Thursday, October 16, 2003

Lost in the woods

Yesterday we went to the ophthalmologist and he checks out okay for another 6 months. The doctor wants to continue seeing him, and has pretty much ruled out eye surgery for right now. He was impressed that Geoff's vision is doing well, compared to what it was at 15 months of age.

After the doctor's appointment, we decided to swing home and get the dogs and take a walk. We headed over to Cleaveland Farms, where I'm plotting out a geocache hide.

I wanted to get another waypoint and pick a spot for the cache, and make it a really long hard hike of a multi-cache. So we went way out to the south east, found a good waypoint, and started hiking back because it was starting to rain.

We got lost.

I missed a turn, we ended up on a trail I've never seen before and I thought I was walking parallel with the trail we came in on, but it started to cut to the Northwest, totally opposite of where I wanted to be. We found the backside of a nice residential neighborhood, and I am pretty sure at this point we were in Topsfield near Hood's Pond, over a mile away from the truck.

So I found another trail with a cool wooden pallette bridge across a large expanse of swamp, and eventually headed over to the "Esker Trail" which is the trail I wanted to be on after all was said and done. We were about a quarter mile away from the truck, I found a good place to hide the cache itself and pinpointed it on the GPS...

And that's the funny thing about all this, I HAD the GPS with me. And I still got lost. This trail system back there really F's with your head. There are swamppy areas that look solid, and if you decide to bushwhack you're screwed.

Now that I know the place a lot better and have points plotted out, this will be a fabulous geo-hide. Excellent!

So what I intended to be a 3/4 mile walk turned into a 90 minute 3 mile walk. The dogs were beat, Geoff was so tired, and I must say I was too.


I don't know if I can possibly take any more shock.

First, the Red Sox won last night. So my heart has been beating arrythmically since about 8pm. While watching the game, the power went out at about 7pm, scaring the shit out of Geoff, you should have heard the boy screaming. He was sitting here at the computer when it happened, and I thought he was going to have an aneurysm.

We were in the midst of a hell of a wind storm, and lost electricity for about a half an hour total, but in that half hour I managed to find Doug's cell phone, use it as a flash light, light candles, call the next town over for a pizza, and go pick it up (with beer to accompany). I got in the car and the Sox tied it up. I was driving home and the go-ahead run came in.

So I was screaming in the truck, at the top of my lungs. I got home to find the power on, Geoff relaxed (Doug was here with him) and watched Trot Nixon put the Sox ahead for good.

Wish I could say the same about the Cubs. Alas. Such is life.

So last night's win forces game 7, which should be... hopefully interesting and not some sort of restrained and cautious pitching duel where batters can't slam a couple out to Washington Heights or Mamaroneck from Yankee Stadium. I am not necessarily advocating another fight like Game 3, I'm just saying I want some hard hitting baseball.

And I have a suggestion -- I think a person's at bat appearences should be timed, sort of like in football with the shot clock. You have 20 seconds to get into position, stop fucking around with your batting gloves and your pre-hitting rituals (cough, NOMAR!) and hit the damn ball. And while we're at it, fly balls should be strikes all the time... even if it's your third strike.

The game would move so much better then. Totally more exciting. And batters wouldn't be putzing around so much. Baseball can be really boring unless Don Zimmer is getting his ears grabbed and his old hulking Yoda-like frame chucked to the ground. So I want some changes made next year, damnit!

So that's the major heart attack inducer number one, right there.


Second, and I told my boss this was "in the vault" but no one from work reads this... she (S, my boss) resigned. She'll be informing everyone tomorrow, but next Friday is her last day.

Nail? Coffin? I'm dead. I'm so freaking freaked out.

I love this woman. She is the coolest person I've ever worked for. When I fuck up and I have a reason why I fucked up, she's so cool about it. If I fuck up with no reason, she's got a style and grace about her so that telling me not to fuck up again comes off so gentle and understanding, and I don't fuck it up again. She's a great teacher, a natural leader, and I am so going to miss her. Plus, she's British and so fun to talk to about everything from Ben Folds to Moby (naked) to Monty Python.

It seems to me that A, the person I support but who is not my "boss," will most likely be promoted, we think, I hope. And I hope they have plans on hiring someone to fill A's position. Because I sure can't do all that she does in 28 hours a week.

I am sad to be losing my British star of a boss, she's just been the absolute best person to work for aside from Debbie at my last job. I almost cried the whole way home, but I didn't. I'm really stunned. I don't know what I'm going to do.

I love A. She's fabulous, but ... demanding and has a really different style than I do. She's far more organized and detail oriented than I am. I am not sure if I can ... work for her? I have always done better supporting her and working for S than working directly for A. When A is on vacation, I'm so much more relaxed and get so much work done.

I don't know how I feel about this all told. I'm nervous, not because of A moving up but because of me not being able to perform to her exacting standards.

Hmmm. So that's heart attack number 2. I found out at 10 of 3. S asked me to come into her office for a minute and I totally thought she was going to let me know that A was indeed upset with be because I left something undone that impacts our open enrollment. I went in explaining, and S was all "what are you talking about?" and I knew then that A hadn't filled her in because it wasn't the big deal that she made it out to be.

Then she told me she was leaving, and I just couldn't believe it. Not before the Christmas party, not before open enrollment! HOLY SHIT not before open enrollment. I don't know if I'm going to be able to deal with A for the 3 weeks of OE. Holy Flerkin' Schnit.

Ugh. So I'm stressing.

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