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Ugh. I got scheduled for
five meetings at work today, all of them between 10:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., two of them an hour long and three of them half an hour long. There are two half-hour breaks in the middle of that, with the two one-hour meetings and one of the half-hour meetings a solid block from 11:30 to 2:00. I guess nobody wants me to have lunch today.
Okay, okay, I'm just being whiny. (Not that it isn't still a huge pain in the ass. I do have actual work to do.) I only ever eat protein bars for lunch at work anyway, which I can easily do during a meeting. But, whenever this actually gets posted, it'll either because I managed it during an ongoing meeting, or the meetings are why it's getting posted later than usual. The suspense is killing me!
Also: this kind of oversaturation of my day with meetings is not supposed to be what my job entails. I don't get paid enough for this shit! (Actually I get paid more than enough for what I do. Don't tell anybody. (Side note: I have actually never done the research to find out if this is actually strictly true. Perhaps I should.))
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I spent most of the evening last night watching TV shows. First, Shobhit and I watched the last three episodes of
Mr. & Mrs. Smith on Prime Video. JUSTICE FOR MAX! (Max is a cat. Was a cat. Spoiler alert!) I found myself very ambivalent about the contrived ambiguity of the very end, but otherwise found the show to be fantastic. God knows it's way better than the movie was.
Then I watched the two final episodes of
Sort Of on HBO Max in the bedroom. What a wonderful show, I'm so glad Laney recommended it. (She clued me into both of these shows, actually.) The series finale was kind of even-keeled and chill, but that was on brand for the show.
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Before all that, though: big news! I have booked flights for Barbara to come and visit us, over a very extended Easter weekend. She'll be here from March 27 through April 1, a Wednesday through a Monday. Technicall through Tuesday April 2, but her flight back is a re-eye that leaves at 1 a.m. Monday night.
This will be Barbara's first time back in Seattle since we flew her out here for Easter and my Birth Week in 2011. Thirteen years! I had long been thinking I may go back to visit her in Louisville this year, but we're shipping her out here instead for two reasons. One, it's just been too long, and I know Sherri in particular will be thrilled to see her. And two, I already told Shobhit that if there is any way we can make Toronto for our anniversary in June happen, then I'll scrap the trip to Louisville. I spent $373 on these plane tickets, but had I gone out there instead, I would have also had to pay for hotel stay and car rental, neither of which will I have to do now. This is the cheaper alternative, and actually makes more people happy on average.
I now hope to maybe visit her out there in Lousiville again next year. And if Shobhit and I can make Toronto the special thing we do for the 20th anniversary of our first date this year, I'll be much more okay with doing something a lot more minor for our anniversary in 2025.
I've even put in for PTO the four weekdays Barbara will be here, because why not? I need to burn through the ridiculous amount of PTO I have, and I already had four days' worth budgeted for use if I were going to Louisville. This will give Barbara and me lots of time to spend together, do fun things and maybe hang out with a couple of friends.
At first I was skeptical that Barbara would even agree to come, because many years ago she said air travel fucked her ears up too much and she won't ever do it again. But, the last couple of years she's flown to D.C. for brief visits, which surprised me; when I brought it up she said it was okay because it's a short flight. So, I really thought she might still not fly back to Seattle given a chance.
Still, I texted her yesterday at 8:54 a.m. to ask how open she would be to us flying her out for Easter. She texted back at 12:24:
I'd love to go! Well, all right then!
So then I got her on FaceTime last night, to settle up the booking. Annoyingly, after finding flight interaries on Expedia yesterday morning for as little as $311, they all went up on average maybe fifty bucks by last night. It just goes to show how quickly airfare can fluctuate.
(Ben, from Action Movie Night, who works for Alaska Airlines, informed us on Wednesday that Alaska is starting direct flights to Toronto
this year and when we looked them up there were direct flights for around $500! When I last looked they were closer to $700. Shobhit spent several minutes looking them up, which really made me want to book, but he wanted to wait. I'll be annoyed if we get stuck having to pay more, but, whatever. We'll see.)
Even getting the cost down to $373 (granted, with $27 flight protection that I paid for) meant having Barbara agree to an overnight flight itinerary on her way back home. There are no direct flights from the Louisville airport to SeaTac, so both ways she has layovers in Dallas. The layover on the way here is a bit tight, only an hour and 13 minutes, but on the upside her flight out of Louisville leaves super early, at 7:33, which hopefully decreases the chance of any delay. Her flight back is more manageable, with a Dallas layover of more than three hours. In the middle of the night. Barbara is 71 years old now so this concerns me a little, but she assured us she preferred this, where it resulted in her arrival in the morning, over a daytime itinerary that got her landing past 11:00 at night.
In any case, it's all booked! "I'm so excited," I told her. "Me too," she said. "I'm really excited now!" It's going to be really great to have her around again.
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EDIT: Beth canceled the second one-hour meeting! Hooray, I only have
four meetings today! And, I can eat something at 12:30. I'm sure you're all thrilled for me.
EDIT AGAIN: Dammit! Kevin decided the rest of us, who are all in the office today, should go ahead with the meeting without her. Never mind!
EDIT AGAIN AGAIN: Well, then at 12:30 Kevin decided I didn't need to be a part of that meeting after all. Then I went and took my lunch break without thinking to post this, which is why it's getting posted now.
It's still been too many meetings. Fuck meetings! At least it's Friday.
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[posted 1:06 pm]
