I caused trouble in meetings today. First I asked what the change management process was going to be - again. And yet again, I got no response. But hey, I have to keep asking. People know I'll ask. They expect me to. Heh. Then I asked when design would freeze. The wishy-washy answer didn't satisfy me, and so I pressed until they admitted there *was* no freeze planned. Then I asked just what it was that I needed to do to escalate the design freeze. Ooh, the looks I got for that one!

Yeah, me bad, but hey, can you blame me? I'm getting thumbs up and high-fives from people in the halls. I'm such a rebel. Here's where this whole 'can't do it without her' position I hold comes in handy. It's not like they're going to get mad and decide to boot me off the project. They know better. Besides, I'm not always a pest. 99% of the time I'm actually quite helpful. It's just every once in a while I can't stand it any longer and I have to speak up. I have my favorite soapboxes, see, and I keep clinging to this hope (silly me) that if I holler long and loud enough, someone will eventually listen to me. I'm sure it will work. Honest. One of these days.

I shouldn't be too hard on them - the poor confused souls. It's not their fault they don't know the answers I'm looking for. It's the fault of the ones who are higher up the food chain who are leaving the rest of us dangling. But still, I get such perverse delight out of making management squirm. Remind me of this when I move into management and someone does it to me, would you? I'm sure I'll need the wake-up call at some point.

I got home late - a trend that seems likely to be the norm for the next few weeks - and my arrival was even later due to the necessity of stopping at various stores to get critical items. Food for me. Litter for the cats. And while wandering the aisles I found something else I had to bring home.

Six tiny practice golf balls are now careening madly around the living room floor. If I stop typing and listen hard enough I can hear the miniature whiffle balls whacking into furniture, followed closely by the skittering of claws on wood. The little holes in the balls mean that they can be scooped up with a clawed paw and tossed - an added dimension to the normal 'bat and chase' theme of most of the rest of their (5,378) toys.

I'm sure by tomorrow morning all six of the balls will have been rolled underneath furniture that will require me to get down on all fours with a yardstick in some torturous position to retrieve them, all the while accompanied by a chorus of plaintive beeps from furry bewhiskered faces. But it's worth it. Really it is.