Meanwhile, back in the real world…

Holy carp, what a ride this week has been thus far! One server is still down, two days later! And naturally, my biggest ‘to do’ items all live on the busted server. However, instead of becoming hysterical about it, I’ve decided to thank my lucky stars that it isn’t my job to fix the poor server and move on to other things.

Whew. It’s good to not be the DBA right about now…who me? Oh, don’t look at me, friend, I’m just a lowly database analyst…yessir, for that kind of problem, you’re going to need the database administrator…heh heh heh…

Sucks to be her!

Oh, sorry. Did I say that out loud?

But it has been a hellish two days. Monday was, while not the Worst Day On This Job Ever™, a highly stressful day. We had drive-thru food for dinner. By which I mean that when my husband got home and found me still frantically pounding on my keyboard fourteen hours after I started trying to get things out of my life for another month, he didn’t even bother asking if I had anything in mind for dinner.

He just brought home burgers along with the children.

At least, I think it was burgers. The whole thing is…kind of a blur. I seem to recall eating something that was vaguely burger-shaped…hmm. Hope it wasn’t that missing tennis shoe…

And in the meantime, quietly, hidden behind all the work chaos are a couple interesting Chaos factors:

One. My income officially ceased at the beginning of this month. Next week, I will be receiving a deposit of about $50, which is all that will be left after the 401k contribution. Ah, such bittersweet emotions! Tax advantaged retirement savings! And also? Bills to pay!

I can feel the angst-swell already.

Two. My husband is having a big birthday party this year. Big, as in, very large. As in, the entire guest list was over a hundred, and we’re up to 50 who are definitely coming, and another 40 are ‘maybe’, and then there’s another 50 who haven’t said one way or the other. This is because they like to torment me. “How big a cake do you want to order?” “Well, uh, we’re expecting anywhere from…fifty to…uh…a hunnerd and fifty.” {long silence from the bakery staff}

I spent a little quality time this morning jotting down the list of things I want to get on my own, things I expect to get from a caterer, and estimating just how quickly a job with a traveling carnival could get me, say, to Kansas, where I could melt into the general population under an assumed name and...

Wait. Did I just say that out loud?

Three. The older two girls have been out of daycare for three years months weeks now. It, uh, mostly works. Except that we have yet to come to an understanding of even the most basic rules. Such as, “If this door is closed, pretend you aren’t here.”

Having a little person shrieking, “But MOMMY!!!!! I’m really-really-really HUNGRY!!!” repeatedly and pawing at me while I’m on the phone with a client makes for a very awkward moment.

Or the other thing my Eldest will do, which is to say, “OK” and then run over to start BANGING WILDLY on the piano. See, that? Is not ‘pretend you’re not here’. That, rather, is ‘making a racket that can be heard from space.’

Bonus points for causing Something to :::CRASH!::: from upstairs, and then calling out, “I’m OK! Don’t come up!”

Four. Three days inattention (oh yeah, I’ve been working since Sunday which, for those of you not keeping score at home, was the first of the month/quarter) has put my Den into a State. There is laundry piled up in the middle of the downstairs hallway – some clean, some not. There is laundry in the dryer. There is nothing in the works for dinner. Last night’s dinner was a bizarre cream-sauce thing invented on the fly by yours truly. The husband and I inhaled it as though we hadn’t eaten in weeks. All the Denizens except Danger Mouse turned their adorable little noses way up and acted as though it would be INSTANT DEATH if they so much as touched the tips of their tongues to the sauce. Danger Mouse, however, discovered that it was a Parmesan cheese, picked out the broccoli and enjoyed it mightily.

Tonight’s dinner does not look like it will be much of an improvement. Shoot. It might just end up being fish sticks and canned corn, at this rate. Bathrooms have spotty mirrors. Floors need sweeping. Piles of crap are slowly devouring my dresser.

Astonishing. In only three (3) short days of inattention, my Den looks as though it has been several weeks since it saw any kind of ‘keeping’.

However.

Five. I feel confident that I can now return to what passes for normal life. Make up a shopping list, inventory the freezer (filled up last week, to the point of bursting, and I got some gorgeous oxtails that are beginning to be made into my ‘not veal’ osso bucco soup), clear up the piles of junk and get that @*^& laundry put away.

Just another normal week around the Den of Chaos.