Once in a blue moon
It's 10:30 a.m. on a Monday and I'm still wearing my pajamas. Ideally, I'd be dressed and outside enjoying the sun, but the drizzly day isn't really offering a warm invitation. Still, I am going to do my best to get something out of this last day of the long weekend. The next official one isn't until August...
My long weekend got a jump start on Thursday. I had planned to drive down to Grand Forks after work on Friday to meet up with my mom and dad, who were camping in the area that week. Amara knew of my plans and got the itch for a cross-border shopping trip. Then she came up with a brilliant plan: book Friday off and drive down that morning. She and Christian would only stay for the day, but I could hitch a ride with them and meet up with my parents in time for the races.
I had one project that was a small fire on my desk and needed wrapping up. I figured as long as I could get that taken care of I'd be good to go. Before heading out at lunch to buy some American money it was still simmering, but I was keeping my hopes up things would turn around.
When I got back, it still wasn't looking good that this thing was going to go away before the end of the day. Worse, I got a phone call from someone asking me for files dating back to 2004, and oh yeah, she needed them for Tuesday. My heart sank. I was due to meet with my bosses, Head One and Head Two, in half an hour to go over the projects I had on the go. If I told them about this new one, there was no way they'd let me take off for an extra long weekend.
But Head One took it all very well, made it look like not such a big deal at all, and said not to worry about it. She drives me crazy sometimes (I am actually listening to the Fine Young Cannibals right now) but there are days I feel pretty lucky. Head Two asked me to pick up some Excedrin for her, which I think might be illegal to bring back, but hey, she was letting me go, so I wasn't about to say no.
I stayed a bit later to clean up my desk a bit and make sure everything was in order in case someone needed one of my files on Friday. I also had the small matter of canceling a conference call with some good people in Vancouver. The agenda for our last call went something like this (points 1 and 5 are the only ones I remember the exact words of, the rest isn't important):
- Talk about how awesome Jill is :)
- blah blah, websites
- blah blah, going live
- blah blah discuss process going forward
- Revisit point number one
I originally e-mailed Bart and Todd to let them know something had come up and I'd need to reschedule, but when I finally got a reply back from Bart around 3:45 I decided to give him a call.
"Hey, how'd you get Winnipeg Transit to hold the bus for you?" he joked, obviously noticing that I was at my desk past my normal quiting time. Last time he tried to schedule a meeting at the end of the day and I told him I didn't have enough authority to make the buses wait around for me.
"Y'know I've been working on getting them to wait for you," he added.
"Aw, that's very kind of you," I may have giggled.
"Anything to help make your life easier, Jill." I could hear him smiling, and I wondered if he could hear me twirling my hair around my finger. You see? This is why it is much safer for me to be the service provider, and not the client. I think I'd just be trouble otherwise. . .
I asked him what his plans were for the long weekend (we did talk business somewhere in there, but you don't really care to read that, I know).
"I think I'm going skiing,"
"Oh, weird!" I couldn't help but think of how odd it seemed to me, a true prairie girl, to be doing a winter sport on what was supposed to be the weekend to kick-off summer.
"Yeah, well, mostly it will probably be about stashing some beers in the snow," he admitted.
I told him of my plans, and then we promised to swap stories on Wednesday during the call. I hurried outside into the sunshine. Maybe Bart did manage to pull some strings for me with the transit service; there was a bus waiting for me as soon as I got to the corner.
On Friday morning Christian and Amara picked me up shortly after 8 a.m. and we made our run for the border. Amara and I were incredibly, poor Christian was less so. What a good sport he is though. How many guys would drive their wives and friend to the mall for an afternoon of shopping? How many of them would drive TWO HOURS for an afternoon of shopping?
Highlights of the shopping include blue jeans, big box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for $3.50, and Beer. It was good to get away. I even had the opportunity to go online and check e-mails but I didn't, and I held out for a long while when I got home before I logged on again.
Pictures here