Monday, August 22, 2011

Week 34 - Hope and Boiling

What a week! It was the week before classes start so we had no water aerobics, which meant I was free as a bird after work with no guilt. Always nice. Anyway, Monday was so normal – work, knitting and bed. That was the end of it for sure.

I went to a funeral on Tuesday morning. It was the first since my dad’s I’m pretty sure. Glenda’s (from Friends of the Library) husband had died and her son had also lived next door to me with his family for five years. A few of us from the library went. It was at 11:00 in Wahoo so I made good use of my morning and slogged through all my paper, which felt good. The memorial service was very nice with a beautiful eulogy from Glenda’s brother. Afterwards Lorri and I went out to lunch (she didn’t seem to want to stay for the lunch at the church), I paid my house taxes (I’m rarely in town while the tax office is open so took advantage of that) and headed to work.

I didn’t get there until 1:45 and then got pulled over by a campus cop for making an illegal right turn around some construction right in front of my building. I didn’t see the sign and then he went all control freak on me but only gave me a warning. By the time I got to my desk, it was clear I should have just taken the whole day off because I was in a funk. I made it through my 3 hour day and then went home to sit like a zombie, not knitting a stitch or even bothering to grill the steak I’d specifically bought for dinner on the way home. I did rally just before bed and cleaned up the kitchen and did the pots and pans in preparation for the cleaning lady the next day.

On Wednesday, identify management issues for new faculty took over my day. It was kind of fun figuring out what had gone wrong where and working with the IT guys to fix each problem. I knitted with Anne at lunch and the day flew by. I went right home with plans to cook that steak but the phone rang just as I was walking in. It was Lorri telling me that they’d found bacteria in Wahoo’s water supply and we were under a boil water order. We needed boiled water for drinking, brushing our teeth and doing dishes. Sheesh! I got busy boiling my kettle over and over. It’s amazing how much water it takes just to make dinner, a pot of coffee and have some on hand for teeth brushing. I did manage to cook dinner and had a nice night.

Thursday was more IDM problems (they were getting old at this point) but the big news was Carolyn got a job! She called to tell me that Pawtucket called and she would be back to being an elementary school librarian. It was not an ideal job but at least she wasn’t unemployed. I hung up the phone and burst into tears. It was such a relief the my BFF would not be struggling financially. I was so happy for her. I went to HyVee for one of their steak dinner specials after work with my friend Kate from water aerobics. I hadn't seen her in awhile so it was nice to catch up. She had wonderful news too! She was having her hip replaced the next week. You may not think of this as good news but we've seen her degenerate over the past year to the point where she was walking with a cane and in constant pain. Her doctor was not treating her effectively (she thought she had bursitis!) when her hip was in fact bone on bone. While the surgery will be no picnic, there is at least hope. She seemed excited at having some hope and I was excited too. What a nice day with two lots of good news.

Friday was a blur and the weekend was here. I had decided to skip the French dinner because I was tired (always by Friday) and didn't feel up to trying to cook something to bring what with the water issue. So, I was excited for a normal weekend, however normal it can be when I still can’t freely use my water. We’d heard it would be at least the middle of the next week before we got the all clear. But I was a pro at the boiling water thing by then and you could smell the chlorine in the water (Wahoo normally does no treatment at all) so I figured the bacteria was dead even if we hadn’t had 2 clear tests yet.

I ran errands on Saturday morning and then Andrea and I headed to Fremont for spinning. I ran out of public knitting but it’s always fun to hang and talk fiber. We went to Goodwill afterwards and I scored a pyrex casserole, a fun teapot from New Zealand, a book and some sweaters – one to felt and another silk/cashmere one to take a apart for the yarn. It was a pleasant, uneventful day.

There was more of that in store for Sunday. I pretty much did nothing and didn’t feel guilty about it. I did manage to design and knit a drink cozy for my next swap. I think it's good enough to post as a free pattern (and my first ever published design) on Ravelry. With all that knitting, I was in my jammies until 2:00 and when I did get dressed, it was in socially unacceptable clothes so I was going nowhere. Because I looked like one of those people of Wal-Mart, both Lorri and Andrea stopped by. I did manage to rally just before bedtime and get the bare essentials of chores done so I wouldn’t be behind all week, which felt good. Lord knows I was well rested for all the late night activity.

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