Thursday

Many of you have perhaps spent countless moments wondering along with this man "Will it blend?" I've been playing a version of that at home recently. Only I intend to eat mine, so it's typically much less adventurous, though it is meant to bring excitement to breakfast in hopes of enticing me to eat better.

My game is "Will it smoothie?" Today I decided to see what crunch does for a smoothie. 1 cup almonds, 1/4 cup flax seeds, a banana and some milk. Gritty and delicious. I think this might make a great hot bedtime drink. Maybe less almonds, maybe more. Depends on the ride you're looking for.

However, what will undoubtedly never smoothie is the 5lbs of butter I found in my freezer while looking for other stuff to put in. What reasonable person needs to keep 20 sticks of butter on hand I ask you? I have no explanation for this, I only know I am going to start rocking toast and shortbread cookies, stat.

I might be a bad person, but I am comfortable with that

So holy shit thank god it's friday. Thank god the software worked, the doctors came around, the photographers rallied to help me. And thank god for me if I do say so myself. And I do. Anyhoo, "live" live week came and went and I survived. Most stuff worked, I was able to cover everything that didn't until my dev team could fix it and everyone is as happy as they're going to get about the fact that they have to change digital systems.

Now, onto the bad person in me: I would like to start by saying that I took the shuttle home from NSI today because HN has my car for things he needed to do that one can't apparently do with no vehicle of one's own and a busted hand. So I got a ride in, and took the shuttle home. Only I forgot my jacket, because I rarely wear one to drive and I am used to driving myself and walking no further than the distance from the hospital door to the car, which is hardly worth the bother of a jacket, and I can't drive with one on so the whole thing just gets stupid. Anyhoo, it's 45 degrees and windy, fast forward to me getting off the bus and realizing not only do I have no jacket, but I have no keys. House keys are attached to car key, are likely attached to HN right now. HN who is not answering his phone. Quite the dilemma, no? Luckily for me, the shuttle stops in college town, and there are bars by the fistful right off the steps of the bus.

having had the week I had, I decide it's Miller Time, well not really but Stella Time doesn't have quite the ring. Anyhoo, I land at one of my favorite haunts, sidle up to the bar and make myself at home with a plate of fries as big as my head and a chilly pint. The man next to me strikes up a debate about whether Felix is or is not an exclusively male name (I say not!) and beer 1 flies by.
He leaves, one thing leads to another, HN is still not answering and beer 2 ensues. Then the 2 DUMBEST PEOPLE EVER sit down next to me. It's like a car wreck, I can't decide if it's horrifying or awesome. Snippets of conversation include "did we order yet?" "I don't know. What do you think?" I should have but didn't point out that since they still had menus in front of them, more likely than not they hadn't ordered but was saved by the timely arrival of the waiter. They asked him if they had ordered, and I would like to take a moment to give props to waiter dude for maintaining because he was clearly thrown but managed to offer a perfectly sensible sounding "nope." So they ordered (crab cake for her, nachos with guac for him) and waiter dude took their menus away, as waiters often do when you have finished using them. They then proceed to kick off a debate about whether they had in fact ordered before and he was making fun of them, and whether also they were making fun of each other by not knowing. I would say they belong together, but I'm so afraid they'll breed.

They have now moved on to some topic or other that I missed by blogging about their idiocy, which probably serves me right but whatever it is it is THE SADDEST THING HE HAS EVER HEARD. One can only imagine. At least he didn't say it was THE SMARTEST THING HE HAD EVER HEARD, because I surely would have choked and spat beer all over my new boots.

Oh, my new boots. Mmmm, my new boots. I got new boots. They are these boots:
and we are in boot love. So comfy, and perfectly respectable looking peeking out from under my pants. Only me and the boots know about the fun underneath, and we're not telling.

HN to the rescue, I am being removed from the bar. cheers

And we're off!

So. Last Weds was day 1 of "pre go live" go live. Mostly a success, some tense moments but we were able to recover from everything and the clinic was mercifully slow so we had the leeway to adjust to the issues- it's amazing how "real life" is always different than you think it will be. One of our problems Thursday was because of the order in which the Photographers push the button. When I talked to them, they didn't mention it, when I watched them I missed it, and when we did dry runs they didn't do it. But in real life they did, and it hung the application! It was a most obscure error, and only some of them take the steps in the problem order so it took me a while to figure it out. It was nice to finally isolate it though, a bit of an Ah-HA! moment. By Friday things were under control and I was even able to leave people alone with some degree of confidence which was a nice feeling, and a definite contrast to how it went last time. However, as any milestone does, this one has got me examining my life and I thought I would share some things.

