Too Much Food Anyway

I also wanted to eat out on Friday because I had eaten a lot, I think way too much, at home.  My parents cook splendidly and I'm glad I can eat, and for free.  But they make a goddamn lot, and they still make me eat a goddamn lot, and I swear I'm getting fatter and thus unhealthier.  So yes, I understand eating fast food is much less healthy and I am spending money while doing it.  So, if I can control how much I eat, that should be good for me, right?  Well, that plan goes out the window if the restaurant screws up the order, which they did, technically.

OK, so I got home, grabbed my phone which was on my bed all day Friday, was going to tell my parents I was here and then leave but realized they didn't give a shit, and went to my car to order Chipotle.  I had free birthday guac, so I bought chips, and since Chipotle gives you a lot of chips, I didn't think I needed more than one taco (and I got their new chipotle honey chicken) and pop and I would be good.

What I have noticed since the pandemic, with the resulting rise in mobile ordering and the possibly-causal decrease of staff working at these places, is that orders sometimes get real screwed up.  I usually don't do anything because, yes, I'm cynical enough to think it won't make a bit of difference.  But there has been more than one occasion where I have been given more food than I ordered, and that was the case here.  I suspected nothing when I took my bag directly from the workers who had just finished my order.  I intended to eat it there so I could just be at peace to start my weekend.  I noticed a bag within the bag, so that was the bag of chips.  I grab it ... and see another bag underneath.  They gave me two bags of chips?  And then I opened up the aluminum lid of the bowl in which I expected my one chipotle honey chicken taco.  And there I saw three.  (By the way, I only saw one cup of guacamole, not two.  I stopped to buy Top The Tater on my way home so I have something to dip the second bag of chips in.)

My guess is is that they were slammed with orders and were just getting them out.  I also guess that people usually don't order just one taco, so I assumed the workers just looked at the word "taco" and automatically made three.  That doesn't explain the two bags of chips, though, so maybe they wanted to give me a second bag of chips to make up for making me wait, even though I think I got there a bit before the ready-by time I was given on the Chipotle application.  Or they were being nice.  Or generous.  Or a combination thereof.

I know it's weird to complain about getting more food than you paid for.  But I have a waistline I have to tend to, I had a plan to watch what I ate, and dammit, I got all this good food again.  It wasn't unlike eating at home.  But I'm not stupid; I ate the three tacos (pretty good) and one bag of chips with the guacamole before I left.  And I got fat and I was happy I was given all this food.

And I think that, now that I'm done with this blog post, I'll start working on the second bag of chips and the Top The Tater.

Mundo OT Falling By The Wayside?

Circling back to work on Friday ... there was a part of me that wanted to take my boss up on his offer of staying an extra four at work.  I have only worked that long probably once at my company, and (I may have blog posted about this) it was in an effort to work more than 60 hours one week because I wanted to know whether I would get paid double time once I reached 60.  Based on my paycheck, the answer is no.

I did not take him up on his offer for many reasons.  Viscerally, I was still missing my cellphone, which I stupidly forgot at home.  Guess it didn't matter if I came home after ten hours at work or twelve, but I wanted to get home as soon as possible so I could reunite with my phone.  On top of that, it was time I finally began working on my taxes, and seeing I just spent a good hour-plus realizing I had made a mistake before doing this blog post, I think I made the right choice in quitting after ten hours (and 15 minutes) at work so I could go into the break room and finally begin filling out the forms and schedules.  (Mental note: It might be time to hire an accountant or tax advisor.)  Instinct also kicked in: I was hungry, I planned on getting Chipotle because it gave me free guacamole (for my birthday), and I was set on using it, and I'm not sure if I could have had that leisurely dinner I felt entitled to after a long day at work without my cell if I ordered food at 8:30 instead of 7:30.  And although The Third Department was a lot better than I was worried it would be, my workday was still plenty long, and even though I got done with all the work, I think I wanted to quit instead of key for two hours.

And yes, even with all those good reasons, I still regret not working till late.  I'm not sure how much work my co-workers got through yesterday/Saturday, but I take my boss not texting me saying that I could come in to work yesterday or today as a sign that things are under control.  And like I said, The Third Department was not as bad as I thought it would be on Friday, and this was despite two days' worth of forms finally reaching us, so maybe the crush of work that presumably led to the possibility of a twelve-hour workday Friday was a one-time thing.  Finally, the new guidelines in The Third Department is designed to streamline things and, ultimately, get us out earlier than we have.  Even though the jury is still out, at least in theory this is supposed to work.

