Diary of a MILF in Progress

Double-you tee eff

When even undisputed MILF Faith Hill isn't MILF-y enough to be seen in her unretouched state, what hope is there for the rest of us mortals?

A post in which I act as though the world revolves around me

I'm sad today.  I'm sad in that "sort of have a reason to be, but maybe I'm just wallowing" way.

My great-aunt passed away a year ago.  She had been ill (terminal lung cancer) and went on her own terms.  I have a huge amount of respect for her decision.  She was in her late 80's, and had long since outlived her brothers, her sister, her sisters-in-law, and many friends.  Having already gone through one surgery for the cancer, and having it come back years later, she decided not to put herself through any more.  Hospice care worked for her, and the nurse did her best to keep my aunt comfortable in her final days.

She never married, so her nieces and nephews were like children to her.  As an extension, she was like an additional grandmother to me.  I didn't appreciate the magnitude of her independence and her career as an executive secretary to a bank president until years later.  My aunt had a wicked sense of humor, and could stop you in your tracks with a sharp look.  I got my gift of gab from her, although I was not lucky enough to inherit her lyrical turn of a phrase.  As the years went on, she became the unofficial family historian, continuing the stories of the immigration from Europe and the marriages and the military service and the birth of new generations. 

When I was a child, we saw her often, on holidays and Sunday dinners at my grandparents' house.  As I grew older, and my school or job or raising children took more and more of my time, I did not visit nearly as often as I should.  And I find myself, looking back on that day last summer when I arrived to the apartment too late to say a final good-bye, chastising myself for not doing more. 

So now I sit, and I have one of her mugs (the one my children gave her for Christmas one year, with that grandparental appelation carved on the side instead of her given name) holding my coffee.  At home, I still have the box of buttons from her sewing room, and I am using them up very very slowly, torn between the desire to keep a piece of her with me and the knowledge that squandering a useful item would cause her to scold me.  A set of her needles holds my current knitting project. 

And today all those things make me sad.

We hate to see them go, but we love to watch them leave

I bumped into Natalie in the hall yesterday, and she passed off a distracted greeting.

"What are you grinning about?" I asked her, suspiciously.

"Oh," she answered, blushing slightly, "I just saw Dan Rydell in the hall."

"Got it," I said. "He is nice to look at, isn't he?" She nodded in agreement.

So this morning, when I saw that the Marketing department was pretty full staffed, I gave her an update.

"If you need to get any photocopying done today," I told her, "the scenery is good at the copier over by the corner offices."

"Mr. Rydell?" she asked, eyes twinkling.

"And Mr. McCall. Probably Isaac, too, but I haven't seen him yet."

"Hmmm, yes, I do have some things I need to get copied today," Natalie trailed off.

Rememberence of things current

I regret that I've been a bit inattentive lately, but I've been a bit overwhelmed by...

I'm sorry, what was I saying?

Oh, right. Forgetful, distracted and wicked busy. That's what I was talking about. OK, then.

I had a two-day meeting about two weeks ago, which went well but resulted in many, many follow up items. In addition, I am frantically in the midst of planning a three-day meeting with the same group in August, which is not part of the normally scheduled cadre of meetings with this group. Normally, we meet quarterly in person, and a bunch of conference calls as needed in between. Two of the face-to-face meetings are at my office, and two are in conjunction with other conferences (the Fall one during which I get myself overly involved with co-workers, and the Spring one, at which I seem to be able to behave myself). But this August retreat is necessary, and planning for it has been somewhat fluid because of upper management and committee member waffling about the scope and timing of the discussions. Oh, and did I mention that two of my bosses (the one who writes my review and the one who writes hers, one of whom is sane and one of whom is...not so much) have been only sporadically in the office? Yeah, that factors in as well, since much of what I am trying to get accomplished requires their input. Fun stuff.

Mad planning skillz have been necessary in my home life, too. The Daughter has a birthday a few days after my meeting. Do you think The Husband, who is off for the summer as opposed to working fulltime and then some, gave any thought to planning for it? If you said "not a bit, except for getting pissy about the fact that no plans were in place," you get 10 points! Oh, and July 4th- we had plans then, too.
And The Husband's birthday was last week. And although he is well into adulthood, he still expects the world to grind to a halt for him. So calling me at work multiple times during the day to ask where we were going for dinner, even though I asked him for input where he wants to go and he did not give me any. We figured it out, but it took another evening out of my own time.

I have forgotten to take my anti-depressents a number of times recently. When my depression and anxiety kick in, I get forgetful, among other things. Which sort of makes me forget to take medication. oops.

I was very cranky today. And shaky. And suffering from a headache. Which made me realize that it was almost 10:00 a.m. and I had not yet had my breakfast. oops.

There was something else I was going to post about. But I've forgotten what it is.