What a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Yesterday was one of those days you wished you curled up under the covers until you couldn’t hear the mesmerizing and inviting death songs of the alarm clock washing over you like waves on a beach. Wearing down your defenses until you finally in utter a cry and get out of that nice warm cozy bed and face the cold realities of the world.

The day actually started better than most in the past couple of weeks, with my first visit to the gym in almost two weeks. Although painful and tiring, a good sweat is always a great way to start the day (yes other ways of getting a sweat is a better way to start the day, but that just is not happening).

Now this new job, although absolutely GREAT, is keeping me busier than a TV censor at a porn convention. My day consists of back-to-back meetings from usually 9am until easily 5 or 6pm. Then of course my mornings and nights are what I actually use to do the work all these meetings are talking about. Seem effective and highly effective use of time? Well welcome to life in the fast lane, as a good friend of mine said, we just need to invent cloning and all will be right in our lives. So ok, there was a bit of work going on. I decided to be healthy (you hear that mom, I had a HEALTHY lunch of SALAD, you know that green leafy stuff). Which means by three I was starving again. As the mind wanders to each of the admins who have chocolate my self restraint is rapidly fading.

But now in the back of my mind for the entire day is something that is going on with my family. My sister who I have unbelievable respect for is living in Egypt working for an NGO (non-governmental organization) teaching reading with a health focus. Good stuff! I have so much respect for her, not only chasing down her dreams, but doing that in a region where most Americans including friends and family, may not really understand. We have our own prejudices from what we see on the news and we met conclusions. Not to mention that she is on the other side of the world from her family (which at times might be part of the appeal). Anyway the point of all this is my family is discussing where to travel for our annual family vacation. My sister is voting for Lebanon. Now I can only imagine what it is like to live in the region and have friends who travel to all the neighboring countries telling amazing stories of sights and events they get to participate in. But personally I don’t feel safe going to Lebanon. My company doesn’t feel safe there, the US government wouldn’t let a majority of the embassy staff go back there, and it makes more appearances in the NY Times than Donald Trump. So I want to convey this, but in a way that I don’t hurt her feelings that I don’t feel safe traveling extensively in a region that she is living and working in. I very much trust her gut feelings and rational, but…. So anyway that is on my mind trying to figure out how to explain all these conflicting emotions and also trying to figure out if this is a rational fear or irrational and not starting a family crisis.

But then mid-afternoon, I took a quick gander at my credit card bill on live, and Jumping Lizards Batman, I did NOT spend that kind of money. Now wait a minute, what is that charge, and that one. Yup you guessed it, someone snagged my credit number. So a call to the credit card company as I am running between buildings to cancel my credit card, and then go through all my charges to figure out which are real and which weren’t. So literally in the very next hour I get an email in my meeting from the person I sold my car to (and taught to drive stick shift), and now she is saying that the car failed the Smog check (I have no clue how since it has passed EVERY time it has existed). But she now wants me to pay for the repairs saying it is the responsibility of the seller. And I am like, whoa, no, it is the responsibility of the buyer. I was probably a little brief in my email, but can we pile any more on today.

But wait we can. There was of course the fact we are running emergency medical drills all week, so my radio was sounding alarms like a NY watch hawker, causing my blood pressure to sky rocket five times a day. Throw in an emotional conversation with a good friend and you have got one hell of an exciting day.

Well its now Tuesday, and I have girded my loins, so come on world GIVE IT TO ME!!