Weekend Potpourri

Monday morning and I’m actually awake! I attribute this to the enormous amount of sleep I had over the most relaxing weekend I can remember. Too bad I don’t have anything to do, but that’s hardly unusual. My boss is currently canvassing other projects for more writing I can pick up, but until the work appears on my desk, it doesn’t exist. No shirt, no shoes, no charge code? No service! At least I can trust that my boss wants the official Tech Writer 1 title for me and is trying to help me get it. He’s a great guy. Working for an engineering firm wasn’t what I’d envisioned using my English degree for, but when it comes down to it, I had no idea that an English degree could be useful. I only knew it was smarter than getting an art degree, and then what did I do? Minored in art! It’s a wonder I’m not living in a refrigerator box. I like my boss and I work for a good company in an industry that milks my patriot glands, so I have it much better than a lot of people.

It was an eventfully uneventful weekend, if that makes any sense. Friday afternoon I sat with the invalid wife of a coworker. She had a stroke in early January, and when I saw her, I was horrified. She has no business being out of the hospital—she’s not even able to sit up on her own yet! I remember that Dad wasn’t released after his stroke until he could be propped up in a wheelchair. The poor woman has bed sores because the nurse only comes twice a week to check on her. Not to mention this is seriously hurting my teammate’s career because she cannot be left alone. He traveled for work a lot and he won’t be able to anymore. We’ve hardly seen him at work since the new year, and while the company is bending over backwards to make things easier for him-letting him work from home, taking up a collection to buy medical supplies, etc-there’s a limit to how much HR can do. Some of us on the team have volunteered our time, but again, we have our own lives. My teammate is a shell of himself. He’s lost ten pounds and is looking increasingly shabby. I can’t imagine the pressure on him trying to work full time and nurse his wife full time. Neither of those things can budge, either. He’s not well off, so he must work, and of course he must care for his wife. Prayers are needed!

While I sat in the sickroom, I read my work buddy’s favorite novel, Crown Duel (Sherwood Smith). It was like getting to know her better. It didn’t suit me, exactly, but I could see why she loves it. She IS the main character-physically short, hot tempered, fiercely loyal, scrambling to educate herself, etc. Makes me wonder why we like the books we do? My favorite books are That Hideous Strength (C.S. Lewis) and All Hallows’ Eve (Charles Williams). What do they say about me?

Saturday was leisurely. Will and I slept in to about 11, then I made pancakes and coffee. During brunch, we got a call from our friends Evan and Brittany, announcing their engagement. Totally knew about it ahead of time. We had a late supper with Evan Thursday night and he was definitely not in his right mind. Poor guy, but he seems to have lived. Grats to them! Did some laundry, planted snow peas in my three empty pots and went grocery shopping. We made it home just as the first gust of rain came down. I’d been warned about the storm from my parents in Pensacola who had hail! We didn’t get anything half so exciting-just steady rain all night.

Sunday was a break from cooking. For lunch we had Pillsbury Savorings spinach and cheese puffs. Yum! Supper was a DiGiorno thin crust pizza, and somewhere in between an entire box of Ritz Bits got eaten. Not going to name names, but the bulk of the Ritz gobbling wasn’t me. (Thanks for the coupons, Mom!) I know all of that sounds delicious, but the next time I get that lazy, somebody needs to smack me. From 6:00 pm to 1:00 am, a poisonous miasma settled over the office. I could feel everything I’d eaten actively compacting in my stomach. Every once in a while, I had to convince myself I wasn’t hearing Tetris music coming from my midsection during each gastric shift. Imagine with me, if you will, the opening bars of “Korobushka” followed by GURGLE, BLURP, SLUUUUUUP! Me: Ow! *burrrrrrrp* Groan…. And that’s just detailing my contribution to the air pollution. Yes, it’s good that I’m getting out of the junk food habit, but when I indulge, does it really have to hurt that much?
After midnight, the gas had subsided to merely embarrassing levels (but still wouldn’t let me sleep) and I was able to arrange my iTunes after a long, no-music deprivation. My computer got overhauled a while ago and I hadn’t gotten around to re-downloading things I used to have on there, iTunes being the main one. Will had backed up his music files on my computer, and of course they all dumped into my iTunes. I knew he had a ton of wonderful music from OCRemix, and from being around him over time I’ve learned how magical video game music can be, but wow! I’d never associated games like Metal Gear Solid 2 with beautiful music before. Will had to endure my off-key crooning for a while as I hummed along with songs I didn’t know. I’m sure that didn’t help his digestion any, but I enjoyed it. At least he knows I can sing. In fact, I have a smoky mezzo-soprano voice perfect for all those 1940s USO songs. These days it’s more husky than buttery, but that won’t change without the training I’m not getting right now. It’ll also improve with age. It always struck me as odd that the best opera singers are in their 40s and 50s, but they’re playing characters in their teens and twenties. Cognitive dissonance, but it’s not like I’ve ever seen an opera in person and I’ve heard girdles and pancake makeup work wonders, so the incongruity is purely academic…like a lot of things I ramble on about. Anyway, I’ve come full circle back to Monday morning and the drive into work with my right thigh smelling like acetone because I punched right through my stockings and had to patch them up with nail polish on the way out the door. Everybody sing with me! “I used to ruuuuuuule the world….”