Shenanigans minor and major
Just when my brain had calmed down regarding things that had happened in the past week, it's all riled up again. Let's see if getting stuff out of there helps me get back to sleep.
St. Patrick's Day is typically a pleasant holiday for me. Mom and I enjoy celebrating it, and I've often called myself the token Irish girl at work since I'm usually the only person there with any official Irish heritage. Due to it being on a Friday, and us being Catholic, my father made corned beef on Thursday so mom could still have it. (Mom was rather miffed that there wasn't official dispensation for it and yesterday was supposed to be meat-free like normal during Lent.) I'd gotten up at 6:30 Thursday to go to the bathroom, heard dad downstairs at the same time, then soon after heard a lot of pounding. What the heck is he doing? When I went downstairs an hour later, there was this unusual smell. It was only when I went for a bowl for my cereal that I noticed the crockpot was on. AH. Okay. So they had corned beef and vegetables Thursday night, and there's a big bowl of it in the fridge for me to have later today. Dad said he cooked the corned beef for 10 hours and it was really tender. Awesome.
Friday, being the dork that I am, I had to dress the part. I did wear my dark green sweater to band, saving my lighter green sweater plus my white turtleneck for yesterday. That pouring rain I mentioned during rehearsal brought in a cold front and it was chilly and gusty yesterday. But I had shamrock socks so it was okay. (All right, it actually wasn't since they're short, but I tried to limit my outdoor time.) I even decided to wear my hair down and curly, my homage to Irish dancers.
My plan was to take my car back before work. I was able to make a 9 AM appointment last week with no issues, to where I'd gotten to work about 9:30. Easy-peasy. I can make this work. Plus, I had to return the boat with a full tank of gas, and there's a gas station at Fabyan and 25 that is right on the way; it would be all right turns to get in and out of there. So I get there, I get out of the car, I find the gas door button for the first and only time...and when I press it, I can hear it attempt to do something, but the door won't open. I confirm it's a press situation and not a pull tab like on my car. Hmm. I walk over to the door and--it's frozen shut. I can see the ice on the top and bottom of the door. Crap. It's not like I was imminently going to run out, so I figured I'd go to the dealership and see what they said. I pulled up into the bay, and when the guys realized, hey, this is one of our cars, I told the guy who came up to help me that I was perfectly happy to go get gas, but I couldn't get the door open. By being inside the building for a minute or two, that was enough to thaw the ice, so that when he hit the gas door button, it popped right out, along with several shards of ice that flew from it. See, wasn't kidding. He said, yeah, we don't want to charge you $7 a gallon, and he let me out the back so I could make the long drive around the block to the station I'd passed on the way--which, by the way, was like 30 cents more expensive than any other gas station I pass by regularly.
Here's where I know it was cold and blustery yesterday: Standing by the pump getting my hair blown around was kind of miserable. But I arrived back at Toyota with about as full a tank as I could imagine...only to find the party. It was now so busy there that the inside was full and one other car was already waiting outside. At this point it was 9:25 and I highly doubted I was going to make it to work on time. I decided to call, figuring I could leave a message on the office manager's phone. Imagine my surprise when DW actually picked up; the phones had been left on overnight. I was able to tell him what was going on, and he said he'd already taken a call for someone needing an emergency project--but BBC's dad had declined so badly that it was entirely likely we wouldn't see him or our boss at all that day, and perhaps I could help with that? Well, I will get in as soon as I can, but I can't tell you when that will be. We talked for several minutes and the door finally opened and they ushered in the next few cars, waving us in like airplanes taxiing toward a runway. They even pulled us as close together as possible to fit everyone in.
As I suspected, this was not that quick of an in-and-out thing. Ah well. I'd already resigned myself to being late. I got helped by the guy who has the same name as my boss' friend, and when I wrote out my check, he joked that it was made out to the so-and-so retirement fund. I then mentioned the name situation and how the other so-and-so really will be retiring soon. This is the guy who has little Lego figurines on his desk; last week he'd said he'd found them left behind in people's cars, like their trade-ins. This week we talked about buying them, how Toys R Us and the Lego store don't offer discounts for seasonal employees, but it's a 50% discount for people who work at the store in Woodfield and his habit is so bad he's considered taking a second job there. Like, the business next to his home caught fire and his place suffered smoke damage, and he had to itemize the items in his home for insurance purposes, and he had mid-5 digits' worth of collectibles in his home. He had no idea it was that much, but that's what would need to be paid out to reassemble his collection if necessary. Wow. Meanwhile, when he went to give the check to the cashier, the cashier actually came out to meet me because my check was so well-written, he had to see who had done it. Most people who write checks these days are older than me, and the written-out numbers aren't done correctly. Yeah, I'm an old soul; I was 80 when I was 10. So that was an unusual moment but funny. By the way, I did ask how much the Highlander was; the one I'd been driving was about $38K. That actually wasn't so bad. It also wasn't even the fanciest model! Like, this one was pretty nice. I'd only just noticed while I was leaving my driveway that it did in fact have a sunroof. Aw. At least it was so crappy all week that I wouldn't have used it.
