Monday, November 03, 2008

Total last minute change of plans

We should be used to this by now. We should always have two bags packed and yarn and such bought and books on tape selected and just be ready to go. And for the most part, we do have a lot of the important stuff ready. Like I keep medications in my bag, though sometimes I forget to refill them. And I have all the daily cosmetic stuff in my bag. And he has a bunch of stuff that he just never unpacks, so really all we're supposed to do for him to be ready is do the laundry.

Did we do the laundry?

No.

Okay, so I could have done some laundry three days ago. But I didn't. And I couldn't have done all the laundry, cause he still had a lot of it in his bag. But I could have at least done my laundry while he was away, and I didn't even get that done. So when he came home Saturday night we could have started sorting the laundry then, but we never do that unless we know that he's going to get sent right out again.

We didn't know that.

So we could have done laundry on Sunday. That isn't unusual. Sunday would be a good day to do laundry. Except that he wasn't supposed to work again until Thursday, and I had in my head that we didn't need to do the laundry until Tuesday or Wednesday. I had even convinced myself that there was a good reason to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday. On Tuesday or Wednesday I will probably go out and buy some more Halloween clearance stuff, and I usually buy several T-shirts, so Tuesday or Wednesday after I buy these T-shirts would be a good day to sort through stuff and decide if I really want to keep this or that and some of this stuff is going to get thrown out anyway and we do wear these anymore and this doesn't fit anymore, etc....

Really, I was planning to do some of that Tuesday or Wednesday. Not a big plan, not a written in stone plan, not an important plan, but I was just thinking that it would have been a good idea, and since he was going to be home Tuesday and Wednesday, he might want to do that sort of thing himself. So I'd convinced myself that the laundry didn't need to be done until then, and I had a good reason not to do the laundry before then. So Sunday we did not do laundry, but we went to lunch, and we did just a bit of shopping. Basically, we were trying to enjoy the day, and we were being lazy.

So Monday morning his boss calls. Being the first Monday of November and right after the time change, he happened to be awake. Last Monday at that time, he was not awake. Still, he hadn't been awake very long and had not taken a shower or brushed his teeth or had breakfast or any of that stuff.

Can you work today in middle of nowhere Oklahoma?

Uh...sure. Where is it?

So he gets the address and directions, and it's more than four hours away if the traffic is good, and he has to leave right away. He's going to be late as it is, cause he'll still have to stop for lunch and get gas and find the place and find a motel room, etc....

We don't even know if he's coming home tomorrow, or if he'll work there tomorrow too, or if there's a whole new schedule or what. They haven't figured all of that out yet. Depends on some other stuff, like if the other employee who got sick is still sick and that sort of thing.

So it was supposed to be a three day week, which we really didn't want, cause we need the money. This could now be a four day week, or a five day week, or even a six day week, and so that's probably a good thing. Or it could still be a three day week, just with a lot of stuff moved around. So we really don't want to complain too much about getting an extra day of work when we need money, it's just that all the schedule changes get annoying, and this was so last minute.

Other changes have cancelled a trip to Tulsa that we were kind of looking forward to.

So my husband takes the laundry that hasn't been washed yet and puts some of it back in the bag. If he stays there tomorrow, he'll have to do some laundry himself. And we're running around looking for things that he should take with him, and I get him some cookies to eat in the car since he hasn't had breakfast yet, but I forget to give him the Cheetos I bought for his lunch.

Last year we went to this area of middle of nowhere Oklahoma and did some tourist stuff that I used to do as a kid. So he looks at me and says that if I want to I can throw some stuff in a bag and go with him. We've gone on other trips even less prepared, and we can do that today too if we want. So that was kind of sweet that he said that, and also a bit sad. I wasn't really thinking of missing out on tourist stuff that we did last year. I was just a bit upset about the change in schedule, and about not being ready to deal with it, even though we should know better by now. I was just a bit upset, and jumping in a car without much in the way of clean clothes wasn't going to fix much.

I actually did get a little work done today, so maybe it wasn't all bad. I still haven't gotten around to the laundry yet, but I'm still planning to buy those T-shirts tomorrow or the next day, and I'm still planning this major bit of sort through clothes that I might not want to keep anymore. Maybe I'll have a week to myself, and maybe that will be a good thing. Or maybe he'll be home tomorrow and the rest of the week will go as planned. I'm just really surprised that this sort of thing still bothers me, and I'm surprised that I still haven't managed to be prepared for it whenever it happens.

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