And How Was Your Day?

Today was my first day back to work in awhile. It sucked.

Did I mention that I'm in Pittsburgh? Nothing against the fine people of Pittsburgh (less the ones on the road that thought I should be burned at the stake for being on the PA roads with OH license plates). But forget about that for now. Let's go back to the beginning. That would be at 4:30 this morning when my freaking alarm clock started going off.

Yeah, 4:30. In the morning. Even the neighborhood punks aren't out at 4:30 in the morning. I got up, got ready, packed up my car and I was pulling out of the driveway at 5:30. I actually made it to my boss' house five minutes early! Yeah, he was surprised to see me. On time I mean. I told him to mark it down because it probably won't happen two weeks in a row.

Most of the drive to Pittsburgh was ok. At least until that pesky sun started coming up high enough to blind me. Geez. Yeah, can you tell I'm not a morning person? Then the construction hit. It was everywhere. We slowed to a stop about 1/2 hour before our final destination in Pittsburgh. That 1/2 hour ended up taking us over an hour. I guess that's not too bad but I was white knuckling it and holding my breath through most of it. In one construction zone, we actually went from FIVE lanes down to the ONE lane in the middle. Check my hair, baby. There are a lot more gray hairs in there than there were 10 hours ago. How do people live like this?

Then, after the news of the poor souls in Los Angeles with the fiery crash in the tunnel on Interstate 5, it occurred to me that Pittsburgh has almost no roads. There are bridges and there are tunnels. That's it. If you can't go under it, you must go over it. Did I mention that I hate bridges and I hate tunnels twice as much as that. I tried to close my eyes and put my hands over my eyes when we went through the tunnel but for some reason, my boss wouldn't go for it. What? Like he couldn't be a human being for two minutes and lean over and grab the steering wheel from me? After all, I did drive the rest of the way and fought all that traffic. C'mon now, help a girl out.

Anyway, I made it to the audit site, a little frazzled, but I made it. We are in a conference room in a warehouse where the documents are stored. We are not allowed anywhere in the building but this conference room and the bathroom. Trust me, it's hard to decide which of the two rooms smells worse than the other. Ugh.

So back to the grind. I'm trying to think positively but it's hard. There's not much nice to say about this whole experience.

To top that off, I noticed shortly after I got here that my right hand is swollen. From about two inches above my wrist down to the big knuckle where my fingers start. My fingers don't seem to be swollen, but the rest of my hand is twice the size it should be. Don't know what that's about.

To finish the lovely visual for you, let's talk about the hotel. It's a decent hotel, the chain we usually stay at, and it's one of the nicer versions of this chain. I give this trip a point for that. However, upon check in, with my bag, my laptop and my 12 pack of Sprite Zero, I take the elevator up to my assigned room, # 502. I open the door and start to walk in and what do I see? I see sheets all over the floor, I see water bottles on the tv stand. I was afraid to look any closer than that.

I took all of my stuff back down to the front desk. I did tell the nice lady that I hate to complain, but I really must insist on cleaner sheets for my room! She was so apologetic that the room wasn't ready, as in her system it showed the room had been cleaned today. Surprise! It wasn't.

No big deal, within a minute, I was given another key to another room just down the hall from the first one, this time it's room # 510. This room is very nice. A few amenities that I haven't seen before such as this work desk on wheels! When not in use, it almost goes into a wall to be out of the way. When I want to blog (or work) I can pull it out and face it to the TV or to look out of the window or to where ever my heart desires. That's cool.

Then it happened. I had to go to the bathroom. Just as soon as I sat down, what did I see in front of me? ME! There I was, in a full length mirror, in all my glory. Let me tell you, I watched me do stuff no one should ever have to watch another human being do, let alone watch themselves do. I may have to rinse my eyes out with Clorox before the night is over! Why would someone put a mirror there? Oh my goodness, I couldn't make myself look away.

I'm ready for Monday to be over and to get on to Tuesday. I'm going to soak my swollen hand in the ice bucket for awhile then I'm taking a shower and going to bed. Maybe tomorrow I'll go buy a hammer and a couple of nails and nail up a towel over that mirror in front of the toilet. Oh help me, I never want to see THAT again!