cord that plugged into the phone and made it feel more like a *real phone.* 

So now I am going to scourge through the office and the guest room and the junk drawer and the CD collection and try to find software and drivers and whatever to load onto my new computer, with quad-core this and 4 gig that, which I kind of hate even though I have not officially even touched it yet, which I am sure I will learn to love, eventually, and which will probably die a fiery death as soon as I load shit on it and customize it and get familiar with it. Because? Have you met my track record with computers?

PS: can you tell by the number of links in this post that I am totally procrastinating going down to the office and actually doing all of the things I just described needing to do?

The time I tried to be spontaneous

I tried. I swear it. I really did try.

Carlie got out of school at 3 pm, went to afterschool care until 4 pm, had a private voice lesson (at the school/church) from 4-5 pm and then choir practice from 5-6 pm. Busy afternoon. For her, at least. I? Was comfortably tucked in on a friend's sofa watching three hours of back-to-back episodes of Rescue Me. Because? I can. That's why. But, I digress...

6 pm, I arrive at church to pick up Carlie. There are three girls there for practice, not the full choir, because these are the "advanced" girls (wherein "advanced" means fourth grade vs. K-3rd and is in no way an indication of vocal talent). So it's Carlie, two of her darling friends, and the choir director, who is fun and funky and beautiful and hip and spontaneous.

And she? Has the girls completely jacked up on the idea of going for ice cream! Her treat! At 6 pm, without anyone having had any supper. And I? Am going to be spontaneous, after I have my internal debate thinking about the meatloaf and mashed potatoes sitting at home, cooked, waiting to be eaten. Because the other two moms? Were being spontaneous. And they? Had more kids than me and more to juggle, like both of them had other kids in other places that needed to get picked up right now.

So off we go to Dairy Queen. We meet there, and one of the moms announces that her daughter cannot have any ice cream until she's had dinner first. Huh? Now we're supposed to all sit in the DQ parking lot for 20 minutes while one kid eats a burger and fries so the other kids can then have ice cream. I? Have shit to do and am not down with this plan, and start to make my excuses of why we have to go. And my kid? Is dying 1,000 silent deaths and letting me know it with her laser beam eyes. Because? Ice cream with friends? Am I insane? How can she possibly miss this?

So the director has yet another great idea! Let's all go out to dinner! And be spontaneous! And the other moms start plotting how they need to go pick up their other kids from swim team and basketball and we'll all meet at the restaurant. And I? Am now seriously bailing on this plan until someone says the magic word, which is margaritas.

I take the three girls to the decided upon restaurant, the director meets us there. The other two moms take off to pick up the swimming kid and the ball playing kid and are going to meet us at the restaurant. We go in, ask for a table for nine and guess what? 30 MINUTE GD MF'ing WAIT FOR A TABLE. And now? I am done. I am done with this plan. And I am getting the hell out of here.

So I tell the nice director we have to go, we cannot wait and it is agreed that no one wants to wait and let's just do it another time, you know, a time when we've planned to do something like this, a time that is less spontaneous. And I leave the two girls with the director there in the parking lot to wait for their parents and Carlie and I call it a night.

And now, I am at home, my dinner is warming up, my child is taking a bath, and the phone rings. And guess what? New plan! They're all at yet another restaurant with no wait and can we just hurry on over? Uh, no. But my child? Hears the conversation from the bath tub and, YOU KNOW WHAT COMES NEXT, of course they are at her favorite restaurant, the one that I hate and never take her to, and OH MY GOD THIS IS THE WORST LAST DAY OF SCHOOL EVER AND YOU HAVE RUINED MY ENTIRE SUMMER VACATION AND I AM NEVER SPEAKING TO YOU EVER EVER EVER AGAIN.

And this is why I don't do spontaneous. Because that spontaneous shit? Always comes back to bite me in the ass. There should be some kind of a life lesson here, somewhere, but seriously? I am too annoyed to find it.