Add it all up, and this might be the last time I will be given the opportunity to work half a 24-hour day.  If I did my taxes right -- and Buddha knows I've effed it up in the past -- I'm owing a lot of money next week.  And I just looked at my credit card bills -- egads, I'm still living it up.  I still need the money.  I still need the OT.  And I passed up what could be my fattest chance to make as much dough as I could, never to see that chance again, dammit.

Oh, The Things I Can Talk About From Yesterday/Friday. Let's Start With The Phone

Oddly dynamic day, but rife with stuff to blog post about, and that's great since I've been kind of hurting for stuff to talk about.

I'll go in chronological order.  I forgot to bring my phone to work yesterday/Friday.  I had such anxiety not having it with me.  Honestly, not being able to scroll through things is something I did miss, even though I wasn't thinking about it every minute.  Hopefully that means I'm not totally addicted and gone.  No, I was more worried that I would need it and not have it, specifically that I would get into an accident or the car would break down on the way home and I would need to make an emergency call and of course I would not be able to, and I felt as though yesterday would be the day that would happen.  No, it did not happen, but that paranoia was with me.  It'll always be with me.

The other thing with the phone is that I assumed my boss texted me on it permitting me to come in to work today/Saturday.  There is a hell of a lot still left to do, and considering what usually happens when there's a backload of work (and considering that were allowed to work about to four hours yesterday), I would be allowed to come and work today.  However, I need to wait till he gives me the specific go-ahead.  I am surprised by this, but I still haven't gotten a text from him saying basically, "Yeah, if you want to come in and work today, come on in."  But I assumed that he had already done it by the time he left yesterday.  And that's why I told everybody before I left yesterday that I might be coming in to work today.  (And by the way, I didn't tell anybody that I left my cellphone at home.)  So I'm scared that my co-workers thought I would be coming in and changed my mind, when the whole truth is that I was willing and able to come in today, but didn't because I wasn't given explicit permission.

For all I know, my boss wouldn't mind if I come in today.  But I'm not going to get all dressed and come in, only to be told that I can't because I wasn't told I could.  So instead I'm blog posting this, and thinking about what other stuff I think is crazy happened yesterday/Friday.

Hello? Anyone There??

Oh my God, so much shit happened yesterday/Friday, and that's not including the American economy tanking because That Fucking Guy wanted it to tank.  Motherfucker.  And fuck all the MAGAts who voted for him, too.

Anyway, I worked late, but not as late as I could have.  I actually limited myself to 10 1/4 hours last/Friday night, but because indeed two days' worth of work came in in the morning, my boss sent in an e-mail in the afternoon that we could work, get this, up to four hours extra.  I probably won't get into it, at least not for now, but suffice it to say, I was torn.  But I decided to leave.

I told my folks that I was going to not eat dinner.  My original plan was to have Chipotle on the way back.  But dammit, I forgot my phone, so I wasn't able to use the app until I got home.  I figured I would just go in and leave because there was no reason to stick around if I was just going to go out to eat.  So I did.

I thought about letting them know I was home.  I saw the light from Mother's office.  I also heard the TV blaring from the master bedroom, which obviously was where Father was.  I was going to let them know I was here and I was leaving for a bit; I was going to lie and say that I needed to show my co-worker something back at work.  But then I realized that I didn't really sneak into the house.  A chime sound emits whenever the front door is opened.  I think I wasn't loud, but I wasn't quiet when I walked upstairs and then downstairs.  And yet neither parental unit got up and looked up at the front door when I came in.  It's possible that they didn't care that I came in, but I got the feeling that they didn't hear me come in, and that they were concentrating on working and watching TV instead.

That is weird as hell to me.  I kind of find that disheartening to not care that someone opened the door to their house.  But then I figured that if they didn't care to see that I came home, why would I need to let them know that I have?  That makes me it easier to just leave, which I wanted to do anyway.  So I left without letting them know I even came home, which was around 7:45 or so.  I ate Chipotle, was given a second bag of chips I don't think I ordered (another story I may or may not get around to), went to Hy-Vee because I needed to buy dip for these extra chips, then finally came home around 10.  They didn't greet me when I came back home for the night, either.

Do they care?  Do I care?  I don't know!

