I'm Baaaaaack!

Whew!

Been sort of CrazyTown here.  To elaborate on my last post, I found out in a random bathroom conversation that I wasn't going to have a spring appointment as I had though (the dept. chair and I were washing hands at the same time, and I mentioned that a student wanted to work with me in the Spring--so that's how I found out I wasn't working).  This was on top of "forgetting" to appoint me in the fall (I had check with three people to make sure I was getting an appointment because it had been forgotten before).  The forgetting just seems bizarre.  I've been there 10 years, and there are only about 7 people to be appointed, so you'd thing they'd notice that they forgot someone.  So that gave me a month to get stuff cleaned up in the collection that I'd planned on doing over the next four.

And, of course, if you're going to retire, you're supposed to have your paperwork in a couple of months in advance--and you have to send for a retirement packet.  So I called, had a nice chat, they let me know that because of Thanksgiving it might take three weeks instead of the usual two.  Five weeks later Bob calls for me (because I was doing crazy at work trying to get stuff finished) and they . . un . . forgot to send it.

What's with all the forgetting??  I find myself singing a tune from "Chicago"

"Cellophane, Mister Cellophane

Could have been my name, Mister Cellophane

'Cause you can look right through me

Walk right past me

And never know I'm there"

 

Anyway,  Bob being more memorable than I, the packet arrived a few days later.  At this point, we're close to the Christmas shut down, and I didn't want to wait to apply for retirement in mid-January.  I call the nice person in HR (who had helped Bob with his paperwork, and remembered him, of course) and upon finding out that my separation from FSU was already in the past rather than a couple of months in the future, managed to fit me in and get me on track.

 

We did manage to fit in our trip (more on that later) but when we were pulling out of the drive, we saw that the brake light was on--Bob checked the fluid--low--and saw the brake fluid coming out of the rear tire.  Fortunately, we have another car.  Oh--and when I was trying to download some stuff for our trip (NPR's news show--Wait Wait Don't Tell Me) I also got some malware that shut down the computer.

 

So--in the last two weeks:

 

The Trip!    check

Collection room cleaned up, report made, and, and office cleaned out--check.

Retirement paperwork done--check

Social Security paperwork done--check

Car repaired--check

Computer repaired--check

Fruitcakes baked--check

Meat pies made for the annual "meat pie, sherry, and watch Hogfather" solstice tradition--check  (tried out new puff pastry recipe, which was excellent, but I think we ended up eating about a stick of butter each)

Christmas shopping done--check

Christmas gifts made . . . well . . . three knitted gifts, a fourth almost done, and another gift sort of getting there, and another one to be finished.  It's only Monday . . .

Helping out the animal department at the museum with cage cleaning and food prep (they don't have their usual student interns over the holiday) --check

 

So--back into the fray!