Pickles & Dimes

On this dreary, slighty spring-like rainy day with a feel of gray, dirty winter wind thrown in for kicks, working through lunch yet again, I really want nothing more than to be home snuggling with my boys:

This morning, 2:30 a.m.:

Jason: Ahhhh! Get away from me, you (bleep)er!

Me: Huh? Wha?

Jason: The (bleep)ing giant lizard is trying to bite me!!

Me: Heh heh.

Jason, after a long pause: Ow! It bit me!

Me, giggling: Oh. Are you OK?

Jason, after a long, long, looooong pause: (Bleep)er.

I gave my presentation yesterday and it went really well. People were attentive and asked questions and came up to me afterwards to tell me I did a great job and to ask for tips and give suggestions for how our company could benefit from being on Twitter and LinkedIn and it was fabulous. It turned out I couldn’t have used my notes even if I wanted to, so I relied only on my memory, and according to my coworker L, didn’t say “um” once. WIN. The bonus to this was that instead of me being my usual librarian self (“shh…no talking”) during the day and only hanging out with people I knew, I figured everyone was going to be listening to me anyway, so I initiated conversations with people I didn’t know and was all extroverty and stuff. It was very, very unlike me, but nice for a change. And since I actually ran long and talked for 35 minutes straight (which, OH MY GOD), I think I am entitled to three months of not speaking to anyone to even things out.

This morning at 4:33 a.m., Jason woke me up and said, “I smell cat pee!” And I looked at the clock and said firmly, “No, you don’t.” Neither one of us got up, but we didn’t fall back asleep either. At 5:00 a.m., Jason investigated and couldn’t find a giant neon arrow pointing to a giant, puddling puddle of urine in our house, but he did report that our bedroom reeked “so much I could puke!” At 5:30 a.m., Abby did puke right outside our bedroom door. So, that was nice. Who needs an alarm? We finally both got up and cleaned up the puke and walked around our house hunched over like little bathrobed detectives, trying to find the Source of the Stink.

It was elusive, but strangely, could not have smelled worse or stronger or more disgusting. After checking the places Abby has previously peed (kitchen sink, floor mat) and finding nothing, I figured it might be from that stupid stray cat that marks our basement windows every year. So as Jason showered, I trudged outside in the dark and of course it had been raining, so everything was wet and damp and permeating all kinds of wet, gross, moldy odors. I thought I detected the scent of pee on our patio door, but I couldn’t tell because everything at that point smelled like pee. I finally cleaned off the door and went back inside to find Jason spraying Febreze everywhere, which didn’t help whatsoever.

So I enlisted the help of an expert. When I took Shorty outside I asked him, “OK buddy, let’s see if you can help me find that icky pee smell, OK?” And my hand to God, instead of immediately going to the gate for his walk like he has on every other day of his life, he walked directly over to our grill and lo and behold, there was a fresh spray of cat urine on the grill cover. I mean, it was really fresh. And also at a disturbingly tall height, which makes me wonder if this stray cat is a mutant giant, or possibly a rabid cougar. So I cleaned it off and cleaned our patio door again and I don’t know if it worked, but I hope it did because MAN, cat pee odor outside that is so strong you can smell it in your bedroom on the other side of the house inside? Not cool.

P.S. Jason gets this energy drink sometimes that smells EXACTLY like cat pee. What ingredient could possibly smell like that?!?

Work today is a scene from a Scooby-Doo episode, one where I’m trying to track people down to extract information from them for last-minute projects dumped on me, and succeeding only in going to their office to find them missing, and having them stop by my desk just as I’ve left to look for them in another location, etc., etc. CHARMING. I feel like shouting, “And I’d have gotten all my work done if it wasn’t for you darn meddling coworkers!”

This is the aspect of my job I do not enjoy. There is absolutely no control over my workday. Jason will sometimes ask me how my day is looking as we’re getting ready to head to work, and I’ll startle him by laughing crazily and saying, “Well, it looks all right, but it never ends up that way.”

A clear work calendar suddenly fills with unexpected meetings, maybe an hour-long conference call or four, and always, always, last-minute proposals, resulting in me pinballing my way from meeting to meeting, adding more items to my to-do list, and getting zero time to complete anything. On the rare days I am actually slow at work, I still work like mad on projects that aren’t due for weeks because if I don’t, something will come up at the last minute anyway. It’s very frustrating, and I don’t deal with it well because I am an organized person and I expect (unrealistically, it seems) for others to be the same, especially when their procrastination affects me.

But tomorrow is my presentation (thanks for the advice, you guys!) and it is very telling that I am thrilled to be giving it. I’ve practiced enough that I won’t need my notes, I will be out of the office, away from interruptions, and if the price to pay for that freedom is public speaking, that is A-OK with me.

Do you get interrupted constantly at your job? (All moms raise your hand!)