Too Much In Two Ways

Eating Mother's food is a double-edged sword.  Had egg rolls last night for dinner.  Damn, it's fantastic.  There might be one or two other things she makes that are better, but when I was devouring the egg rolls, it was the best damn thing she ever made.

However, I'm feeling the aftereffects of eating so much right now.  When I eat a lot of certain foods, I get thirsty as hell, and I am thirsty as hell, even as I type this.  I'm almost done with my Coke, but I'm not desperate enough to drink it all.  Had some lemonade that I'm almost finished with, too.  Drank all of the mocha I bought in the morning to bring into work, but let's face it, mochas aren't "quenching."  And while I need to drink more water, dammit, the water ain't cutting it.  I might need to buy a Big Gulp tomorrow if I'm still thirsty.

Oh yeah, there's also getting fat as hell.  That is one reason I kind of threw my parents a curveball late last night and told them I'm not eating dinner tonight.  If I do eat after work, I get to control what I eat, and I hope to Buddha I am smart enough to not buy something big.  Then again, I still might buy a huge bottle of pop.  And I might also feel as though I deserve to eat big if work is a bear today.  See, that's another reason I told my folks (well, just Mother, and I hope she told Father) that I'm not eating tonight.  The work that was supposed to come in from down South didn't.  There were hellacious storms (including nighttime tornadoes, yikes) that cancelled all flights from there.  I still stayed a half-hour over because there is just so much darn work in The Third Department -- and, as an addendum to my previous blog post, my boss gave me a quick rundown of all the changes that are to be made there yesterday, but I will hold off on talking about them until I implement these changes and see if they work -- but that indicates to me that there should have been a hell of a lot of work that came in yesterday, and that will (maybe?) come in today, along with the work that would normally come in today.  So we have two days' worth of work when I can obviously do only one.

See how the crap continues to roll down?  I'm fully expecting to be asked to come in to work tomorrow, and I'm debating whether to wake up early and do a normal day, come in for only a few hours so I can have lunch and dinner with my parents, or a hybrid of both.  (Heck, I'm still thinking I should take back not having dinner with my folks tonight because I might not have dinner with them tomorrow night.  We probably will be that backed up.)  And that affects something else I need to do: My taxes.  Yeah, I haven't even started on them yet.  I was going to this week, but I got both depressed over my team and tired because of, well, me, and so I was going to do them this weekend, but this damn storm has upended everything and given me the opportunity to take back the paid time off I took Tuesday and Wednesday.  Maybe I shouldn't take that opportunity; I really do need to look at my tax forms now.  But I won't make that choice until I absolutely have to, because that's, well, me.

There Might Be Changes At Work Today

I was fortunate to decide to take the past two days off in one way: I missed the worst of the spring snowstorm and not needing to drive when it was sleeting.  I was fortunate in another way: I could sleep in.  (I slept for three hours Tuesday evening and almost 2 1/2 hours last/Wednesday evening; maybe that's a coincidence.)  And there's a third way, I guess: There was a big meeting between my boss, my supervisor, and the two people who hold the same position as I at work yesterday.

But that last point is a double-edged sword.  That meeting, although I was allowed to miss it, was important: It had to do with new policies and protocols streamlining what we needed to do in The Third Department.  This is the one kicking all our asses.  Ever since our co-worker retired around the holidays, the workload was heaped most only one person on most days.  Even though I don't have concrete evidence, it also feels as though there has been a slight uptick in work since the New Year, which only added to the workload.  As a result, we have been working our asses off, staying past our regular eight-hour shift (when possible) in order to do all the work that needs to be done.  Stress, suffice it to say, has ratcheted up as well.

Thus, this meeting.  It's a follow-up to another meeting we had maybe three weeks ago requesting feedback on how we felt Things Were Going On.  I told my higher-ups then my piece: That it's hell, and some of the tasks suck the life out of me, but I understand the work needs to get done, and if they're willing to put up with overtime, I'll put up with ten-hour days.  Now, I obviously don't know what was revealed in yesterday's meeting, but I am sure my supe and boss have an edict from those above them to tamp down OT, so they most likely announced tasks that can be streamlined, tasks that can be given to someone else, and tasks that can be put off till the next day (although needing to deal with them the next day only causes us to stay late that day because the new stuff is still coming in, but that's a given).  Those new plans might be implemented as soon as today/Thursday, when I am coming in to do The Third Department all by myself.

