Areas of Unrest

25 February 2000 - Take Care

QOTD: "Every man has one thing he can do better than anyone else - and usually it's reading his own handwriting." - G. Norman Collie

Reading: Jon Krakauer, Into The Wild

Listening to: Steve Goodman, City of New Orleans

I wrote the previous entry when I got home Monday night, but couldn't get a good enough connection to be able to upload. It was only last night that I realized that was probably because my ISP is in an area that has GTE, instead of Pacific Bell, and they'd had some rain-related phone trouble. Anyway, I'm sorry it's up late, but I had to run off to Boulder early Tuesday morning and I was too tired when I got back last night to do anything at all.

My meetings in Boulder were surprisingly useful, largely because there weren't any higher level managers around. There was one minor blowup between a couple of people - the typical power struggle nonsense. I didn't have as much time as usual for stopping by various people's offices to find out how things were going for them. Phone and email are useful, but there's no substitute for face time.

Tuesday night featured heavy rain, so I took advantage of my exhaustion as an excuse to get take-out Thai food (Siamese Plate - adequate but nothing compared to Thai restaurants in California) and eat it while watching Buffy and Angel. Wednesday night, I finally had a chance to try a newish restaurant. Hapa Sushi Grill is mostly trendy Asian fusion stuff, with some more normal sushi. I tried a honey-miso crusted salmon dish, which was good enough but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat it again. I did, though, have a marvelous dessert of lemongrass creme brulee, served with a ginger cookie and fruit (blackberries and carambola). Carambola (also called starfruit) is one of my favorite tropical fruits and I hardly ever think to look for it. It's worth keeping in mind because I should eat a greater variety of fruit. Usually, there are just a couple of fruits I eat in any given season - oranges in winter and strawberries and grapes in summer. It isn't that I dislike other fruit (except bananas, which I can't stand the texture of) but I just don't seem to think of buying them.

Today was catchup day. I had a paper I needed to finish writing, some briefing charts to modify for a weekly meeting, and a ton of email to read. I had been mildly irritated that someone hadn't gotten back to me regarding the first item - and then I got his email telling me he's been in and out of the hospital all month after an auto accident. And then I found out a key guy from our contractor team died. He was only 49 and apparently just went to sleep and didn't wake up. Gallows humor has it that he's just another victim of the high stress in our program.

At last week's all-hands meeting John had made a point of saying something like "we've all got a lot to do, but taking care of yourself and your family should be your top priority." No matter how important what you're working on is, if you're not dealing with your health and your personal obligations, you're not going to be effective in the long run. I may complain about feeling overwhelmed at times, but I give myself credit for having enough sense to take time off and recharge my batteries. The fact that my management recognizes the necessity of this is one of the best things about my job.

Speaking of taking care of myself, it's time to have a cup of mint tea, curl up betwen cozy flannel sheets, read for a bit and get to sleep early.