boo hoo

Ever have that feeling when you're sick when you just want to cry? Not for pain or discomfort. Not for frustration. Not because it'll help clear out the phlegm. Just to cry, for the sake of crying. I'm there. I've only been sick since Thursday night. It's not as bad as it was last time. But here I am -- just wanting to cry. Doesn't help that my right eye has been tearing for the last couple hours. I thought I'd paid my illness dues this year. Blah.

bed

Because I'm sick again, dammit. And we have guests in town -- staying in our guest room. And I have already used all of my sick time at work this year, so I'd better recover from this by the end of the day Sunday. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

erin go huh?

One might assume that, with a name like Kelly, I would be partying it up today. Well, I wore green to work. A short-sleeve, 5-button henley under a long-sleeve crew-neck sweater, and a purple skirt with small flowers and leaves to complement the top half of the ensemble. I helped my department write a limerick for the contest (we didn't win). I had Irish Stew for lunch. I missed my Dad (he often called himself The World's Largest Leprechaun). No beer, green or otherwise. No bacchanalia. No kooky hat. Guess I'm just no fun.

Some Irish wisdom from a friend:

May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow,
And may trouble avoid you wherever you go.

Some old Irish wisdom I heard years ago (source unknown):

May you be in Heaven half an hour
Before the devil knows you're dead.

i knew better

Ever work really hard on something and make the irrational decision to skip the second-to-last step because it seems frivolous -- even though you know deep in your soul that if you don't take that second-to-last step and the last step doesn't work as anticipated, you'll regret it?

I just spent hours writing an elaborate post that required much research and included both intelligent analysis and clever reference links. Somewhere in the middle of that process, the internet editor I was logged into logged me off. So when I clicked the pretty "post" button -- without having copied and pasted the entire entry into Microsoft Word as a safety precaution -- it simply told me I didn't have permission to post.

Attempts to go back to the last page failed. Refreshing the page failed. The only thing in my paste buffer was the last link I'd copied.

Gah.

I could replicate it in less time than it originally took me to write and research it. Obviously, I'm more knowledgeable now, and my browser history will show me all the sites and pictures I need. Of course, whether or not I'm capable of replicating the level of logic and wit is another thing altogether. Regardless, even if it took me only half as long to rewrite it, I'd be going to bed as the sun rises. So, it will have to wait for another day. Probably not Friday. I mean, today is Friday at this point.

::grumble, grumble::

teenage diplomats

In my hometown, there's this one hill. It's a grassy hill tucked into the middle of some woods. It's a really big hill. We called it the Ski Hill, because that was one of the things we could do there. We could also sled, toboggan, snowboard (yes, we had snowboards in the 70s). The surrounding woods provided good cross-country skiing trails. And there was a pond at the bottom of the hill where we would skate and play hockey.

Luckily, the town had the good sense to make a park of this little oasis in the trees. I knew every inch of the park well because, in addition to participating in all these activities, my Dad was the Parks & Recreation Director.

A lodge was built with a wrap-around deck outside and a fireplace, concession stand, and lots of couches and chairs inside. There was equipment rental, and the lower level had snow grooming and clearing equipment. The sound system was always playing music. For some reason, every time I hear the song "Blinded by the Light," I think of the ski lodge. In fact, I did most of my skiing around the age of 10, so that makes complete sense.

Playground equipment was installed at the edge of the woods so the park could be enjoyed in the "off" season. The annual Easter egg hunt took place here. But perhaps the most telling additions to the park were a tow rope and a massive wooden ski jump. In fact, at one point, it was the largest ski jump in the state. My oldest brother was the only one of us with the guts to actually climb up and jump off that thing. The best I could muster was to help heap snow in certain parts of the hill to make much more manageable jumps. There was also one section between the high hill and the mid-sized hill that was prone to moguls, which were also a lot of fun. To this day, my memories of time spent at the Ski Hill are all very fond.

