Tuesday Evening

Today was a bad day. Started well enough, I was on time to the dentist and I only had two cavities. Small and easily-filled, though a bit critical; I have to return Thursday.

Got paged at the dentist. Even though I'd notified the notables where I'd be well in advance, they had not seen fit to share that knowledge. But hey, still not too bad, it was a minor thing and could wait.

Got to the lonely ol' North Campus and the place had not been plowed. But my car made it through.

And the guys showed up a few minutes later and plowed the place out, hooray!

It was all downhill from there. I was only at the place to get a load of scrap picked up. The salvage outfit could not promise an early pickup; my boss really, really wanted me Out Of There and doing usefuller things ASAP. In the middle of mediating that minefield, my celphone rang.

My Mom is back in the hospital. Severe shortness of breath and could I get over there soonest, please?

Added that to the series of e-mails and phone calls and got it okayed, once I made arrangements to have the salvagers call me when they were en route.

Looked outside to see if the plowing was done; it was. But the electric gate was shutting about a quarter of the way, backing off, waiting a minute and trying again, over and over. Got a shovel and drove the third of a mile to find big piles of plowed snow blocking the photocells that keep the gate from shutting on cars and trucks that get in its way. Shoveled it out, took the shovel back and got to the hospital where I am very pleased to report Mom was doing much better.

It's still something of a mystery what happened, though, and they are keeping her to run more tests.

Naturally about the time they decided to move her from the ER to a regular room and my sibs and such and I were told to stay out of they way for twenty minutes or so, which we did by grabbing a bite to eat, my phone rang. The salvage guy and not on the way, oh no, he was at the gate.

At least it was close. I wolfed down my burger and left with a cuppa coffee and a slice of pie to let him in.

...And swap e-mail with my boss, who had spent the last two days seeing the wheels coming off a deadlined project over and over, no matter what he did. As soon as the big truck left, I was headed down to the main Skunk-Working Facility to try to help get things back on track.

Which I think I managed, though not without a lot of frustration, particularly with a co-worker who went on vacation and left his part of the job half-done at best. Plus I worked over by a lot more than I intended.

Updates from my family helped with one worry -- Mom continues to do well.

Barely made it to the market to pick up some yummies for (I hope) breakfast tomorrow and arrived home three hours late to find Tam had had a lousy day, too.

On the good side, cats Rannie and Huck are -- ever so slightly -- playing together. This is a huge step for Rannie, who had been simply loathing the little guy, and something of a change for Huck, too, since he'd been bedeviling Rannie for the joy of making her cuss. Maybe they're starting to accept one another.

I sure hope tomorrow is a better day.