Ah, back in my old girl. She feels so much better now. Not gonna lie, she did sort of feel like she could come apart at any moment, like very loose, especially going over bumps and things. Given what all needed to be replaced, and what condition things were in in the video, I wasn't surprised at that feeling after all. To get in her and feel how much tighter things were, and how strong my brakes were, and oh hey, I have a side mirror again! That was all pretty dandy. But I still had to get to work, and naturally this was the day that there was some sort of incident at a business off Route 38, so here came several emergency vehicles. Then there was the semi that got into the right turn lane at Joliet Street, realized he shouldn't turn there, then had to wait for traffic to clear in the straight lane to get back onto the road, blocking several cars from turning right. I feel like there was something else too, just a bunch of minor things, but I didn't clock in to work until 10:17. Oh well.
I was surprised to see my boss' truck parked out front of the business, but neither BBC's nor Puffy's cars were in the back. This really irked my boss, to where he left to be with his family but actually came back because he was so mad. He was convinced Puffy was just trying to get out of work. Like...perhaps you should *ask* her why she's there? She is close enough to BBC that a month ago they took a vacation together. I don't believe they're a couple but they're basically best friends. While she was between living arrangements, she stayed at BBC's house and knows his mom. They've hung out with BBC's sister and her boyfriend. She wants to be there for them. Feel free to take that into consideration. I think the crux of it was this whole emergency project deal, where someone needed the item back in a short amount of time. It's the sort of thing I could at least check into, which I did as soon as I got there, but while I could diagnose the problem, I couldn't fix it. We made arrangements to get the person something equivalent to use in the meantime but that apparently wasn't necessary.
Work was super weird. We were all waiting for news about the situation but none really came. BBC's dad has been dealing with a neurological condition for years, prior to my working there. Without saying what it is, know that it's what Robin Williams had, and the reason behind his suicide, and having seen what BBC's dad and his family have had to go through, suicide was the better route. I will never condemn Robin for his choice because of that. He spared his family the anguish of watching him deteriorate and regress and, now, deal with his body shutting down. BBC's dad has long had a do not resuscitate form; he'd known that he didn't want to prolong his condition with supposedly life-saving measures. No feeding tubes, for example. While BBC was out of town, so just a month ago, his dad had been moved to a new facility. He was too mobile still at the old one that they determined they couldn't care for him any longer. Soon after moving, though, he stopped his walking, and I want to say in the past week or so a nurse was blunt and said he had maybe 6 months left at the outset. It was maybe 6 days. BBC and Puffy had gone to visit him Wednesday night and said it was rough; then on Thursday morning, he'd had a seizure. His brain has been shrinking just as part of his condition, but he had started to lose the ability to take in food by mouth. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time. By yesterday morning, he'd stopped eating and drinking, and the family gathered to be with him.
I don't want to imagine what BBC's going through. I know his relationship with his dad is complicated. He also has a strong sense of duty; he's an Eagle Scout. For as much as we question his abilities at times--dude is a turtle when it comes to completing projects--he doesn't shirk responsibilities, including when he's told people he'd complete projects by X time. He's had a longtime project he'd promised someone would be completed this week. By the time he called work to ask me to reach out to that person, I'd already called and explained. The man was very understanding when I said I couldn't give him a revised timeline. We also have a work thing today, a pretty big one, where both BBC and our boss were supposed to attend. DW is going to have to go in their place, though BBC was like, maybe I can stop by for a bit... Dude, it's okay, you don't have to. But it's entirely possible he wants to get away and think about other things. Per Puffy, he was unusually quiet--and productive--on Thursday. I wouldn't doubt it was just to get his mind off things.
There was no news by the time I left work. I did end up staying a few minutes late to finish up a few things so ultimately I was thankful I'd taken the boat back beforehand. I got DW as prepped as I possibly could for today, and then I emailed the clients hosting the work thing to go, we've had an unexpected change of plans and you'll be seeing DW tomorrow. I didn't give them any reasons behind it but figured I should let them know. Most of them worked with BBC's dad so they may be able to read between the lines, plus I didn't want them to be surprised first thing by going, hey wait a minute, this wasn't what I was expecting. It's so weird how some people are okay with giving the heads-up and some aren't. Like, this is kind of a major thing for the clients; I think they'd want to know about a last-minute change.
So, yeah, this is some of what's swirling around in my noggin. I have no idea what to expect in the coming days. We're supposed to have our fiscal year-end extravaganza at the end of next week, where the business will be closed on Friday. I'm honestly wondering if we'll be closed for an entirely different reason. The family has been thinking about this for some time and it was inevitable, but when it actually happens...it's still hard.
