junk stunk drunk

Blissfully high, I sit in the sateen sheets of my bed. I'm enjoying what's called a "break" tonight. What is this thing called relaxation? I do not understand that word. Nothing but work for me, thanks. Today, I woke up early enough to hear duck hunting reports on the AM dial.

My continuing adventures in data sitting has worn me down. The week has been lousy with work issues. I wanted to run this show a month ago, when no one would have been at work. I've closed out a seventy-five hour week since Monday. The saga that is server migration had it's hooks in every damned day. I managed to escape by seven on Tuesday, but Monday and Wednesday were both fourteen hours shifts. I had late nights till Thursday, when I only worked the morning shift. My schedule was booked for the rest of that day. I had taxi duty in the afternoon.

Now, I can count on my fingers the times I've had to pick my kids up from school. It's simply not a task that I handle. Or comprehend for that matter. I recall in the pre-K era, there were many lines of cars. Places to park where the signs said, "Do Not Park Here." God forbid getting out. Worse yet is entering the hallways, where dozens of young humans teem with energy, a current flowing outward. I feel, and perhaps look, like a salmon running upriver. I usually stumble around them. I don't remember the crush of getting out of school. I took my sweet fucking time leaving. What the hell good was it to run down to the bus lane and sit on your ass like a dolt for a half hour? Well, maybe that comes later on or something. Kids want the hell out of there now.

But this Thursday was the first time the responsibility has fallen to me since...der. Unlike other workdays, I had this one mentally planned out. School pickup was the focus. I do what it takes to get preparations done for the following work days, I go home, I go pick up the rugrats. I was leaving work at one, tops. Really, the only reason I was even going in was to receive these data tapes so I could begin a lengthy import process on the backups. I stress, the only thing I had to do was stick these tapes in the machine and roll.

One-thirty comes and goes. No sign of the package. I track it. Still on the truck. Not a problem. I go downstairs to root around receiving. Truck's not there yet. Two o' clock. Gotta be here. I go downstairs and ask again, peer around the packages. I see Fedex stuff, but not my box. "Are you sure it's not one of these?" pointing to a large pallet of Fedex-festooned white-red-and-blue.

"Oh, no, honey. That's already been checked in. It's not on there."

Back upstairs.

Fuck. I'm already later than I wanted.

Check the package status. "Delivered: 2:06pm" I hustle back downstairs and ask if the Fedex guy just left another dropoff.

"No. That's the same one." We peer some more and it was right on fucking top.

"This is it." I grab the box.

"Oh. Well, look at that. We both looked at that cart and didn't see it."

Ran upstairs, put the tapes in the robot and got out the door. 2:25.

My written instructions (oh, yeah, I need 'em) were to pick up Robert first, before three, and then on to get the girls for 3:10, no later than 3:20. I pull up in front of Robert's school at 3:05. I didn't run in, but you knew I was on a mission. Track him down (in a different classroom) and see him. I thought he'd have been a lot more excited than he looked. And then the smell hit me. And I suddenly put gears into motion to know that this odor could only be coming from one child in that room. Mine.

*scene transition for sanitary reasons*

Back on the road at 3:20. I follow Tracey's directions uptown, weaving my hunk-a-honda-bus through the trashcarts on Claiborne, but really should have thought twice about where I was going. Instead of considering the less traveled route, I thought proximity and hopped on Broadway. Good old Broadway, where they currently feature not only Tulane students returning to school and an SUV-laden school zone, but also a lack of working traffic lights bloody everywhere. I arrived at the school at 3:40. The kids were nowhere to be seen. I semi-panicked.

Robert wanted to go run around the playground, but I dragged him inside with me, flagged down some teacher, who told me to look in the cafeteria. That's where the aftercare kids go. Aftercare. It rung like a bell in my ears. Ack.

We barged into the cafeteria, where I found a woman taking down the names of my girls, as well as the two neighbor kids I was bringing home. Crap. The lady was somewhat nice, but was like "We're not charging this week, but it's five dollars per child for aftercare." Mind you, there's a room FULL of kids in there. It's not like their folks are just running in, too. In my outer shell I was mildly embarrassed and thankful. In my Penguinest sarcastic side, I was saying, "Take your invoice and stuff it. I'm standing right here and you don't even have their names yet."

The cruise home was fine. The neighbor whose children I delivered home was already waiting for us (later I found out he was mildly irritated). I mean what the hell. Like I planned it all like that? You deal with poop, mister!

Tracey returned home that day, fresh and relaxed (and actually pretty hawt) from her spa day, whatever that was like. I was told of champagne and lunches and massages and this-a-cures and that-a-cures. She went with a friend as part of my Christmas present to her. The other girl's husband, I guy I know but rarely talk to anymore, was up for the other half. Tracey deserves it. She's held everything together in the recovery, in particular when I had to work, in the worst of commuting times.

A happy Tracey often makes for a happy Casa de Penguin.

Then...
Work blew my whole Friday.

My whole Friday night.

My whole bloody Saturday and Saturday night.

But I've been home this evening, just connecting to the servers every once in a while. I couldn't leave, so Tracey went off with a friend, and I was content to not do a damned thing. Turned on the DVD and let the kids watch just whatever the hell they wanted. I worked, monitoring the file restore that ended up being ten hours behind. I guess I didn't mention that the tapes that came in on that Thursday, the ones I waited for? Well, there were two tapes. But I could not get the damned things to import. Kept failing out on me. I deduced there must have been a third tape. Didn't deduce that till Friday morning, when I tracked down the person who did the backups. Confronted with the issue, she looked around and found, ta-da, another tape. That person responsible put it on same-day air ($300!) and had it in for 2:00 am. I started the import and restore process at six this morning and it didn't finish until ten tonight. But it was done. That's when I kicked back and did just nothing at all. Showered, and started to write this. About midnight, Tracey stumbled in, and I do mean stumbled, and was passed out on the bed within five minutes of being in the room. She asked me several questions, for which she listened for zero answers, and had her head on the pillow snoring in twelve quick steps. Somebody's gonna be hurtin in the morning.

I'll go back to work tomorrow, probably late morning. I might get Wednesday off. I need like a month off. Fuck, just give me a can of Off.

Off to bed.