“Remoted” – Workday 105 / Day 143 (Thursday)

Tick tock. Tick tock. Let’s count down the vacation clock. Four more work hours and it’s on.

Surprise! Flowers!

Today saw an unexpected bloom in the back yard. I’m out there daily and didn’t notice anything “fixin’ to bloom,” but this morning I spotted a spot of color from the kitchen window while making the morning coffee. Before the coffee was done brewing, I was in the yard investigating the flowers. The stems are shorter and as the blooms opened during the day, they revealed a more intense color than the other lilies in the yard. Three blooms opened today and several more are waiting in the wings. 

Speaking of intense color, the giant (four inches across) bruise on the backside from falling down the stairs last week has blossomed from barely there to red, then deep purple, to now multiple colors starting lighter at the center and radiating darker until edged with purple. The weird thing is, the shape changed from a blob to, as of yesterday, a distinct heart shape. The good news is, I finally have a heart.

Party of one, goofing like a psycho.

Our casual team “coffee chat” was this afternoon. This weekly meeting is 30 minutes and is our cyber equivalent of the bonding chit chat and ongoing conversation we miss from working remotely. We get to catch up with each other and it’s nice. Today, I was the first one into the meeting and was goofing around with the print screen button. I love that button, as evidenced by the odd collection of images bearing the text “You are currently the only participant” saved in my files. I guess it’s my new dorky self portrait collection. Back when I was a serious photographer (meaning, I was serious about taking photos and actually used my cameras) I did an annual self-portrait. Somewhere along the line I stopped. Somewhere along the line I stopped a lot of things.  

Needed this laugh.

A good part of the day involved juggling the finalization of a pretty big project and communicating with colleagues using email, text, and calls. Ping, a new text. Ping, a new email. Check this file and answer a question. Check that file and deal with another question. Back and forth, round and round.

Late in the day, we were on what we fervently hoped was the final review of the final version. I think it was version 6, maybe 7, of the 30-page document. The two of us working on it for the past couple weeks just wanted it to be over. The pressure was on. One of us planned to be out of the office Friday through Tuesday. I’m off for a week beginning at noon Friday.

A very generous eight minutes after the file was sent to me, as I was trying to focus on the final proofread and check the embedded links, my phone was pinging like crazy. It was annoying, but when I picked it up, all I could do was laugh. It was a series of texts from the sender of the file. It read, “Is it ready?” Four times. So I offered an ass kicking. Sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference in a day and let you laugh, even when you are the only participant.