Every so often, it’s good to be reminded...

... where I came from and how far I’ve come. Specifically, how many years I have spent answering the phones in one office or another, and how much I enjoy being a secretary, with freedom to move around the office without the need to radio for backup if nature calls.

Love it, love it, love it. Spent an hour or so at switchboard, fielding calls, pulling the incoming faxes, rejoicing in the fact that (now that I am capable of generating masses of virtual paperwork all on my own, or at my attorney’s request) I know the difference between an affidavit and a subpoena (have known that for years and years, actually), between Requests for Production and Requests for Admissions, between something that needs to be handed over, STAT!, and something that can wait until tomorrow. [I also know the difference between my ear and my elbow, just in case any of you were wondering.]

When I take a call at 4:49 from opposing counsel, particularly the officious ones (thankfully, there are few of them; we practice civil law, after all, and most of them are, well, civil), I am sometimes tempted to say, “You know, nobody wants to talk to you. Please hang up and try your call again. Preferably after switchboard is shut down for the day.”

I look forward to the day when snarky thoughts like that do not even enter my mind. I think I will have been dead for a very long time before that happens. I do not think I will be instantly angelic once I cross that line between quick and dead. I think I will still be feisty. I hope I will. Just increasingly less snarky. Less snarky = ambling towards angelic, right? Right?

I actually enjoyed my most recent stint at switchboard. I told one of my fellow secretaries (!!!) as she scooted out the door, “You know, I can smile like this and mean it, because I don’t have to do this again tomorrow.”

I was also grinning because my desk was clear, there was nothing in my virtual inbox or outbox, and I could start the draft of this post between calls. (One of the very few things that I miss about working the front desk; on the other hand, I stay so busy doing all this new stuff that I rarely have that horrible “can I just chew off a paw and get out of here?” feeling.)

I have officially gone over to the dark side. I brought home half a dozen Lean Cuisines from the freezer case. Right now I am eating a modest portion of pot roast with veggies, some of which I don’t remember Mom roasting with hers. I am getting strings in my teeth from the celery, and I am remembering why I don’t like celery. The flavor is fine; the inadvertent and semi-painful flossing is not. And green beans should be served alongside pot roast, not mixed in. It’s also saltier than I would like. But the meat is flavorful and reasonably tender, and the potatoes, onions and carrots are perfect. In about four more bites I will have the pleasure of mopping up the last of the gravy with a slice of whole grain bread.

So, overall? not bad. I’m putting it on the definite-maybe side of the balance sheet. And I’m going to have one perfectly ripe Roma tomato for dessert.

Tomorrow is going to be really cool. And not only because we are likely to have rain overnight. Tomorrow is a swim day, and tomorrow night I get to go to a party for one of my friends who just earned her masters in social work. There will be hula dancers, and if rain does not force us to the alternate location, a fire juggler?!

Could my life possibly get any better?