St. Patrick's Day is typically a pleasant holiday for me. Mom and I enjoy celebrating it, and I've often called myself the token Irish girl at work since I'm usually the only person there with any official Irish heritage. Due to it being on a Friday, and us being Catholic, my father made corned beef on Thursday so mom could still have it. (Mom was rather miffed that there wasn't official dispensation for it and yesterday was supposed to be meat-free like normal during Lent.) I'd gotten up at 6:30 Thursday to go to the bathroom, heard dad downstairs at the same time, then soon after heard a lot of pounding. What the heck is he doing? When I went downstairs an hour later, there was this unusual smell. It was only when I went for a bowl for my cereal that I noticed the crockpot was on. AH. Okay. So they had corned beef and vegetables Thursday night, and there's a big bowl of it in the fridge for me to have later today. Dad said he cooked the corned beef for 10 hours and it was really tender. Awesome.
Friday, being the dork that I am, I had to dress the part. I did wear my dark green sweater to band, saving my lighter green sweater plus my white turtleneck for yesterday. That pouring rain I mentioned during rehearsal brought in a cold front and it was chilly and gusty yesterday. But I had shamrock socks so it was okay. (All right, it actually wasn't since they're short, but I tried to limit my outdoor time.) I even decided to wear my hair down and curly, my homage to Irish dancers.
My plan was to take my car back before work. I was able to make a 9 AM appointment last week with no issues, to where I'd gotten to work about 9:30. Easy-peasy. I can make this work. Plus, I had to return the boat with a full tank of gas, and there's a gas station at Fabyan and 25 that is right on the way; it would be all right turns to get in and out of there. So I get there, I get out of the car, I find the gas door button for the first and only time...and when I press it, I can hear it attempt to do something, but the door won't open. I confirm it's a press situation and not a pull tab like on my car. Hmm. I walk over to the door and--it's frozen shut. I can see the ice on the top and bottom of the door. Crap. It's not like I was imminently going to run out, so I figured I'd go to the dealership and see what they said. I pulled up into the bay, and when the guys realized, hey, this is one of our cars, I told the guy who came up to help me that I was perfectly happy to go get gas, but I couldn't get the door open. By being inside the building for a minute or two, that was enough to thaw the ice, so that when he hit the gas door button, it popped right out, along with several shards of ice that flew from it. See, wasn't kidding. He said, yeah, we don't want to charge you $7 a gallon, and he let me out the back so I could make the long drive around the block to the station I'd passed on the way--which, by the way, was like 30 cents more expensive than any other gas station I pass by regularly.
Here's where I know it was cold and blustery yesterday: Standing by the pump getting my hair blown around was kind of miserable. But I arrived back at Toyota with about as full a tank as I could imagine...only to find the party. It was now so busy there that the inside was full and one other car was already waiting outside. At this point it was 9:25 and I highly doubted I was going to make it to work on time. I decided to call, figuring I could leave a message on the office manager's phone. Imagine my surprise when DW actually picked up; the phones had been left on overnight. I was able to tell him what was going on, and he said he'd already taken a call for someone needing an emergency project--but BBC's dad had declined so badly that it was entirely likely we wouldn't see him or our boss at all that day, and perhaps I could help with that? Well, I will get in as soon as I can, but I can't tell you when that will be. We talked for several minutes and the door finally opened and they ushered in the next few cars, waving us in like airplanes taxiing toward a runway. They even pulled us as close together as possible to fit everyone in.
As I suspected, this was not that quick of an in-and-out thing. Ah well. I'd already resigned myself to being late. I got helped by the guy who has the same name as my boss' friend, and when I wrote out my check, he joked that it was made out to the so-and-so retirement fund. I then mentioned the name situation and how the other so-and-so really will be retiring soon. This is the guy who has little Lego figurines on his desk; last week he'd said he'd found them left behind in people's cars, like their trade-ins. This week we talked about buying them, how Toys R Us and the Lego store don't offer discounts for seasonal employees, but it's a 50% discount for people who work at the store in Woodfield and his habit is so bad he's considered taking a second job there. Like, the business next to his home caught fire and his place suffered smoke damage, and he had to itemize the items in his home for insurance purposes, and he had mid-5 digits' worth of collectibles in his home. He had no idea it was that much, but that's what would need to be paid out to reassemble his collection if necessary. Wow. Meanwhile, when he went to give the check to the cashier, the cashier actually came out to meet me because my check was so well-written, he had to see who had done it. Most people who write checks these days are older than me, and the written-out numbers aren't done correctly. Yeah, I'm an old soul; I was 80 when I was 10. So that was an unusual moment but funny. By the way, I did ask how much the Highlander was; the one I'd been driving was about $38K. That actually wasn't so bad. It also wasn't even the fanciest model! Like, this one was pretty nice. I'd only just noticed while I was leaving my driveway that it did in fact have a sunroof. Aw. At least it was so crappy all week that I wouldn't have used it.
