It’s been awhile but I can explain. I am so exhausted. On Friday I was in the office from 8am-midnight. On Monday I was in the office from 8am-1am. Today, I’m in the office from 7:30am-possibly 6pm.
For some reason the 2nd and 4th weeks of the month are the designated meeting weeks which means I’m in wall to wall meetings most of the day. To add that craziness, these meetings require some sort of prep on my part which means I need to stay after the meetings are completed to prepare for forthcoming meetings.
Life goes on though and I keep reminding myself, this too shall pass.
Last night, I got home, scarfed down some leftovers and immediately went back to preparing for a 11am meeting. Lrudlrick forced me to turn my laptop off at 2:30am. Thank you, Lrudlrick.
L: What time do you have to leave the house tomorrow so I can set your alarm?
pg: 7am. I guess that means my alarm should be set for 5:30am.
L: Are you insane?
pg: No, I’m a woman who moves extremely slow in the morning. I’ll brush my teeth and the next thing you know 30 mins has elapsed.
L: I’m setting it for 6am. Spritz yourself in the shower and that’s it. Jump in and out.
pg: But…
L: It’s almost 3am. I’m setting it for 6.
Well, someone was watching over me because I got up at 6 and got out the door by 10 past 7. I don’t know how. For all I know, I probably have toilet paper hanging out of my pants right now but I made it out the door.
Now, I don’t mind working so hard or even being engrossed in my work to the point where I can watch the Empire State Building’s lights turn on. I’m fine with it as long as I feel productive.
However, I know that this focus on work has left my home and personal lives a bit abandoned. I particularly feel it in my personal life. I have so many things to prepare and want to do personally that I’m a bit disheartened that I haven’t been able to do any of it this month.
Every month, I give myself another ‘personal to do’ to check off my list. I haven’t been able to work on anything on my list yet. I’m hoping after Thursday, I can find some time to have ‘me time’.
At home, I have my brother’s birthday present, which I totally flubbed on Sunday, to make up for and Easter brunch for my mom to work on. I have a dog that has hit allergy season head on and now has an ear infection that won’t go away and sink full of dirty dishes that hasn’t learned to put themselves into the dishwasher and self start.
I also promised to shoot some film of Shaggy, our vacuuming robot, to share with you but that hasn’t happened. Shaggy is a totally different beast than Scooby. He’s faster and has free reign of our apartment. We occasionally put him in a specific room to clean up but essentially give him the freedom to come and go as he pleases. He particularly enjoys our kitchen and the area under our butcher block.
Shaggy reminds me of those cute robot aliens that came down and developed friendships with Faye and Frank Reilly in *batteries not included. He seems more intuitive than Scooby. My robot cleaning army would be complete if iRobot would make a robot that did my laundry. You hear that iRobot people? We need laundry bots! In my lifetime I want a robot that can sort, wash, dry and iron. Is that too much to ask?
Speaking of laundry, one of the many conveniences I miss in our apartment is private laundry facilities. In our old apartment, we were allowed full functioning washers and dryers. This was a real convenience, especially since I’m married to a man who wears multiple layers winter, summer, spring and fall.
In our current building we are not allowed private washers and dryers. Instead we use our common laundry room in the basement. It’s not the perfect laundry facility in fact, we’re in the midst of renovating and updating our laundry room and equipment.
Last Saturday was the last straw for me. For a long time my husband took the duties of laundry but since his schedule has been crazier than mine, I’ve been offering to do the laundry on Saturdays while I’m doing the usual house cleaning/recycling projects.
Well, last Sunday our laundry room turned into the Lucy room. Between an overflowing washing machine, two out of order dryers, one dryer that periodically accepted additional quarters and one dryer that didn’t accept quarters but incremented the dry time if you hit the return button, it became a comedy of errors.
As I folded my laundry a soundtrack to this show played courtesy of my iPod, Mork. Mork offered ditties like David Bowie’s It Ain’t Easy and The Ink Spots Into Each Life, Some Rain Must Fall. The highlight was Spoon’s I Turn My Camera On which went pretty well with my neighbor pounding the crap out of the wishy-washy dryer that couldn’t decide if it would accept anymore quarters or not.
After her failed attempt, we chatted about different techniques we’ve used to get the dryer to work.
pg: I usually take a book from the library and bang the side plate with it for awhile. Yes, we have a library in our dryer. You need one when on average 1 of the 4 dryers is out of order.
Lt: Actually I do the hanger technique. I bend a hanger and fish it into the coin slot to push the quarter in.
J: Are you talking about getting that dryer to work? I’ve found if you kicked the side while pushing on the return slot sometimes works.
For the next 15 minutes my neighbors and I began sharing war stories about our laundry room. I think that is the most time I’ve actually spent with any of my neighbors, aside from the neighbors who invited us to tea two years ago.
I’m hoping our war stories will be stories of the past soon. Apparently if the union strike doesn’t prevent it, we should begin renovations for our new laundry facilities next week. We will be getting a fully tiled floor with new folding tables and laundry carts. In addition brand new sinks, high capacity washer and dryers will be installed. Finally, I will no longer need to save my quarters like they were the Mr. Goodbars in a pack of assorted Hershey’s chocolates. You know you hide those too. We will all be getting swipe cards that can be refillable online for the machines.
Still with all these strange rituals apartment dwellers need to deal with, I’m still siding against buying a house. The upkeep it just too much for me. I’m perfectly happy not shoveling snow or raking leaves or cleaning gutters. I never thought as a person raised in a house I’d say it but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t feel like I was missing anything if I didn’t buy a house.
Maybe the perception changes as I get older but right now, I’m happy to be have my 40 cubic feet.
Related tags: laundry, sleep deprivation, workaholic, roomba