This is why I should not be allowed to turn the TV on during the day

I just got home from my job in Hood River. Cloudy drive out there, quick 1.5 hour depo at the hospital, and beautiful, sunny drive home. Since I was able to charge travel time on this one, all in all not a bad day's work.

I have two hours of alone time before I head over to pick up Carlie, so I flipped on the TV. And was immediately sucked in by Susan Lucci in an infomercial for the Malibu Pilates Chair. And now? My life will not be complete until I own a Malibu Pilates Chair for the price of $350.00. Because? I am a SUCKAH with a capital SUCK. 

The sun is shining. The TV is off. And I am going to go for a run and try to work the burning shopping desire out of my system. You would think being completely broke and on the brink of abject poverty would be enough to quell that shopping desire. But I am here to tell you... not so much.

Have you ever been the victim of an infomercial? Share your AS SEEN ON TV moment in the comments.

Are those caterpillars on your forehead, or are you just happy to see me?

Have I mentioned that I have not had my freaking eyebrows waxed in FOREVER and am on the verge of LOSING MY MIND because they're DRIVING ME CRAZY? No. Well, now I did.

So consider this a "before" picture, because come hell or high water, I am getting waxed tomorrow. Because my translucent freaky fair skin? Turns red as a beet and stays pink for days. So I need to get this done NOW.

The C Word

My dad had another consultation at the sarcoma center at MD Anderson, a top notch cancer research hospital in Houston. His prognosis is not good. We've spent two days pumping him for details and basically what we've learned from my dad is that "it's the kind of cancer that starts with an M."

Great. The M cancer. Let me google that.

My brother went to the appointment with my dad, which is fabulous because, hello, we want to know what is going on and check the above paragraph to know why getting info from dad is a challenge.

My brother cleared it all up for us. "No, it doesn't start with an M. It starts with an L. I think."

Awesome. 

Hey, you can either laugh or cry, right?

So we don't really know what we are dealing with, but whether it starts with an L or an M, we do know the prognosis is not good. My dad is 70. He has a great attitude. He's ready to fight if there's a chance of beating it but he's also being realistic and talking about quality of life vs. fighting an ultimately losing battle if he can't handle the chemo, which the doctors think could be a possibility. 

And we're talking about taking a trip to the beach, the whole family, which we did a couple of summers ago. That's how dad would like to spend his time, "drunk and at the beach." That's a quote.

Sucks to be sick

The tickle in my throat that I was pretending did not exist? Yeah, it's now a full-blown head cold and/or sinus infection complete with hacking cough, 100 sneezes in a row, sinus headache and general feeling of crap. 

I tried to get out of work today, and couldn't. I felt bad, spreading my germs in the tiny conference room, so I dosed myself well with various OTC remedies and did not sneeze or cough once during the deposition. The witness? Yeah, that was another matter. He was coughing and hacking and generally spreading the plague to everyone within breathing distance.

When his depo was over, he said, "Can I leave now? My medicine is wearing off. I have the flu."

Yay.

Practicality Sucks

This is me being depressed and whining, so stop reading now if you're not in the mood for it. You certainly won't hurt my feelings. Frankly, I am sick of myself, so I know I am certainly on everyone else's nerves.

I've mentioned this before.  My dad has cancer. It is in his lungs and elsewhere. I don't really know the details because I am 2,000+ miles away and getting my information from a 70-year-old man who doesn't much care for doctors.

This week my dad is in Houston at MD Anderson getting checked out, because they are the best and he wants the best. Forget the fact that he lives in New Orleans and Houston is a good six hour drive for him. Forget the fact that the people who love him and want to help him are not able to drop everything and drive six hours to Houston on a regular basis. He's there. 

I told him to let me know when his appointment would be and I'd try to schedule a flight down there to go with him. I figured the referral process would take at least a week or two, there'd be enough head's up to book a reasonable flight. My dad called me yesterday, Sunday, from his car, on the road, driving to Houston for his Monday morning appointment. Because that's how he rolls.

