10:06 PM - 01.09.04
Mercury's Last Stand
I'm certain you noticed how garbled and chaotic my post was last night - right, dear diary? The allergic reaction from the insect bite I received at work had really messed up my body and I kept passing out at the computer, coming round writing what I thought was coherent thought and then passing out again. I think I sat in front of this screen for 2 hours moving in and out of consciousness, before I realized I was in trouble. That occurred when I reread some of what I'd written. Again with that other layer of subconscious awareness writing in it's own little story among my notes from the day. Bet you were confused by the garble, eh? So was I. After I took more antihistamines to stabilize myself, it took me about an hour to figure out which threads of information should stay and what should go before I could rewrite the darn thing. Mercury Retrograde - right?
Last (I hope) Mercury Retrograde anecdote continued today. The power in my home went out yesterday. The cable guy was around to "fix" things in the neighbourhood. Uh huh. Two hours later things were back to "normal". Well with the minor exception of my alarm clock that is. I thought I had reset it properly, but apparently not - it didn't go off this morning.
It was nearly 7:20 Am when I woke up this morning. That's usually when I'm sitting down at my workstation with that first cup of coffee. I haven't moved that fast in a long time. By 7:40 I was on the bus heading downtown. The reason for the speed, was that I was still reacting to the insect bite - allergic reaction - I had gotten at work the day before and knew I wouldn't be able to wear my contact lens for the day. Anti-histamines in large quantities make that little convenience impossible. It did, however, free up about five minutes of prep time in the morning. I haven't really needed them at work because of the tasks I've been working on, so I wasn't too concerned about a day without them. Right?
I was walking off the train platform toward the crosswalk downtown just after 8 AM when I realized that I could feel the seams of my dress - on the outside. Yup, I'd pulled it on inside out. Oi. The good thing was that the colour and pattern of the fabric was such that it wasn't really obvious - at least I hoped not. The traffic light changed so we could proceed across the street and I realized that I had a walking partner - the brother. He usually arrives at work around 8:30 am - except for today. He had been on the train with me but I hadn't "seen" him. I was devoutly praying that he wouldn't notice my dress. Apparently he is a gentleman, because he never said a word about it. I slipped into the washroom once we got upstairs and set things right.
Filled my coffee cup and realized that the cream I had added was curdled. Fine, dumped it and made tea instead. The brother had asked me to meet him at the computer station so we could work on some new bells and whistles just added, to prepare for using the software that was supposedly finally going to be fixed today. Right - remember I can't wear contact lenses today and I don't have reading glasses. I was standing a lot closer to him than I would normally do around any male just so I could see the screen. I had explained my problem to him and he was sympathetic. High traffic area with a lot of staff wandering by and I noticed some quizzical glances though.
Add in the fact the brother wanted another look at the bite site just to try and determine what had bit me. He wanted to know if there were one or two punctures and what angle - up and down or sideways - the bite had been made. Spiders usually have two beaks and beetles or whatever more often have one, he says. In addition, the angle of the bite would narrow down which specimen of the group had done the deed. Umm, well the day before there was so much swelling it was impossible to see anything. Add in the fact we are talking about a beastie that was so small that I didn't even see it to start with. The wound today looked very much like a second degree burn and it was difficult to make out anything that was probably minuscule to begin with. So there we are both examining my wrist - must have presented an interesting tableau for passers-by I guess.
I told him about the boxes from the Middle East I had worked on that had had living, biting bugs in them when we opened them up - that contract three assignments or so ago, remember dear diary? He got quite excited and asked if I'd seen any wind scorpions among them. Umm not that I'd noticed, but then again my whole intention was to avoid all contact possible and here he was asking me if I'd checked our their mandibles. I didn't even know scorpions had poison in their jaws - I thought that was supposed to be in their tails. I got a whole national geographic lesson on scorpions and their structural variations while we were looking at my wrist. It did not make me feel better about being bitten, but I guess I realized it could have been worse. Right? No scorpions in Canada, but lots of Scorpios. Same difference maybe, but I haven't checked out any of their mandibles - or other parts - either.
The balance of the day was a "Hurry up and wait" or stop and start series of interruptions. At one point the printer near the work station just started printing off pages and pages of weird code. A ghost in the machine, I suggested. As reasonable as any other hypothesis from my point of view. The tech didn't think I was funny but he did appreciate my "print on command" assistance until he could at least stop the effluence and rejig the connection. The IT consultant showed up about 40 minutes into the morning session, so I got sent back to do more technical analysis while waiting for another upload of coding. At one point the sister came by to see how we were doing and the system errored out - three times in a row. Of course. Called the IT guy who had left not 5 minutes before to figure out what was wrong. I think the code just wanted it's Daddy - never mind. If nothing else the day went fast and it wasn't boring.
As I headed toward the boardroom at the end of the work day I happened to glance out the window. When I'd popped downstairs at lunch to grab something to munch on - no lunch from home of course, and I decided to work through to make up my lost time at the beginning of the day - the sky was a bright blue and the air was humid and warm. Now big cumulonimbus clouds filled the sky in every direction as far as the eye could see - thunderheads that is. From nearly 50 floors up the eye can see a long, long way. Ran for the train and then for the bus. The heavens opened and poured down rain and umbrellas, but on the good side it did cool the day off considerably. And that is good - right? Mercury goes dirct in the am tomorrow and that is also good - I do hope so anyway.
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