Life hit fast forward after my last post and today it finally hit pause. I went from the surprise party for the old folks - to the National Convention for the Girls group - to a new office, with LOTS of new fun issues, to a 4.5 day trip with Mom, Sis, and ALL THREE of the nieces - ages 7, 7, and 11.
I am burnt, burnt out, and beginning to question my life -- seriously.
Let's start the way - way back machine.... last we posted it was T-3.5 hours... hit frappe and boy did we have a party....
Mom, Bubba, Shelby and I met Pap aka the The Clown doing his clown thing, he was hot, tired, and over worked. We bailed him out at 3:30, don't tell anyone but when he got home he had an ice cold beer before he took off all his make up... it was just us and Shelby didn't mind.
So we get him showered, tended and happy, I change into my 'party' clothes - that sparks a whole discussion - "should I wear t his - is this all right? Are you overdressed?" Tell me how does one answer these questions short of "this is what I brought!" And don't shout (THESE ARE YOUR FRIENDS!) Remember they didn't know anyone but the family was coming....
Add to this mix, that I had to walk my poor tired pup (remember we took her to the festival with us) around for the better part of 20 minutes to kill enough time to allow everyone to arrive... in the mean time darling Bubba was dealing with parental units who were dancing the "We're late" jig and were fully prepared to leave without me and Bubba!! Finally got the all clear from a sibling who finally answered his/her phone/texts... etc... So I load up the dog so she can nap - (she would need the rest of the invasion after dinner)
Happy to report - it was a big surprise, a good party and it lasted WELL into the night. Yours truly drank too much, head hit pillow and that was all she wrote until I got a small cold nose greeting the next morning... I was pooped!
Good news is parents were surprised, it went off without a hitch (mostly) and the siblings and I enjoyed favorite children status for at least a few days...
Yeah...
Then Bubba, Shelby and I load up and head home, as Pap had to don a dress and heels in full, fabulous make up (I'm told) and do a drag show the next day... I'm guessing his deodorant worked overtime that day... he probably could have made one salty cocktail with the gin he sweated out that day... Pot/Kettle here as the rum was free flowing in me... ouch.
Should have kept drinking.. but alas I had to unpack one bag, and re-pack it for the next leg of my journey... National Convention of the Girl's Group - in lovely - not so safe - Baltimore Maryland, were hotels are pricey and the price to park is a cardiac-event inducing. I arrive as everyone was pulling out to attend the banquet -- didn't miss much there. Plus they posted most of the 'entertainment' on Facebook. Added to the comments that people had dessert before some got dinner - sounded like a well organized affair... kinda like the whole disastrous week...
Now if you were an outsider looking in, things seemed to run, fairly smoothly... think duck... all grace and float on the upside but underneath he's paddling like mad -- well in this case, add 3 more paddles, in different directions and the duck on the other side of the pond is trying to be queen of the pond while directing the paddles underneath the duck on the water...
I arrive Sunday - I am in a nice quiet hotel room alone. I get one text meeting tonight after banquet will advise of room. OK fine I expected that. Next text DO NOT go to bed until I talk to you. Didn't expect that one... but OK. Next text, Meeting in 10 minutes room 315. I head over, I'm in shorts didn't care - everyone else in red ball gowns as they have just come from the banquet. Wandered around looking for room 315, then I got another text meeting in room 321. OK I look around found 321 but no one else.. then *Ting* Room 350. Do I need to say that NONE of these rooms were remotely close to each other?? Of course not. And other than what time to show up tomorrow morning there frankly wasn't a great deal of useful information. A wasted hour of my life - that was the easy part of my week. I wandered back to my hotel and got to enjoy 90 minutes "Oh the troubles we have seen, they were mean to us, and we did it all no one else is doing anything." I let everyone vent and spew and and smiled and said, "Why are you surprised??" I wasn't. We got through all that, I had to show up the next day early, the kids and folks who had been there got to sleep in, Monday - day was peaceful.
Monday night -- it hit the fan -- THREE of my girls apparently came to the convention, slept in hotel beds -- with head lice. To say I have NO experience with this particular right of childhood is - well an understatement. I was fully prepared to 'man-up' and get shampoo and move on with our convention. Apparently when Mom found out (the kid's mom) they were ordered home, and Dad came and gathered up all three and home they went. While I was sad they had to go because they did all the work and didn't get to the fun part... on the other hand I now didn't have to deal with shampooing and washing girls of bugs...
I can say every time I scratched my head I freaked out a little -- and I did stop by the minute clinic on the way home just to get checked out. I was critter free but still bought the shampoo to be on the safe side... I felt better when it was all said and done.
I went to work Thursday and Friday that week - I still don't know why...
I worked another full week, where I discovered, to my horror that not only is my commute longer, with more tolls, I suddenly became the conference room queen. We don't have any --- we went from 3 rooms with telecom technology to none-zero-zippo.... the ONE conference room we were promised was opened to the world A WEEK before we moved into this new building.... the "front office" (read big deals who don't give a rat's be-hind) said they didn't know we needed it... seriously pumpkin???
There was a great deal of money being spent to move us from point A to point B and you didn't know we were coming and that we would need conference room space. My carpool buddy who has daily standing meetings, now much maintain a spreadsheet to determine based upon the date and time what floor and conference room he is in... yeah.
Now our gov management has claimed that they have raised a fuss... we have seen zero action so I think their position is basically "suck it up buttercup".
So we do....
Back with part 2... back to the beach ... with 2 more... help me
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