Corner of Bourbon & Division

Time is slipping through my fingers these days. So much is going on that I feel as though I have no time to record it all.

The interview went really well, for those of you who were wondering. Thanks for all the good thoughts!

After five days of (unpaid) vacation, I'm finding it very hard to accustom myself to the idea that I have to leave for work in a little over an hour. I really enjoyed *not* being at work for more than three consecutive days. Just being by myself for a couple of days, and then spending the weekend with friends. It was nice. I needed the space, I think. In fact, I could use another week of that. Maybe then I'd feel properly rested. As it is, I'm kind of cringing at the thought of going back into the windowless bunker that is our security central. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get back in the swing of things once I'm there.

This was a gaming-intensive weekend, with Mage for the first two days, and the final game of Mutopia on the last. A very good time overall, if I do say so myself. A most satisfactory ending to Mutopia (frolicking in the water!), and a promising second session of Mage. I very much like the new character I'm playing, and there's been a promise of a two-person solo in the near future, which will be lots of fun, I'm sure.

I owe many people emails and/or phone calls. I promise I will be getting to those this week, ASAP.

I'm in a funny headspace these days. I'm starting to learn that I get this way when I'm overtired and have all at once too much and too little time to think. I'm constantly busy, but with stretches when my mind isn't occupied. So I'm too busy to stop and give all the stuff in my head time to settle down into any kind of order, but not busy enough that all the stuff can't accumulate anyway. It's a little annoying. Some of the stuff is Not Good, but I haven't been able to give it enough attention to be able to get rid of it.

With any luck, I'll be able to get back into a proper rhythm in July. I have three entire weeks left, so I'm hoping that will be enough. If not, well, there's always August.

Apart from mostly living under a rock this week, things got pretty stressful at work, albeit in a strictly work-related way, and not in an interpersonal-suck kind of way, if that makes any sense. Things also worked themselves out in the end.

Thursday we got a frantic call from a client who said his suicidal wife was missing, along with their car. We immediately went into high gear —human lives on the line tend to do that. We had that sucker tracked within twenty minutes, and found the car parked in a strip mall parking lot. Ten minutes later the police were on the scene, but there was no sign of the woman. A few more minutes' searching found her having her hair done at a local salon. So much for "suicidal and out of control." Our client appeared on the scene not too long after, and as the policewoman on the scene put it, it was pretty obvious that he should have been the one on medication and not his wife. I would say all's well that ends well, except that our tracker told us, when he came back to the central, that he was pretty sure that poor woman was going to get the crap beaten out of her that night when they got home. So, not a really happy ending. An okay ending, because we didn't have to prevent a suicide, but it was still of the suck for the poor woman who has to deal with her controlling husband.

Call number two came last night, from a big trucking company (name omitted so I don't get fired) who told us, and I quote, that their truck full of copper had been hijacked. There are two magic words in that sentence: "copper" and "hijacked." Any theft involving metals sends people into high gear, and hijacking a truck is a very serious offense. So I had the trackers' supervisor hanging over my shoulder (he happened to be in the central when we got the call) while I called Bell Mobility for updates every three minutes.

As the supervisor put it, we could smell blood in the water: the Boomerang unit was answering beautifully (always iffy on trailers, because the unit only has its own tiny independent battery, unlike other vehicles where it's hooked up directly to the main battery), and it was cruising down the 417 at a pretty decent clip. We weren't sure for a while whether it was going to turn north and stay in Ontario, or whether it was going to continue east and into Quebec. We had a police report number from the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) who were standing by if it stayed in the province, and we quickly got the SQ (Sureté du Québec) on the line and had them set up a roadblock at the border.

So the trailer crosses over into Québec, and the SQ take the guy down. Pull the guy out of the truck at gunpoint, shove him face first into the asphalt, cuff him and put him in a cruiser, only to find out that, umm, he's the driver.

Yeah.

So there was a little miscommunication. The client lost contact with the driver, and in his mind that automatically translated into "hijacking." >_< The SQ was understandably pissed off, but it was in no way our fault. So we told the client that he'd better give his driver an early Christmas present, and explained that they'd be getting a bill from us. Oh, and that he might want to apologize to the SQ for wasting their time.

It was just that kind of week.

Today went really well, OTOH. Got up at a decent time, had breakfast with the Parental Units, and then had a kickass practice with Random Colour, after a month's hiatus. We beat "Enter Sandman" into submission, did some great work on "First We Take Manhattan," and made tremendous progress on "The Bonny Swans." The latter especially felt good by the end: we've definitely got a good idea of where that song is heading now, which we didn't have before.

After band practice I walked to Archambault, where I replaced my Cat Stevens album that was eaten by my tape recorder a few years ago, and bought "Surrealistic Pillow," which I'd been meaning to get for a while. They were both half-price, so I actually stayed within my budget. Yay! I then walked over to Chapters and spent all my gift cards on books. I got a new Charles Todd and an Ellis Peters that I didn't have before, and I have started collecting the Amelia Peabody mysteries, so that I can read them anytime I please. :D

Then I went off for dinner with the Parental Units, where I found out that the alarming rattling sound I was hearing when I drove the car (which my father generously offered to check out for me today) was the ball bearing on the rear left wheel coming apart. It was only a matter of time before I lost my wheel going down Autorout 15 on the way to work (or coming home), it seems. So the car is now back at the garage, and I'll be getting it back on Monday if all goes well.

owldaughter lent me the second season of "Slings & Arrows," which I am now off to go watch. I've already watched the first episode, and it looks just as awesome as the first season, but in a completely different way. Yay!

Mostly.

Life has eaten my brain. I will be back when I can. I can still be reached by email, either at home or at work, but LJ has temporarily gone by the wayside.

Sorry to everyone I'm neglecting.

~Phnee

Got home much later than expected. Much catching up to do. The city seems even more stifling than usual, after a weekend reasonably far from the urban rush.

Just don't expect to hear from me much in the near future.

I looked at some of the other places for brunch. Couldn't find Cocktail Hawaii, but maybe I just wasn't looking in the right place.

Tutti Frutti seems fun, but not much less expensive than the Eggspectations. There's a place in the Faubourg that's less expensive but kind of dark, especially in winter.

Essentially, I'm stumped.

I have to confess also to a lack of inspiration and enthusiasm about this whole thing. I'm thinking of putting brunch on hiatus, for myself at least, for a while. Maybe a month or so, or perhaps until September, when things will start to pick up again. This doesn't mean people have to abandon brunch, but it does mean that I won't be there.

I think I had other things to say, but I've forgotten them now.