lazy

I have concluded I'm completely lazy. Here I am, in France, and all I really want to do is hang out with the small children and read Arthur books. It may be that I'm scared of using my French in public (I am, without question) and it may be because we're in the midst of a heat wave and I am prostrated by the weather. It may even be because I'm trying to work on my book. Lazy's most likely.

It's a lovely place. Weather notwithstanding. It got up to 91 degrees yesterday, and today's forecast is 92. We had a little kids' birthday party for Reid on Saturday. The water guns I brought were a real hit. The children enjoyed themselves a lot, right up until the inevitable overexcited meltdowns. My sister-in-law scheduled it well, though: the meltdowns didn't hit until the parents showed up.

We picque-nicque'd yesterday in the mountains. I never cease to be amazed by these places: there's water in the streams, and in the ground, and even on the mossy stones. Where I come from, there isn't any water. There aren't any enormous trees, either. Or wood ticks. (I hope there aren't wood ticks here, either, but I have my doubts.)

The kids are learning how to make cinnamon rolls with their granny. The baby is headed to Geneva with her parents, in order to be registered as a US citizen and to apply for a passport. I am, ah, chillin'. Lazy.

la france

Yes, here I am, sitting in view of the Swiss Alps and contemplating the possibility of purchasing breakfast bread and chocolate this morning. Not to rub it in or anything.

i'll fly away in the morning . . .

So here I am, waiting for an 11:00 flight. Yes, I am three hours early. Why do you mention it?

Free WiFi at the airport. I'm a fan. Especially since I'm trying to stay awake. I got up at 03:20 to shower and get ready to go. Add eight hours, and it was a (semi-)respectable 11:30 am, Geneva time. If I squint and look stupid, I can basically convince myself that it's really after four in the afternoon, and if I can maintain that fiction until it becomes reality tomorrow, I may escape jet lag altogether.

I brought fifty pounds of toys and York Peppermint Patties. They took up the entire big suitcase. My clothes are jammed into the little auxilary one. I intend to stuff big suitcase with Swiss chocolate on the way home.

completely moved

I am bruised all over from boxes and desks and bookshelves. I've been complaining about it all day. There are lots of people to complain to around here. The brothers did most of the unloading, and I had it finished and the U-Haul returned by eleven this morning. Buff little creatures, my brothers.

It's hot as Hades here. Dry heat, lots of sun.

hiatus

This blog will be back online on Monday June 20th. The moving is catching up to me: I'm twitchy and boring. I hope it's a temporary condition.

the end of day shift

The last fifteen minutes of my last day shift dispatching . . . finally.

sledding

Even a casual reference to the unbelieveable wolfhunt-mumming-sledding sequence in War and Peace makes me want to:

• cry;
• break out the Russian grammar and get cracking on a language I should never have abandoned;
• reread War and Peace;
• give up writing;
• write until I get something a quarter as right as those twenty pages; or
• move somewhere snowy.

I know better than to move under the influence of Tolstoy. The rest is all up in the air. It's fortunate that my books are all in a South Salt Lake storage shed; otherwise, I probably would spend a frustrating few hours on verbs of motion. And I really don't have the time for that.

panic

About an hour ago, I realized that I have seven days to pack up my worldly goods, clean my apartment, and leave town. The panic is indescribable. I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO.

post office

Oh, and the Post Office called today. Apparently they sent the PO Box application to the wrong branch. I had a sneaking suspicion this would happen, which is why I wrote the right branch on the envelope, on the form, in the margins of the form, and on the little note I included with the check.

They were shocked--shocked!--that it was misdirected. They will remedy the situation posthaste. They promise.

eight and three is eleven

I had my exit interview today: an hour meeting with HR to discuss any issues I might have had in the past five years. I know what you're thinking. Where to start?

I didn't start, of course. The Exit Interview is traditionally an outlet for pent-up fury and disgust. (All the ones we hear about, anyway.) Instead, I had a deeply boring conversation about alternative supervisory structures and training incentives. I did feel bad admitting that I'm leaving without another job in sight. It sounds like I didn't LIKE this job.

I'm such a wuss.

For the record, I don't hate my job. I don't even dislike it. I enjoy a lot of it. I think my coworkers are da bomb. I do hate the excessive hours, uneven supervision, and occasional foul-mouthed psycho. (I don't have a problem with the psychos who keep it clean.) And I hate the crap calls. Man with gunshot wound to his chest? No problem--that's my job. Getting yelled at by man whose Porche was just repo'd in front of his country club? Not all that great.