-I use a lot of spoons. I know we've discussed this before, but I haven't had time or inclination to do dishes in a few days and I was reminded again this morning when I had to dig for a spoon in my spare silver ware section. Yes, I have one. You never know when you might need more spoons, so I keep a pile of extra silver ware in the back of the drawer. You know you do it too.

Guilty pleasure: I love hospital cafeteria food. LOVE IT! So many people are so horrified by this fact, but I can't help it. On Tuesday, which is beef mac day, I am the first in line. And I frequently breakfast in the Drs lounge too. They make some mean eggs, and the bacon is crispy just the way I like it. "morning potatoes with red spices"? Yes please! This tidbit makes confession #3 funnier to me.

-I judge people based on what is in their grocery cart. I am a holier than thou grocer! I can't help it. Ok I guess I could if I tried, but I haven't decided to try yet. I just realized I was doing it the other day, give me time to cope. But I realized I am not as nice and don't smile at people when I see shit like HoHos and TastyKakes in their cart. Nevermind if they're fat and limping, or riding one of those little "I'm too fat to walk" scooters while stocking up on Tyson frozen fried chicken and ice cream. Sometimes it's all I can do not to do them the favor of taking shit out of their carts.

That's pretty much it for now. My brain is kind of on overload this week, but I hope to be returning to a humanoid work schedule sometime soon. 70+ hours is not sustainable.

T minus 48 hours and counting

Until I pull the trigger at NSI and turn my software loose on the world. Ok, maybe not "my" software as in I wrote it, but mine in the sense that I have nurtured it and written specifications and pointed out it's flaws and used phrases like "User and Task Analysis" and "Ivory tower development" in arguments that were sometimes wheedling and always profanity laden to get it where it is today. Without a doubt I could not have done it without my dev team, but also without a doubt they could not have done it without me. I pulled out the October version of our software the other day as a comparison and it's just amazing. I am so pleased with how far it's come. The new version is the phoenix rising from the ashes of the total fucking meltdown that occurred when we went live in November.

I keep wondering what I'm going to hate every day once NSI goes live. Will it be like the day after the wedding when the bride has a breakdown because now what will she research and plan and put her energy into? Will it be as celebratory as I think it will be? Most importantly, will I get my bonus??? It won't be so abrupt, as the T minus 48 hours applies to only 1 of 6 hospitals involved but this is The Big One. Maybe that will make it easier to let go, if it was even going to be hard. I very possibly see a trip home and a bender in my future. Just like the good old days.

There is also the possibility of a little Arizona time. My nephew is going to be 5 and last year was the first time I missed his birthday. It was not a great feeling, and I shouldn't like to do it again. If you're going to live 3000 miles away and want a kid to remember you, you need to go big or go home. Auntie prefers to go big.

In news on the home front, I am still burdened with the beautiful albatross that is my piano, however there is light at the end of the tunnel. For one I posted the most verbally flourished ad on CL and got an insane amount of responses. It's just like resume writing, action verbs are key! More importantly, the piano man who would not take it last week was burdened by conscience and so went out and found someone to take it for me! Yay for sad face, Details to follow. I have also made a very important (and significant- to me) decision. I am painting the living room. Right now it's red and I love the color but I can't believe how light absorbing it is. It's just not the kind of thing you can have in a north facing room with only 2 windows. I have begun to notice how a certain hot neighbor's house is starting to feel homier than my own -untenable!- and so I did some soul (and interior design book) searching and realized I need a bit of a brighter space. I will be consulting design experts, but this is likely going to snowball as my projects tend to do. One of my favorite parts about spring is the whole "rebirth" load of crap that comes with it. As cliche as it is, I do tend to hit the ground running once the days start to linger. I'm elbow deep in custom homemade bookcase #2 right now (not that I have all that many books with which to fill all of these shelves I'm building, see Winter purge entries, but this one is more for the purpose of showcasing some plants- It has levels, and it shall rock. Once I work out the whole "measuring" bit. I really thought I could do it all with pre-cut lengths of board from the Depot, but I butted the wrong ends up and so now there is .75 inches between me and happiness). There's got to be some tools or something out there that make the building process a little easier. Lining up boards for instance so the edges are flush. Anyone? Perhaps a workbench is the next project (I love how inspired I get to fix up my home as I'm pretending to be on the verge of moving)

And I'm off.

F*ck Monday.

