I have to admit that – despite the fact that I am on the road one hell of a lot and I can never make long range plans because I never know when or where I’m going to be sent, and I quite often am required to give up what passes for any semblence of a life that there is a certain perk to being a consultant. I’m not talking about the frequent flier miles that accumulate to astonishing numbers in my mileage accounts so that if I really wanted to I could fly myself and several of my friends or family members to Europe first class (even though after all the travel I do, my vacations usually end up a backwards version wherein I take time off so I can guarentee that I can stay *home* and you have no idea how marvelous that can be. Trust me). Nor am I talking about the fact that I now know how to program most lower class clock radios that exist in hotels, or that I have learned the dozen different locations in different rental cars for the defroster, windshield wipers, and lights, as well as the fact that I can guess with remarkable accuracy which side of the car the gas cap will be located on as I drive up to the gas station without actually checking first. No, I’m talking about the fact that I get to find out just how weird places really are.

As I was heading through the cubicle maze on the third floor today, trying to find a conference room that was empty and had a phone, I saw something that made me do a doubletake.

You know how some places will have emergency things posted on the columns between the cubes? Fire extinguishers, or sometimes first aid kits? That’s everyday, run-of-the-mill things. You never give them a second thought. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a temporary defibrillator on one of those columns. No, I’m not kidding. In fact, enroute to yet another of those oh-so-fun and lengthy conference calls I made it a point to find that column and check it out again. It is there, with a little picture of how to use it.

Surely there must be some reason why this is there. I’m not sure which disturbs me more. The fact that someone thought it was necessary, or the thought that someone might actually use it. Okay, bear in mind the fact that I’m tired and this week has been extremely long and draining and it’s only Wednesday, but I can just imagine it. A man clutches his chest in the midst of doing copies and keels over. Someone notices, snatches the defibrillator from its handy wall pouch, first checking the picture and directions, and then proceeds to shock the hapless victim back to life, whereupon he (the shockee, that is, not the shocker) gets up and resumes his copying with a hearty “Thanks for the jolt, Joe!” And meanwhile as the lights flicker in the building, somewhere on the other side of the cube maze, someone looks up and murmurs “Oh, they must be jumpstarting Bob again”. Then she resumes typing – back to business as usual.

Am I the only one who thinks this is just the teensiest bit strange?

I finally found Girl Scout Cookies. Back when I was a Girl Scout, we sold them door to door. Now, you have to find a coworker with a daughter, or track them down in front of a supermarket or something. It’s been quite a challenge to find a Girl Scout to buy cookies from these past few years. But driving to dinner on Friday I passed a little stand on the corner with two little girls and their rather tired mom. I screeched to a halt and bounded out of the car, begging for them to tell me that they still had Thin Mints left. They did. Ooh, bliss. I got my stack of boxes and they’re in the freezer now, where they remain as I slowly dole them out, one by one, in my yearly attempt to see how long I can make them last.

Today I went out looking at houses. Oh, I’ve done this before a time or two – gone into a new set of model homes and wandered around, playing the ‘if this was my house I would do this’ game with friends. But it’s always been for fun, with just a little wistful wishing thrown in. Not so anymore. I had to gather up various financial paperwork to determine what level I might be preapproved for a loan. Seems a bit odd to be turning over personal information like that, but I understand why they need it. So it’s no longer looking just for fun. Now I’m looking with purpose.

I couldn’t have picked a better time to go house hunting. No, really. NOT. Sigh. Apparently in the last six months or so the market has swung sharply around. Houses now go on the market and are snapped up in a matter of days. What happened to that nice buyer’s market we were having there for a few years? There’s very few houses out there that are for sale. And I’m just not willing to settle for anything – I have in mind what I want and I’m in no hurry.

But it was a little depressing to realize that this is what I have to work with. Maybe if I wait a while the market will swing back again, but for now…..well, let’s just say I’m not holding my breath I’m going to be a home owner any time soon.