I packed another box of books today. I'm almost out of boxes.

countdown: nine and three is twelve

I'm back at work. Frankly, unemployment's never looked so good. It's been one of those headachy days. I spent a few hours shopping for an individual insurance policy, and I was shocked--shocked!--at the prices. In a good way, believe it or not. I can get the equivalent of my current insurance policy for only a quarter of what COBRA would cost me. Make this whole self-employment idea seem much more feasible.

Packing progress: a box of books and all the rest of the stemware.
Book progress: um, not much. I hope to spend a couple hours on it tonight, when I get home.

I'm trying not to make actionable threats over the phone as I wait for the WR post office to assign a PO Box number to me. How many weeks does it really take, people?

exhaustified

I worked no fewer than 72 hours in the last week, getting home at seven a.m. yesterday to fall into bed. So when I got up, I read the paper, and the magazine that arrived in the mail, and anything vaguely interesting online. I made real food for dinner. I found boxes and started packing. (Six stemmed glasses so far! Look impressed, people.) I hung out. I went to the grocery store. I drove around aimlessly. I did some dishes.

I should probably start feeling a little more urgency, since I'm moving everything I own in TEN DAYS. And then leaving the hemisphere.

But tonight I'm working on the new project, instead. The new project is a book that has nothing to do with law enforcement, for a change, although I find that the major male character is a burly guy with a shaved head. What can I say? I like the Vin Diesel look.

what next?

Sorry it's been such a spotty posting week. I've been training at work, which curtails my leisurely web browsing. My trainee is excellent, by the way. All our new people are going to be good dispatchers--no turkeys in this bunch.

I leave town with a little U-Haul and all my earthly possessions on June 19th. I leave the country on June 21st. With luck, new niece will have graced us with her presence by that time. After two weeks on the French-Swiss border, I'll head back to Salt Lake, via Albuquerque. Chrissie's coming with me. She has friends to see and I have another few days of full-time employment before stepping into the void. Back to New Mexico on the 10th and on to whatever the new life has in store for me. So far, I'm fairly sure it will involve sunbathing at the pool and canoeing with my Dad. It will also involve finishing the final draft of ECHO and submitting it to my agent by the first of August.

more on the quitting

It was not a huge shock to the supervisors, although they looked unhappily at the schedule as they took in the news. I wrote the typical polite and non-committal letter of resignation. I'll turn it in today.

Such a load off my mind. I've been planning this since the end of April. Keeping secrets doesn't come naturally. It's good to get this one out.

breaking news

Okay, I quit my job.

washpost

I cannot tell you how excited I am to discover who Deep Throat was. No matter than I couldn't name any of the involved parties, except for Nixon, Woodward, and Bernstein. And Spiro Agnew, maybe? We always ran out of school year before we got to that point in the textbook. I knew that G. Gordon Liddy was involved, unless he was one of those Iran-Contra people. And Oliver North probably wasn't. Not the guy on the grassy knoll, either: he was a shadowy figure from the 60's, and I knew that Watergate was a 70's thing. Maybe. Nixon ran for president so many times, it's hard to keep track.

So why do I care about Deep Throat? I love secrets. This is a doozy: it's like finding out where Hoffa was buried or whether Harding's wife really poisoned him. I had much the same response to the Primary Colors brouhaha. I didn't want to read the book and I didn't know who Joe Klein was. But who can resist a good public denouement?

interregnum

Back in Salt Lake. I leave again on June 20th, this time for Geneva by way of Albuquerque, Atlanta and Zurich. Three weeks isn't much time. There's a lot to do. I'd do it, too, if I weren't so busy reading Regency romances and pretending to run errands. Not all week: since I got back, I've been working like a dog--after work yesterday (this morning) I drove home, slept five hours, showered, and weny straight back to work. Yesterday, I made it to the bank, the UPS warehouse, the post office, and Barnes and Noble. I wrote letters, rented a PO Box, and activated two cell phones. I balanced my checkbook, although I consider that more entertainment than chore.

I haven't worked on the book in a week and I'm starting to get a little twitchy about it. It may be worth going home early. On the other hand, I'm a sucker for gainful employment.

Watch this space: there will be breaking news sometime next week.