strange times indeed

It's official: I have a 4 day weekend coming up! Requested and approved for Friday and Monday off, paid. I have almost 60 hours of PTO built up... might as well use it.

I almost tripped myself on my own pants leg walking down the stairs this morning. On my own PANTS LEG! So embarrassing. It could have been worse. I could have actually fallen down the stairs.

Listening to Patrick Stewart's "A Christmas Carol" while working. Just--amazing. I'll never forget seeing that (back in the sands of time, in '92).

I am back at work. My eyes hurt and I have a headache. I have not had a headache since... Friday night. Hm.

My work team-mates are awesome. They brought me a bowl of strawberries and sugar-free Milano cookies with a candle set among them instead of a cake. And a really sweet card. *snif*

Saturday was a very long day, but not necessarily in a bad way. Worked for 5 hours, had dinner at M's house, then we decided to go to the movies to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Sadly, the show we wanted to go to was sold out by the time we got there, so we bought tickets for 10pm. Which meant we got out of the theater at 12:46am. But, I enjoyed it, and am looking forward to the third part.

(If you had a post about the movie that was spoiler-laden, let me know so I can go read it now. :) )

Today we were supposed to go help M, K and E put up a shed at noon, which meant getting up earlier than usual on a day off (okay, I know 9:30 is not early, but when you go to bed at after 2...). But it got called off at the last minute, so we went out for omelets instead, got some shopping done. And I found my friend Jen from college's phone number -- at least, I hoped it was her number -- and I called it. Thankfully, it was her, and we had a nice 45 minute chat. Strangely enough, just today she ran across an old Christmas card I had given her. Nice thing about Mercury retrograde is that it's a good time to reconnect with old friends. She had only last week seen three of our old gang when she went back to Buffalo, and I got updated contact info from her.

Remember recently when I was talking about a friend I couldn't seem to get in touch with? He's one of those three. If I hadn't been all talked out (and battery-drained) after chatting with Jen, I would have called him straightaway.

(Side note: We're upgrading from Windows 2000 to Windows XP. I sure as shit hope we're not doing that before MR is over on 28 July.)

So now I am waiting for dinner, it is hot, I am tired, but it's all good.

It's the PERFECT DAY OUTSIDE. I made the mistake of walking home though, because my allergies are like MUST PRODUCE HISTAMINE! WHEE! And I'm all: nose-blowing.

Feeling better, though still coughing. It's a good thing I wasn't sick enough to really call in. We are so short-handed at work. Three of my team were made supervisors and a bunch of others either have vacation days or are calling in sick. We are so behind! We are awaiting approval for three new team members (to replace the ones we've lost) but it's going to take at least 3 weeks before they're up to speed on everything we do.

Pizza time! Ta.

Thanks to the fabulous mtgat, I have entered myself into an art contest. I signed up for "Gingerbread Dude", second choice, "Devil's Food Cake". The ol' visual-creative muscle needs a workout, and this sounds like fun.

This work week has seemed impossibly long, which is weird, because I only worked Wednesday, Thursday and until 11:30 today (and 11:30 - 4 tomorrow).

Weird sort of day out on the roads. Lots of people indecisive about what lane to be in, driving too slow, etc. We ourselves almost got into an accident with a car riding in our blindspot until the last possible moment, then we got tapped in the rear by a girl in a beater white car (being in a solid, 1988 Chevy truck with a steel bumper, there was no damage; not to the car, either). Is the moon void of course? ::checks:: No. Hm. Well, in any case, I'm not going out again tonight.

Now playing over the music system at work: "Echo Beach" by Martha and the Muffins. (I think.)

Talk about cognitive dissonance.

Back to work... all good things, and what not.

We also watched, over the weekend, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. That was really good, and the animation is fantastic. Of course, we are both huge fans of "Stand Alone Complex", so this really comes as no surprise...

Yesterday I had what they call "corresponding time off" because I work this upcoming Saturday. I can't decide if having a big chunk of a day off in the middle of the week is good or bad; it made coming in to work that much more difficult today. Staying up past 11pm didn't help either. (New "Lost", then got sucked into "Law & Order". EVIL SHOW! :D )

Spent more time writing last night too, which was good. I really need to hunker down and research the charter design stuff. Having next Monday and Tuesday off (let's hear it for floating holidays) is causing me to procrastinate and say, "Ah, I'll do it then!" Like I'm going to have time to do EVERYTHING in that short amount of time.

Headache! And dang, I don't think my phone has rung in well over an hour. I've taken 9 calls in the last 3 hours. That is what I call slooooow. I'm reading every somewhat interesting post on a Lost forum I found, I'm so freakin' bored.

They changed the dress code... jeans now allowed every day! Whee ha!