So now he is at the hospital. My ex-husband, who lives in Houston, is there with him and my dad is staying at his house. Estimate is he'll be there for five to seven days. Then he'll drive back to New Orleans and I am not sure what happens after that.

I am a veteran at the parent-dying-from-cancer game. My mom died from cancer, my mother-in-law as well, both thousands of miles away. There is this perverse scheduling and budgeting that you have to do when trying to manage something like this. You have to be practical and being practical sucks.

But I need to keep in mind that I am going to have to fly all five of us down to New Orleans for his funeral when the time comes. That is expensive. Funeral flights supposedly get a discount, but let me tell you from experience, it's not nearly enough to make up for the fact that you're flying with little notice. Plus, there are five of us. That trip alone will be easily $2000 if not more.

Prior to the funeral flight, there's the last visit flight. This one is obligatory for me, but I don't have to haul the rest of the family. It's those final days in the hospital when things aren't looking so good and you come in to say your goodbyes. I missed this one with my mom. I was there for Thanksgiving and when I left I thought I'd see her again, but she died a few days later. Then I was back on a plane for the funeral (at 8.75 months pregnant, but that's another story).

The first flight, the one I am now online searching for good fares for, is the still relatively healthy and able to enjoy the visit flight. I think this one will be Tim, Carlie and I, probably the week between Christmas and New Years. It's an important one, the last hoorah, so to speak. Tim missed this one with his mom and regrets it every day. By the time he made it home, she was winding down and he wishes he had spent some "good time" with her before he had to watch her die.

Have I mentioned how much this all sucks? Because what I really want to do is lay in bed and watch bad TV and eat Halloween candy and cry and pout and scream THAT'S NOT FAIR and be sad. And instead I have to figure out how many days I can really afford to miss of work, and how many clients Tim can really afford to reschedule, and plan on flying red-eyes because it'll save a couple hundred bucks and, fuck, I don't want to deal with this.

And I also have to keep in mind that the whole "you have cancer, now you die" aspect of this is my baggage, and maybe he'll receive some kind of treatment that is effective and all of my morbid downward spiraling will be for naught. But that's not how my brain works. Remember me? I'm the girl who went to the doctor because she was dizzy and spent the whole drive there (1) praying that the assisted suicide law was voted in and (2) lamenting the fact that my daughter had nothing to wear to my funeral. Because that's how I roll.

So now I am going to price airfare. Then watch last night's episode of True Blood. Then do my Ab Ball Workout Video because the stupid ball fell out of the closet on top of me this morning and surely that must be a sign from God. Then I'm taking Carlie and her girlfriend for a long walk downtown. I am making homemade Tom Yum soup for dinner.  Then I'll close out the evening with two hours of proofreading work that I can no longer put off.  

Life goes on, even when you want to curl into the fetal position and suck your thumb all day.

Labyrinthitis

That's what the doc says I have. She gave me a Rx for valium and told me to keep a low profile and come back to her office Monday.

I will be so far behind work-wise by Monday that it's not even funny. The work stuff is stressing me out so much, I can't even rejoice over the valium Rx. Yes, it's that bad.

In other news, I am now watching my third episode of True Blood in a row, and am about to be all caught up on the season thus far.

Oh, and I can't drive. So screw me, what the hell am I going to do about actually functioning like a normal person in society for the next few days? A friend drove me to the doctor's appt, then to the pharmacy and grocery store, and then to pick Carlie up from school. Thank God I have good friends!

Hello, Hello. I'm in a place called vertigo (I think)

I woke up this morning feeling like my normal I-don't-want-to-get-out-of-bed self. I sat up, put my feet on the floor and stood up. And turned into that guy falling down the swirly vertigo hole straight to hell. Full on. Head swimming. Eyes unable to focus. Nausea from 0-60 in 5 seconds flat.

