Tales from the Steppes

2006-06-22

11:30 p.m.
Thursday, June 22

Yesterday's lovefest with the auditors really wasn't that bad. Yes, it was long - 3 1/2 hours worth of questions. But since I knew the answers to the questions, it really was not all that stressful. One of the things that took away from the stress was the knowledge that the people questioning me knew nothing about planning and our process. My employers, in a dazzling display of stupidity, sent a guy from the Fraud, Waste and Something Else group and a woman from the central legal office, to try to figure the mess out. Neither of them knew anything about the environement, how we look at plans, or even what was on a plan. Hence the 3 1/2 hours of questions.

In preparation for the meeting, I rode my bike to work. I wanted to make sure I not only looked my best but really smelled good too. Actually it was just a stress reduction measure and an attempt to get a bit of exercise. It seems rather pathetic to me that I live 5 miles from my work yet still take a car. During the school year I might have an excuse but not the summer. Of course, I was not truly aware of how much I had sweated on the journey in until I went to change back into my biking clothes to go home. Ewwwwwwww! Hopefully I will be able to do this at least a couple of days a week - days that I don't have presentations or am spending the day sweating out in the field.

Like tomorrow. I will be serving a buffet of O- to my good buddies, the squidders, for most of the day. Unless there is a thuderstorm or lots of rain. In which case I will just sit in my cubicle and work on the 3' tall stack of plans I have to review.

The YM and MM baked me birthday cakes today and even decorated them. Very sweet of them and the babysitter to do so. Of course, I had to clean up the kitchen after them but I guess that is par for the course. The EM called me at work from the beach, which was also a lovely thought. She asked what I wanted and I originally said "Nothing" but then remembered how it always sucked, that feeling that you couldn't get your parents anything you really wanted to give them. I guess "For you to clean your room" is the real answer but that is a sucky thing to say. So I thought fast and said
'A white puka shell necklace". Not that I actually want one or anything but it is better than her spending her money to buy me yet another stinky thing of bath oil (mmmmmm, strawberry!) or a box of salt water taffy or perhaps even a snowglobe with a beach scene and a flamingo.

No progress at all this week on divesting myself of responsibilities. I haven't even told the SU about my major ball-dropping. We had a more pressing issue come up. The SU has a bunch of growth thingies on his face, with one that I have been pressing him for some time to see a dermatologist about. Now he found out through reading some research that there is an extra-special variant of his genetic cancer situation that includes skin cancers, exactly like the growths on his face. Especially the large one by his eye. Seems that in normal people, these skin growths can be mere annoyances. With him, it may be several types of malignancies, including carcinoma. So tomorrow he is having a biopsy done and we will just have to see from there.

Which in a roundabout way reminds me of how and why I got into this situation. Which does change my choices.