Christmas Eve

They tried to kill me at work today. I haven't worked a Christmas Eve in years, but didn't have enough time to take off this year. Terry, who sits behind me, assured me that it would be an easy day, and we got to go home early.

Then I got in to the office this morning.

My boss, who was out of town last week, finally got around to signing the write-offs that were on his desk when he got back, and gave me those to process, get approved in California, and get through accounting services in one day when we were at about half staff. He kept the Wednesday meeting on schedule, so I had to prepare all the slides for that, plus whip everyone into getting me their info today, plus tell everyone YES we are having the meeting today. He also dumped a month's worth of invoices on my desk to process, and when I finished those, dumped some more from the Canadian office for me to process.

I ate lunch at my desk, stressed to the max. He finally came around at about 3:10pm going "Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas! Everyone can go home." I thought, "You dick." And I usually like my boss. The whole rest of the company had already left.

I decided it would be better to try to buy a DVD player today (from a less-craziness perspective, not a price perspective), rather than wait until Friday AND go without movies at bedtime for two nights. So when I got out of the office, I went over to Circuit City, which has just filed bankruptcy. The deals weren't as rock-bottom as I expected, but I got a Sony DVD player for $42, which I thought was pretty damn good.

When I got home, I had it hooked up in just a few minutes. For some reason, even though I got my Mom's 70's era TV working with her cable, VCR, and DVD player, even though there was only on coaxial cable jack on the back (involving a trip to Radio Shack, adapters, etc), I was worried I wouldn't be able to do this. I haven't messed with any of the electronics since Michael left, and kind of had some kind of block about it, I guess. For whatever reason, I was disproportionately thrilled that I got it hooked up with little problem and no cursing. I immediately settled down with a movie for a celebratory nap.

Which I needed. The last week has just been exhausting.

I woke up feeling a bit better, and got ready to go to dinner with Dick and Eve.

We went to Carrabba's tonight. It was pretty good. I sat there and watched my dad salt his food like four times. I just don't think he cares anymore. He told me that he went to the doctor again because his PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) level was going up. He had a radical prostatectomy five years ago. The doctor told him that he probably did have a few cancer cells in his body, but that the level he had wouldn't have been detectable 5 years ago, and that his overall health was so bad that something else would kill him before the cancer could. He is severely overweight, has diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, and asthma.

They gave me tickets to see Koko Taylor at the Peace Center, which I was very excited about getting. I gave them their gift certificate for The Peppermill, which I give them every year now, mainly because I just refuse to shop for my dad anymore. I did get a little surprise for Dad this year. A little thing that he wanted, and wasn't expecting. That was fun. He got a kick out of it.

I visited with them for a while, and then came home and went to bed. I was just tuckered out.