On the plus side, and a completely unrelated topic, my friends returned from Paris, and brought me chocolate. This is not your average, ordinary chocolate. This is the kind of chocolate that you savor slowly – because when you put the little piece into your mouth your eyes close and all you can focus on is this incredibly rich and sensual taste. I admit I’m a chocolate addict, but not for just any chocolate. Oh no. The darker the better. And my friends knew that, so what they brought me is so dark it’s almost got a bitter taste to it. I’m in heaven. This is pure bliss. You can’t get chocolate like this in this country. What we produce in the US pales in comparison to what Europeans make.

I need friends who travel to Europe more often. Hmm……

I was on my way out the door to head into work for a 7am conference call this morning, when I was paged with a call number and passcode. The call was starting an hour earlier than anticipated. So I took it at home instead of at work, since it takes me nearly an hour to drive there.

This was both good and bad. Good because I didn’t have to drive while half asleep and in the dark. Bad because when I’m at home, there’s way too many distractions. Since I’m not involved in all the conversations that occur on these conference calls, my mind starts to wander, and things come up. There was mail that needed to be sorted. I could actually get breakfast, if I ate it really quietly (since I had intended to grab something on the way). And then, of course, there are the cats.

Sebastian is about 17 pounds of pure muscle covered in short white fur that sheds like you wouldn’t believe, with about 3 working brain cells. He’s always seemed to be in his own little world, which is never exactly in sync with the rest of us. And he has this odd thing about me being on the phone. When I am on the phone, I am suddenly the most wonderful creature in existence. He must be near me. If he can at all manage it, he must actually be *on* me. This was one of those really good examples of why it is that teaching your kitten bad habits is just not a good idea. See, when he was tiny, we (my college roommates and I) would bend over and he’d hop onto our backs and cuddle in, purring happily. It was cute. It was adorable. We (idiots that we were) encouraged this. Fully grown now, he doesn’t wait for anyone to bend over, he just jumps. When seventeen pounds of purring cat hits your back with all claws digging in for better grip, you bend over really fast. Add to this the whole phone attraction. My friends know that when I suddenly make a strangled yell while on the phone with them, all they have to ask is “Sebastian?” and when I whimper, they know. They accept this. They understand. And I usually try to remember to keep an eye on him when on the phone now, or at least talk with my back to something so he just can’t get to me.

However, try explaining this to a group of people with whom one is having a conference call. I was sitting at the dining room table. I leaned forward to write something down. He saw his chance. By some great miracle of effort I managed to *not* scream out loud and got him off and onto my lap. I’ve learned after years of experience that he won’t quit until he gets what he wants, which is attention. And besides, I was wearing black jeans. This in itself was enough to make him happy to curl onto my lap and shed, purring away.

Conference call finally over (three hours later), I drove in to the customer site. And found out that today was “new hard drive day” and true to form, my computer decided that cooperating was just no fun. Let me back up a moment here. Last week, I started my computer and came upon what is currently my favorite error message: “Warning: Failure Imminent.” It went on to state that basically my hard drive was hosed, and I had better back everything up and soon. I found this all very amusing, simply because of the fact that this computer has already established that it is stubborn. I think the poor computer support guy probably cringes when he sees my name on a work ticket because no matter how easy it *should* be, on this computer, it never is. Whenever someone has to come in and work on it, I usually end up going over to work with someone else on something, and occasionally popping back to my desk to see how things are going. Invariably, the poor person who’s been sent to fix it is mumbling to himself and shaking his head. About two weeks ago someone came into the little room they’ve stuffed this development team into and went from computer to computer to partition drives. He had no problems til he got to mine. Of course. Ah well. When I left this evening the computer was up and running again, with no error messages. So far. Of course my browser seems to be malfunctioning, and there may be some issues with drivers or something, but hey, at least failure isn’t imminent anymore. That’s definitely an improvement. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Thursday and Friday I had to be at work much too early for conference calls – which mainly consist of me sitting on the phone adding in an occasional “Uh huh”, but I have to pay attention because every once in a while they ask me a question. I live about an hour away from the project site so that means getting up even earlier. And just because I really enjoy driving while half awake, I drove down to meet with friends for dinner both nights too. This was about a 250 mile round trip…..which is always fun at night when one is exhausted. It’s a struggle between my brain and me as to whether we drive or sleep.

