I'm so busy doing what I must do that I don't have time for what I ought to do... and I never get a chance to do what I want to do!

    It's raining outside. The last week has been sunny and warm--those beautiful spring days that make us believe that winter is truly over, our cold feet warmed for another several months, that there's actually a point to having windows in the car again. Today was particularly nice, almost 85° and bright with no clouds, until almost 8:00 PM. That was when the heavens opened up; we got about a half-inch in the first fifteen minutes. It's been coming down hard for two hours now.
     Tomorrow is Monday, and it will be very Monday. I'm on the "blue rotation" this coming week at work, which involves two major things: Risk Rating changes and Minutes. For an incredibly complicated (to this layman, anyway) "demystification" of risk rating in the industry, see this article. RRs are not a common-sense sort of thing, and the process of handling the changes is complex, non-sensical, and tedious in the profusion of steps involved. Minutes, on the other hand, are just plain awful. Imagine taking a text document with very few numerals printed on it (it is, in truth, an abstract of a committee meeting) and somehow converting it to math. With no examples to follow. And at least 14 different versions in a week. And, best of all, at least fourteen steps to be certain are covered. Um, what?

Princesses Rule

    Also this week: Cinco de Mayo, which means a potluck lunch on Tuesday. The good part: it's two hours of sitting in a conference room eating chips & guac and completely ignoring the job at hand. The bad part: it's two hours of sitting in a conference room with a bunch of other people, pretending to be eager to make conversation, while wishing I was doing anything but.
    Also this week: my six-month evaluation. Can you believe it? Six months on Friday since I moved household. I've been in the new job since Feb. 23, which really doesn't seem that long from that perspective, but in terms of everything I've waded through...holy crap does it seem like longer than that. I'm not sure what to expect from that evaluation, either, since it's going to be with my new-boss, rather than my existing-boss (who has put in her notice and will be leaving at the end of June) or with my old boss (for whom I worked from Nov. 10 through Feb. 20). In terms of accuracy and completeness of the assessment, I'm concerned. But, hey, whatever.

Divine Swine

    I'm listening to the rain, waiting for the polish on my fingers (OPI's "Princesses Rule") and toes (OPI's "Divine Swine") to dry. I don't know why I always leave it until Sunday night to try and polish my nails, but it seems like I'm up later than usual anyway so it's not too senseless. For what it's worth, the photos that I've included of the polish colors are NOT of my actual hands - which you can verify because I would never make a nail look like a sprinkled donut as in the Divine Swine picture!
    For extracurriculars this week, I'm meeting my second-cousin for dinner on Wednesday. The original plan was to go out for Mexican, but given the proximity to both Cinco de Mayo for real and the worky potluck version, I'm thinking that we might reevaluate that plan. Also on tap is a dinner out with my young work friend, The Giggler. She's at a crossroads in life, career, and relationships, and I've been trying to listen without judgment and help her figure out what's right for her (rather than what fits into my preconceived notions or anyone else's expectations). Easier said than done, but it will be worth it to see her happy.
     Next weekend is graduation for one of the local universities, as well as Mothers' Day. I will likely be sticking around home most of the time, with the possible goal of repotting and fertilizing the plants that I've been able to gather thus far. A portion of them are still in foster care nearby, until I find a house for them. Another group were in foster care, until the caregiver decided that "they are members of the family now" and that she's keeping them.
     Huh. Well. ...short of breaking into her house and taking them, I guess that's that. People are funny, aren't they?
     On the intermediate plan: buying a new phone. I think I'm overdue for an upgrade anyway, but it's time I get a unit with sufficient storage space for all the photographs I take, if nothing else. I had no idea, really.
     Aaaaand I just checked my bank balance, and discovered that I wasn't paid for two vacation days that I took a couple of weeks ago. Surely getting that credited isn't going to be a gigantic pain in the ass, particularly given the interesting hierarchy of supervisors that I described above. Yarghhh.

[the title quotation is by Robert A. Heinlein, from Citizen of the Galaxy]