Bored!! Bored bored bored bored!!! in shiny things

Fortunately for my office mates, I just play quietly online when I'm bored, instead of shooting holes in the walls.

I'm trying to enjoy this lack of anything whatsoever to do, since next week will not be like this. Actually this could stop at any moment and we could be hurled into Very Shorthanded Mode with no advance notice, thanks to.. who else!! Aggravation Receptionist. Her daughter in Texas is having a baby. She's due next week. So AR scheduled two weeks off ages ago to go to Texas when the baby is born. Next week and the week after. Which is fine, even I have to admit that AR is allowed vacation, and her daughter having a baby is a big deal. I'm not sure how she has the time to take, but whatever- that's really none of my concern.

What is kind of... aggravating .... is that we just found out today her plan is not necessarily to be gone next week and the week after, although that's what she put on the calendar and what we've all been working around. Her plan is to take off the minute her daughter goes into labor, and that's when the two-week clock starts ticking. Her daughter could go into labor pretty much any minute, so basically she could be out of here any minute. She could leave today, she could leave two weeks from now. Who knows!

And apparently she was just going to vanish if the baby arrived early, since we only found out her plans were so fluid today, and only because Mr. Organized booked a last-minute really really insanely cheap cruise last night (he and his partner looooove cruises, and are even booking agents themselves on the side) during the week of our Easter holiday. And by "insanely cheap", I mean $200 each for a week's cruise to the Caribbean, and they had to go ahead and book it last night and he thought nobody else was off, but didn't have access to our calendar. (I admit to being a bit surprised since Mr. Organized is usually the organized one - obviously- and I always note on my iCloud calendar whenever anyone else is taking off so I won't plan anything myself)(But even Mr. Organized is human, apparently)

His cruise did not interfere with AR's previously scheduled two week vacation, as she was supposedly going to be back that week, and he remembered that. But it does conflict with the Friday I'm taking off to go to NY-- the 26th. That would not be a big deal, since AR and New Girl would both be here. However, it turned into kind of a big deal when AR says, "oooOOoo, but I may not be back from Texas by then!!"

And we're all like, "ummmmmm...... what?!?"

And THEN we find out that she doesn't really know when she's going and she doesn't really know when she's coming back and it's just all going to depend on when her daughter goes into labor!! She'll be gone two weeks, though!! Some random two weeks that could start tomorrow or weeks from now!!!

So Mr. Organized felt awful as it might mean stranding New Girl by herself that Friday but he already has the tickets so too late to do anything about it. Poor New Girl is being very cheery about it (she needs a better name and I need to mention that she is wonderful and although I do miss Miss Artsy, New Girl is doing about a gazillion times better job) and it may not happen that we are ALL gone the same day, but, who knows!! AR can apparently just come and go for two weeks as she pleases!! With no warning!!!! And we've all been trying for months to schedule our stuff around her two week vacation, but apparently we shouldn't have bothered.

I totally understand that she needs to go see her daughter and new baby, but it's not like she's going to make it before the baby is born anyhow, since it's a 15 hour drive. It seems like just making plans to be there at some reasonable point afterwards would make more sense, and certainly would cause less massive problems with our schedules. I know, I know-- I don't have kids or grandkids so it's easy for me to issue pronouncements about what she should do. It's just typical AR behavior.

And now I have to go. I'm actually going to Asheville after work, because one of my dad's cats, the lovely Simon who Baker B and I rescued along with his sister from Baker B's parents' insane cat-hoarder neighbors 13 years ago, has an overactive thyroid. I took him to the vet weeks ago to get bloodwork and just got the verdict last night. He has to have two pills a day, which can be ground up and put in his food, but considering that Daddy can't hear, insists he can hear perfectly fine, won't wear his hearing aid, and gets pretty much everything anyone tells him wrong, I feel like I really need to go get the pills and the pillcrusher and the details myself, and then I can show Daddy how to do it. Hopefully it won't be too big a deal.

I'm just glad the timing on that has worked out. I'm taking off work tomorrow, but Simon will have to have more bloodwork in two weeks which means I'll probably have to take him, which means I'll probably have to drive down there after work one day (VERY conveniently, and very oddly, the vet stays open till eleven at night) and then just drive back up here the next morning for work (an hour and a half at best each way). But, who knows since we don't know when AR will really be gone!

Well, I'd post a picture of the lovely Simon, but Flickr has undergone some big idiotic change and I can not find the URL anywhere. Oh, wait, I can do it via FB. That's really annoying, though.

Anyhow, behold Simon, yes, sitting on the table, watching me eat breakfast: