“Remoted” Workday 183 / Day 274 (Tuesday)

Tuesday was another one of those days filled with a thousand fiberglass shards of annoyance. Nothing big, just many small things that elevated my sense of general annoyance by degrees to a level that might be considered a public hazard. It started first thing in the morning when the ability to copy and paste content, a command I exercise about 1,000 times a day, suddenly disappeared, on the day I was receiving info from everyone in my immediate work group to compile into a summary for a full department meeting. The day slogged along with random, time-consuming projects landing in my lap and derailing some of the planned to-do list. Nothing was earth-shattering, but my skin seems to be getting thinner every day. And dryer. It was both horrifying and disgusting and also morbidly fascinating to see what looked like dandruff on my black socks and discover that my shins are disintegrating and I am literally turning to dust. Winter is not always my friend.

A box of happy tasty bits!

And then, miraculously, it was the end of the workday. Soup with a piece of bread and butter was a good start. Then, when Moose needed to go out, we used the front door and there was a box on the top step that improved the day dramatically and immediately. Inside was a beautiful array of cheeses, meats, nuts, and tiny cakes. So pretty! Restraint was miraculously exercised and the devouring limited to the four petits fours. 

Progress happened with the ordering of dog food, toothpaste, and face lotion. My legs are turning to dust, but maybe there is time to keep my face from blowing away like dust in the wind. The new 14-pound bag of dog food will be delivered directly to the door this weekend. It’s amazing how the push of a button can allow things to be crossed off a list and eliminate some stress.

After that, there was time to retreat to the mind-numbing effects of the Lifetime Channel, where every Christmas movie and every commercial has an actor who reminds me of someone I know. Sandra Lee made trifle during a commercial break, but all I could see was her resemblance to a former colleague in Tennessee, and one of the male leads in the movie looks like a guy I used to know. In last night’s movie, the Mrs. Claus character looked like my step-grandmother in Texas. Maybe part of the appeal of the Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies is not just the sappy happy endings, but the degrees of familiarity of the characters. Or the stretch of 274 days with limited human contact is making me delusional and hallucinating friends.