What A Week

The week started off relatively normal, aside from it being Memorial Day.... I guess taking that day off jinxed the rest of the week.

Tuesday - Sitting in a meeting and learn that I have to change my upcoming travel plans so that I can be in DC for a specifc 2-day meeting. While this isn't that big of a deal, it did sorta throw off my schedule. the good thing out of changing my travel plans is that now I'll be in DC over a weekend and I'll take that extra time and do some additional exploring. Late afternoon a transformer blew in downtown DC, which caused a complete power outage in much of the metro DC area, including one of the buildings where my customer works, so we had to scramble to get our equipment powered down while the generator was still funcioning so that there wouldn't be damage to equipment or data. We were on conference calls until close to midnight getting things powered down and waiting with hopes that the DC power would come back on....it didn't.

Wednesday/ Thursday morning - We still didn't have power and got about 3 hours of sleep that night as we were doing lots of trouble shooting and remediation planning....Okay, so yeah, I wasn't doing a whole lot of either, but I was documenting everything and coordinating getting people here and there.

Thursday afternoon - I had a scheduled dentist appointment, which I thought was just going to be a cleaning and whitening treatment. I already felt guilty going away from my team, but I couldn't NOT take this appointment which had been set up for a month. So, I go to the dentist (stupid Tomtom got me a little lost, but whatever) and it turns out that it wasn't for a cleaning, it was for a sales pitch and exam and I'm not really certain what it was all for (yeah, I had a coupon). So, after having an exam and a gagillion xrays and pictures taken of my teeth (FYI, if there is ever the need to identify my body just contact this dentist - they have me covered), the dentist comes in and informs of the following: 1. I need to get crowns on two of my teeth that I've had fillings in since practically the womb. 2. I need to get my remaining wisdom teeth extracted. 3. I need to have a deep below the gum scraping something, something....I stopped listening at this point. We landed on getting just one crown on the one tooth that had a crack in it (no wonder that tooth always had pain when I bit down on it)....and it was decided that we would go ahead and do the crown right then.

Five hours later, I left with a face that looked like I had a stroke because of the local anesthesia, my jaw completely dis-located from the what I'm pretty certain was 20 people in my mouth at one time, and a lighter wallet.... Ah well, I guess we have to suffer sometimes for health purposes even though I'd really rather just let all my teeth fall out of my head before I return to the dentist (don't worry, that won't happen, but it is a thought).

When I got home from the dentist I ended up back on a conference call dealing with more work stuff, even though I couldn't actually talk...remember stroke victim...until close to midnight when we finally felt confident that all systems were back to their normal state.

Today, I was supposed to volunteer at a golf tournament, but either from my lack of sleep and the haze that I was driving in or the fact that Tomtom couldn't find where I was supposed to go, I ended up driving around this community for almost an hour and never able to find where I was supposed to be. I ended up just coming home and even though I felt really bad about not being there I also felt that the fact that I kept falling asleep whenever I stopped moving was a sign.....

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weekend is quiet. I've got 'wine and whine' scheduled with The Queen for tomorrow and going to hopefully do some sewing... One thing is for certain, I really do NOT want to relive this week.

Working the Drive-thru...

As I pulled away from the drive-thru window at Chic-fil-a grabbing dinner this evening, I started thinking about how pleasant the people working there were and then I started thinking about how nice my first job at McDonalds was when I was just a fresh high school graduate and sometimes wish I could go back to working the drive thru window....

• when the only things I had to worry about on the job were making sure to get the fries out of the grease and skim it regularly;


• having to tell a customer that the shake machine was on the fritz and I couldn't sell them one (or worse, actually having to clean the shake machine);


• or the time when we ran out of Happy Meal toys and tried to substitute plastic spoons (yeah, not one of the shining moments in my golden arches career).

It was such an easier life and somedays (especially days like this) I really think about throwing my hands up and going back to that easy life of asking "would you like fries with that?".... Heck, I'd even be willing to go back to the nasty brown, polyester uniform....

Ah well, I can dream, right?

2011 - Book 13 - The Hunger Games

I just finished the first book in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy, appropriately titled The Hunger Games. Since I actually read the book version of this and not on my Kindle, I can provide what is written on the back of the book:

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before - and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

I'm very excited to move on to the next one in this series. Amazon had been recommending these books to me for quite sometime, but I never opted to purchase them. Then I saw them listed in the "young adult" area at Target and had one of those magical thoughts that perhaps the "young adult" in my life may have read these books and still have them.... lo and behold, she did. So I've borrowed these books from my niece (so nice that she and I can share literature).
I give this book a thumbs up. It is entertaining and intriguing, while not Ayn Rand, it did remind me of some of her work...