I Got Nothing.

In honor of Mr Pooh, "what you got?"

2 weeks ago, I made the decision to not travel at all. I was on the brink of a breakdown, and although I knew I should've gone out to one of my NJ sites for a couple of days, I mentally could not make myself go. I was talking to a coworker and she offered to go with me, so we started making plans for the following day, and I could feel tears start to come on. I had to take a mini break in the office, and get a coffee, and then tell my coworker I just couldn't go. My boss was cool about it all - he understands and actually prefers if I don't travel as often as I do. But my site was still in a bit of uproar 2 weeks ago, and looking back on it, I should've put on big girl shoes, pulled my pacifier out of my mouth, and just gone out.

Okay, so I just rambled about how I made the decision not to travel 2 weeks ago - and there was still traveling involved. My *other* NJ site at the NJ/PA border called - the request they had asked me about in my last blog post - that request was making the rounds and they wanted someone to come out and present to a bunch of their higher ups about the request. I sucked in a VP to come with me, because honestly, the request is not something I can approve. So on Thursday, we hired a car and headed out to the border for the late afternoon and evening. Things went really well actually - surprising to both of us. It was a super giddy ride back, and ended up with us quoting Anchorman for the last 20 minutes of the car ride. I told Blondie that this VP is one that is "on my side" (not that the rest aren't - just that he seems to really care if I'm happy at the company and feels that what I do truly matters to the company) - and getting to do an awesome presentation, alleviate concerns at my site, and then quote Anchorman after - it was one of the better days I've had at the company in the last 6 months.

Last Friday night it was a coworker's birthday so I headed out around 4:30 pm to get drinks. And got called from my NJ/PA site as soon as I walked into the bar. Something else had happened - this time on a mix up on their side - but I had to talk them through some stuff and advise on how to handle 1 thing in particular. By the time I got into the bar, all energy had been sapped from me - I ordered a beer, drank half of it, and left. OMG - want a rocking good party? If you do, don't invite me. I was in bed by 8:30 pm that night.

And overslept our 9:45 am train out of the city on Saturday. We instead headed up to Penn around 11 am and got on an 11:45 train out to Montauk (the Hamptons) to celebrate the birthday of my BFF from my old job. His fiancee's family has a house out there, and they let us crash there for the weekend. It was a great weekend, minus my intense need to sleep. We grilled out, had a bonfire, drank a ton of wine, ate like crazy, and basically just had a lazy ass day. We got back to NYC on Sunday night around 5 pm, and I felt pretty good at that point. Sleeping in a place where there is no traffic noise (normally I HATE no noise when sleeping - I'm just used to noise now, and it's creepy to me when it's silent) was exactly what the doctor ordered. That good feeling last until Monday.

When I hopped another freaking plane back to Detroit. I landed in Detroit (no first class upgrades - boo you whores) and drove about 20 miles out to my project site. I met up with one of my coworkers and we discussed the next day's plans for a bit before I crashed for the night. We were there to do 2 things - the thing we were scheduled to do on Tuesday went off without a hitch which was nice. And our Wednesday plans got cancelled by the 3rd party company and postponed until mid April. We chatted and stayed at the company through the afternoon, grabbed a late lunch, and then headed back to Detroit to stay the night there. I told my coworker I had a bit of work to do when we got to the hotel but would call him in a bit for drinks.

Then I got in my room, checked my email, and realized everything had gone to hell in the 1.5 hours I had been offline. I should've realized this because on the drive to Detroit, my cell phone was going off about every 10 mins - I didn't check it b/c I'm a scary driver as it is, and don't need any distractions. But yes, that was my first clue that something was wrong. Anyway, a VERY long late afternoon ensued - complete with phone calls to/from VPs, phone calls out to my 3rd party sites, multiple emails I had to write up and send... My estimated "30 mins until I call you for a drink" turned into 3 HOURS.

This is the thing about my job - I truly like it. I consider traveling a perk (I'd prefer to travel LESS than I do but it's still a perk to me) and I love getting to work with new people every few months. But I am the "face" of my company at my sites. So when things go wrong outside my control (code gets released that has a bug in it for example), my sites come to me. And that's what happened on Tues night. I handled everything well though - and one of my other VPs even used an email I sent as an example of how we should be handling outage notifications.

Wednesday - repeat it all. This time my NJ/PA site had a problem - we almost immediately knew it was something they had done on their network, but trying to figure it out, and make sure they understood what happened, took almost all day. I had to take a billion phone calls from the airport which I hate doing b/c it's so loud in airports in general. And then almost cried as flights started getting delayed. I was flying through Boston which was having a high wind advisory - so we finally left Detroit and had a horribly bumpy delayed flight in. And then my JFK flight was also delayed. But it worked out well as I got "surprised" upgraded to first class on that leg - free bourbon; it's what's for dinner.

Thursday it was back to my NJ site, running on nothing but coffee and exhaustion. I dealt with a lot of little issues all day and almost cried when I sat down in the seat on my train back to the city. Friday I went into the office for only a tiny bit - I went in late, and left around 2:30 pm to get my hair fixed. My hair looks so great right now, that I shit you not, I got hit on 3 minutes after leaving the salon. Getting hit on blatantly hasn't happened in years - so I felt pretty good when I got home. Blondie had a meeting on Friday so I headed over to our local to hang out with everyone. And that turned into a dance party, drink your face off night. I got soup for a late dinner from a 24 hour market by our house and remember that soup being the tastiest fucking thing I had ever eaten. Drunky McDrunkPants - that's me.

Saturday was a waste - I did a little bit of workout once I felt better but it rained all day here so I mostly didn't leave bed. We made spaghetti for dinner and split a bottle of wine, and then watched a movie before I crashed out for the evening. And today - it's a repeat. A little bit of a workout, the weather is shit. I feel Gossip Girl binge fest is in order for this afternoon.

Tigga news! He gained .5 lbs at his vet appointment last week. The vet was REALLY happy about this b/c it's been so hard to put weight on him. The vet said to just keep it up - keep feeding him like we're doing. I was hoping for 1 lb gain but the vet said any gain is good news right now. Everything came back great from his test results too except his blood potassium levels. The vet said they are borderline too low right now - these low levels lead to lack muscle strength in his hindquarters so we really have to watch this. We test him again in a month and keep our fingers crossed that the levels have rebounded. If not, it's another supplement he has to take. But all in all, great news for my Tigga!

--K