random thoughts – Day 1,665 – (Tuesday) – back in the saddle

It was the first day "back in the saddle" at work after vacation and it had a slightly rough start, like the 100 grit on my new emery boards. As I sat sipping coffee before work, I heard a familiar and wretched  sound from the neighbor’s driveway. They were scraping the car windshield. I wanted to cry. It feels too early for that crap! I wished I was still in Mexico where the temperature is in the 80s.

It was a remote day, so I was spared windshield clearing, but the system log-in was rough. The first system alert screaming at me was that my password had expired on Sunday the 13th. That’s when I remembered the email notifying me of the upcoming expiration about two weeks ago and that I had intended to change it before vacation. Then I forgot about it, and that meant calling the help desk this morning. It took multiple efforts and a half-hour to get it reset. So much for logging on 30 minutes early to get a jump on things.

Once finally logged in, the email inbox had only 279 emails, which was much better than expected. There were times when there were 100 emails for each day out of the office. One was the shared email with the link for the daily newspaper. I got an error message that the login was locked out, so catching up on the local news was out of the question. There was a voice mail from the print shop to which I sent an order at the end of August that was to be delivered directly to another department.

At the end of September, I learned it hadn’t been delivered. It seems the print shop forgot to do it, but they didn’t say that, exactly. What they said was, “we’ll look into it.” On Monday the 7^th, they left a voice mail that it was ready for pickup, which would be great, but the instructions asked for delivery, meaning that once they finally got around to printing it (a month late), it sat in their shop for another week because they failed to consult the print instructions that accompanied the artwork file. I hope they don’t spend too much time wondering why I don’t send them many projects, because this isn’t the first screw up.

By 9:00, I was ready to run away. Fortunately, the day sorted itself out and was less annoying, more like the 180 grit side of the emery board. At 10:00 I was in a webinar about a new time card process which didn’t run as long as scheduled and I could get back to business. Soon, I had several new ads set up in the graphics queue.

After work, it was soup for supper then off to dance class. I hoped to see the comet on the drive, but I didn’t. I missed class last week because I was on vacation and tonight I was totally lost. It’s amazing how much is covered in a one-hour class and how far behind I was from missing just one session. Yikes. The new dance we are working on has some fast footwork and really cool moves, and once I master them it will be great, but tonight I was a bumbling doofus without a clue. Hopefully, next week I’ll be better.

Soup season in full swing.

And just like that, everything is back to the ordinary. Kiki is back to mostly ignoring me and the affection bestowed upon my return was shirt-lived. The morning kicked off with the usual granola bar and work annoyances for breakfast, leftover sweet potato fries for lunch, and soup topped with cheese for supper because I was chilly and I also love cheese. 

The weekend will likely see a pot of vegetable stock simmering on the stove with all the onion skins and ends and broccoli stems accumulated in the freezer over the summer. Unless it's suddenly and miraculously hot, in which case, I may be at the beach pretending it's still summer.