As the 80s were drawing to a close, the litigious nature of the world eventually wrapped its claws around the park. Fearful of lawsuits should someone get hurt while playing, the insurance companies began charging ridiculously high premiums to provide the town with coverage. Little by little, they were forced to change things. The tow rope was removed. The ski jump was dismantled. My father retired, and it became a big hill with condominiums and office parks encroaching on all sides.

I drove over there the other night. It was empty. Granted, it was night, but there are still big lights that would allow for evening activities. I was the only soul around. There were four rows of hay bales mysteriously lined down the hill. And this sign caught my attention:

Rules for Winter Sliding

1. Anyone using the park for winter activities performs so at their own risk, in accordance to State of New Hampshire Recreational Use Statute RSA 508:14
2. Sledding and snowboarding are only permitted
3. Downhill skiing is not permitted
4. When a whistle or horn sounds, all activity must stop
5. Snowmobiles are not permitted
6. Do not move hay bails (sic)
7. Building jumps is not allowed
8. Walk up the hill in between the bails (sic) of hay
9. Upon completing a run downhill, exit to the sides as soon as possible
10. Plastic sleds and inflatable tubes are acceptable and permitted for use. Metal sleds and toboggans are not allowed.
11. Sledders must be in a sitting position at all times. Sliding headfirst is not allowed.
12. Sled down hill one at a time -- do not form chains
13. Snowboarders must be aware of sledders at all times
14. Do not leave children unattended
15. Please be alert and conscious of others on the hill
16. Please respect the authority of the personnel who enforce these rules and regulations
17. Not responsible for lost, stolen or damaged property
18. Animals are not permitted
19. Please follow the rules and regulations as specified
20. Have a safe and enjoyable time!

Please note: The town reserves the right to suspend any activity and remove any patrons from the facility if caught engaging in disruptive, destructive, unruly, dangerous, or illegal behavior. The town also reserves the right to enforce the above listed rules and regulations and has the authority to ask individuals who challenge or repeatedly violate the rules to vacate the park.