BRAIN: I’m sooo tired.

ME: Yes, but we’re driving now. You can’t be tired. You have to focus.

BRAIN: Why? Focusing is boring. Check out what the road looks like when your eyeballs dry out.

ME: Hey! Quit that! Here. I’ll turn on the radio. Really loud. And sing. How’s that?

BRAIN: Boooooring

ME: Okay. How about this? Look left. Look right. Tap the foot. Open the window. LA LA LA LA LA LA!! Look left….hey, pay attention here. I’m trying to help. You think I’m not tired?

BRAIN: And who’s brilliant idea was it to do all this driving and no sleeping?

ME: Oh, shut up.

And so it goes. The good thing is, I haven’t crashed yet – or else maybe my cats have taken over and are posting journal entries for me, but I have a sneaky feeling that if that indeed were the case somewhere in here would be the mention of tuna and a job posting for someone with opposable thumbs who could scoop litter boxes and work the can opener.

I wish sleep was something that you could save up, like pennies in a glass jar, and then dip into whenever you didn’t get enough. I would get an huge jar and label it “Emergency Sleep Fund”. Then I could sleep extra late one or two Saturdays a month and somehow make up for all the sleep I’m not getting the rest of the time. The problem is that even when I *can* sleep late, I can’t sleep late. I feel guilty. There’s all these things I should be doing, you see. So I do things like set the alarm for a certain time that’s later than I usually get up, so just in case I sleep later than that, I won’t be overdoing it.

I have this alarm clock that I bought because it said it was extra loud. Something that makes little noises just doesn’t cut it. The cats make little noises. I needed an alarm clock that scares me awake. This one does. So in the morning I play games with myself. Only ten more minutes won’t matter so much – I can get away with swatting the snooze button. Of course then as soon as I hit it I can never fully go back to sleep. Questions start whirling madly in my head. Did I accidently turn the alarm off? How many times have I hit this thing already? How fast am I going to have to drive down the highway to get to work if I hit it again? Why is it that whenever I am just about ready to get up, all the cats swarm me in extra-cute and snuggly mode and make me feel guilty for getting out of bed? What is that noise down the hall that sounds like someone hacking up a – *hairball*? Wait! Not in my……..slippers. Sigh.

And having cats doesn’t help. Whoever said that cats walk on marshmallow feet never was owned by cats. Sure, cats are quiet when they are sneaking up on your dinner plate or dashing up from behind you when you are carrying something heavy to flop down in front of your feet so that you fall flat on your face in a vain attempt to avoid stepping on them, but at three in the morning after a particularly long day, they tear up and down the hall in some obscure cat race training, sounding for all the world like elephants in steel-toed boots. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love my cats dearly. But for some reason they always have the worst possible timing for when to keep me up all night.

I’m going to sleep late tomorrow morning. Or at least try. That jar of Emergency Sleep has been pretty empty these last few weeks and I’m beginning to realize that if I don’t try to remedy that and soon things might get unhappy.

But first I have this sudden, unexplainable urge for tuna.

There are ants in my bathroom.

Again.

Each year they come trooping into the house when it rains. I assume to stay dry, although there doesn’t seem to be any collective memory in the ranks because each year they get the same treatment.

First I try to ignore them. Only one or two here and there. Easy enough to sweep down the drain and tell myself that some venturing scout got lost and wandered into the wrong house. But eventually, they invade in force, and some morning when I am in a real hurry, or some evening when I come home extra tired, or some day when I’m not even here and the poor person who is stuck with feeding my cats that day walks in, there they are. Sometimes it’s the kitchen, but more often than not it’s somewhere else. The bathroom in the master bedroom. Or all over the cat food dishes.

It was just this scenario a few weeks ago when I came home and found the kitchen floor crawling with them. They hadn’t made it to the counters yet – just the floor. I’m not sure if I should be glad, or embarassed because what the heck was so fascinating about the kitchen floor and just when *was* the last time I mopped it anyway.

