My feelings looked like that on Monday morning.

Three very fresh chocolate chunk cookies from the deli in our building, and a pint of milk.

Why, you ask? This may take awhile. SemperFi was (and still is) in trial prep mode. He discovered on Monday, when he was working remotely, that an expert's videotaped deposition had not been uploaded to our electronic file. He needed that depo so it could be edited for use as evidence. He asked me to call the number on the bottom of the invoice and find out if we'd actually received the DVD. Shortly after we hung up, I heard our paralegal discussing the same depo with him. I walked around to her cubicle after she hung up and asked if he'd asked her to work on that video. We decided that he'd asked both of us to do the very same thing, and I got irritated and blew off his request, thinking that she was handling it.

He called me a little later to find out what I'd learned. I told him that C. and I had discussed it, and that she was working on it, and I was working on something else. He got testy and informed me that C. was working on something else related to the DVD, and he repeated his instructions. I told him, "I'm trying to work on your damn trial notebooks." I could hear quiet gasps from all three neighboring cubicles, because that's not my modus operandi at work.

I got off the phone, told C. I was going downstairs to get some cookies and milk, and then I would make the phone call. Called the company. He was pretty sure that it had been sent, and he would check with both of his staffers and get back to me. Meanwhile, I looked to see who had uploaded the invoice to our file, and I emailed her to ask if we'd gotten the DVD. When she got out of her meeting with the office manager, she wrote back to say that it was in our IT person's cubby, waiting to be uploaded, because there are only two people on our staff who are authorized to do so, the IT was out on vacation, and her backup was out for other reasons.

I emailed SemperFi, told him that we did in fact have the DVD and why it wasn't uploaded to the file, and that I would put it on his desk. Then I called the videographer and let him know the DVD had been found.

It took me all day to (mostly) calm down from my outburst. The older I get, the longer it takes to recover emotionally and physically. I was still deeply weary when I got home, and Middlest could feel my crabby, jangly energy as soon as I walked in the door. I ate some leftovers, washed a load of delicates and hung them to dry in the garage, and spent the rest of the evening in my room, listening to podcasts and knitting.

On Tuesday, SemperFi needed me to try to fix a minor technical issue with Word on his laptop. I wasn't able to, but one of the paralegals was. I apologized for swearing at him. He said, "I don't remember you swearing at me." "When I told you I was trying to work on your damn notebooks." (Said with calm, rueful tone.) "Oh, that." He laughed.

He left at midday for an afternoon appointment, and I got some work done. After he left, the managing attorney came by my desk and asked, very quietly, if SemperFi was OK. I murmured to her that he was in trial mode, and that I'd sworn at him the day before. Told her what I'd said. She blinked, then laughed out loud and high-fived me.

I still haven't finished the damn notebooks, but I'm mostly done, and there's a huge trial set ahead of us, so even if that one settles over the weekend, I still have Monday to finish. And then I get to do another set for a different trial, and finish the ones I've been working on, off and on, since an earlier setting in March, in a third case.

I foresee a lot of cookie abuse before I go on vacation later this month.