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01:48 - 20.10.06
chuntering along
My day started a lot earlier than I had planned this morning. I had heard movement in the kitchen throughout the night. With two hungry young men and cats at play - nocturnal beasts, felines - it is a normal occurrence. I usually just ignore it. Round about 5 or 6 in the am I realized that something wasn't right. Glanced up from my pillow and saw the outline of my youngest in the doorway. "What's wrong?" "My head really hurts can you check it out?" Crawled out of bed immediately because my youngest never complains about pain.

Tried working on his back to see if it was knotting up for some reason. No, no relief whatsoever. He finally confided that his teeth had been "irritating" him somewhat. How long. Well, a few weeks - maybe since Thanksgiving. Why didn't you say something earlier? It wasn't all that bad. Uh huh. Gave him an aspirin and an antihistamine after getting him to gargle with peroxide to reduce any infection in the mouth. After about 10 minutes he was comfortable enough to crawl back in bed. I called and left a voicemail for the dentist with my youngest's last comment being he didn't want to miss work. Yes well - medical services aren't really set up to work around someone's work schedule on really short notice. I'd do my best. Decided to just continue with working since going back to bed didn't make sense. My oldest needed to be woken in about half an hour you see. Logged on to my pc and started reading my messages. Got my oldest up and out the door. When the hour was more reasonable I started making the phone calls I needed to staff and service providers for the pre-election work. Sent out a few emails too as well as made arrangements for various meetings or deliveries of materials.

Finally around 9 am called the dentists office again. The receptionist allowed that she had just taken off all the messages from the night before. No time available with the dentist I usually see, but one of his partners had an opening just after one pm. Good enough booked it and went to tell my youngest he would have to book off the morning for work anyway. I didn't tell him he might not feel well enough to go in after if major work was done. He hasn't needed any dental work since he was in elementary school so can't recall the process. He is being provided with dental benefits at work but not until he has finished 3 months probation - the normal routine. That means the coverage doesn't kick in until mid-December. He decided to ask the dentist if he could do a temporary - less expensive fix - until that time. As it turned out the doctor was fine with that. Given that he diagnosed an abscessed molar, the usual protocol here is to get the patient on antibiotics for a few days to eliminate the infection first. 45 minutes after the appointed time my youngest was calling from the drugstore where he was picking up his prescriptions for the antibiotics and the pain killers quite happy with life altogether. Came home, picked up his gear after taking his meds and headed off to work.

Interspersed for me in between 9 am and 1 pm were multiple calls and conversations between me and the tech support people in Ottawa. They had received the email I had cc'd to them about the local rep not being able to open my spreadsheet. As usual when I sent that document to the tech he had no problems with it. He was a very nice guy of a French persuasion so he coached me on pronunciation as we worked away. He was obviously feeling quite happy so we joked a bit too on obscure issues that only civil servants would find amusing. I asked if the crash of the system the day earlier might be the reason for the wobble and confessed that I had been working on my own pc rather than the one supplied by them. He said there might be a necessity to reset some aspect of the connection but wasn't all that convinced it was the problem. I didn't admit to deleting that network access point, but in hindsight maybe it had been added on so as to convert data from the one operating system to the other. My knowledge of that arcane aspect of microchipese is very slim.

Worked some more on the geography assingnment and by the end of today actually felt I had it under control even with all the interruptions and the personal aspects of life - family and friends don't you know. More calls for my oldest son about job interviews and more work with number four son with respect to troubleshooting the airline tickets for him and his wife. Chatting with my Dad about work and family goings on. Emails back and forth with friends sending out job postings and updating progress on various personal fronts. That sort of thing. Even with a deadline looming tomorrow my son's health and those emotional support connections have to come first. With that deadline though I am going to have to get a very early start so good night for now.

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