So I dutifully tromped outside into the pouring rain and sprinkled poison around the perimeter of the house. This usually works. They all disappear within days and everything goes back to normal…..at least until next year. And aside from the fact that I have now mopped that floor twice since then so there should be no trace of Raid anywhere left, I still find dead bodies. My kitchen floor has become the place where ants go to commit suicide. I can see it now – the little ants gathering around. “So where is Mel? I haven’t seen him in days.” “Oh, didn’t you hear? He went to……-” here the little ant pauses and beckons the others closer. ” – the Kitchen.” Gasps of horror and shock from the rest of them.

Except that this time it doesn’t seem to have worked quite so well. Because there are still ants in my bathroom. About 30 of them. And this is the weird thing. They have formed a little line directly in front of my sink….but I can’t quite figure out where they are going or where they came from. They are just there.

And I’m starting to feel guilty. After all, I can just imagine the little ants screaming “Can’t we all just get along?” when the Mighty Can ‘O Raid comes into their view. And I have to wonder if this is a little rebel group, cast aside when the Poison Ring Of Death was laid down outside….and they just haven’t figured out how to get home yet. Or maybe they don’t want to. Maybe they’re glad to be inside where it’s warm. I think perhaps it’s a testament to how tired I have been since I got home from my business trip that I have really only half-heartedly tried to remove them. In my sleep-deprived brain I ponder what it can hurt to just let them mill around in their little line – and then I actually try to avoid stepping on them. Well, sometimes I forget and then I feel a bit guilty when I see the smashed bodies and the rest of them scurrying around in a panic.

So here I am, stuck between ant murder and ant tolerance….and starting to realize that maybe if I got more sleep or at least more caffeine the choice would be easier.

Or maybe I’ll just get lucky and they’ll all make the choice, like lemmings, and go to die on my kitchen floor.

Because I found out on Wednesday that I was going to be able to go home early, I wasn’t able to get a flight out til Sunday. So I ended up with Saturday to kill. Call it a forced vacation if you will. I looked at it as an opportunity to sleep late, and then go wander in Boston. Ah, the best laid plans, or something like that.

A woman at the front desk of the hotel suggested that if I wanted to tour Boston, the best idea would be to take the train in because, with the Big Dig (which is apparently a construction project involving digging large holes under Boston and then stuffing the highways in those holes instead of above ground, but I’m fuzzy on all the details), they would be lucky to ever see me again from all the traffic. I thought this sounded like a truly marvelous idea, so, armed with directions printed out on a piece of paper and a train schedule, I set off to See Boston.

I know where I went wrong. I figured it out later. It was an easy mistake to make. The directions said take I93 south to 495 north and then take exit 41. The problem was, I didn’t see the 495 part. So I blithely toodled along I-93 south, oohing and ahhing at the scenery, until I found exit 41 off of *that* freeway.

Now bear in mind that if these places did not rely so heavily on exit numbers and instead believed in the power of named roads like us over here on the West Coast, I might have been better off. After all, the motto of Massachusetts seems to be “Street signs? We don’t need no stinking street signs. If you don’t know what street you’re on, it’s your own fault!” But I digress.

So there I am, driving along the freeway, which is flanked by trees that have been just beautifully frosted with the snow that fell the night before (and caused all sorts of delays at the airport and any other number of problems, but darn it all, I was a tourist and all I saw was that it was GORGEOUS outside!). And I see exit 41. So I take it. Next I am supposed to go to the 4th stoplight. No problem. I can count.

Gee, it’s taking an awfully long time to find the fourth one…..

And when I did, that’s when I knew I was truly lost. Because there was supposed to be something called a Wild Harvest on my left….and there was only a drug store.

No sweat! I park, hop out, and skip inside to ask for directions to the train station.

When one is met with blank stares when one asks for directions to the train station, this is when one knows that one might be lost. Truly lost.

So…..back I headed for I-93 south. It was far too late to turn around and go find the station that I was *supposed* to find, so I decided to be extra brave and just drive (gasp) directly into Boston. Couldn’t be all that bad, right? And then I saw it! A sign on the freeway that said “Next exit, Train”. Woohoo!

