“Remoted” – Workday 84 /Day 114 (Wednesday)

At 84 days working from home, 114 days spent largely at home, and only 11 days where I’ve left the house, the days are mushing all together. I briefly considered going out to buy ice cream tonight just to shake things up and because, well, summer. 

Today in a nutshell: Coffee, emails, problem accessing the news articles in the media mention alerts I receive that I’m supposed to save. It’s still an unsolved mystery, but there is a workaround. There was the regularly scheduled big sales and marketing team video meeting with fewer faces in the video grid due to vacations. Things were approved. Things were sent out. At 4:00 I learned a thing that I planned to upload Thursday morning to a cumbersome system that takes forever is for a project currently held up in an external certification process and we need a Plan B replacement, like yesterday. You know, just more of the usual.

Refreshing wind gusts!

There are days when it feels like I work for the fire department with all the random small- to mid-sized flammable events that are squelched. The asbestos pantsuit is clean and ready in the closet, if I could just predict the days it would be needed so I’m properly attired.

After supper, the magical music of the ice cream truck was playing nearby, which was a perfect solution to my need for ice cream. Cash was transferred from wallet to pocket and I was ready to pounce when the truck hit my street. The last two times the truck came and parked in front of my house I didn’t even know where my wallet was. Tonight, I was prepared. Unfortunately, the rumble of thunder began to accompany the gentle summer breezes and ice cream truck tunes. The thunder got louder, the music faded, and no ice cream truck arrived.  

Having a storm.Wish I was here.

The breezes graduated to full blown wind gusts and the curtains billowed in the refreshing air flow. The air felt great, but a massive thunderclap and lightning flash startled both dogs and left them quivering with nerves.  If not for the twitching Canine Overlords, I’d have been watching the storm roll in from the porch, just like my family did when I was a kid. We’d be lined up on our porch oohing and aahing over storms as if we were watching fireworks. The next day we’d hear from our friends across the street that they were hiding under their beds. Literally, under the beds. That would never happen at my house. Ever. First, we weren’t weenies, we were tough. Second, our underbed real estate was fully occupied by games, shoes, toys, clothes, books, and whatever else would fit. Across the street, the space under the beds was a dust and junk-free expanse of gleaming hardwood flooring. They didn’t even use bed skirts – while ascending the staircase, it was possible to see clear under the bed to the far wall. It was (and still is) a magical, foreign concept to me. Probably as foreign as watching a storm from a porch was to our old neighbors.