Nothing compares 2 flU

oh. my. god. that's really all i can say. I have the flu, which is both miserable and thankful. Miserable because of the obvious, and also combined with a respiratory infection that is making my asthma go overboard, and thankful because at least it explains why I barfed last week mid-presentation (did I forget to mention that? or not. it was a hoot)

anyhow, I'm ill is the summary, but I don't have time to be sick. This has got to be the number one drawback of growing up. Not having time to be sick. ew.

thwarted and incomplete is no way to go through life

boo!!! ok, now that that's out of my system, I would like to tell you I had major plans for this weekend. I finally made the decision that the piano has to go, I can no longer deal with the fact that it owns 50% of my living room and makes me unable to change anything around, which is something I love to do. So I called a man and he said he would come pick it up Sunday morning. He showed up and decided he didn't want it. "But you said!" was my initial response, and he was very sorry. I felt as though I could have pushed the point, but I knew it would have been playing on his guilt and he was a very nice guy, so I let it drop. He is however going to come tune it for free so I can get rid of it on Craigslist. I guess it's the next best thing.

However, his not removing the giant piece from my living room totally thwarted my plans of going out and buying new comfortable, functional furniture with which to fill the living room void (not to mention the painting. Oh the painting! Yes, I'm painting. I'll tell you about it later), and that was a bit disappointing. Unable to bear the thought of not having SOME change to show for myself and my day, I went on a madcap crusade around the house to move and change every other thing that I could do. HN was most accommodating to my whim and helped me move giant orange armchair upstairs, which was undoubtedly the most drastic move I made all day. It really does take a very patient man to be dragged out of bed at 7:30am on a Sunday, rolled over to my house under the pretense of moving a piano, and then stick around to help move consolation furniture. Anyhow, the end result is that the bedroom is just about finit at this point, all I have left to do is to finish sewing the backing on the Quilt of Doom, which I think I am going to break down and do sometime soon. I originally stalled out because I was using very expensive fabric I bought on sale to do the back and I didn't buy enough and have thus far refused to buy more at full price, but I think I'm going to just suck it up and do it this week. I need to cross some sh*t of my "done" list. I am haunted by half finish projects!

So orange chair moved, and large void now looming in the dining room, I have made the very adult decision to get a dining table of some sort. I was initially against this, for no particular reason, but have decided it would be nice to have a place to read the paper, have coffee, work and all the other crap that I now do on the couch because of the absence of the chair that is now up in my room. I have some pieces of wood that would make great table legs and am contemplating a custom table job, but the first and most important part of any dining situation I believe is the chairs so I can't make any moves until I find those. I've spent enough time scouring and believe Ikea has the ones I want, so I should have news there within the week. There's just the small matter of getting them into the Saturn you see. But I have an idea, don't you worry.

Again, no result for my efforts, I was forced to find something else to give me the closure I so desperately needed yesterday so off to Home Depot I went. I've been doing a little of this and that in the basement this week, and the end was in sight, all I needed was a bookshelf. I went tearing through the lumber dept without any real plan, throwing some of this and that into the cart, and figuring I would wing it as far as construction goes (because that's how I do. "visions" are not my strong suit) and home I went. A little jigsaw, a little drill, a lot of elbow grease, and some very adult "measuring" and "marking" for holes and I was on my way, happily assembling what was to be THE thing I got done on Sunday so I didn't feel like a total ass. 2 screws left to screw, and I can all but taste victory when POP! BLAM! DARKNESS!

And Australia was like "WTF?"

So I did a little investigating and it turns out the Pop! Blam! parts were my drill blowing up. yep, It finally happened, my old 9V "Happy sweet 16, I got you the 9V so you can't hurt yourself" drill bit. the. dust. Goodbye old friend, you served me well. and also YAY! Now I can justify buying a new cordless drill! Again: YAY! But more on that later. The immediate issue was that I was 2 screws away from being finished with something on the Day That Completion Was Thwarted and I started to lose it. I called HN on his outing with his mother to see what contribution he could make to this, namely in the shape of his drill and was crushed to learn his drill is not in Hampden. Now I can hear someone (Cough Ichiro) saying "just go get a new one" but it's like this: I was 2 screws away from being done with something, anything, finally and I couldn't have dealt with the intervening hour. It would have made me crazy the whole time. So instead I grabbed a screwdriver, summoned up all my frustration at the day and put 120lbs behind that f*cker. and I got it done, and I was peaceful (except for the bloody knuckle I acquired somewhere in the process that got on my new shirt that I shouldn't be wearing while doing construction. Le Sigh)

Then I cleaned up my knuckle and my mess, picked up piles of books from all over the house and made them comfortable in the new resident shelf and sat around with a stupid grin admiring my handiwork. And then it was off to the Depot, because I had a legitimate need for some tools and HN had some errands to run. Oh yes. Pictures to come later, because words cannot describe the beauty I now own.