Work was intense. It's 11:30pm and I'm still a bit wired from it. Corporate bookings all day, air-car-hotel, over and over. The one interesting walk-in wanted to talk about Tahiti for a honeymoon but while I was doing some preliminary qualifying my boss barged in and took over the sale. The hazards of the job, I guess. The other walk-ins were mostly FTWs (you know, Time Wasters) wanting cheap fares to central Mexico. The kicker is, no matter how cheap it is it's never cheap enough, so we hate those kinds of inquiries. Doing a jillion corporate trips was a lot more satisfying even if I didn't get to give them any advice. I kind of enjoyed being insanely busy but I'm not very good at unwinding afterwards. Maybe I should take up chanting.
Or change my name. I love my name but it's still driving me crazy that people don't listen when I answer the phone, and address me as Susie, Shirley, Lucille, or Lisa. The next person that calls me Susie is going to get sent to Dallas to change planes no matter where they're actually headed. "Seattle to Portland? Sorry, you'll have to connect in Dallas. Yes, really. And don't call me Shirley!"
Eh, well, it's not so bad as all that most of the time. As I said, I'm still a little tense. The events of the week have not been soothing. And tomorrow doesn't look like it's going to be very relaxing, either. Bright and early, my cat Natasha (loser of the Clavamox Death Battle 2000 but winner of the Pissing in the Hallway War) and I are off to the vet to get an ultrasound done on her bladder. I've had it with this constant peeing. I don't think it's psychological, I really don't. So, since antibiotics haven't worked, we'll just have a quick check up to see if there's anything else going on. Naturally, I'm using my day off to get errands done, and this is just the expensive opener.
Around noon our so far absentee landlady is arriving to view her property. Panic! The curtains have been irrevocably shredded. We are going to have to take them down and hide them, then claim we prefer no curtains because it's so dark inside otherwise. Actually, this is true. We leave our curtains open all the time since no one can look in through the various foliage and fences around the property. But still, it's especially nerve-wracking because technically our lease is up this week. I don't know why but the lease runs July to July. Therefore, we are madly rushing about trying to hide the ravages of the sharp clawed Keiko and the pissy Natasha. I do not want to have to move again.
Then there's a brief window of opportunity to chill out before trooping off to Tom Becker's house for his surprise birthday party. I'm a little dubious about this as Tom has never struck me as the sort of person to enjoy a surprise birthday party. I suppose one can't tell. I worry, though. This could all end in tears.
Thank god I have nothing at all planned for the rest of the weekend. At most, a bit of puttering around with HTML (I'm still woefully behind on the archives). Mainly, though, I plan on reading for hours at a time. I'm looking forward to reading the second volume of Tad William's Otherworld series when I'm not reading the end of Ned Rorem's latest autobiographical installment, or any of a dozen books I bought last year and only recently unpacked. My brain is beginning to congeal from spending so much time focused on planning travel. I think I need to sign up for night school and get my neurons revved up again. In fact, I think I'll go look at what Foothills College has to offer right now. I really do mean to keep working on my degree, after all. Even if I'm 70 when I graduate.
Maybe they have a class on chanting. Om om shakalaka om.