Honestly, I'm torn.  I certainly would like to not be stressed out.  But dammit, I love the money I'm making!  And maybe more important than that, I like the fact I'm not getting any guff from my boss or supervisor for staying late and doing my job.  That's what I'm there for, right -- to do my job, right?

Well, we'll see what happens.  I might hate the changes.  I might love them.  There's a chance they won't work and we'll be back to where we have been all year.  And in the meantime, there is this implication of finding another person and hiring her for the same position as us three.  The issue with alleviating work in The Third Department so that everybody can get out of work "on time" can be easily solved by just hiring someone, and that might already be happening for all I know, so all of this speculation will become reality.  Who knows?

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Wait, did I not blog post yesterday/Monday?  Shit, I swore I did.  I guess I was so depressed to see my alma mater lose that I just forgot ... even though I was on my laptop doing other things.  Goddamn, I really do think I have brain rot.  At least I didn't forget the WMNSS:

#0: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4).  These Woofie Dogs are the biggest cockteases in survey history.  They have been trying to escape Play-in purgatory for seemingly years now, but they've been always a half-Game behind.  The pieces brought back in the Karl-Anthony Towns trade is still integrating with mixed results -- one step forward, one step back.  They have incredible Wins where they're playing together as if playing a symphony, and then they suffer crushing Losses to teams they should be dog-walking around the park.

Well, they're still not out of the woods.  But they ran the table this Week, winning all three of their contests.  After they put away bloated Phoenix, they started slow at home vs. Detroit and then, midway through the Second Quarter, a fight broke out that reached the first couple rows of fans at one end of the floor.  Seven people were thrown out of the Game, including Naz Reid and Dante DiVincenzo and Wolves Assistant Coach Pablo Prigioni.  (The Head Coach of the Pistons, J. B. Bickerstaff, was also thrown out.  He used to be an Assistant Coach with the T-Wolves.  I remember once attending a happy hour conversation where he was the main speaker.  I asked him a question about LeBron James doing The Decision earlier that Week.)

Naturally, Reid and DiVincenzo were suspended one Game, and it was last/Tuesday night's Game in Denver, a team Minnesota is 4-0 against.  It feels natural to just chalk this up as a Loss, and the Wolves got behind early.  But goddamn, this is where the cock-teasing comes in, because what happened from then on was, quite possibly, not only The Best Regular Season NBA Game This Season but also The Best Regular Season Game In NBA History.  In a back-and-forth affair for much of the rest of the tilt, the Timberwolves were victorious, 140-139 in Double Overtime.  My God, just look at the final seconds of this crazy, ridiculous Game:

 

The Timberwolves have swept the season series from a very, very good Nuggets team.  In fact, they've won their past six matchups with them if you include last Year's historic Game 7 victory in the 2024 NBA Western Conference Semifinals series between them.  Nikola Jokic scored 61 Points, grabbed eleven Rebounds and dished out ten Assists.  It's the most anyone has scored while registering a Triple-Double -- and his team lost.  My fucking goodness.

So three Wins, a brawl, and a mammoth victory without two of your players -- and on the road, no less.  And they still technically are in seventh place in the West, but they have the same record as The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies, and a few Days ago they fired their Head Coach.  Their visit to Denver began a five-Game roadtrip; this screening Week they travel to Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.  They can move up given the competition, but they have shown a propensity to play down to them, so maybe they won't climb out of the Play-In after all.  Plus, who knows if the Win over the Nuggets sapped them of all their energy?  I'll give them a 0 -- not Positive Numbers, but after what I saw last/Tuesday night, certainly not negative numbers, either.

#-1: United FC (Last Week: -2).  Well, my alma mater's Game was on, plus the Loons had blown leads in their two previous Matches that should have been victories but wound up as Draws, plus it was raining cats and dogs Saturday night, so I still think I made the right decision in not going to Midway to see MNUFC play Real Salt Lake.  And whaddaya know, Tani Oluwaseyi braces (scoring in both halves) to defeat RSL, 2-0.  Oluwaseyi might finally be the Striker that sticks with this organization.

At Yankee Stadium against NYCFC Sunday afternoon.  Maybe I'll attend a watch party. ...

