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I am so cranky

• Got back from Christmas at my parents
• Had to throw together a poster for the AAS meeting using the results of my meeting with my thesis advisors the day before I left for Christmas. (A meeting which should have occured much, much, much earlier)
• Also had to get Christmas out of our house before leaving for the meeting.
• Left for Seattle Saturday (fortunately with poster in hand)
• Had 3 inches of personal space on the plane after the woman in front of me decided to recline for the last 3 hours of the 6-hour flight.
• Our booths had not arrived, so my planned trip to Archie McPhee after set-up on Saturday was canceled (we ended up having to wait around until after 5 PM to see if the booths would arrive).
• First day of the meeting, I sat at the booth *all day*, 9 AM to 6:30 PM
• The second day, I had a poster, so I decided that I would not sit behind the booth at all.
• Today I had to listen to my boss bitch that she had to sit there from 11 AM to 4 PM yesterday. Oh boo-hoo. At the Atlanta, San Diego, and Denver meetings I had to sit behind the booth *every day*, *open to close*. Shut up about one f&^%ing day, not even open to close.
• And my boss seems to think that things with the booth just magically happen. She’s asked me at nearly every meeting how the booths get set up. Oh, that would be me. And she’s asked how they get taken down. Duh. That would be me. And I’m expected to be the one to get things setup in the morning, and put away in the evening. And she’s bitching about 5 hours in a row at the booth? Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

I’ve nearly been in tears every day when I get back to my room. I hate my job. I hate work travel. I hate the West Coast. (No offense to the West Coast, it’s just way too hard to acclimate in the 5 nights I’m here, and way too hard to figure out a time to call my hubby.) I’m on the verge of quitting my job, and I’m about to tell my boss that even if we send the booth to the next meeting in Hawaii, I’m not going.

One good thing to come out of this: I got to visit Archie McPhee. Yay for the small things. Now if I can just fight the urge to quit my job.

Tags: suckitude, trip report, work

Still here…

..and too tired/depressed to write much.

It’s been a busy month, though the last week has been relatively quiet. I just don’t have the energy to write about anything.

Tags: suckitude

All work and no weekend makes Barb something something

Here’s my life for the past week-plus:

• Tuesday (9/12): Lobby-day orientation
• Wednesday (9/13): Lobby-day (sorry the blog entries for that are so far behind…will post them over the weekend)
• Thursday (9/14): Regular work day
• Friday (9/15): Thesis day, then drove to Baltimore for welcome reception for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s annual meeting
• Saturday – Monday (9/16-9/18): ASP meeting in Baltimore (I stayed up there rather than driving the 60 miles each way in the morning and evening).
• Tuesday (9/19): Our Anniversary – I stayed home, finished Andrew’s costume (almost), and celebrated our anniversary
• Wednesday (9/20): Rode up to Philadelphia for a 3-hour teacher workshop, then drove home (2.5 hour drive each way from Goddard, then, of course, the 40-minute drive from home to Goddard and back)

I have to say that I’m tired. Just tired. I need some time to just chill, but I also need some time to work on my thesis. Right now, though, I’m too tired to think on that level. I’m stealing back some of my time this week, and hopefully next week I’ll be able to get back on my thesis.

Tags: suckitude

Fall is near

Someone seems to have flipped the weather switch. We went from hot, humid, and hazy to cool and rainy overnight sometime a couple weeks ago. I kept hoping that it was just temporary, that summer would come back, but I’ve been sorely disappointed. That, and my week of migraines that accompanies the beginning fall happened Labor Day week. I can’t bear to think that this will happen twice this year.

I’ve also started feeling inexplicably sad. I really don’t want to call my doctor yet for Prozac – maybe it’s just the change in weather, and I’ll feel better soon. Right? Right? I didn’t start until October last year.

I already miss summer, and technically it doesn’t end for another two weeks.

It’s not all bad, though, right? The windows are open more often, letting in the crips smell of the outdoors. Ares has started snuggling at the computer again. He’s also been on the bed a couple of nights (Artemis and Duncan stay on the bed almost year round, at least for part of the night). I stopped at Target a couple weeks ago and bought a bunch of school supplies – I love office supplies, and the selection is soooo much better in the fall. The new TV seasons are starting. Biking is less a sweaty sport these mornings. Oh, and Halloween is on its way, and I’m making new costumes for me and Andrew.

