Chicken Curry

Today was another busy day. A few days ago I received a new project through Chip from a new customer. Matt had never been part of the greater process of putting one of our customer packages together and his first try was quite elementary. It was better than some I had seen, but it still needed work. So I talked to Matt on the phone and quickly realized that my consultation would be much more productive in person than over the phone. It would also give me a reason to be out of the office for half of a day.

So this morning I packed up my sales kit (though I don’t work in sales) and jumped on the first bus over to where Matt works. Well, I tried to catch the bus. Even though I got there early (because I missed the bus one other time), the bus was already full and I had to wait for the next bus. I still got to Matt’s office a little early, so I stopped and got some coffee and enjoyed not being in the office and sitting in the sun.

My apartment is in the basement, and so we have no windows. And my last two offices have been inside offices, so I can’t see outside when I’m at work. Since spring is here and the sun is rising early I can see the sun when I walk to work, and I can see the sun if I go for a laundry pickup in the middle of the day, but the sun is usually down when I leave the office at the end of the day.

So while I was drinking my coffee I was trying to enjoy the sun.

When I got to Matt’s office, it took about an hour and half to go over the template of the source documents, the layout of the project, and what had to go where. If I could get to my customers before they started their projects, I could get so much done and save so many hours of work of fixing things. Matt was very appreciative and gave me a really nice coffee mug with his company’s design on it. They might give those mugs to anyone, but it meant a lot to me because I’m usually treated like an a-hole from our customers who think that all of this specific layout is my idea. Whatever.

Keith convinced Chip that he needed to come on this trip. I’m not sure if he had any real business, but he was also enjoying his day out of the office. We ran into our friend, Sharon, who was ALSO out and about trying to get something done. So we walked around for a bit and did some shopping while we waited for lunch. I didn’t buy anything, but I did see some gum that is called “BURN” and has a picture of fire on the package. I assume it’s cinnamon flavored, and I’m sure it’s quite spicy. I had to laugh when I saw it. If you buy some, don’t say you weren’t warned.

For lunch we had chicken curry and rice. It wasn’t terribly spicy, but it made my stomach upset for the rest of the day. 

We caught the bus back to our office and I had to remember to pick up my laundry. Our cleaners is open six days a week –closed on Fridays. But I forgot to pick up my laundry on Thursday afternoon and I was perilously low on socks and underwear. I also had some gym clothes to drop off. And I don’t know who folded my clothes, but it wasn’t the guy (or gal) who matches up my socks.

And we had our weekly trash burn this afternoon also. For some reason, we had a lot more paper than we normally do and we couldn’t finish up before it started raining. I was just talking about that yesterday! The rain was preceeded with a lot of wind and dark, scary clouds. We got inside right before the rain came. And so we headed for dinner.

We had Mexican food for dinner. Even though my stomach didn’t feel very good, I was excited. But I ended up spilling my queso dip all over my shirt and my pants! AAAARGH! ALL OVER! I have no idea how it happened. And I somehow managed to get some on Mike’s shirt also. It was only a little glob on his shirt, but he wasn’t pleased either. I ended up not caring and so I wiped off as much as I could (rubbed it in) and tried to finish dinner.

When I got back to the office, I had the source document from Matt waiting for me in my e-mail. I consider my trip to his office a success because the document was almost perfect. Since I know what will pass and what will not, there were a few aesthetic changes that I made and I shot it back to Matt for him to construct the accompanying documents.

About that time, movie night was about to start. But my stomach hurt too bad so I left a little early and skipped the move and went back to my room. I took my stomach medicine, called Sara and the kiddos, and cleaned the apartment a little bit. And it’s late now, so I’m going to hit the sack.