“Forty days and night,” it rained on Noah. I remember taking my first college class on the Old Testament and learning that the number forty was not to be taken literally, it meant a lot. For the first time in my life, I get it. Forty days and nights are more days and nights than I ever want to do in isolation or punishment. It is a lot.
While I have lived in Oregon since 1996, we have had a few brushes with forty days and nights of rain, but unlike now and for poor Noah, we could go on vacation and out for dinner and see a movie and see a show. Flooding and moss build-up being the most significant risk and ruined gardening as you watching the rain beat the seeds for your garden out of the ground! We had choices.
And there was another saying, one only at Nike and only in a small part of the computer group, “We love Fridays, there are only two more working days left in the week.” Back during the time we replaced Nike’s main systems, we worked a lot of weekends to get computer systems ready by Monday. Our director, Rick, came in on Saturday to “catch-up.” He would work a half-day and then often another half-day on Sunday after church. It was his saying and we loved him for it. We would stop at his office and chat. Rick understood.
Now, with us all working at home it is hard not to keep going to “catch-up.” The days seem to filling-up with work with life being then put on hold. Yes, Susie sees me all the time now. She sees me sitting in a chair on video conferences. It feels like we are on the ark and I say, “Let’s go look at the bow and watch the waves, again.” Susie sleeps in on the ark.
I bring some order to chaos. I get up usually about six, make breakfast, take my medications, and read my email and the news before logging in on my shoe company computer. I have to take the Nike computer, open it, plug it, and logon–this is my “driving to work.” On the shoe company computer, I try to catch-up and respond to the crisis of the moment. I send out requests and give status. I then leave all of it and shower and dress (always shaving). Video conferences and calls and emails, oh my.
I often order lunch in the middle of the various meetings in the late morning, often turning off the video at a conference so I can order it online. Many meetings are status type meetings, and once you cover your part, you starting catching-up on other work, including ordering lunch. For me, I want to support our local eateries and so I usually have nice lunches delivered from my favorite local places.
I move to a different location in the house to eat my lunch. I usually have Bloomberg running all day. The finance news is interesting and important to me (401K and retirement earnings). While eating, I listen more carefully and read more news and emails that are for my home account. I check the virus number on how the death rate and infection rate are for the USA. I wait for the numbers to down. I imagine Noah often felt the same way with his doves.
The afternoon is when Susie gets up, once in a while she will get up in the morning. I have no reason to complain that she loses her morning as we can’t go anywhere and I think I would love to sleep in too. When she makes her appearance, I stop what I am doing for Nike and get her coffee (sometimes having to make more–why are my hands shaking, I drank all the coffee!) and ice water for her pills and something for breakfast. Work goes on with me reading and sending emails and doing processes and actual computer work. I will then get out something for dinner and even start it. Again, turning off the video and listening while I work a bit on dinner.
I often take a break in the afternoon if I am stressed. I go to the bedroom and read for half an hour. Often the phone rattles a lot and wakes me if I nod off. Usually, I am “reading” for about thirty minutes at a time. The phone is very busy with messages and news. CNN and the New York Times usually are reacting to the daily President Trump statements and make my phone jump!
I knock off work when meetings are done, and my issues can be put to bed. If I hit five, I try to stop working as I need to get dinner going. When I stop, I take the Nike computer, shut the laptop, and move it aside. This is my “drive home.”
I keep mostly to this pattern, hope I did not put you to sleep, and it keeps me healthy and sane. I try to slip in a trip to the store and a walk, but of late it has been 7/24. Maybe next week I can catch-up on that too.
So we can now say, “We love the fortieth day, as we have only that many more to go.”
Today was full of panic and chaos at work. My big issues were fixed and a new set of issues surfaced. It is like the game whack-a-mole right now.
Today was the first time I got to sleep most of the night. I had my phone under my pillow and it went off at only a few times. I slept in as I had no early video conferences. Of course, my software upgrade broke and we had to ask the vendor to fix it.
I was happy to make my own lunch. Poached eggs, two, on toast with canned corned beef hash fried. As we were working the break, I was poaching eggs and trying a most excellent repast. I broke a process and ate it while working.
(here is lunch sitting on my laptop keyboard with the messages on the issue on the screen)
The day ended with a huge department Zoom meeting, more than 100 people. Everyone had interesting backgrounds, mine the Doctor Who TARDIS control room. Most of the discussion was how proud leadership is of us as we continue to keep going. There is, a questions was asked, and ETA for us to return to our offices in Nike. At least forty days was implied.
I got Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake Pizza for today. I order it on my phone. Except they lost one of my pizzas. So I had to get close, all of us masked, to show them I had a real order. They re-made my lost pizza. I watched the process from the outside. They handed me my pizzas (masked and gloved). I told Corwin and Susie I risked my life for their pizza today. Beer and pizza today.
I took a nap, my usual reaction to beer and wine now. I got up and watched La Traviata on the Met Opera website. I missed the original broadcast years ago. The Met is showing one of its recorded operas a day on its site for free–I used to take Susie to the theater for these. Her mother Leta would be in Michigan watching too.
I hope to finish it tonight after I post this blog!
On Easter, we took picture of a bird’s nest in our door behind the wreath. The little eggs, despite being banged by the door open and closing (scrambled?), hatched. We have our small birds, and they will fly away before we will, just like what happened to Noah!
It was reported today that just under two-thousand people were taken from us by the virus in the USA. The Lord’s Prayer seemed the right choice for today.
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