So, About Friday

Although I continue to find it funny, in a tragic-irony sort of way, that my company chose a Friday the 13th to have our little drink-the-koolaid re-branding event, in retrospect I am supremely grateful that they did choose the Friday before a long weekend, as it gave me yesterday to recover from the total exhaustion of the day, followed by two more days of weekend. Thank heavens!

Not only was the day tiring from the perspective of going into the city (I couldn't even tell you the last time I did that), negotiating the T, finding my way to the office in the bitter cold and wind, meeting new people, wearing grown-up clothes, working around other people all day, oh and discovering that the waistband of the slacks I was wearing had stretched out and I had to be careful not to flash everyone--on top of all that, plenty of walking and carrying around the bag with my laptop and everything meant that I had sore legs and hips, a tired back, and arm muscles that were screaming and still hurt 24 hours after I got home. Which, by the way, was fourteen hours after I left in the morning. Long day. It was joyful.

The whole day wasn't actually awful. But it was a strain, and having yesterday to do virtually nothing, without giving up half my weekend for it, was fabulous. I was lured out to lunch with a friend, very pleasant indeed, but otherwise I was on the couch most of the day. The Bruins won their matinee, yay, and I watched some movies*, and knit, and mostly didn't move except to go get more ibuprofen. Ow. Honestly, my arms still hurt a bit more than usual. I guess my "carrying the laptop" muscles are underdeveloped.
*One of which was Finding Nemo; read on see if you can guess why.

I didn't actually have to be in the office all day, but as long as I was going in for the meeting in the afternoon, and the dinner after, I figured I might as well. I live about ten miles from the new office, so of course it took an hour to get there--and that's with nothing going wrong (other than the obvious rookie mistake of walking a block in the wrong direction when I got off the T, which didn't add much time). So, so, so glad I don't have to do that often. I found the office with no other problems, and took over an empty desk. They had brought in bagels and other breakfast stuff, so that was nice, and someone I knew from the old office offered me part of her sandwich at lunch, when I was trying to decide if I wanted to go out or not. (She lives in the next town from me, and works from home part of the time, so we talked of getting together for lunch or coffee one of these days. That would be fun!)

It was actually weird just being around other people while working, an effect that was exacerbated by the fact that we could hear footsteps overhead as clearly as if they were on our floor. And sirens, and honking horns, and a jackhammer for a while ... cities are loud.

Whether fortunately or not, I didn't have a report to work on, so I spent the day on cleaning out my email inbox, a task sadly neglected for months, and writing my self-assessment (ugh). We had a meeting last week about how the process was going to work, with assurances that it would not slip months off schedule again, which is possible I suppose. I'm not positive it will all go according to their schedule, but as long as I get a damned raise this year, I won't complain too much. Given that the CEO claims they had a "fantastic financial year" in 2016, they should be able to afford a wee bit more for the lowly editor.

Anyway! Self-assessment done and sent in before the meeting, which was mostly on the boring side from my POV, did bring up an interesting number of planned reports from one sector, which I noted to discuss with my fellow editors (neither of whom could make it for the meeting), and at the end, the announcement that the new head of the division will be starting around March, which is actually faster than I would have expected, so good news there, I think.

There was some down time before the dinner, so a few of us went to a wine bar down the street for a drink first. One of the people I knew had driven in, and offered to drive some of us to the dinner, which was actually being held at the Aquarium, pretty fancy! And I was relieved not to have to get there on my own, so perfectly happy to ride. We had a sort of side room to ourselves (there was another event that had the "main floor") and it turned out to be the area where there's a large open tank with sting rays and hermit crabs and things, as well as some smaller tanks of brightly colored fish, which were rather neat to watch. The rays were mesmerizing, and as time went on and I got more tired, it was nice to sit and just watch them rippling by.

Just to complete my review of the event, the food was also really good. And yes, to answer the question* that popped into my mind the minute they told us where the dinner would be, yes, they do serve seafood! Apparently, when you are selecting your options, the fish choices emphasize that they are sustainably harvested, etcetera. There was clam chowder along with the other appetizers for us, and one of the pasta dishes had shrimp in it, so I didn't have either of those, but most everything else was delicious.
*Not that I eat much seafood, so I didn't have a personal need to know, I was just curious!

Still, despite the lack of disasters, I was very, very ready to leave. A few other people were staggering to the T at the same time I was, so I didn't even have to find my way alone, in the even-colder-and-windier night. Was I ever glad to get home, and was Carlos ever glad to see me!

And now, I will go off for the evening, singing a little happy song about having tomorrow off. I can get a little eye-rolling about how we get nine holidays from work a year, yet three of them are less than a month apart (leading to long holiday deserts later), but right now, so happy.