December 9, 2021
Where do I even begin……? My day started around 2:45 this morning when my daughter’s dog, who was sleeping on my bed, decided to pee, and then attempted to clean it up by licking it. It was the licking that woke me up. I was super amused by the fact that I had gotten a whopping 2.75 hours of sleep.
I sleep on a king sized bed, so my first thought in my half-awakened state was that I only needed half of the bed, and if I pulled the bedding back from the peed on part of the bed, it wouldn’t leak through the waterproof mattress pad, and I could maybe go back to sleep and deal with the mess at a more reasonable 6 or 7 AM.?
My half-awake self was wrong. It turned into a complicated battle that resulted in the creation of a second wet spot which was equally egregious – possibly even more so because I had created it. So, around 3:30, I got up, kicked the two dogs off, and hauled my king-sized waterproof mattress pad, sheets, blanket, comforter, quilt, and another comforter, from my room on the second floor down to the basement to start the washing process.
I managed another couple hours of sleep, dragged myself out of bed, and went to work to start my day of meetings.?
My boss had double booked me from 11-1. But it’s fine. No one needs to eat lunch I guess. I was at least used to it since this had been my schedule all week. She’s consistent if nothing else.
I work in a mostly abandoned building, so I like to go adventuring. That’s what I call it when I walk around to all of the empty offices and see what people left behind. It reminds me of movie characters who have to move quickly in the middle of the night, or families who get evicted. There’s still a lot of random stuff everywhere, and I’m just interested to see what people didn’t take: old Christmas and boss’s day presents, family photos, lots of staplers – you never know what you might find.
I said all of that to say this: on one of my adventures, I came across some marketing materials from the 1950s, and I thought they were really cool. Cool enough that I defied my own policy of not spending money to decorate my office, and I ordered specialty frames off of Amazon to frame the marketing materials so I could hang them as wall art.?
Back to today. The bright spot in my workday was taking some time to frame my art, because in a day filled with meetings, I have to find at least a moment of distraction.
Speaking of distraction….. After my work was finished, I met a friend at his office, and we had a lovely chat. It was much needed. He let me complain about the annoying trivialities of my day, and we plotted world domination. Per usual.
I left his office and headed to an upscale restaurant for a fancy soiree to honor a former colleague. I really didn’t want to go. I was exhausted. But I went anyway. Which turned out to be an excellent decision. The drinks were strong – and free – and the food was delicious. I was also able to visit with people I hadn’t seen in a while. Which, to be fair, is almost everyone these days. Still. Almost two years later. Thanks, covid.
I went home and made dinner for my kids, energy buoyed by the expensive alcohol in my system. We ate, I cleaned up the kitchen, and then everyone scattered to their rooms – as teenagers and parents often do. And I *finally* got some sleep.?