I have really been looking forward to today – my first day to work from home in the new apartment. A whole day to just hang out with Oreo and enjoy Newark. Oreo is really looking forward to today too as he doesn’t get left alone today and won’t for a long time since Doggie Paradise reopens on Monday and we will be home with him all weekend. I am also looking forward to getting to eat breakfast in Newark. My plan is to get over to Food for Life if at all possible to get breakfast. I want to try their fish based breakfast meats.
The day started off quite abruptly. At about twenty after five this morning the fire alarm went off. Yes, this is the fourth time that the fire alarm has gone off in fourty eight hours. Dominica and I were the lucky ones. Min normally gets up at a quarter to six so while this was early for her it wasn’t that early and she didn’t need to go back to bed. I am awake at that time normally so it isn’t a big deal for me. Being on the sixteenth floor can have its disadvantages though. They shut down the elevators and most everyone on our floor, in their pajamas, headed down to the street. They were not happy. Especially when they learned that this was the fourth time in two days. We stayed in our apartment and we were definitely the ones who made out on that deal. That early in the morning is awful for just about anyone because almost no one has left for work yet but almost everyone is either sleeping and it disrupts them or is in the process of getting ready for work and this makes them late. And manually going up and down thirty eight sets of stairs like the people on the nineteenth floor had to do could easily end up eating half an hour or more of your morning and that is just for the stairs portion. The elevator was shut down for at least half an hour.
Dominica emailed me from work to let me know that when she left the building around seven the elevators were still not turned back on. Now this could be a bit of a problem. I can only imagine all of the really pissed off people walking out this morning after descending all of that way. Most people need to go in and out once or twice during the morning. Those of us with dogs have to do it a bit. Good thing that Oreo was walked last night and likes to sleep in late or I would be very unhappy going up and down the stairs all morning with the little boy. That is way too much climbing for either of us.
My life would appear to have turned into nothing more than a series of phone conferences. Only two yesterday but well over four hours total between them. Probably closer to five and that is just the conference time. That doesn’t include the hours of regular telephone time that I have each day. I must have come close to six or seven hours on the phone yesterday. That is crazy. Today I have at least three phone conferences lines up before the day even started. I can just sense a long day coming on.
Well I was right about it being a long day. I worked about fourteen hours in total and didn’t have a chance to get breakfast or lunch until two in the afternoon. Oreo had to cross his legs until then before he got a chance to take a walk in the park. He normally doesn’t volunteer to be taken out until around eleven or so but it was still a bit of a wait for him. I was on the phone constantly from half past eight until almost one on back to back conference calls. That made the day very busy while being almost totally unproductive.
Lunch came from Food for Life right next door. They are fast and easy when I am in a hurry since they are so close and all ready know me by name. Boy is that food good. I am really glad that I made it over there to get lunch (Nautical BLT, mac and cheese and some cole slaw) because it turned out to be my only meal of the day. I ran back to the apartment and ate at my desk. What a day.
Oreo was at least happy to have me home with him all day even if it didn’t mean that we got to play very much. He was a very good boy all day and spent the majority of the day sleeping on the futon behind me. Occassionaly he would get up and play with his ball or ask me to through one of his little stuffed squirrels around. But mostly he was very calm.
Dominica got home a little late due to traffic. She rolled in around six. I was on a conference call when she got home and didn’t get to stop work until a while after seven. I had been so busy all day that I had only had one quick meal and hadn’t had a chance to shower yet. So I took a shower while she looked at some menus and tried to decide where she wanted to go for dinner.
By the time that I got out of the shower Dominica and Oreo had gone to bed and were asleep. I came out to the livingroom and discovered that there was a new crisis at the office and worked again for another two hours or more and didn’t get a chance to turn in until close to eleven. What a day. And the plan is that we will be working for a bit of the weekend as well.
I talked to Josh today and his plans have changed. He is coming down here on Wednesday. That is this Wednesday in just five days or so and will be crashing here until Friday. Then he will be flying out on Friday and we will be driving out to head back home once Dominica gets out of work on Friday evening.