A majority of the week at work is spent preparing for the March 15th review by NOAA, DoD, NASA,and the Air Force. We work madly to get the presentation in shape. On the side there are other visitors from France as well as NASA and USGS (United States Geological Society) that take up time.
On Tuesday night I get out for a long walk as I want to put a check in the bank via the ATM. I walk up to the ATM and realize that I pulled a Vons card out of my wallet instead of my ATM card (as I don't want to carry my wallet on a long walk). Oh well, the check will wait. I finish Monday night making a number of good trading cards to give to next weeks' reviewers. (A Major in the Air Force asks me everytime that he sees me whether we will have trading cards for the Dynamics review and I cannot disappoint my customer, now can I?)
On Wednesday at work I make good progress with generating charts, video clips, and attending meetings. When I get breaks, I flip on some sad songs because I feel that I want/need to cry. The tears well up in my eyes and the lump gets into my throat, but the real tears don't come. Maybe I'm all teared-out from my eyes tearing up during each morning commute on the motorcycle. (Maybe this is good because one of my co-workers might call the men in the white coats to come and get me if they saw me crying.) But I run out of sad songs and get tired of playing some of them over and over.
On Wednesday night I get in a heavy session with the weights to work off stress. I note to Person C_T via a telephone conversation that lifting very heavy tends to make me sleep better because it modifies the body's hormonal response. But that deep sleep and hormonal modification has to be balanced with the extra workload on the joints.
On Thursday morning I wake up early and refreshed from the deep sleep. The heavy lifting sure does the trick even if some muscles are sore and a joint or two hurt. It's a great morning commute even though my eyes again tear up. Just as I'm finishing the commute I pass a black Honda with a personalized license plate "miss chi". Hmmm.
On Thursday after a good day at work I head out for a run. On the way past the school there is a ChiChi who keeps looking at me and finally says, "Hi", as I'm running past. I smile back and give the standard, "Hi, How are you?" to be polite. I don't know what the ChiChi says because I'm past him now. About 15 seconds later I look back and see the ChiChi still staring at me. So I give him a little wave of the hand and continue on the run. For the run I start off north towards gangland territory because I just don't care. Eventually I turn back towards safer territory and finish off the 6.5 mile run without any aches or pains.
On Friday I get in a good, heavy session with the weights before heading off for a long walk. I run into the nieghborhood ChiChi again and we exchange pleasantries. Later Person C_T comes over and we relax for the evening.
On Saturday I'm up late and get out for a good bicycle ride around the aquarium. Person C_T and I have lunch and do a lot of shopping at Home Depot, Target, Sees Candies, and Vons. When we get home I start installing the new garage lights and try not to electrocute myself. I have to pull the cords out of the lights and replace them with conduit, and it almost seems as if I know what I'm doing. Person C_T works on bathroom designs and prepares dinner. Later we relax to some motorcycle racing for me and Dynasty for Person C_T. Fortunately Ruby and Joseph call with an emergency and I have to work on ResourceScout charts instead of watching Dynasty.
On Sunday Person C_T and I sleep late. We go have breakfast before Person C_T leaves and I do the laundry and get out for a good bicycle ride around the aquarium. later I finish off the wiring of the new lights in the garage. As I'm finishing the wiring I'm saying to myself, "Oh please let this wire be a live wire. Then I don't have to deal with this emotional turmoil". But it is not a live wire and the lights work well.
Later I get out for a good long walk with ecstacy-induced trance music playing on the mp3 player. And finally I relax for the rest of the evening. There are important reviews at Northrop Grumman this week and a potential ResourceScout presentation on Wednesday night.
I'm in bed before 10 pm. The first hour of sleep is very deep and intense. I wake up at 11:11 pm and wodner what hit me - the sleep was that deep. I quickly fall back asleep only to wake up to a nightmare at 2:08 am on Monday. When I wake p I don't know where I am and I wonder how I got here - this being a familiar theme in the past few years when I actually wake up in a strange bed. But this time I slowly make out features in my room and figure out that I am safely in my own bed. The nightmare involved Person N_V, Person C_T, and my Dad. It appeared that we were in the house that I grew up in and Person N_V and I were both being antagonistic towards each other before I pushed Person N_V and he stepped in mud - his leg sinking in and destroying his shoe, sock, and part of his pants. A bit after this I woke up. I don't know what the nightmare means, but I lie in bed for about a half hour before I fall asleep again.