the relief

 today has been a rollercoaster.

let's start at the end, with the immense relief (but continued shock and disbelief) that after most of an hour on the phone with three different fedex representatives (the first call cut after 25 minutes because my finger slipped and hit the end button), we finally understood that the number we had been given was actually the fedex tracking number and the intermediary is a bit of an idiot.

sheesh.

aside from the immense stress / anxiety that caused (not helped by the fact that gd's scheduled for a nerve block procedure tomorrow and after her last experience she's understandably a bit scared), this evening included a positive adrenaline rush as the release - after weeks of sisyphean efforts to get the damned thing out - is finally ready to go out.

also, my coworker and i had a followup money discussion that put me at my ease.

other streams of work are progressing positively, so that's good, although it kinda sucked being stuck at a desk all day. again. my new monitor arrived, though - and it's gorgeous. it'll be even gorgeouser when the adapter arrives so i can plug it in. and today i learned that microsoft teams upsets my mother even more than me, and that i need to buy her a noise-cancelling headset.

this morning we had another blowout with mr smear on the way to school, although gd and i saw our usual good cop / bad cop roles reversed. we were about a minute away from the school when we finally had a breakthrough moment and fixed the day. a part of me wishes i'd been recording the experience for later analysis.

yesterday:

last night's bedtime had some rough spots (mr smear was "holding onto his poison"), but eventually relented. after posting, gd and i watched the first episode of doom patrol and really enjoyed it in spite of both of us crashing by the end.