Today was a mix of I don’t know what. I assuaged my soul a little today by telling my supervisor what an unprofessional dolt that classmate of mine is (the one I mentioned in my 2/18/03 blog). Thankfully my supervisor took me seriously and I can take further measures at any time I wish. He appeared to be very supportive and that relieves a lot of the tension I felt over this problem. I didn’t want to acquire the wrong kind of reputation around the office because that could damage my career down the line, and I also wasn’t prepared to let this problem individual know who complained because I can’t be sure how he would react. So it is nice to know that I have the opportunity to take action at any time I wish. In the meantime, my supervisor offered to work it out so that this problem classmate and I are never paired together again during the rest of training. So far, so good.

Yet most of my day was wasted for no apparent reason. First we had to sit around from noon til 2PM just to be told that the rental cars we need for our practical examination on Monday through Wednesday are ready, and that we can invite five guests to our graduation. Oh, the government at work!

Then Todd and I were supposed to run some routes this afternoon and do some advance work on a site we’re visiting during the practical exercise. Well, the site is a cemetery. And guess what? You can’t even get in there because of all the snow!!! What a disaster!!! We tromped around in the snow in our suits for about a half hour, trying not to fall on our tushies and still find the gravestones. That didn’t work.

So then we start driving our routes. Whattya know? We get caught in rush hour traffic and somehow get trapped in downtown Washington. By our fifth try, we somehow managed to depart the city. And thus we gave up driving. I came home. And so there I remain.

I should be working on my “homework” right now, but I can’t seem to concentrate on it. It seems that every day after work I am destined to have a bone-crushing headache. Somehow that is not conducive to working on, well, work. Who knew?

At least yesterday I was able to enjoy a nice cold beer before the head rush began. And it was a delicious beer to boot. I was telling my coworkers that I haven’t had a beer that tasted SO good, or was SO needed as the one I drank last night. It wouldn’t have mattered if I was drinking sludge water tinged with vodka, it would have been fabulous! There was something so deep-in-the-bones relaxing about that beer that I think it may go down as one of the best things I’ve ever drunk in my entire life. Now if only they could bottle that feeling up and sell it in the mass market. I’d give up my firstborn, Rumplestilskin.

In other news, Vincent was in New York today. My papisan is now in place and I imagine that it looks quite at home in our empty living room. At least the guest bed is also in place so we don’t actually have to fight over who gets to sleep in the papisan. I think the only person who is frustrated by this new arrangement is our little baby, Daisy (our kitty cat). She thinks that we have gotten rid of her chair – which was the footrest for the papisan. Won’t she be surprised when we box her up and ship her out to New York!?? (Oh yeah, and she’ll also be more than a little pissed off.)

Anywho. I have now misplaced my desire to write any further. Email me if you want to talk – just don’t expect a response. It’s all about monologues, baby, monologues.

Talking to myself,
Ryan