Woke up yesterday morning feeling like crap. Just what I need, a freaking cold. As I loathe cold medicine (makes my head feel all wonky), I usually try to slug through these little viral invasions without it. I was feeling a little less than perfect so I stayed in bed longer than usual and didn’t get to work until after 10 am. Once I got there and slapped on the Ipod, I felt semi-human. What does it say about me as an adult that I need my Ipod to make it through a simple day at work? One thing it means is that I’d rather have System Of A Down ricocheting of my eardrums than the monotonous drone of my co-workers.
As I can’t remember the last time I ate a proper meal, I didn’t feel the need to eat one for lunch. About 1 pm I ventured out to the grocery store where I picked up a Grande Egg Nog Latte (yum yum!), some cheese, crackers and grapes. I didn’t eat the grapes. They just seemed too wholesome. Came back to the office and resumed the number crunching.
I stayed a little late and got home around 7:30 pm. Larry helped me feed the chickens and horses and then we made dinner. Tuna melts and tomato soup. I know…not exactly grand cuisine but it was hot and comforting and hit the spot. As Larry was deeply involved in a WOW quest (what else?), I sat in the den with him and read a Michael Moore book I bought last year. I'd already read it but it was still funny in a righteous indignation kind of way. At 10 pm, it was off to bed to watch The Daily Show. I must’ve been more tired then I realized because I fell asleep five minutes into The Colbert Report. And such was my day.
Okay fine. I'll play along and relate my daily activities. Warning! Extremely boring details ahead!
Sunday Nov 5th - Larry was in Dallas at a Comic Con so it was just me and the MIL. Normally, Sundays find me reclined on the couch with a beer in one hand and the remote in the other as we also have the Directv football thing but this Sunday I just couldn't do it. I know as certainly as I share a common ancestor with a monkey that Norma would've taken the opportunity to sit in the living room with me and talk over all the games. I just didn't have the mental fortitude to pretend to be even remotely interested in her ramblings so I made the excuse I had work to do and sequestered myself in the den for most of the day. I DID have work to do but I spent most of the day playing WOW. WOW (World of Warcraft) is an online role playing game that Larry got me hooked on. Stupid addicting geek game. I spent most of the day developing a new character, a female Night Elf Druid named Cinder. She's coming along quite nicely. I made a few forays outside to mess with the horses but did nothing worth noting. Around 9 pm I migrated into the bedroom and studied horsie muscles until Larry got home around 11 pm. We chatted briefly and then went to bed.
Monday Nov 6th - Back to the dungeon. God that place sucks. On November 1st, our merger with Fort Dearborn Life was official so we are now officially headquartered in Chicago instead of across the street. To try and alleviate everyone's employment anxities, management splurged on a very nice catered lunch for everyone at which the President of FDL tried to blow sunshine up all our butts. I wasn't falling for it. He spent about 40 minutes extolling the virtues of FDL and how we should all feel basically honored to be working there. During the Q & A, some rather pointed questions about what exactly would happen to our jobs were asked and these questions were rather pointedly ducked and dodged. Oh, he made a great pretense about answering these very "relevant" and "appropriate" questions but his answers were all smoke and laser beams. They basically centered around the same theme....."we don't know yet but we don't expect any major changes anytime soon." I took that as "you'll be able to buy Christmas presents this year but I wouldn't be signing any new mortgages if I were you." From what we've learned of FDL's previous mergers with other life companies, many of the employees continued to have a job but not in the same capacity. So, if you're making over $60,000 a year as an underwriter now and you want to keep your job, you can expect to make about $35,000 as a Customer Service Rep. Yeah.....no thanks.
I don't know why I'm complaining. I'm looking for any excuse to get out and, truth be told, having someone else make that decision for me is strangely appealing. If they do decide to consolidate some departments, accounting would be a obvious choice, and, as I'm contract and not subject to any sort of compensation package, I would think I would be the first person to go.
So, Monday was corporate brainwashing day. As I had to spent the better part of two hours at that dog and pony show, I did not get much work done on my quarterly report and had to bring work home with me. I worked until 10 pm and then got into bed to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
Tuesday Nov 7th - More working in the quarterly report. Nothing memorable happened at work. I left around 3pm to meet the trimmer at the barn for another trimming lesson. Trimming horse hooves is a LOT harder than it looks. I only did two feet and I was wiped out. At 6 pm, I had a consult with a horse owner and the chiropractor of a horse I'm doing body work on. The guy actually treated me like a colleague! It was encouraging. I'm still very much a novice equine massage therapist but I'm learning more every day.
Wednesday Nov 8th - Worked again on the quarterly report. Should be working on it now but decided to make a post here instead. Since the time change, I've been getting home after dark and I hate it. I have to feed the horses in the dark and can't spend any time with them. If I could actually get out of bed in the mornings, I could spend some time with them then but I can barely drag my butt out of bed at 7:30 am as it is now. I am so NOT a morning person. I usually have to force myself to fall asleep at 11 pm so I can get enough sleep to get up at 7:30. If I wasn't forced to interact with the rest of society during the day, I would probably sleep everyday until ten and be up half the night and I would love every minute of it but I don't think that will ever be an option for me.
So, there's my boring life so far this week, And I left out the REALLY boring stuff! I really should crack open this NAIC manual here and get back to work on my report but I have a feeling I'll be playing WOW in five minutes, at least until Larry gets home and makes me feel guilty about it but that's just his ploy to get me off the computer so he can play and that's just as well.........I really hate that stupid geek game.