Tags: comfort, suckitude

Bugger

Our DSL modem is toasted – possibly from all the power flickers Friday night (darn you, Ernesto). That means we’re on dial-up until they get a new modem out to us. Granted, they’ll overnight it, but this is a holiday weekend…holiday weekend, for the love of FSM…so we won’t be back up to speed until Wednesday. Grrrr. In the meantime, I won’t be updating here much, and probably won’t be reading your blog, either.

Hope you’re all enjoying your long weekends!

Tags: suckitude

Dad’s home

After being lost for a little while Sunday, Dad’s okay and he’s home now. (He was lost when he checked out of the hospital Sunday and checked into a hotel without telling anyone where he was going. And, of course, his cell phone had discharged while he was in the hospital, so we couldn’t catch him that way.) Anyway, he flew home yesterday morning (first class, no less!), and is now home with Mom.

In some good news, he does not have an aortic aneurysm, so it was “just” a heart attack. (Yes, we know a heart attack is serious, and I don’t mean to belittle it, but at least he doesn’t have an aneurysm on top of that.)

Now I’m just going to enjoy my time in Boston…the first day of the meeting went well, and I’ll eventually write up the meeting over at Galaxy Girl. Oh, and obviously I do have internet — I’m even on the Harvard wireless.. hee hee hee. So things may not be completely quiet here over the week.

Tags: family, suckitude

Update on Dad

Dad’s still in the hospital in Denver. He’s going alright – mostly bored and lonely. He’s now in his own room, so out of ICU. They want to keep him for one more test today, and then he’ll probably be discharged tomorrow.

I think we’ve almost convinced him to go back to Minnesota, rather than stay on the job in Colorado. Not that he’d be dumb enough to actually start working, but he could stay in a supervisory role, answering questions and all. But my brother let my 4-year-old niece talk to Dad. Apparently Dave had told her a bit about what was going on, and she was upset (as we all are). So, she talked with Dad one evening, told him she missed him and wanted him to come home. Sure, hearing it from me, my brothers and my mom wasn’t enough. He needs a 4-year old to get him to do the right thing. Still…he’s stubborn, just like the rest of the family…so he may stay out there.

I’m leaving for Boston in just a few minutes, and I’ve already been informed that I’ll have crappy internet service this week, so updates may be few in the next week.

Tags: family, suckitude

Update on Dad

I just talked with Dad. He had a “heart cath” this morning so they could check his heart and valves. He hasn’t talked with the doctor yet, but he knows that he’s had two more stents put in and hear something about an aneurysm (according to WebMD, that’s a stretched and bulging section of a blood vessel). He should know more this evening, so I’ll let my brothers or Mom call him and report back to me. He also thought he might be moved to a room outside the ICU later this evening.

Tags: family, suckitude

Home for the afternoon…

..and not for good reasons.

My brother e-mailed me during lunch that Dad’s in the hospital. He had been having chest pains and when he went to the emergency room, his EKG did not come back right. Unfortunately, Dad is in Colorado for work right now (he and the rest of my family live in Minnesota, I live in Virginia), so he’s away from his family, in a strange hospital with only his “guys” (what he calls the guys he works with) at his side. Fortunately he’s got someone he knows, at least, but according to my brother, he’s feeling a bit scared and alone (who wouldn’t). To top it off, he’s in a small town which doesn’t have a cardiologist on staff (yikes!), so they’re transporting him to Denver. So, I won’t know anything for a few hours (more than an hour to get to Denver, and a couple hours for tests, etc.). He is stable and alert, at the last report – he even talked with Mom while in the ambulance to Denver). But, I decided to come home for the afternoon – I’m no good at work right now.

I’ll update when I can/when I have news.

Update 6:25 PM: Dad’s in Denver, and the doctor thinks that he may have had another heart attack. He’ll be having an angiogram in the morning. I talked with him on the phone, and he sounds in okay spirits. He’s all alone in an ICU in a city away from all his friends and family, so he’s as good as he can sound right now.

Tags: family, suckitude

Good-bye, Baby girl

Dad just called to tell me that they had to put Allie down tonight. She was 18 and had been having kidney problems for months. Tonight, her kidneys started to shut down. Good bye pretty girl. I’m going to miss you. Thank you for being our girl for so long, and never forgetting your first “mama”, no matter how long I’ve been away from Mom and Dad’s house.

Tags: pets, suckitude