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June 29, 2006
The Perfect End to a Perfect Day
Dear Reader, I've had a very stressful day. First, I got a $35 parking ticket during my morning meeting...and I know for a fact that the parking gestapo must have been standing there waiting for the meter to expire because I arrived back at the car only 5 minutes late and they were nowhere to be seen. Bastards. That was one expensive cup of coffee.
Then, I got back to my office and immediately started juggling a handful of urgent Big Idea projects. First was the conference call with Ms. Connecticut to strategize about our meeting with a Big Big Company tomorrow...and to try and determine why our project isn't flourishing quite the way we had hoped. Not pleasant. Second was the call from Mr. Professor who needed to check in before our meeting tomorrow to go over why we hadn't yet send out the Big Idea email about an event to which people are supposed to be responding by Friday. Also not pleasant. Third was the flurry of calls with Mr. Glint (when he laughs, it seems like there should be a glint in his teeth) to come up with a close-to-final draft for a Big Big BIG Proposal that we planned on having completed last Friday...then Monday...then Tuesday morning...then Wednesday evening...and now tomorrow morning before 9 a.m. Of course, it's due to the Big Big Intergovernmental Agency on Friday at 5 p.m. No pressure there! Fourth was the task of sending out 17 individualized emails, asking people to sign on to said Big Big BIG Proposal--with only 24 hours to consider it and not enough background information. Sigh.
From there I took a quick breather and went to book club, where we ended up running LATE, and where I nearly killed one of the attendees (my already shortened temper made me a little irritable and it took all my good graces to remain my charming self). A quick carpool back to the house let to a new round of phone calls and Skype conferences with Mr. Glint, from whence I hurriedly contacted--COUNT THEM--four new people to pitch the Big Big BIG Proposal to ask if they would consider coming on as consultants.
At 1:30 a.m. (but only 1 p.m. in Malaysia--the other end of my latest conference call) I decided that my coffee with Ms. ADA scheduled for tomorrow morning was not going to happen. For one thing, I still had at least an hour's worth of work left to do--and I have a full day out of the office tomorrow, complete with five seperate meetings with five seperate groups. I don't expect to be back in the office until at least 7 p.m., at which time I will need to devote at least 5 hours to reviewing the long-awaited draft of the Big Big BIG Proposal, following up with the potential 4 outside consultants, confirming the three meetings I have set up for Friday, and responding to the approximately 75 Big Idea emails I get every day.
And what happened just as I was typing the email to Ms. ADA, begging her to forgive me for the late notice cancellation? The cat started throwing up. And not just once. She threw up seven times, all within a few steps of each other. She looked truly pathetic, her little body heaving and a horrific wretching noise issuing from her tiny mouth.
But frankly, it took all of my restraint not to drop-kick her down the stairs.