Ah, back in my old girl. She feels so much better now. Not gonna lie, she did sort of feel like she could come apart at any moment, like very loose, especially going over bumps and things. Given what all needed to be replaced, and what condition things were in in the video, I wasn't surprised at that feeling after all. To get in her and feel how much tighter things were, and how strong my brakes were, and oh hey, I have a side mirror again! That was all pretty dandy. But I still had to get to work, and naturally this was the day that there was some sort of incident at a business off Route 38, so here came several emergency vehicles. Then there was the semi that got into the right turn lane at Joliet Street, realized he shouldn't turn there, then had to wait for traffic to clear in the straight lane to get back onto the road, blocking several cars from turning right. I feel like there was something else too, just a bunch of minor things, but I didn't clock in to work until 10:17. Oh well.
I was surprised to see my boss' truck parked out front of the business, but neither BBC's nor Puffy's cars were in the back. This really irked my boss, to where he left to be with his family but actually came back because he was so mad. He was convinced Puffy was just trying to get out of work. Like...perhaps you should *ask* her why she's there? She is close enough to BBC that a month ago they took a vacation together. I don't believe they're a couple but they're basically best friends. While she was between living arrangements, she stayed at BBC's house and knows his mom. They've hung out with BBC's sister and her boyfriend. She wants to be there for them. Feel free to take that into consideration. I think the crux of it was this whole emergency project deal, where someone needed the item back in a short amount of time. It's the sort of thing I could at least check into, which I did as soon as I got there, but while I could diagnose the problem, I couldn't fix it. We made arrangements to get the person something equivalent to use in the meantime but that apparently wasn't necessary.
Work was super weird. We were all waiting for news about the situation but none really came. BBC's dad has been dealing with a neurological condition for years, prior to my working there. Without saying what it is, know that it's what Robin Williams had, and the reason behind his suicide, and having seen what BBC's dad and his family have had to go through, suicide was the better route. I will never condemn Robin for his choice because of that. He spared his family the anguish of watching him deteriorate and regress and, now, deal with his body shutting down. BBC's dad has long had a do not resuscitate form; he'd known that he didn't want to prolong his condition with supposedly life-saving measures. No feeding tubes, for example. While BBC was out of town, so just a month ago, his dad had been moved to a new facility. He was too mobile still at the old one that they determined they couldn't care for him any longer. Soon after moving, though, he stopped his walking, and I want to say in the past week or so a nurse was blunt and said he had maybe 6 months left at the outset. It was maybe 6 days. BBC and Puffy had gone to visit him Wednesday night and said it was rough; then on Thursday morning, he'd had a seizure. His brain has been shrinking just as part of his condition, but he had started to lose the ability to take in food by mouth. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time. By yesterday morning, he'd stopped eating and drinking, and the family gathered to be with him.
I don't want to imagine what BBC's going through. I know his relationship with his dad is complicated. He also has a strong sense of duty; he's an Eagle Scout. For as much as we question his abilities at times--dude is a turtle when it comes to completing projects--he doesn't shirk responsibilities, including when he's told people he'd complete projects by X time. He's had a longtime project he'd promised someone would be completed this week. By the time he called work to ask me to reach out to that person, I'd already called and explained. The man was very understanding when I said I couldn't give him a revised timeline. We also have a work thing today, a pretty big one, where both BBC and our boss were supposed to attend. DW is going to have to go in their place, though BBC was like, maybe I can stop by for a bit... Dude, it's okay, you don't have to. But it's entirely possible he wants to get away and think about other things. Per Puffy, he was unusually quiet--and productive--on Thursday. I wouldn't doubt it was just to get his mind off things.
There was no news by the time I left work. I did end up staying a few minutes late to finish up a few things so ultimately I was thankful I'd taken the boat back beforehand. I got DW as prepped as I possibly could for today, and then I emailed the clients hosting the work thing to go, we've had an unexpected change of plans and you'll be seeing DW tomorrow. I didn't give them any reasons behind it but figured I should let them know. Most of them worked with BBC's dad so they may be able to read between the lines, plus I didn't want them to be surprised first thing by going, hey wait a minute, this wasn't what I was expecting. It's so weird how some people are okay with giving the heads-up and some aren't. Like, this is kind of a major thing for the clients; I think they'd want to know about a last-minute change.
So, yeah, this is some of what's swirling around in my noggin. I have no idea what to expect in the coming days. We're supposed to have our fiscal year-end extravaganza at the end of next week, where the business will be closed on Friday. I'm honestly wondering if we'll be closed for an entirely different reason. The family has been thinking about this for some time and it was inevitable, but when it actually happens...it's still hard.