#-2: Wild (Last Week: -3).  Doubled up Washington at the X, 4-2, on Thursday.  More important than that: They didn't allow Alex Ovechkin to score.  However, the Mild then dropped both ends of a home-and-home with The Bastard Colorado Rockies, albeit the road date Monday was via a Shootout.  So that loser point puts them, as of press time, six Points ahead of The Bastard Atlanta Flames for the final spot in the West.  This team had the second-best record in the league in December, and fuckin' St. Louis just passed them.  They can't blow this -- can they?

They stay in the New York metropolitan area to face the Rangers and the Islanders, then they host The Bastard North Stars.

#-3: Twins (NEW SEASON!!).  Ah, these fuckin' guys.  I follow the St. Louis Cardinals somewhat since I vacationed in St. Louis and fell in sorta-love with the city.  They're not good right now; in fact, there is some existential soul-searching over the future direction of this once-proud franchise.  And yet, as old and powerless as they are, they managed to sweep the Twinks at Busch Stadium III to start the season.  The Twinks then traveled to Comiskey and lost the first Game of their three-Game set versus the White Sox, 9-0.  Rocco Baldelli pulled most of his lineup after they went down big in the Third or Fourth (?) Inning.  This is the White Sox, by the way, the squad that set a modern-day Major League Baseball record for most Losses in a season.

Well, they finally registered their first Win of the season last/Tuesday night, 8-3.  But their home opener (after playing once more with the Pale Hose this/Wednesday afternoon) is tomorrow/Thursday afternoon against Houston.  If the Astros jump on them early, and I have no reason to believe they can't, I swear there will be chants of "Sell The Team!!!" that will be as loud as any you hear for Athletics or Bay Rays Games.  And the Twinks ownership will deserve it.

After the weekend they'll travel to Kansas City, a team that tried to improve their club by actually doling out money for players, for a trio starting on Monday.

#-4: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1).  I swear this was supposed to be a Friday-Saturday-Sunday series.  There is no mention on the website that they moved up the series and made the last two contests a Friday Doubleheader, nor whether weather was a reason.  No matter, I guess; the Goofers got swept at Siebert Field by Iowa.  And the first two contests weren't, well, contests: 16-7 and 13-0.  Oof for them, but good for my alma mater when they play them here later this season.  They continue their homestand with a three-Game set versus Penn St., then a one-off with South Dakota St. Tuesday.

#-5: Gopher softball (Last Week: -5).  Holy fuck, man, local diamond sports are absolutely dreadful right now.  Like the baseball team, the U. softballers got swept at home over the weekend at the hands of Northwestern.  While the first two Games were your run-of-the-mill defeats (2-0 and 3-2), the getaway Game was an atrocity, 14-3 which was Mercy-Ruled after six Innings ... for the home team.  The Goofers have now lost seven in a row as they go to Purdue for three.  (Aside: The first two Games of the Wildcats series were on Friday, and the third Match was on Saturday.  I swear these Games were scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, like the baseball Games.  Did the U. just not tell anyone?  Am I being gaslighted?)

#-Infinity: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!).  Yes, I have seen The Play.  I have seen it called as a Penalty, but really, the Goofer went down easy.  And I will trust Goofer fans who said that was a shittly-called Game back on Thursday.  I will even believe you if you say those bad calls and no-calls went against "our team" all night.

But beyond the fact that this club was faltering late and went from being The Third-Best Team In Top-Flight Men's College Hockey to a 2-Seed (to, well, eliminated by Massachusetts), you have to note in that in the last three NCAA Tournament Games they were bumped off, they had a two-Goal lead.  They've blown all three.  When Bob Motzko was hired from St. Cloud St., he had a reputation for a high-flying Offense but a weak Defense, and now he has a reputation of telling his players to play extremely conservative once they're up by two.  That has bit this program in the ass the last three postseasons.  That's a pattern, and something much more disconcerting than a poorly-officiated Loss.

And as usually happens, there have been a flood of players who have left for the NHL.  I think one tweet counted nine.  There were players who swore after that bullshit come-from-ahead defeat in the 2023 National Championship Game where they blew that two-Goal lead and lost to Minnesota-Duluth that they were coming back to win it all.  Well, fuck it, that still hasn't happened, so they're splittin' and gettin' their paper, and what's left is a bunch of green youngsters to try and pick up the pieces of yet another shattered dream.

Motzko hasn't proven he can win the big one, and now he has to start over.  Are we going to just run all this bullshit back, again?