I tried to shake it off, walked to the bathroom and walked right into the wall. Hard. I stumbled back to the bed and sat on the bed wondering what was going on. The whole thing was surreal.

Tim was downstairs getting Carlie's breakfast. He comes up with a crisis brewing, she has no clean skorts for school.  Only skirts. My actual response to my husband regarding my darling nine year old child was "fuck her." I actually said that. "Fuck her. She can wear a skirt." Me dropping the F bomb is not cause for concern, but in this context my husband asked, "Are you okay?" And I couldn't talk, because another wave of complete and horrifying dizziness swept over me.

I said, "I don't feel so great. Check the dryer for a skort," and he went down to the laundry room, but no skorts in the dryer. He brought of a basket of clean clothes from the dryer, and sat it on the floor. I bent over to pick up the basket and start folding the clothes, and nausea came on fast enough that I had to run to the bathroom and throw up. The sound of Carlie wailing and howling like a coyote on acid was the only thing I could hear over my retching. Literally WAILING and HOWLING because she has to wear a skirt instead of a skort.

Her dad told her to go back to bed. And he told me to go back to bed. So we both went back to bed. He threw her skort in the dryer and let her sleep for half an hour. 

I laid in bed watching the room spin and feeling like I have the mother of all hangovers... except I have had no alcohol or mind-altering substances. What if this is my new reality? What if I have to spend the rest of my life with a hangover that I didn't even righteously earn? What if a spider crawled into my ear and laid eggs and hatching spider babies are throwing off my equilibrium? 

Tim took Carlie to school and went to work. He's putting in a half day, then coming home. If I am still dizzy, we're going to the doctor. I'm going to hang out here in bed until he comes back at lunchtime. I feel fine as long as I don't move. If I lay here, I am okay. If I sit up and doof around on the laptop, I am okay once I get over the bout of dizziness caused by the motion of sitting up. If I stand up, I feel dizzy but I don't fall down. If I try to walk a straight line, it becomes a zigzag against my will. 

I wish I had a little bell to ring for people to fetch me things, like food and the remote. But I don't have a bell, and even if I did there is no one here to fetch. This is so fucked up.

I am the saddest girl in the world

Oh, Bono, my Bono, how could you? Even if these photos were "innocent," why, oh, why is a man of your character and esteem hanging out with bikini-clad 19-year-old girls mugging for the camera? There is no best-case scenario here.

I think I might be nuts

Last night, I went to bed with a stomachache. It's a horrible stomachache that I have had on and off since... well, the first one I clearly remember was when I was about 11 or 12. I was in the car with my mom and our neighbor, Miss Elsie, going to a dance recital (not mine) to see Miss Elsie's daughter (Debbie) perform. Debbie was my dance instructor and was performing as a "feature dancer" for her former instructor (it's a southern thing).

ANYWAY, I clearly remember having "the stomachache" in the car on the way to the recital and I clearly remember squirming in my seat all night, trying to get comfortable. So the stomachache and I, we go way back.

The pain is intense, but it GOES COMPLETELY AWAY if I can find a comfortable position to lay in, which is generally on my side, somewhat fetal. If I stay that way for a while, that's usually the end of it.

I was diagnosed with IBS about a million years ago, which, not to disparage IBS sufferers, but I think my doctor used it as a general catchall for "stomach hurts, don't know why." This was pre-IBS medication and I have never really followed up on trying to learn more about the problem or the solution because it happens pretty infrequently (less than once a month) and goes away without treatment if I just ride it out.

Last night, I was laying in bed thinking about the stomachache and our long-term relationship and making a mental list of everything that I ate yesterday, looking for a culprit, when I remembered reading a blog post yesterday. By someone with a stomachache. A really severe stomachache that eventually she went to an urgent care clinic for. And it made me stop and think. Am I actually fucked up enough that I got a stomachache by reading about a stomachache? God, I hope not.

