2003-01-27 - 10:33 p.m.

All Good Things

Today I had to go back to work.  That's right. HAD TO.  It was not my idea.  The sad and complete truth is my vacation is over.  My alarm went off at 6 a.m. and I hated it with a passion.

When I got to work the placed looked different.  They do this every time I am away.  This time they have a big sign on the door telling us to keep our keys on us at all times.  A few days ago they caught The Creeper in our building.  An office creeper is a thief who goes into different office buildings and takes stuff when no one is looking.  A creeper has stolen several laptop computers out of our office in the past, and, we think, some money out of one guy's desk.

They caught some business looking guy creeping around the building.  One of the guys I work with spotted him, told security on him, and they caught him.

So now all doors are locked all the time.  What a pain.

It was good to be back with the guys again. I missed them.  I came back to work rested and feeling good about life.  They all looked exhausted and sick.  I knew they would do it and they did.  Last week, the week I was not there, was pure hell for them.  They were busy the whole time, they got way behind on everything, there was an emergency at the end of the week that slopped over onto this week.  They did nothing about it at all.

We talked about it with the new boss.  Kevin said that every time I always pick the worst weeks to go on vacation.  I told him that is why I asked everyone 15 times if there was going to be any conflict with my not being there and each time they said no.  I was very vocal about it.

The phones rang off the hook all day long.  We had a problem with one of the lines of communication in one area of the country.  Our new boss, who I really like a lot, by the way, helped out with the phones. By the end of the day he was exhausted.  I took about 60 phone calls all day long.

I did not let it get to me.

Now, according to astrology, I am in a low energy period.  The sun is in Aquarius and I am Pisces.  I am nearing the end of my 38th year on earth.  Soon the sun will move into Pisces, I will turn 39 and the high cycle will begin.  I'm looking forward to it.  I have to keep reminding myself to just keep calm and not get upset by little things or get too anxious when it looks like things are not going my way.  There is a weird energy going on.  Yesterday was another one of those days where everywhere I went people looked at me.  It was not in a bad way.  Just noticeable.  Like strangers in a store recognized me.  Or they would suddenly see me out of the corner my their eyes and then quickly turn their heads to look at me.  It would be flattering to me except there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

And when I came back to work today everyone remarked on how well I looked and how much weight I have lost.  But I did not loose any weight last week.  I ate like a pig and did not exercise.  Luckily I kept the status quo.  I don't know how that works, exactly.  I'm glad it works that way, though.

I have to go in early tomorrow for a meeting.  Our new boss is going to tell us all the stuff that the president has been telling him for the past few weeks.  It is not going to be fun.  I can tell the company president is starting to worry about things. He shouldn't.  The company is doing well and things are going well.  But he seems nervous for some reason.  I wonder if something is up that he has not been telling us.

Perhaps our company will be put up for sale soon.  That would be good for me.  My stock options would have value.  At the moment they do not.

Man, it is cold now.  Last week the weather was frigid.  Tonight when I was talking to my mother on the phone I told her that last week it was so cold that even I noticed it.  It was so cold that I did not want to go outside.  It was down to the single digits.  That is very cold here in the South.

The weekend was sort of warm.  I went out without a coat one afternoon.  But now the temperature is starting to dip again.  That's what winter is like here.  Cold for a week then warm. The freezing cold for a few days and then not so bad.

I like the cooler weather.  One of the reasons I hate the month of August so much is because it is usually ungodly hot and I am miserable all the time.  When I was a kid I had an unheated bedroom.  My bedroom was in an addition to our house that was never quite finished.  (My father has never been very interested in doing anything to completion.)  So for many years my bedroom was whatever temperature the outside was.  I didn't care.  I had an electric blanket and could always go into the other part of the house where the heat was if I got cold.

I think I got used to it.  I got use to a lot of things when I was a kid. I won't go into it now, but physical comfort was not a high priority for a poor Baptist family like ours.

I remember once going out to the bus stop to wait for the school bus.  I had on a coat but I was still cold.  I was shivering, my arms crossed as I hunched over trying to conserve body heat.  I realized the more I tried to withdraw from the cold the more I shivered.  So I started relaxing.  It was not that cold anyway.  I would only be outdoors for about 15 minutes, why was I shaking so bad?   I think I was about 12 years old when I realized being cold was not the worst thing in the world.  It was just a temporary condition.  I would be warm again soon, so why worry about it?

One of my many lessons for which I am thankful.

Jimmy
 

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