Glad Last/Sunday Night Is Over

So after lunch and learning that I'm helping Father stick an EKG monitor on his bare chest, I hear Mother screaming at Father, over something.  I have never known what they've ever argued over, but I haven't heard Mother yell like that in a long, long time.

We eat a very early dinner (four hours after lunch, which is insane).  I was the one who attached this EKG on Father; Mother was in her office doing her own thing.  I go up to my bedroom and eventually take an early-evening nap before going out to exercise.  Mother bangs on my door to wake me up.  I'll expound on this hopefully in a different blog post, but never wake me up from sleep.  I hate that.

She gets me out to the dinner table.  She needs help booking their flight, although she actually said, "You promised to help me with my frequent flier miles," which is something I don't ever remember her saying.  It was obvious she was in the kind of mood she has often been in after yelling at Father -- wounded, feeling like a victim and lashing out because she felt entitled.  And this type of thing My Fucking Mother ropes me in to doing for her is the type of thing she usually ropes me in to do for her, which is something that has to do with not understanding English words and some elements of the task I believe she knows how to do, but doesn't want to do them because she wants to act helpless.  Besides all that, I feel like I've been dropped in unfamiliar territory, and so I'm figuring what the hell I need to do, but, and this is also typical of her, whenever I run into a roadblock or something I don't understand, she goes, "Well, what are we going to do?"  And I've gotten a little better at pointing to her, "Um, we are not doing anything.  You brought me into this because you don't want to do this.  I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do."  (She also has this tick where I say something to her and she goes, "I know."  She clearly isn't using that phrase when she's supposed to, but I still get triggered because I take her literally at her word, and I want to say to her, "No, you don't know!"  But that's another blog post.)

I can't book a flight online.  Mother asks me to call for her, fuckin' A.  The call wait time is 2 1/2 hours.  They invite me to text instead, so I tell My Mother I'm going to leave for the gym and just text the airline about this.  So as I'm putting on my shoes, my sister calls My Mother.  There is another matter my sister wants to talk to her about.  "Has Unforgivable Wetness talked to you about it yet?" my sis says.  "No," Mother replied, "He doesn't want to talk to me about it."  And I had to shout from the bottom, "That's not true!" and I went back up to the dining room to get my face on Mother's phone to tell my sister Mother's lying, and then to tell Mother that if she wants to talk about this other matter, she should talk to me, otherwise I'm assuming she's handling it herself.  Goddamn.  I've always thought I've gotten my self-pity from Father.  But I might be wrong.

Anyway, I got the gym but had to delay exercising because I was busy texting with the airline rep, or the bot, who knows?  There are no flights available.  So I come home, see Mother at the other side of the front door ... and she's all calm and stuff.  If she weren't calm, she wouldn't even look at me.  So maybe she's gotten over what she needed to get over.

At any rate, this was a Sunday that was a little too eventful.  Glad it's over.

Earlier this afternoon, my parents told me that Father has been given this portable EKG monitor to track his heart.  For many years my old man has been worried, possibly to the point of hypochondria, of his heart.  But it appears as though his doctor sent him this, and of course I have to help them figure out what to do and, looks like prepare.

Yes, this EKG monitor needs to be stuck over My Father's heart.  So, according to the instructions, the area on which the monitor needs to be stuck to has to be washed, shaved, exfoliated, and wiped down so the monitor can be affixed.  I'm guessing I'm doing all of that.  Great.  I'm repulsed seeing my old man shirtless, but I have to do all the crap, too?  Well, he's scared of his heart, so (shrug)

Too Much Time Off

Maybe the best perk I have at work is the number of paid days off I get.  I have so many per year that I calculated that I would have to spend a bit more than two days off per month in order to use and not lose all of those days.  I know this might sound weird, but that's a lot.  And add to it the edict that only one person from our group of 15 can (or is supposed to be) be out on a planned absence every day, and that brings on the added complication that there may already be a dwindling number of days I can't get off between now and the end of the year.

So at this point I not only have to take time off willy-nilly (instead of planning them for vacations), I need to just find dates to take off and lay claim them as soon as possible.  I am doing that Tuesday and Wednesday.  Why those two days?  Really, no reason besides the fact that 1) there are usually enough people scheduled on those two days to cover me and 2) they were free.  I will need to find, like, 16 more days like these to be all set.  In the meantime, I am trying to plan things to do Tuesday and Wednesday -- see a movie, eat out for lunch and exercise are things I've come up with so far.