Old Man River

My friend Kristen had this link on her blog. I’m going to see if I can embed the video:



I miss Jim Croce. He was one of a handful of things my mother and I could agree on, back when I was 20-something and knew it all.

It’s Wednesday, and I have slept, and this is a good thing. One of many in my life. Knit Night was perhaps even more restful ~ and delightful ~ than usual. My sock chose not to argue with me; I am maybe twelve rows from the ribbing on one sock and there on the other. BeadLady sat with me on the ride into work, and we chattered happily all the way into Dallas. She identified the beads I am using on the January Mystery Sock [Japanese, not Czech] and was pleased to see that the bead shop has them in stock again. Middlest gets paid tomorrow, and we are planning a field trip to the Wall of Addi’s on Saturday. She will be buying; I will be driving, as I have already spent my fun money for this paycheck.

Hey Middlest, if you can get the Moose to bring you over, I would feed you both brunch or lunch [coffeecake or spaghetti, depending on what time you got here and what I feel like fixing], and she could finish connecting my VCR/DVD player and the TV, and then we could all watch Dave. Just a thought.

I have hung out or showed up at Firstborn’s on three consecutive nights and have thoroughly enjoyed my time there, and I am feeling the need to not-go-anywhere for awhile. My goal for this evening is to come home and curl up with the materials I need to teach the Relief Society lesson on Sunday, and eat leftovers, and study. And the same for Thursday night, except for the visit from my visiting teacher(s), and Friday night. And on Saturday I should be ready to spend time with people again. I like people. I particularly like the people I am related to.

Work was good yesterday. I prayed that the one attorney would not have a tape for me to transcribe, and asked two of my friends to do likewise, and he must have gotten the message. I just sat at switchboard all day and fielded phone calls and typed drafts. I am nearly done with that, which is good, because I have a tape to transcribe for the other attorney, and it needs to be done by lunch today. And then I will polish off the rest of the drafts. I think by the time I am done, I will have typed about 60 drafts in three days. I have already gone through one and a half books of drafts, and there are 25 drafts per book, and I am about midway through a third.

This may not sound like a lot of work, but I have to make sure that the invoice has not already been paid, and that there is not a problem with the vendor which requires backup withholding, and that it’s not an expense which needs to be paid by the claims office directly. If the vendor is located in North Texas, it gets one code on the draft, and if it’s in South Texas [Austin, San Antonio, Houston, etc.] it gets another; other codes entirely for out-of-state vendors. And then the information from each draft needs to be entered into our system which tracks the expenses we incur on each lawsuit.

My personal goal is to have it all done, correctly and timely, and leave nothing undone for the secretaries. This is easier to do when I am not also answering the phones, pulling faxes, and flirting with the UPS man.

Ask me how little I miss sitting at the front desk. I am so glad that the receptionist will be back at work today; most of the local school districts had teacher inservice yesterday, and her kids are small. So she was doing the absolutely proper thing: staying home with them.

Must go hop in the tub. And then, I think, some cinnamon toast as a prelude to the real breakfast, which will be ... I have no idea. Maybe inspiration will strike while I am in the tub. Hey, it worked for Archimedes, right? [The philosopher, not the owl.]