a simple, chocolate chip cookie symbolically offers me some hope
03-05-06, 8:52 PM

How can a few days produce so much anxiety and complexity in what should be otherwise a relatively simple life? How I get myself in such situations and center of attention when I�m actually operating at the periphery is beyond me.

In short, through my delegation of tasks, one of the project�s contributors by-passed a communication with a person yet completed the task. Apparently this by-passed person became upset because some rather disparaging emails were sent about me to my Director. Called into a meeting, the Director asked if I was involved in completing the task, to which I replied �yes� because I corrected the language within the Resolution. The Director asked me to hold out my hand because I thought we were �high fiving� � a male bonding action that I despise. But then to my surprise, he said, �No, turn it the other way. I have to slap your hand.� HE DID! He actually slapped the back of my hand! What the fuck? AM I TWO? I�m dumb-founded as to why? This is no way to treat an employee. I�m pretty upset about the whole thing and will talk with him Monday.

Well, I�ve been seeing the �girl� recently, again, personally and professionally. She also works for the same entity. When her boss asked her to provide an estimate for bike racks, she naturally came to me because I�m managing a large streetscape construction project within her District. Immediately, I instructed her to contact the appropriate department, the same department where the �by-passed� individual works, but she did not. When we went out to lunch, I instructed her on some planning theory, etc., and learned that she had not contacted the department yet. Later in the afternoon, I received a carbon copied email that had some forceful language written by her to the department and mentioned me. Sure enough, as soon as I read it, I knew trouble was heading my way. Later in the afternoon, another Director in a different department requested to speak to me directly. I�m on a roll.

To add further injury to my psyche, my brother called me to warn me that Dad may be calling me to pick him up from the nursing home because he doesn�t want to be there anymore. In fact, he was calling everyone on the phone list multiple times with my brother receiving the most phone calls, ten, by mid afternoon. It seems the night before, my father who cannot stand, move or pull up his own pants, made advances toward an 18 year old nursing assistant and spoke sexually suggestive and crude things to her and others. As a result, a male attendant has to be present when nurses help him. I can�t say this surprised me because he said similar things to my sister-in-law last July but was hoping for it to occur much later on, not within five days of checking into the facility. His mind is going as well now, too.

Although the nursing home added relief to some of our burden, the events above are paying a toll upon me mentally and emotionally. I shouldn�t let them because I�m really not the one causing the problems. Am I taking on their burdens and internalizing them as my own? Am I magnifying these problems when they shouldn�t be?

My running/training took a back seat this week due to stress and some other nagging injuries such as strained tendons and a painful lower back. Friday, I sought relief in crap food, chicken wings, many beers and gin tonics at the local dive, a place where I know the alcoholics names due to my increased frequency. Completely drunk, I drove home the few blocks when I should have taken a cab, then drunk dialed the girl. For me it was a booty call. She was with a guy, a name I didn�t recognize, yet decided to drive twenty minutes to my house around 1 a.m. Wreaking of cigarette smoke and gin, I jumped in the shower and threw my dirty clothes down the basement stairs, vacuumed and did a little clean-up. Realizing she wouldn�t be at my house for another hour, I left front door unlocked and went to bed naked.

When she arrived, she asked if she could take a shower then slipped into a little sexy number. The next morning, in my still drunken stupor, I said, �That was a nice little booty call.�
�If I had known this was a booty call, I wouldn�t have come over.�
Seeing the sexy little number on the ground, she knew exactly what it was.

Saturday, all day, I was in the recovery mode. I blew off running again and called my buddy, the pizza delivery guy, to send over an extra large pepperoni, chicken strips and a two liter coke. By Sunday morning, I finished the pizza but still have yet to go for a run.

Dressed in my running gear at the park with the cold winds blowing, I just was not motivated. Instead, I visited my dad at the nursing home, who fell forward off his chair within the first five minutes of my visit. Lifting a 200 pound guy off the floor was no easy task and he was oblivious to my difficulties to situate him back upon the recliner.

Why not increase your blood pressure? Prior to writing this entry, I completed my taxes and now will run on the treadmill and watch the Oscars.

But to end on a positive note during my trying week, the best thing that happened was receiving the chocolate chips cookies from MooseInKitchen! Immediately when I received the tightly, wrapped brown package in my mailbox, a big old smile appeared on my face as I popped a suspect, yet delicious, chocolate chip cookie in my mouth that temporarily cured some of my problems for a short while. Cookies taste so much better when someone makes them especially for you, even more so, when you don't know the person which adds to the delight and mystery. To me, her baking and mailing the cookies was a spectacular event in my otherwise ordinarily bizarre week. Go figure, a simple, chocolate chip cookie symbolically offers me some hope in this world.

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