"I went to bed with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair ..." So begins Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I used this book as my very first audition monologue for my very first professional audition back in ... christ, 1991? Anyway, I'd not read it for years, not until tonight when Daisy pulled it off the shelf as one of the books she wanted me to read before bedtime.
Today was not Terrible, Horrible, or Very Bad, but I think I would definitely plug it in the 'No Good' column. First off, I had to go back to work today. That set me off on a nervous foot. But I got it together and out the door, drove to Hammond in the early part of what would end up being the first real snowstorm of this winter, and presented my doctor's note to human resources stating I was cleared to return to duty. Except ... I'm not cleared. See, I asked the doc to put in a restriction that I not be forced to sit for periods greater than one hour. (The bum - she is so very tender, you see.) Well apparently, HR can't allow me to return with a restriction without clearance from the department head and blah blah blah Sean go home. I spoke with the doctor's nurse to get an amended note sent in, but as of 4:00 pm, HR hadn't received it.
So I'm pretty disheartened - I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about getting back to the grind, but my sick leave pay ran out a day and a half ago and I need the hours. Meanwhile, as the snow continues to accumulate, my car has gone from making an unpleasant noise to making an unpleasant noise and wobbling and riding uncharacteristically turbulently. I stop at the BP, check the tires (which are all oddly low), fill up with air, and get back on the road to little improvement. So with an unexpected day off, I head for the auto shop.
Guess who needs two new spindles? And of course, it won't be ready until sometime tomorrow (I guess later today - it's quarter of 3 am as I write this.) But good thing I brought it in, because apparently my if those things broke, bad things happen.
So now I'm chock full of anxieties - if my doctor gets the note in to HR before I'm scheduled to start, technically, I need to be there and start working. And to get there, I'm going get up buttcrack early to go rent a car, hope the roads are moderately cleared, and stop by HR again to sign papers before I start at 9:20. However, I won't know if the note arrived until HR people show up for work and look in their fax machine ... which probably won't be until about 9:00. So I could very well rent a car, drive to work, and be told to go home again.
But before I get to feeling too bad for myself, I called Mom to check in and discovered that she'd gone and gotten her head shaved today. The first big clumps of hair started coming out last Thursday and she just decided to be rid of it. My dad's in California right now taking a bunch of his special ed kids to Disneyland (from the sound of it, it's not a vacation), so Mom's all by herself right now. Well, Aunt Treb's around, but apparently she had a nasty fall at work and shattered her elbow and just got out of the hospital. Plus she's Aunt Treb, so y'know, cold comfort.
Anyway, on the bright side of things, I look forward to having a car that doesn't make any noises or wobble or have a general air of impending doom. Dad will be checking in on Grandpa tomorrow, which is always a good thing - he's 92 and all by himself in Leisure World, so company is a boon. Mom at least seems to be feeling stronger (though she gets another round of chemo on Thursday.) And it looks like I'll be popping out to Reno for New Year's, so I'll be able to ascertain everyone's health with my own eyes, and maybe do a little song-and-dance routine to boost spirits. Auld Lang Syne, Lawrence Welk style. Or something.
Oh, and Mitch came over for dinner tonight. Besides being one of Daisy absolute FAVORITE people (she bursts into giggles just seeing him), he's a very pleasant chap. Anyway, we were talking stop-motion animation (while watching The Year Without A Santa Claus) and he brought up a clip he'd seen of stop-motion animation done with dice. I don't know if this is the one he saw, but it's one I like:
And since I brought it up ...
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