I should point out here the above caveat about street signs in Massachusetts. I had to go into another store to ask for directions because surrrrrre, it’s off that exit, but then the directions stop and there are no more signs at all!

But don’t fear, my friends. I did find the train station. Or one of them. And I got to experience parking in snow. A hint. Don’t accelerate. You skid that way. Wee!

On the train I sat behind a group of women and their very small children and was easily amused by their accents. Okay, so sue me. I’m from California. We don’t have accents out here. On the east coast, they do. I got to see more gorgeous scenery. I was on my way.

I have no idea where I was in Boston when I got off. There were lots of big buildings and I did spot a coffee shop or two. I did do a little bit of wandering, nervously clutching the little colorful map I’d been given that loudly proclaimed “Tourist! See? Here she is!” to anyone who took a look at me…..and then I did a stupid thing.

Slush looks deceptive. When it is surrounded by snow one might imagine that it, too, is relatively firm. And one could step into it with confidence.

Sploosh.

Back to the train I went with soggy icicles in place of feet. Back to the hotel to bake my shoes on the heater vent.

Okay, so I didn’t get to wander around Boston. And I got lost. But I’m not too upset by it. What I got to see was more fun anyway. I got to see snow. And beautiful houses. And snow. And hear accents. And see snow.

It was a good day.

We ended early today. It’s been a long week and we’re all tired and drained, and yet noone has lost their sense of humor. It’s a great bunch of people they have here. These are people who have been pulled in from all around the world, who have been flying to different spots around the country since early January, and have weeks more to go before they can finally be home again. They’ve been tasked with the rather weighty job of figuring out how to turn this piece of rather complicated software into a package that works perfectly with their systems….and in the meantime they are making business decisions, trying to streamline their processes, and all with very little knowledge of the product or how it works.

It’s snowing outside, too. When I looked up through the window, all I saw are trees and snow – gently falling snow. Oh, it’s supposed to get much, much worse – they’re predicting a storm that might shut down the airports tonight. But in the meantime it’s beautiful. I miss snow. I miss watching it fall through windows. I miss walking across snow and listening to it crunch under my boots. I miss waking up in the morning after a snowfall and looking outside to that perfect, brilliant white carpet, and the utterly amazing silence that seems to accompany newly fallen snow. Christmas just isn’t the same when it’s not white. Winter is never quite winter when you don’t see snowmen in front yards, or kids in snowsuits with hoods pulled tight and mittens dangling from cords strung through their sleeves.

On the way to the car it was like we were all back in elementary school. It’s been too many years since I’ve been outside in snow like that. Four of us stomped around, heads upturned, snowflakes dusting our hair and faces. We were giggling as we brushed off the windows and lights on the car. We didn’t stop grinning the whole ride to the hotel, peering out the windows, oohing. We decided tomorrow if it’s not too bad we might get together – those of us who will still be in town – and build a snowman. Or something. There’s no way we can pass up on this chance.

Maybe it seems silly to those of you who get to live in snow. But there’s something so magical about snow when you never get that chance. I keep looking out the window. It’s beautiful out there. Simply beautiful.

If only I had thought to bring some gloves with me…

I did get to see snow today, out the window as we sat around a circle of tables, laptops, and a tangle of bright yellow network lines discussing some minor but apparently extremely critical detail about the system this company is trying to implement. Turned my head and there it was, falling gently from the sky, tiny puffs of white. My brief glimpes of daylight come from that window. Otherwise I am seeing this part of Massachusetts in the dark.

And mind you, even in the dark, it seems to be a beautiful place. There’s lots of trees. There’s snow on the ground. It’s nice and cold. I like the cold. Okay, maybe I’m not exactly used to this cold out here, but I remember being used to it once. And there’s snow. Did I mention the snow?

