Keeping Busy

On Christmas morning Rocky was walking the dog when he stumbled and fell. He cracked two ribs. We continued on with our plans for Christmas Day with a breakfast gathering in St. Charles at my daughter and son-in-law’s home with their two beautiful daughters. My son and his bride joined us with their 11 month old baby boy. My ex-wife (my daughter and son’s mother) and her husband also joined the festivities. 

We shared the Christmas tree sharing gifts, memories of past holiday seasons, and in-jokes that only family can get! Near the end of the morning we toured my ex-wife’s and husbands new home nearby in Geneva. The home was recently finished but they have not yet moved in. 

Rocky signaled me several times that we needed to go home. So we did. In the car he admitted that the pain from the fall was growing plus he felt nauseous and cramps of impending diarrhea. We got home quickly. He threw up soon thereafter and diarrhea appeared shortly after that. We cancelled afternoon and evening plans with Rocky’s family. We went into defensive hibernation. 

The next morning Rocky awakened me at 4 am and said a visit to the emergency room was probably imminent. We arrived there at 6 am. They stabilized Rocky’s pain, nausea, and bowel problems, and also battled his dehydration. X-rays showed two ribs cracked. More pain meds were prescribed and we arrived home at 9:30. After that were visits to the pharmacy to fill prescriptions. They diagnosed food poisoning for the other ailments!  

To make matters worse, our microwave was not working and the landlord had decided to replace the unit next week. So here are two ailing elderly men one not eating for obvious reasons, and the other totally reliant on warmed over food or frozen items for meals. No such luck. And cooking for one is not very much fun. 

Also, Rocky is the dog walker in the family due to my unsteady gait and poor agility/stamina. I now took on the dog walking routine! 

At the same time my laptop computer had grown increasingly stubborn and finally failed. After my IT guy returned from vacation just before Christmas, he tested my unit and determined it was not worth repairing. The motherboard was shot and that was that. So, he began to clean up and update an old desk top computer. He downloaded my laptop memory to the desktop, and configured a temporary computer platform for me to use until everything was up to speed. 

This is a good thing because I was working on two projects. First was completing the next issue of the local newspaper. As managing editor I gather most of the copy for the paper while another volunteer handles ad sales, design and placement. I had already written my city hall report, and my opinion column. What was needed was sorting through all of the article copy and filling one electronic folder of the final materials to be published. Trouble was the files were scattered between three computers and email was not working properly. The old laptop had trapped 15,000 messages. All had to be downloaded and sorted through for current messages, and hopefully a lot of newspaper copy pending. This took a lot of time to sort through and download. Hours of time. All with publication deadlines looming. 

The second project was scheduling mentor/consulting times for the first 3 months of 2015 for 35 SCORE mentors. Yep, I took on that volunteer job in a weak moment! And I was already behind schedule in finishing the schedules and uploading them to the SCORE website. This task took weeks of work. Just uploading the schedules to the website took 18 hours of data entry.  

Meanwhile meals had to be prepared, the dog needed its routine walks, and the laundry, house cleaning routines had to be supported. These all interrupted the concentration needed to produce the newspaper and upload the mentoring schedules. 

The work got done. Miraculously at times. First the newspaper took shape and the team did its assigned roles plus gave me more assistance than normal. And the newspaper emerged. At this writing it is nearing release to the printer. Of course that meant I had to reserve a rental van, notify the post offices of our plans to deliver copy to them on New Year’s Eve, arrange postal trays count order, prepare checks for each of the vendors, found a friend to help me deliver the paper on New Year’s Eve and in so many other ways made arrangements to put the paper to bed and deliver it. 

With those arrangements under control attention was turned to mentor scheduling. Bit by bit the project came together in spite of the problems enumerated above. By 10 am Monday the work was done and uploaded to the mentoring website.  

As the computer desk was sorted through and returned to normal the day began to slow down. Rocky was still sick and we visited his doctor later in the day. But we could take deeper breaths and slow down. The manic schedule was over for a few days. Now we await the routine of delivering the newspaper, and prepare for the holiday. Soon it will be football bowl games and the Rose Parade. And time for naps.  

Lots of naps. It’s about time. Let the busy times roll for someone else! 

December 30, 2014