Update... Nov 13, 2007

Let me start off by quoting my sister… “Whoa, can say that again? Whoa!” That really says it all right now folks. My entire life can be summarized in one word, and that word… is “whoa”. I am not even sure if that is a real word or merely just slang. But whether it is a word or not… it is what I have in my life… my plate is full and it is a big plate of “whoa!”. Let’s begin another update, follow me…

I have been traveling the last couple of weeks for work. I have been told so many times, by so many people of various walks of life, how lucky I am to get to travel for work. The one similarity that all of these people have is that THEY have never traveled for work. Traveling for work is just like spending a weekend helping your brother move into a new house. If you have never helped a family member move into a house (not an apartment, that is too small an undertaking) then let me bring this analogy into focus for you. Keep looking through the view finder, this is gonna get crystal clear fast.

When you spend a weekend helping a family member move it is a marathon. It generally starts on Friday, and you come over to their current residence… you are energetic, you are pumped, you are ready to get it over with! Now for me, I usually go in with some kind of plan… I have an agenda in my head which usually consists of everything I want to get done that evening, you know goals. Well, what I usually have in my mind is to get certain rooms packed and moved and to at some point in the evening break for a nice dinner. Did you hear that folks… dinner. This is never what happens. Friday night is usually spent in a mad dash going from one room to the next just trying to shore things up and you’re lucky if you get water, no soup for you!

Saturday morning comes and with the dawn of a new day comes sustenance. There is always breakfast on this day, you need the energy and you are starving from the previous night. Usually, in my family, this breakfast feast consists of McDonalds (let’s face it… outside of breakfast and happy meals that place is bad, don’t talk to me about their fries because I would go out of my way for chick-fil-a waffle fries!) you know the Mickey D’s breakfast drill… a sausage biscuit with egg, and a diet coke! You speed through the day box after box, just trying to empty a U-Haul. Now the entire time this is going on I am wondering if the boxes are reproducing or if this U-haul has the illusionary properties of a clown car, because with every box I take out of the back end another seems to appear in its place! It is like playing “whack-a-mole” they just keep popping up! Finally by the end of the day you are a little punch drunk and everything becomes funny. I have to tell you this is not the time for something to strike me as odd or funny, because I will begin to laugh so hard I will cry and it could take me a good thirty minutes or so to recover. This did indeed happened during one such move, I was in the back of the U-Haul and friend of my brother’s wife got into the back the truck in a cut-off “flash dance” belly shirt and 1970s track shorts and red tube socks that were pulled up to his knees… I had to put the box down that I was trying to lift and get out of there before I doubled over in laughter. The crazy part was that these were actually his real clothes. I tried to warn my twin brother, “don’t go in the truck, you wont be able to contain yourself”. He didn’t know why I was laughing or what I was talking about, finally he comes right back out of the truck and says… “Did you see that?” and begins to die laughing. No forty plus year old man should look like he was “getting physical” with Olivia Newton John before heading over to help us unload stuff. Geez. There usually is no lunch on Saturday and you speed through everything and generally speaking dinner is provided around 9 or 10 o’clock at night. You lay down to go to sleep and you are tired, your body is tired, your mind is tired, your hair is tired, even your fingernails are tired… and then Sunday comes… Sunday is clean up day! You get to keep unpacking and cleaning the whole day. You do get breakfast and a fast food lunch! And by the time dinner rolls around, generally the person that is moving in may take you out for a Mexican dinner. The weekend is over… you have gotten nothing accomplished for yourself, and your entire life has been on hold. You have eaten fast food that isn’t good for you, restaurant food that isn’t good for you, been deprived of water, been deprived of sleep, and physically and mentally taxed during these long and arduous fourteen hour working days! But your brother is happy! He is moved!!! Things are good.

Consider my project manager my brother. He asks me (well, tells me) to go to Toronto to “fix” stuff. Last week is a great example of this. I get in Tuesday evening, it is 6 o’clock when the plane lands. I speedily get through customs, because, let’s face it… I don’t look like a terrorist. My project manager is waiting outside the terminal in his rental car. I haven’t eaten since lunch, but there is no time for food, not even for a fast food! We go directly to the office to start working. The marathon has started, I have on my running shoes and I am praying that 26.2 comes quickly! I get on my laptop, which is silver… “Hi-Ho Silver!!! Away!!!” I am waving my hat in the air. Ok, I didn’t have a hat. I work, my fingers are flying across the keyboard… one of the ops guys is wiping beads of sweat off of my brow. Finally midnight arrives, I haven’t eaten… must… have… food. One of the ops guys swing into action, they bring me six bite size pretzels! We press on! Finally thirty minutes later… we give up. (enter yoda’s voice). Rest. Must… have… rest. We leave and head for the hotel. I go to check in and they do not have my reservation, and BONUS they are “sold out”. Well, the desk clerk talks to his manager, who gets on the computer… and the two of them “find a room”. Now, that is amazing! They were sold out five minutes before, but low and behold… you look pathetic enough at nearly 1am and they will “find” you a room! The next day we wake up… and head in! Everyday was long… at least 12 hours. There were meals that were skipped, there was only sparing amounts of water to be had, working out isn’t something I could have done even if there was time to do it… but by the time I got on the plane on Friday morning… everyone was happy! My life had been ignored… my house had been un-manned… my friends didn’t know me anymore… and my mom hardly remembered my name by the time I got back! But just like the brother in the new moved into house… they were pleased. I was drained, and it was time to return to my life and try do all that had not been done while I was gone.

So the next time your boss or your project manager come up and say “Hey! How would you like to go to (…fill in city name here…) to work for a couple of weeks?” just think to yourself… “if my family member came up to me and wanted me to move all of their stuff for two weeks would I want to do that?” I think not!

Peace, love, and “Let’s get physical!”,
Martha