Charles Calling

I accidentally slept in until 540am. I woke initially around 5am and played hide and seek with the clock for the next 40 minutes. I lost.  Being behind by 10 minutes didn’t impact my morning much if at all. More psychological than anything else.

It was a no push-up morning. So after sit-ups, I poured a cup of coffee then took to the PC. It was warmer than expected – 50 degrees. Calling for partly cloudy skies. I couldn’t see any stars when I glanced out back. I spent about 15 minutes online before giving way to meditation and stretching. Time was getting away from me fast. It was already after 625am and I hadn’t gotten around to stretching.  I upped and delivered Mindy’s coffee then headed back downstairs to stretch and run.

During my run I reviewed all my to-do’s as well as my 8 slide presentation. I felt comfortable with all but one of the slides.  I trimmed my run back to three miles to make sure that I would be home before Mindy left for work. As it was, I didn’t get out of the house for my run until 750am.

During my run, I had pretty much decided that I would work from home until about 1130am since I needed to be at one of my customer locations for a 1pm presentation. I wasn’t sure what I’d do after that, whether I would head back to the office, work from the customer’s location, or go visit my dad in the hospital.

I was home by 722am. Mindy had my eggs waiting in the microwave. Our time together was brief. We left open evening plans depending on whether or not I ended up going to the hospital to see dad. She left at 730am. I didn’t bother heading for the shower. Instead, I logged onto work in my running clothes. I planned to shower around 11am. The kids and I headed out to the bus stop at 810am. Once again, Bella forgot to brush her teeth proactively. I had to remind and then rush her through it.

Chrissy and the girls had Annie with them at the bus stop. And once again they put her down just long enough for her to dart towards the road. Chrissy quickly scooped her back up. Don’t need a doggie pancake.

The bus arrived a few minutes late. Said she was held up by a train. No biggie. I walked Eiknarf again out front. She didn’t go, but did a lot of sniffing. Inside,  I topped off my coffee then got busy with work. It wasn’t much different than had I been at the office. In fact, I got quite a bit done.  I was so busy that 11am came and went like that. I had to force myself off to the shower at 1115am. I was ready to go about 15 minutes later.

I packed all my gear and left the house at 1140am. I took I-670 again figuring that the traffic would be light given it the middle of the day. I was right. It was smooth drive east and then north. Arrived in record time. It was just after 12noon. I had a full hour before our scheduled quarterly presentation. I headed inside where I met up with one of my peers who works out of their office almost every day. We talked for a while. I also took the opportunity to chat with a couple employees of the customer.

We were expecting a few new executives at this quarterly review. I half expected to be drilled about a slide or two in my presentation. For that I was nervous waiting my turn, which was 4^th I believe. Turned out, I did pretty good and walked away unscathed. The only questions were easy to answer. That was a huge sigh of relief. The meeting went longer than budgeted – almost 90 minutes.

After a little bumping elbows I headed back to my car. I called my dad once inside the Accord. He said he was just about to leave the hospital waiting on Bobby to arrive. Heading to the

Arlington Ct

nursing home again. We talked for almost 15 minutes, him describing his progress in great detail. He figured to wrapped up in the induction process for the better part of the evening.  I figured to pay him a visit on Friday, either at lunch or early evening.

Now almost 3pm, I opted to head back to the house and work from home for the remainder of the work day. However, having not eaten a thing since breakfast, the first thing I did was make a turkey and cheese sandwich. Boy was it good. Caved and ate some Halloween candy too. Bad!!!!

I got back into work staying busy even after Mindy and the kids got home around 4pm. Mindy asked about dinner offering that maybe we could go to the Rusty Bucket and see nephew Joe. I wasn’t too keen on dinner out given that we ate out Tuesday and would be doing Barley’s on Friday. I voted for staying in and eating more leftovers. I stayed plugged into work until sometime after 5pm.

I opted to have chili dogs for the 2^nd night in a row, only this time I used turkey cheddar brats. They’re great cooked on the grill, not so special nuked. Note to self. We had to plans other than hanging out at home. As it was, I ended up staying plugged into work through the entire evening. In fact, I got involved in an escalation that kept me loosely engaged until almost 10pm. I was still able to interact with the family though. I didn’t mind.

My neck and shoulders stiff from stress, I asked Mindy for a back massage. She willingly agreed. Felt terrific. I really needed that. Advil is great, but nothing compares to having the muscles massaged. I reciprocated, massaging her back for about 10 minutes, too. We tried getting a hold of Lindsey to discuss weekend logistics beginning around 9pm. We both texted and called but got no answer or response. That worried me given that she and boys are often on the bus at that hour. And it’s unlike her not to call sometime during the evening. I tried reaching both Kelly and Ashley to see if they might know here whereabouts or status. Neither answered my call.

I tucked in the kids around 915-930pm. I headed back downstairs where I enjoyed what was left of a Jack & Coke, my first such drink in a really long time. Mindy headed to bed around 930-945pm. I stayed up a while longer putting closure to the work issue I’d been involved with through most of the late evening. I headed to bed around 10pm. Mindy asked if I heard back from Lindsey. No. I brought my phone to bed in case she called.

I fell asleep in short order, but was woken near 11pm by my ringing phone. I upped and answered thinking it Lindsey. It wasn’t. Instead, it was brother Charles calling from dad’s place there to pick-up his after flying home from Las Vegas. Only trouble was, his battery was dead. Needed jumper cables. I agreed to leave mine out on the front porch, so he and his buddy could come by and get them. Back to sleep.