“Remoted” – Day 400 (Tuesday)

This morning delivered the painful reminder of the cost and penalty of taking a couple vacation days. With a class scheduled for most of the morning (8:30 – 11:00), I logged into work at 7:30 to check emails. There were 121 emails in the inbox, plus the emails with press mentions and Google alerts that go directly to a designated folder to be dealt with at leisure. This is the punishment cloud that hovers over any time off. 

A check of the online newspaper links in the inbox revealed that the last-minute ad placed last Wednesday for Friday ran as scheduled, but the ad scheduled two months ago to run on Sunday and confirmed last Wednesday did not.

The morning class was Public Speaking. During the class, both dogs were desperately trying to participate by being extra barky, and needed to go out multiple times. I was cold, having dressed in only two layers after seeing the weather forecast for 71 degrees. Our five-minute class break involved dealing with the dogs and I never made it upstairs to grab a sweater and froze until the end of the class. Shivering burns 10 percent more calories, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing. Shoveling my way to a beach body didn’t quite work out, but maybe there’s hope in shivering to svelte.

Once I finally caved and got it, the sweater was worn all afternoon. This is probably weird for most people, but not that unusual for me. It reminded me of the time my family went to Florida when I was in high school. It was June and Mom, Dad, my brother and sister were all in the pool and I was in a chair poolside, dressed in jeans and a sweater.

The afternoon danced on the tightrope between busy and wicked busy, and thankfully avoided please just kill-me-now level busy. It’s probably lying in wait, ready to pounce on Wednesday or Thursday.

It was so busy, it never even registered that this was another milestone at Day 400 since everything skidded sideways and halted. As a result, there was no supper or dessert or dance party to commemorate the day. It’s okay, because my parties for one, which long predate the pandemic times, have gotten rather old and lackluster.