Sneaking a post into this week’s thread just under the wire…phew! 
It was a busy week. My general workload has been pretty steady, plus I’m helping with a proposal (I was a proposal manager and writer in a past life) and those folks do not have their shit together. I’m the author for the four resumes that need to be submitted: two of the positions were only just filled, and they still don’t have a person identified for one of the positions. Oh, did I mention that the writing deadline is COB Wednesday? And the prop is due a week later? There have been a lot of related meetings and emails. It’s been stressful and frustrating, and reminds me of why I got out of the proposals game two years ago. I don’t mind helping with proposal stuff, and I even kind of like keeping a toe in those waters, but I’m never agreeing to lead resumes again. Anyway, in addition to all of that I had an optometrist appointment on Monday and some GI issues during the week (resulting in interrupted sleep), and then on Friday one of my direct reports — the one who helps with the “steady” stuff — called out sick.
Yesterday I got a nice break from my usual weekend slothiness and spent most of the day at a local Juneteenth celebration, helping to man my NAACP branch’s table. The weather was gorgeous…except for the wind gusts that kept trying to send all of us to Oz (and not the good “down under” one)! We nearly lost our tent twice, and had to go find rocks to weight down the handouts and some of the swag we were giving away. It was my first time meeting/working with the branch’s Membership Chairperson, and turns out she’s kind of a lot: WAY too chatty, a little high strung, and a bit of a control freak, yet not great with details or analytical/critical thinking. And one of those people who hears, but doesn’t always listen. She’s very nice, of course, and we got along fine, but doing setup with her was…interesting. 
It was a great event, though, and a really good Earth, Wind, & Fire tribute band played for the last hour; I love EW&F, so that was awesome. I’m hoping to work the same event again next year.
In the middle of the day I had my second tattoo removal session. The place was only 0.5 miles away from the event — and I didn’t want to lose my primo parking spot — so I walked to it and back. Despite the weight loss I’m still not in great shape, but I wasn’t winded like I would have been seven months ago; and, I did both walks in the time Google Maps thought I would (previously I’d have to pad those estimates by 50-100%). Nice little personal accomplishment for me.
Today started with 4 hours of proposal-related work: there was a quick status meeting for the writers, I did a little work on two of the resumes I’d already drafted, and I spent an hour interviewing one of the candidates who was recently identified because his street resume had zero details. After I talked with him I cleaned up his resume/the notes I’d made, and I sent it out to a few folks for review. At the start of the week I’d made plans to take my dad to lunch for Father’s Day, but Friday afternoon the status meeting got scheduled and by then I also knew that I’d need to spend some time on the resumes so I cancelled. It actually worked out in my favor, because we rescheduled for this coming Saturday and he and my brother are going to come here for dinner (vs me driving to Baltimore). I finished working at around 1:30pm, and have happily spent the rest of the day indulging my slothy nature (though I did do some laundry). And I’ve had the windows open, which has been really nice.
This week promises to be on the busy side again. Lots going on with the proposal over the next few days, plus my general workload is going to continue to be steady. And I will be out of the office on Tuesday: it’s primary election day — but only for one party in one congressional district within my county, which happens to be the district I live in, and I’ve been an election officer for the past couple of years, so I’m doing that again. It makes for a very long day (5am-8pm), but I like helping people vote and it’s only twice a year. Then, on Friday I’ll be leaving work early to go get a mammogram. Woo hoo.
Ever since I moved out of my ex’s with my then-puppy, I’ve had a constant low-level concern about what might happen to her if something happened to me. As she has gotten older, I’ve gotten a little more worried. If my ex and his now-wife can’t/won’t take her (I’m hoping they do), I don’t think she’ll have anywhere to go…and who is going to adopt a 14-year-old dog?? Don’t get me wrong: I am in no hurry to be without her. But whenever that time comes, my general worry level will reduce somewhat.
Speaking of the doggy, I am getting The Look. Time to take her outside, and think about some dinner for myself.
“In heaven there is no sex