One of THOSE Days.

Some weeks, I really feel the burden of working five days. Some weeks, a Thursday should really be a Friday. This Thursday was one of THOSE days.

It started out like any other day, a busy day full of meetings and problem solving followed by me waking up exhausted after dreaming about the day that was ahead of me. I'm working on several high profile, deadline sensitive projects at the moment, on which every other current project in the company depends. In short, if my team is late, that's the first domino that will make everyone else late. No pressure. People are alternately asking me where things are and telling me what a fantastic job I'm doing.

My dad continues to heal from his bypass surgery, occasionally telling me that it didn't work. For those keeping score, it's been two weeks since his chest was sliced open, an artery was removed and grafted in place of a clogged one on his heart, and he spent 12 hours under anesthesia with a breathing tube, IV lines, and several drainage tubes. To see him shuffling around the house or reading the paper, you'd think he only went in for a haircut. So that impresses me, while the man wonders why he can't lift a car over his head or run a marathon. He claims he got some chest pain while walking on the beach, and said he “only” walked for a half hour. I had to dig out the paperwork from the therapist documenting that, by week two, he shouldn't try to walk for more than five minutes. He'll get up to 30 by the fifth week after surgery, but he's impatient and/or forgetful. We're just glad he's here, and wouldn't have him any other way.

The morning was a frantic whirlwind as it always is, and I definitely lost some time digging out the paperwork to prove to my dad that he's doing better than he thinks he is and needs to pace his recovery. Running out the door with my gym bag, I paused long enough to catch a plastic bag full of garbage my mom tossed at me, to throw in the pail outside. I dashed out with my keys in one hand, and the bags in the other, and upon lifting the lid of the garbage can, I proceeded to let the wrong bag drop, quickly catching my gym stuff before it landed on some wet bags of leaves. I shifted that bag to the hand with my keys and deposited the correct bag, and was on my way.

My morning at the office was not without some technical difficulties, mysteriously changing fonts that I won't bore you with. Suffice to say, after redoing that which a glitchy program had undone, I was ready to enjoy some fresh air and a comfort Frappuccino. I've developed what turns out to be an unfortunate game of will power, in which I try to take little or no sips of my frozen treat until I've completed the ten minute walk from the local strip mall back to my office. So, as I resumed my duties in the afternoon, I still had a chocolately mix to enjoy. By 3 PM, I was just slurping the last of the whipped cream, and as I withdrew the straw, very nearly dropped some on my pants. It was a close call, but I was good. As I sat in two hours of back to back meetings, I noticed a smudge of chocolate on one of my papers. I turned over my arm as I'd been leaning on the papers, and there was chocolate and whipped cream residue there. Hopefully no one had noticed.

Later, some people visited me in my office to resolve some outstanding issues from the meeting, which we did with ease. It was only after they left and I used the restroom, that I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, at the huge brown stain dead center of my dress shirt. There was a reason what fell from the straw earlier never made it to my jeans; it hit my shirt first. At least my coworkers either didn't notice or were too polite to point it out.

It is finally Friday, is it not? I wouldn't be surprised if that whole Thursday was just another dream, and one of those days is only just beginning.....