Today I was not a good mom or a good daughter

I had a melt down with my nine year old this morning. Now she's off to school and I feel like crap about it. In retrospect, even though she managed to push EVERY SINGLE ONE of my buttons, the bottom line is I took my own lousy crap out on her, which is so not fair to do to a fourth grader. I did smooth things over and when I dropped her off at school, things were on a good note. 

The series of unfortunate events that led to my melt down:

After having my stellar two-mile run yesterday, the training plan called for a three-mile run today, which was whatever the opposite of stellar is and made me want to cry. Just could not find my groove and struggled for 35 minutes to run three crappy miles.

Because I was moving in slow motion, I got completely off schedule, and I had planned on being back in 30 minutes, and jumping right into the shower, then taking Carlie to her violin lesson. But I was 10 minutes late, and when I walked in the door I found her in the kitchen, with her MUDDY sneakers in the sink, scrubbing them with my kitchen sponge, splashing muddy water onto the clean casserole dish and pots stacked in the other side of the sink. UGH!

So now I am running late, I am in a bad mood, my clean dishes are muddy and my kid has no shoes to wear to school because SHE CAN'T FIND her other sneakers. The reason she can't find them? Because her closet is piled knee-high with shit. I tore through her closet looking for the sneakers, NOTHING. Checked every room of the house. NOTHING. Rummaged the Goodwill bag.  NOTHING.

I did not do the shoe searching quietly. I did it with lots of THIS IS JUST WHAT I NEED THIS MORNINGs, and HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO FIND ANYTHING IN THIS STYs, and YOU ARE MAKING MY HEAD EXPLODEs and YOU ARE TOO OLD TO LOSE YOUR SHOES!!s.  Lots of all of those. And maybe even also a THIS HAS RUINED MY ALREADY BAD DAY AND IT'S ONLY 7 AM. Maybe only one of those. But you get the idea.

Now I have no time left for a shower, Tim is heading out for work, and Carlie has no shoes. I throw her muddy and now soaking wet sneakers into the dryer, because mud-caked dry shoes are better than mud-caked wet shoes, Tim takes her to violin and I hop in the shower.

I hop out of the shower, truck it to violin and pick her up to take her to school. My dryer is full of dirt. The shoes still look like shit but at least are damp as opposed to wet. My mood has not improved a whit because I realize I FORGOT TO CALL MY DAD, who had a biopsy yesterday to determine what kind of cancer he has.

My dad called last week and said he had a PET scan that showed a malignancy in his lungs, his groin area and a tumor under his arm. He didn't have any other info at the time. He had a biopsy yesterday and was told it is sarcoma, but that is all of the info he has. I don't know what that means, medically speaking. What it means for me is that we know nothing about something that is huge, and I am, like, 3,000 miles away and unable to do anything about it. AND I AM MAKING THIS ABOUT ME, instead of about him, which is so wrong, but after the immediate oh-my-god-my-dad-is-sick reaction, my thoughts turned to airfare, and missed school, and missed work days and money and lack of money and started to spiral out of control until I had to STOP THINKING about it altogether and wait to get more info.

And because I am so good at PRETENDING BAD SHIT ISN'T HAPPENING, I stopped thinking about it and forgot to call him after his biopsy.

So I just got off the phone with him, and got the word "sarcoma" from him and now need to google that and find out what it means. And I need to figure out how exactly a household with two self-employed people manages a crisis like this, because in our world self-employed means, IF YOU DON'T WORK, YOU DON'T GET PAID, and we have, like, no fall back plan for situations that call for either Tim or I to take some time off and deal with shit like this. We talk ALL THE TIME about making a plan, but we never do it, and we talk ALL THE TIME about socking money away for this, but we never do it. And, again, yes, ALL ABOUT ME, which makes me feel like a shit.

It is gorgeous beyond words outside right now, and I am just going to go sit on my deck and soak up as much sun as I can before the sun goes away for the foreseeable future, which will be, like, any day now.