Sad. Half of the fun things that we could do there are gone, and they replace common sense with statutes, rules, and regulations. William Blake was right. Heavy sigh.

~~~
Song: "Far Away" by Ingrid Michaelson
Reading: Signs (of the times) at my old haunts
Other: One of our employees said to me yesterday, "Getting old isn't always fair"

Incredibly cool sledding picture above by Cat Scott.

at last

The car has returned to us. A long 54 days later, and it once again graces its appointed parking spot behind our house. We actually parked the other car in the spot during the day, so that our neighbor would get the hint not to straddle the line anymore. It worked, although their car is now parked perilously close to our $7,360.75 repair job.

The happy news is that the long delays by both the insurance company and the repair shop resulted in reductions of our $1000 deductible by $765.52. Basically, that accident cost us $234.48 (+ 54 days, a killer bruise, and some emotional turmoil).

achoo!

Still sick. Having my performance review at work today. It should be interesting having a two-hour conversation in a closed room with my Vice President, while I sneeze and blow my nose. Then there are three meetings to attend, four and a half hours in total for those. Oh yeah, and then maybe do some work. Supposed to get the car back tonight. Where have I heard that before? Must run away and start the day now. Wish me luck.

hi, my name is kelly, and i'm a wysiwyg blogger

OK, so I'm not quite done yet tonight.

I tried to get adventurous with my blog and fiddled with the HTML. Although I was able to add a couple things I wanted to add (like a new counter and the fun mood detector, and headers for them) and delete one thing I wanted to delete (the old, non-working counter), in the process, I shifted the whole blog to the left. I feel certain it is the gray footer sitting squarely right on the bottom that has caused this, but I can't figure out how to rectify it. Any expert bloggers with suggestions, please add a comment to this post!

Thank you, and good night.

what in the sam hill...?

Forty-six days ago, I was in an accident. As of today, we still don't have the car back from the repair shop. Every three days, I call to make sure it's ready, and they apologize, tell me there's been a delay, and that it will be ready in three days. So, three days later, I call to make sure it's ready... . Saturday, I went to the shop in person without any notice. I walked into the garage and under our car (not a good sign, it was on the lift). The guy said "Monday. It'll definitely be done on Monday." Today (Monday), I pulled out my secret weapon -- Ted.

First, I asked him to call them around noon to verify that the car would be ready and find out a definite time we could pick it up. They told him 5:00pm. So, at 4:30pm, I picked up Ted from work, we drove to the shop, and at 5:04pm, walked in the door. It would be kind of funny if we walked under the car on the lift, like I did Saturday, but in fact, it was sitting in a different corner (and on the floor) of the garage. As we walked back toward the office, the guy appeared and said, "I'm afraid I have some terrible news... the part never came in today."

And I might as well have yanked a cork out of Ted's head. He went bananas on the guy -- in a non-psychotic way -- but with much emphasis and volume. He pointed out the obvious like "you keeping telling us this thing is going to be ready," and "when I called at noon today, you said we could pick it up at 5:00pm tonight," and "you could have picked up the phone and called this afternoon so we didn't make the trip here," and "the car has been here for 34 days... ."

34 days.

That doesn't include the 12 days it sat in storage while the insurance company didn't get around to appraising it. We've made two car payments (and insurance payments) on the thing in the time we haven't had that car. Our neighbor is so confident that we are now a one-car family that she is basically parking her car in our space.

I can't talk about this anymore. Besides, my throat is sore, and I'm starting to lose my voice.

the collapse

Work this week has been turgid with tasks. I like to be busy, and I don't usually pull the martyr routine about having too many things to do. But this week exceeded a healthy level of busy from the get-go. The last few weeks have led up to this, and I saw it coming. The travel and the accident set me back enough to know that I would have to move awfully fast to keep from having the whole thing cave in on my head. So, this week, I ran. And ran and ran and ran.

Yesterday morning, I arrived at my office around 6:45am and was immediately bombarded with more than 20 task reminders. Before 7:00 o'clock in the morning. I can't rehash the whole day, or my typing will trail off and I'll be left staring blankly at my computer, babbling incoherently and possibly drooling.

Here's an indication of the day. By the time I stopped working at 6:15pm, I had sent and received approximately 500 emails. In one day. And email isn't the only thing I did during the day. I was updating databases, creating documents, reviewing contracts, having conference calls, taking phone calls, fielding requests from people who showed up at my desk... I even provided computer support for three people, including the Co-Founder of the company. Among other things. And my lunch consisted of an apple that was already at my desk, leftover from the previous day. At one point, I think I remained seated for more than six hours. To say it was a full day would be like saying that the Empire State Building is kind of tall.

Despite running and running and running to keep up with it all, I had a little moment about 3:00pm when my husband called to tell me that we spent $50 for the vet to tell us he doesn't know what the bump is on Milo's shoulder, but we should make an appointment to have it biopsied. That little emotional hiccough (and the $400 it will cost) brought tears to my eyes. And when I started thinking about the rest of the stress, I just had to end the conversation.

My husband told me to grab my cell phone and go outside and call him. I tried to, but as soon as I turned around to leave, there was someone at my desk who wanted my attention. Me, with moist eyes and blowing my nose. I made up a story about having a reaction to the feathery leaves I'd just removed from my bouquet of roses. I think she bought it.

