Thursday musings

Let's see... what's new.

I've been working, hard. That is new. There are so many big projects to wrap up before I end my tenure at the college. It keeps me awake at night. This week I prepared a 55-page report for an all-day meeting I have tomorrow.

I hate it. Every bit of it. I am so ready to be done with the college.

Then there is the consulting. At the beginning of this project cycle the consultants hired an analyst to help with the load. They flew me to CO to train her. The plan was for me to manage four schools, and she would manage four schools. In the end, she decided she couldn't manage any, so I got all hers plus another for good measure. So, I am juggling nine colleges right now. It's a full time job and then some. But I LOVE the work.

Even so, it's really starting to wear me down.

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Amanda got two birthday cards from her father, who now resides in Calcutta, India. He sent them via my parents in PA. With her permission, I decided to write to him. I sent recent pictures of her and told him things that would make him happy, like how she's excelling in math, and that she's playing soccer.

As for him, he's still fixated on Miss World 1994, pictured here. He wrote that she is Amanda's biological mother.

He also thinks he's Jesus Christ.

It is so sad. It really is. The man is the gentlest person I know, and he was so smart and so funny. What a fucking waste. I wish Amanda could know him as he was when I first met him.

It wasn't an easy letter to write. I wanted to ask him "Where the hell is the Volvo!" since I'm still paying for it. But I didn't. I was also tempted to ask, "Is there any chance you might send one of the court ordered child support payments you're supposed to send every month until Amanda is 18?" But there's really no point in asking, so I didn't.


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I called my mother today. The poor woman had several teeth pulled on Tuesday. She was really dreading it and is relieved to have it over with. She's 78 and is in otherwise fairly good health, except that she is becoming frail. She has to inject herself every day with a bone building drug to fend off osteoporosis. The cost of that drug is $2,000/month and she's about to hit the Medicare D donut hole. She and my father live on an annual fixed income of about $20k, so I don't know how they will make up the hole.

My older sister (K, 54) had a precancerous polyp removed from her cervix, and she'll most likely have a hysterectomy. Her husband just completed treatment for prostate cancer. He's doing well, but has discomfort from the radioactive seeds planted in his prostate.

Things aren't all bad. My younger sister (A, 43) is about to graduate with an MBA. I am so proud of her. We'll be going to PA in May for her graduation. I love graduations.

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Finally, I am hoping for nice weather this weekend. We (Amanda and I) have a lot of yard work to do and it's been raining for weekends on end. I need to hose down the house as it is covered in clay dust from road construction (and grave digging).