Unworking

The sudden death of my Dell laptop (used primarily for work) must be the reason to blame for my complete and total BRAIN FREEZE on work related issues lately.

Yes, I am behind on work that need(s)(ed) to be delivered and, yes, that can sometimes be a BFD (big f*ing deal).  But I made a nice list, prioritizing what needed to get done, when it needed to get delivered, etc (I have since lost the list, but it did help to get that visual time line, making order out of chaos).

So during the mourning of the Dell, apparently I received a call ordering a hold job.  The way my job (court reporter) works is, I go out to depositions, arbitration meetings, hearings, etc., things where they want to create an "official record."  I take my handy dandy steno machine and my laptop and write (type) everything said.  That is the end of phase one.  

Phase two is the transcript.  Sometimes they want one, and sometimes they don't.  For example, if the attorneys are pretty sure they're going to be able to settle the case after what they've learned in the deposition, they probably will not order the transcript.  In that case, I bill for my appearance time and it's a done deal.  It's a "hold order."

Then sometimes they change their minds.  Sometimes the next day.  Sometimes the next week. Sometimes in three months.  Sometimes in six years.  (Can you see why the work computer crashing is a BFD now?  Hold jobs on there from forever that, you never know, may order.)

ANYWAY... back to the point.  While mourning the Dell, I received a call for a hold order.  I wrote down the info on a sticky note, stuck it to my desk and promptly forgot about it.  Like COMPLETELY forget about it.  And then the note got covered with other crap and, like magic, the conversation never happened in my reality.

Yesterday I had a leisurely morning, hung out with some friends, worked on a pair of socks I am knitting, puttered around the kitchen, then headed to Carlie's school at noon to pick her up since they had a half day.  I'm in the car and get THE CALL, the one from the attorney's office asking why I had not sent them that hold order that they need for court on Monday.  I pulled the car over, in a stupor, not having a CLUE what they were talking about, but trying to pretend that I was totally on top of it.

Then, like black magic, the lies started flowing out of my mouth, and I had no power to control them at all.  The end result of the lying was that I painted myself into an even worse situation, and now instead of looking like an incompetent fool who forgot about a job, I would look like a pathological liar who can't own up to her mistakes.  But, generally speaking, that's how I roll.  If anyone can take lemons and make poison, it's me.

Bottom line, I grabbed my kid, zoomed home, spent FIVE FREAKING HOURS at my desk working, feeling the muscles in my shoulders and neck tighten by the minute, and then went to the post office at 6:30 p.m. to overnight the transcripts.  Then went out and ate prime rib and drank beer because it was better than laying in bed crying.

This one, I can't even blame on my laptop crisis induced haze, but while I was doing a quick housecleaning Thursday, I found a stack of three CD's that I took on as a side job, interviews to transcribe for someone who is writing a book.  I have had those CDs for probably a month or more and totally forgot that I had them.  The author hasn't called looking for them, but, still, a month?  And I forgot they existed!

So plan for today: Carlie has a soccer game in Camas at 1 pm.  I am going to get the CDs done before the game.  Go to the game.  Come home.  CLEAN MY DESK and find the freaking priority list that I spent an hour making.  Tonight: church volunteer gig at 6:30 pm, then go to "stitch and bitch," drink wine and knit.  

And I will NEVER EVER EVER again write down an important work message on a sticky note. I swear.

Bye Bye, Dell

My laptop died tonight. I am so screwed, work-wise, not to mention photos, videos and music that are on it. I have spent the last two hours online trying to find a laptop that I can live with that is available locally and it's not looking good. And since I do have to work tomorrow, preferably with a laptop in my possession, I am going to end up buying some overpriced P.O.S. that I am not going to love the way I have loved my little Dell 710m for the last couple of years.

I am so sad, which is an improvement from freaking the fuck out, which is where I have been for the last two hours.