The meetings during the day are long and fast-paced. They’re figuring out what they want their system to do; I and one other person are there to collect these requirements and carry them back to the development team. Some of the things coming down the pipeline are big, complex, highly convoluted bits of logic. I’m biting my tongue, itching to jump in with suggestions because when they toss out one of these ideas, it’s all I can do to stomp on my brain as it runs off and immediately tries to figure out the best way to code that thorny bit of logic. We’re talking requests that will take months to complete – requests that will make the developers involved want to pull out their hair. I’m nearly drooling, I want to start coding on them that bad. So what if it might be stressful and I end up working long hours and there will be times when I hate that stupid bit of logic and wonder who the idiot was who came up with it in the first place…but once it’s done there’s such a sense of satisfaction that the impossible has been made possible.

I could touch on the whole political aspect of this project but I suppose I’d better leave that one alone for now. Suffice it to say that it amuses me…..in fact, quite a lot about this project this week amuses me. I’m not so sure the other participants would be as thrilled by that statement.

Now if I could only get more than four hours of sleep a night……

I flew to Boston yesterday. Hit turbulence over Denver and felt queasy the entire second leg of the flight. It didn’t help I was in the very back of the plane, and they’d cranked the heat up back there. Waiting to leave the plane at the end took forever – one of those fun times when I sit there and silently argue with my stomach. No, you’re not queasy. Trust me. You’ll be fine. We’ll be off soon. Just hold on a little bit longer. I swear, it won’t be much more.

Made it to my hotel. It’s a nice hotel. What is there to say about it? It’s a hotel. When you travel a lot, they all start to look the same. A bed. A desk. A chair that adjusts – if I’m lucky. Try being short and sitting in a desk chair built for tall men. Typing with my hands up around my shoulders. Sigh.

Today was long. It went fast – at least at the beginning, but after the conference calls that stretched on til late, it felt like tiime was dragging. At the very least, being in the meetings and conference calls kept my mind off of what today was. And I did have fun after work, doing dinner with my coworker, finding a shopping mall, pondering different colors of really adorable boots, searching futily for somewhere that was open that might sell a network hub, discovering parts of New Hampshire that perhaps we really didn’t want to be wandering around at night.

It’s pathetic, I suppose. I love being single. I really do. So why is it that this one stupid day of the year I end up feeling so darn sorry for myself? It stinks. I really thought I’d be able to get past it this year, but no. I was online chatting to friends and people were mentioning what they’d done with their significant others, and it crept up on me. That pesky little voice in my head that loves to point out all my problems and faults and flaws and won’t go away.

It’s almost over though. Today, that is. Tomorrow things will go back to being happy and normal. It always works out this way.

I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning lately. Well, not so much cleaning as sorting through my house – going through closets and boxes and crates of things that I stashed because someday I’ll need them again. I find things occasionally that make me laugh, or make me wonder why the heck I ever thought I needed to save it in the first place.

This morning I found a box full of notes, and other things from college. I don’t remember doing this, but apparently at some point I sat down and took all the notes from my classes that I thought were ‘important’ and I organized them all into notebooks. Physiological Chemistry. Nutrition. Food Science. Physiology. Biochemistry. One notebook for each – some fatter than others. I’ve been trying to be fairly ruthless with getting rid of things, because lets face it, I’ve been getting cluttered. But these made me stop for a moment. I sat down and pulled a few of them out and looked at them.

It seems a million years ago I was in college. It was a completely different person who took those notes and transcribed them neatly for review at test time. For some of them, I used different colors, just so the information I thought was more important would stand out. Anything that would make it easier to get the data into my swiss cheese brain and keep it there so I could pass.

It seems silly, but I actually pondered keeping them. Finding a place to put the box, closing it up, and leaving it there. Sort of a link to the past, back when I was studying science, doing research, pondering becoming a professor and teaching, writing freelance reviews for companies. I’m not sure why. Nostalgia, mostly. Just a little box to prove that I really did get a degree, even though I’m not using it.

But I am being ruthless, remember? I am getting rid of things that I don’t need or use anymore. I don’t need these notes. I’ll never use them again. That box will just gather dust in some dark corner of a closet and years down the road I’ll have to make the decision again – save or discard. And ask myself why I kept them so long anyway.

Three years doesn’t seem like a long time. Only three years since I packed those up and walked away from graduate school to become a computer nerd. I have never regretted it. And so they went into the trash. I still have the memories. And that’s more important than a box of handwritten class notes anyway.