Life Is What Happens When You Make Other Plans

The plan was simple: 

• Take about 2 weeks off from work through to the end of the year and get stuff done around the house,
• Return to work on Friday, January 2nd for "clear the decks" day: catch up on e-mails and memos, put out a few random fires (metaphorical, I assure you. There's a good reason why I am no longer the fire marshall for my floor.) 
• Hit the ground running on Monday and start getting stuff done for a brand new year.  

Life apparently had no use for those plans. 

• Various other errands and tasks kept me away from my "to do" list during my time off. 
• On New Year's Day, I came down with a cold. I trudged into work the next day but I spent more time trying to clear my stuff nasal passages instead of "clearing the decks" as had been my intention. In fact, my face hurts like crazy. Great, I may have a sinus infection. I sinus infection makes you feel bad but not quite bad enough to warrant calling in to work; yet bad enough to make you not feel like doing crap. 
• My plans for Monday took a hit from both the work I didn't finish on Friday and the situation with my mother-in-law. As I noted in this space yesterday, she is under hospice care with the end not far away now. But as anyone who has ever been through a situation like this can tell, "not far away now" can be measured in minutes, hours, days or weeks. As I post this, it will have been 48 hours since the family was told that she was "transitioning into an end of life phase". 

"Transitioning into an end of life phase"? Sounds like there may be a lot of paperwork. Will she get a new telephone number or will her old number follow her into this next phase? Will IT move her computer? How will this transition affect the org chart? 

Sorry. Don't mean to be sarcastic about a matter of life and death, especially when we're discussing the life and death of a woman who was very dear to me. She did not play the role of the stereotypical mother-in-law with me (at least, not often). I may tell you more about her in an upcoming post. But right now it feels weird. Perhaps when I am more sure of what tense to refer to her in. 

But right now, my sinuses are killing me so I'm going back to bed and just lie there. 

But I'm sure life has other plans.  

And I'm so glad my suffering amuses you. 

Be good to one another. 

Dave-El