“Remoted” – Workday 129 / Day 189 (Monday)

The last day of summer started off a little rough. Opening my eyes in my cozy, winter fleece pajamas, it was a surprise to see that it was already 6:30 and Moose was only just waking up. His internal clock has shifted the past few weeks and I may need to start setting an alarm. Breaks in routine throw me off.

After feeding the pups, letting them out, and brushing my teeth and the supremely glamorous and sexy night guard that prevents  me grinding and fracturing all my teeth, it was back upstairs to get dressed. A look at the thermostat revealed it to be 59 degrees in the house. Google claimed it was 43 outside, which made for a most depressing final morning of summer. Knowing it would be cold overnight, before bed on Sunday, the last of the basil had been cut and brought inside, which felt like defeat. 

The last of the basil.

The chosen winter outfit was long pants, socks, and layers of a cami (aka grown lady fancy undershirt), long sleeve flannel shirt, and a long knit sweater. It caused me pain to be wearing actual winter clothes on the last day of summer, but I was also very cold. Back in the kitchen, the empty coffee pot reminded me that, unlike nearly every morning at the house for the past four years, I hadn’t started the coffee while the dogs were eating.

While waiting for the coffee to brew, which took approximately 10,000 times longer than usual, I decided to put a load of laundry into the washer. The thinking was that the dryer step of the laundry process might warm up the kitchen, and I was not psychologically ready to put on the heat at this early date.

Shortly afterward, it was an endurance test of failed attempts to log into the work system while receiving texts from colleagues in a similar situation. A check of the laundry yielded a surprise. The laundry basket with the rest of the dirty laundry that had been set on top of the washer was wet. So was the wall behind the washer and the one next to it, what could be seen of the floor, the wire shelf above the washer, and the underside of everything on the shelf. Mop up operations commenced. The best guess is the output hose somehow came loose and the water sprayed upward. This was a new and exciting situation. 

Fruit tea all day.

It was an eventful first two hours of the day, which seem to have been specially designed to keep me on my toes. The rest of the day involved me being super cranky as a result of being cold. Attempts to stave off the chill included hot coffee, hot fruit tea, and hot soup throughout the day. 

After work, there was the hand washing of dishes in hot soapy water (dishwasher still not fixed) and another load of laundry to deal with the towels used in the morning mop up (after checking the hoses). There was even more hot fruit tea. And finally, sick of being cold all day and tired from being cranky all day about being cold, I caved. The heat was turned on, far too early in the year.