Robert Manners

Poor, Poor Francine...

All of a sudden, it seems, my life totally suxxx. I had this lovely week last week (alone in the office, no calls, no interruptions, we officially became Beefcake Surfers, Inc), then an absolutely fabulous weekend (I almost got my room clean on Saturday, and then Sunday was the Galaxy of Pride show, at which we wowed them, and myself, with some spectacular performances!)... but then Monday comes along, and the joyride is over. All over!



To start with, the toothache that has been nagging me since I got home from Disneyland has left off simply nagging and begun torturing me in earnest. I have a loose filling on a lower molar, a chip or crack or something on an upper molar, and something is going wrong with an upper canine. The pain is amazing. I am now going around with a Q-tip drenched in Orajel sticking out of my mouth, reduced to eating lukewarm soup and abstaining from sweets. Sob!



Of course, a responsible person would have visited a dentist three weeks ago when the little dental discomforts started... and a really responsible person would have been flossing and brushing twice a day and visiting a dentist annually for cleanings and maintenance. But not me. Though I do brush daily, and sometimes remember to floss, I am so terrified of dentistry that I can't even bring myself to make an appointment until I am in so much pain that the remembered pain of my last dentist's visit seems negligible in comparison to the current pain.



Also, last week I had to try and find which dentist I was supposed to see, in accordance with the dental care package I bought after the last time I had to see a dentist. So once I got that information, I tried to get an appointment, and have to go in for X-rays on Wednesday but can't see the dentist until Friday. So I get to play with Q-tips and Orajel and soup for the next four days. Huzzah.



As if that weren't enough, the Boss-Lady returned to the office on Monday, filled to the brim with assignments and orders and phone-calls, and I've been working like mad. She has this lovely habit of giving me very vague directions until the very last minute, when she then contradicts herself at least once and triples the workload of any given project. Her other cute habit is returning all of her phone calls at once, leaving messages all over the place, and then leaving the office ten minutes before all the messages she left are returned.



She also got hold of another foster-baby, a displaced infant from the county Child Protective Services, for whom she and her husband recently began volunteering (after taking extensive training and enduring a gruelling screening process). The infant she has now has an enlarged heart and kidneys, due to his mother's drug-use during pregnancy, and so Boss-Lady and Mr. Boss-Lady have been spending most of their time at Children's Hospital getting the infant checked over; when not there, they are both here with the baby, who isn't exactly the quietest infant I've ever met.



So yesterday and today I have been trying to cram ten pages of incredibly boring text into a four-page newlsetter, all the while answering the phone and directing calls to and from the Boss-Lady's desk. And now I've been asked to work a bunch of random notes and articles into a speech for Boss-Lady to deliver tomorrow morning. And the campus reps are starting to call in for information they need for their speeches tomorrow. Jesus Christ on a Cracker! I understand that these are the weeks that make up for the weeks of doing blissful nothing, but I really am not up to the challenge right now. I just want to crawl under my desk and cry.



Oh, well, c'est la vie. Such is my lot in life, and I'll just muddle through somehow. But for now, I have to get back to work.



Hugs & Kisses!