It was five minutes before I could leave, and I couldn't bring myself to go outside. So I sought an empty conference room. The closest one was occupied, so I ducked into someone's empty office to make the call. It was at this point that I lost it. I started crying -- balling, really. Like a little kid. I tried to meltdown quietly, but was horribly unsuccessful, sobbing and wailing. There was a Vice President in the office next to me (I could hear his voice through the wall). I knew that, as long as I was talking with my husband about this stuff, I would continue balling. So I literally hung up on him.

Then I spent a solid five minutes hiding in the corner of this person's office, trying to compose myself before I went out where people might see me. He didn't have any tissues (who doesn't have tissues at their desk?), so I used the hem of my skirt to dry my face (so as not to soil my more obvious shirt sleeves). I made a break for the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face and use paper towels to dry everything off, but when I got to the door, I could hear a couple people having a conversation inside. I couldn't do it. So, I raced back to my desk. Using my compact to assess the damage, I saw that there was no hiding what I'd been doing. My face was hugely puffy and red, and my eyes were almost completely bloodshot. I calmed myself and managed to log in another three hours of work.

The morale of the story? I don't think there is one. Sometimes life piles up on top of you, and sometimes, that pile collapses.

update and vent

So, I entered this cryptic title last time and dashed off before I could give a real explanation. I still don't have time to go into all the specifics (and nobody in their right mind would want to read them all). But I need to vent, so here I am for a quick summary of events and a bit of steamletting.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, I was in a car accident. It was an unusual situation and as it happened I was driving my husband's car when it happened. I will not get into the details of the accident. I was then, have been for the past two weeks, and will continue to be for the rest of my life, grateful that neither the passengers in the other car nor I were hurt. I can't speak for their after-effects, but I had naseau for nearly a week afterwards and a spectacular seat belt bruise which, as of right now, is only the faintest bit of shadow.

The car, however, was not so lucky. Hit in the right rear quarter, it spun around about 45 degrees and the bumper went flying across the road to land on the grassy area by the sidewalk. The right rear wheel is no longer perpendicular to the ground, and thus the car is undriveable. It was towed away that morning, and until yesterday, sat in a storage yard awaiting the insurance company appraiser's inspection. The tow truck driver told us he thought that they would total it because of the extent of the damage. However, yesterday morning, I received a call that upon visible inspection, it was, in fact, fixable.

I have no idea why my insurance company would only do a visual inspection when clearly there will be significantly more work to be done under the car. But apparently they're going for the fastest route (although it took them nearly two weeks to get around to the inspection), by writing up an initial report and sending me the first check -- $5100, less our $1000 deductible. He assured me that they would pay the rest once the shop gave a second estimate for the remaining repairs.

When I spoke with the shop, they assured me that this is the way it's done now. They do it all the time. So, I guess I just have to continue to hope for the best.

Over the last week, I'd let myself get relatively laissez-faire about it (whereas the first week, I did a lot of handwringing and general fretting). Most of our conversations this week have centered on replacing the car. So, yesterday's news that it was fixable threw us a little off track. Truth is, we were looking forward to getting rid of it. Oh well.

Anyway, in this new milder mindset, I had managed to not think about the ways this process could go wrong, the most significant of which would involve the other driver. Well, tonight I got a call from the officer on duty, needing me to reiterate my insurance information because it was incorrect on the police report. I was cynical about the veracity of this call (read too many spam emails about scams) and offered instead to call the police station back with it. He asked that I do so within half an hour. I asked him what the problem was, because I had given him my insurance information at the accident. He said that the driver's mother was "making a stink about it."

Here we go.

So, despite the fact that my house is really cold tonight (the largest electric bill we've had in five years has convinced me to turn down the heat) and my fingers are freezing and blue, my face is burning up and red. Putting my hands to my cheeks is temporarily a relief to both, but it's difficult to function in that position for long.

The rest of my cryptic title referred to a trip I took the day of the accident (I had to fly to Chicago for a series of business meetings), the trip home, the immediate immersion into the too-long SuperBowl, and my complete and utter exhaustion after that series of events. Had I been in possession of an only slightly less sturdy constitution, I'd have fainted dead away and been admitted to a "spa." Instead, I went to work at 6:45am Monday morning (with only one car, my husband and I now carpool, changing my work schedule to adapt to his).

To reiterate the good things: Despite the occasional misstep, I still believe that I live a blessed life and I am grateful for every tiny (and little and medium and big and extra large) good thing. My husband was recently promoted, which is great for him. I have a ton of projects at work, which is a good thing even if it's sometimes overwhelming. I have so much. It's frustrating that one out-of-whack-situation can commandeer so much of my attention away from all the good.

The holidays, my two business trips, the accident, and the backlog of work behind me for now, perhaps I can finally dedicate more time and attention to sanguinary blue. Real attention. Creative writing and editing and graphics and links and everything.