Hi Ho Hi Ho, it's off to work we go!

I came to work at 7 instead of at 11, because Lana called in sick. She has MS, so we are never sure when she calls in sick if it is MS-related, or if she has a cold, or if one of her many children has broken itself again.

Barb was here when I got here, and she wasn't happy about that! Oh well, she's having surgery (again!) in a few weeks, so she will be recovering at home for a while and it will be a nice little vacation for her. Wont' it?

So I stopped at McDonalds on the way to work and brought in some hot french fries for Barb and I, to improve our attitudes. It would have worked beautifully, too, but by the time I got to work, I was having a giant fit of road rage because I was driving behind someone's sweet old grandpa, who was going about 10 miles an hour! I think it must have been one of the old guys Sando overheard in McDonalds last week, complaining about how dangerous airbags are, and planning to disable theirs. They won't be needing them, they don't drive any faster than they could walk with their walkers anyway!

I really need a do-over on the parking job I did, too, but all the spaces where I normally park (Princess Parking!) were full! I had to exit the close parking lot and go around the block to the (slightly) less close lot and I'm parked all wonky, but I didn't even care.

I haven't worked the early evening hours at work for a long time, and I forgot just how many calls there are, and just how many cheap phones with bad sound quality there are in the world. I'm sorry people, when you are using your terrible-sounding phone and also slurring your words together? You're going to need to repeat yourself, so don't give me a bunch of crap about it.

It's okay, I'm getting my zen back now. I'm taking a deep breath, I'm going to ...

Rachel's here! She just showed up at my office door, bearing tacos! She said she dropped Ash off at his first night of work and kept the car to take him a burger later, and she came over to see what was going on at the hospital tonight!

So we were eating our tacos, and I showed Rachel my list of things to do before Thanksgiving - because we're having company for Thanksgiving dinner - and she immediately started mocking it!

Guest Entry from Rachel

What’s really going to happen with Mom’s to-do list this month

This is Mom’s to-do list:

• 1. Paint upstairs bathroom
  
• 2. Buy folding chairs (that match!)
  
• 3. Find a couch
  
• 4. Get cat's bathroom ceiling fixed
  
• 5. Scrape and repaint dining room wall
  
• 6. Clean fridge

So she asked me if I thought she would get it done before Thanksgiving. After a moments consideration, I said she’d probably find a couch and maybe buy some folding chairs. Here’s my predictions for what will happen with the rest of the list.

She will go upstairs to paint the bathroom. She may even get the cans of paint up to the bathroom. At that point she will look around the bathroom and start getting overwhelmed and crazy and say she doesn’t know where to start. She will immediately turn around and go back downstairs and get on the computer, possibly to look up on the internet where to start painting a bathroom, but while she is down there she will need to check her Facebook.

While she is on Facebook she will either A) talk about how great she is for painting the bathroom or B) talk about how crazy and overwhelmed she is because she doesn’t know where to start with the bathroom. Auntie Di will leave some sympathetic/inspiring comments. Then, Mom will call RA and they will go get a hamburger and when Thanksgiving comes the paint cans will be tucked away neatly behind the toilet, unopened.

As for the dining room wall. By Thanksgiving, the hole in the wall over the piano where the paint is chipping off will be a little bigger because in an attempt to accomplish something on her list, Mom will start picking at it. She’ll pick away with her fingers till she can’t get anymore off and then she"ll get on Facebook and talk about all the work she’s done and that she’s exhausted now.

The fridge might get cleaned, but that will probably involve some fighting and finally Dad will clean it out one Saturday just so Mom stops talking about it.