random thoughts – Day 1,336 – (Monday) – feeling bent

The week kicked off with an insanely long to-do list. Four items have been in limbo with two departments since August. At the end of every week, I move the entries to the following week’s list and get a little more aggravated about it. Every time I follow up with the business lines that still need to provide either approval or changes for the materials that they requested we create, the response is, “we have a meeting tomorrow to review it.” Ummm, okay. 

Open Enrollment for our benefits ends this Saturday and I haven’t figured that out yet. I’ve tried looking at it twice and both times given up in frustration. Basically, it seems that everything medical is changing and my disdain for the American for-profit health care system (medical /insurance mafia) has probably never been higher. It’s likely to be the thing that sends me to a premature grave, which would actually be okay at this point because at least then I wouldn’t need to worry about frigging health care coverage and premiums and deductibles and co-pays on top of co-pays and still never getting any answers as to why my hip is jacked up and my leg still hurts. The whole thing has me a bit bent out of shape.

Bent! WTF?

It was trash day, and the yard waste was picked up early. At lunchtime, I went and hauled the yard waste barrel in but the other barrels were still all full. I must have been focused on work, because I never heard the trash or recycle bin pickups happen, but around 3:30 I heard the neighbor rolling the very noisy bins up the long, shared driveway, outside my office windows, and into her side yard.

After logging off work for the day, I went outside in the evening darkness to roll the bin up the short, shared driveway on the other side of the house. That’s when I noticed that one of the pickets in the center of my front fence (where the neighbor puts her barrels), which used to be straight like all the others all the way up until this morning, was creased. Not a little – it’s crazy bent, like it was the subject of a violent attack. So much for “vinyl is final.” And what the heck is up with the trash truck operators and how did it even happen? So annoying. But now I'm not the only thing bent out of shape here. 

Tortellini lunch.

At least today’s lunch was good. Warm. Satisfying. Filling. It was left over from Sunday’s supper. 

I love my cast iron fry pan for making the initial batch of food, and dang, I love the microwave for the leftovers. In literally one minute today, lunch of mushroom tortellini topped with smoked salmon dip from Aldi mixed with sauteed onion and mushroom was heated and ready. It was topped with grated provolone (from the cheese ends hoard) and freshly ground black pepper. So yummy.