A h#!! of a day in the neighborhood

I knew it was likely to be at least somewhat stressful, as I needed to work on and hopefully complete a trial notebook for SemperFi. So I ate a healthy breakfast before going to work and spent the morning swilling Cherry Coke and eating Keebler's Faux-Moas (the fudge stripe cookies). At lunch I went across the street and picked up a chicken teriyaki bowl and took it up to the rooftop patio in our building. Then I came back down to our break area and tangled until it was time to go back to my desk. (I knew that knitting was not going to cut it. I'll do some of that when I log off here.)

During the day, SemperFi didn't listen to me, OR the office manager in training, when we told him how to print certain documents. He went and got the IT person, who told him exactly what we had said, and he did it. The office manager in training (OMIT?) was quietly and visibly-to-me irate, as was I. She took a little walk to cool down. I took another swig of Cherry Coke, and when he returned to his desk, I said quietly, "I'm feeling a little frustrated. It took three women telling you how to do something before you listened." He's not normally like that, and he responded equally quietly, "Thank you for the feedback."

Later I told him, "You get really crabby when  you're in trial prep."

"Yes, I do."

Naturally, because I wrangled 400 documents into submission ~ it took 22 minutes to upload the folder to his outbox ~ the judge granted opposing counsel's continuance. I am magic. I should run for office. (My friend Tan says on the Murphy's Law ticket.)

The OMIT was still not quite herself by the end of the day. I was still simmering but no longer irate. At some point SemperFi remarked, "So you feel my pain." To which I retorted, "No, I feel you are a pain." Still later, I asked if he would be in the office tomorrow or working remotely. I hope I was able to keep the disappointment out of my voice when I said, "OK, see you tomorrow."

I flew my snark flag high and free today. I was definitely not nice. I was probably also not kind, although tipping tables over is certainly within the realm of possibility when you're trying to emulate the Savior.

I told SemperFi to go home and drink some wine tonight. Me, I will probably add a muscle relaxer to the usual evening meds.

The day did turn around for me, however. I took myself to Rockfish to eat some crab cakes homeopathically. They were stellar, as was the service. On the way out, I nearly collided with a younger couple at the door, so I held it open for them and wished them a good evening. As did they, to me. I said, "I'm going to go home and draw." The husband stopped, spun around, and asked, "Are you an artist?" "I'm learning to be. Right now I'm learning Zentangle." His face lit up. "I'm an art teacher in one of the schools. I teach my students to Zentangle!" So I had him take a picture of a page from the Facebook group I'm in, and I PM'd a moderator to be on the lookout for a membership request. Very nice man, and his wife is equally charming.

I'm going to put myself in timeout now. Later, gators!