The gods turn on doggie

Okay...it was bound to happen. I mean, except for being sick and the occasional mind-blasting day at work, life has been going pretty smoothly lately.

Until today, that is.

Our local weather seers had been predicting snow for today....an inch or so, they kept saying. If I used their system of measuring, I'd be a very popular guy (wink-wink). By the time I left for the office this morning, there was already about five inches on the ground, and it was STILL snowing. Throw into that mix a thick blanket of fog and you have the commute from hell. But wait, there's more. Now add in to that the fact that the temperature was hovering around freezing, so the snow on the roads, being heated by traffic, just turned into slush. On the freeway....well, that's just asking for trouble. No visible lane markings....mounds of slush between the lanes...semis blasting past you and launching buckets of the gray-brown stuff at your windshield....get the picture? Took me about an hour to make what is normally a 20-25 minute drive. Dozens of cars off the highway, stuck. Cars stuck in the median. Cars facing the wrong direction after spinning out. Idiots! (Note to self: When you take over the world...first order of business is to deport everyone in Colorado who did not originally live in a state where they have winter.)

Made it to work safely though, dodging spazzos the whole way. Would have stayed home today and worked from here, but had a conference call I had to be on, and needed some things from the office for my portion of it. The day went pretty smoothly, though. The boss, not wanting people to have to go out for lunch (most sane people do as often as possible because for some reason the health department hasn't shut down our cafeteria yet), ordered in about a dozen pizzas for the department. Ah, New York Pizza...yum! And, since the hourly folks ate at their desks, all of the shifts ended an hour earlier to make up for working through their lunch hours. Being salaried, that didn't really affect me, but still a nice gesture.

Then I headed to the gym around 5:30. I have a standing monthly appointment with my trainer, so even though I would have rather headed straight home, I dragged myself there. Figuring confession would be a good thing with him, I admitted that I'd only been in for a workout once in the past two weeks. The holidays, bad weather, sinuses....I pulled out every excuse I could think of. He just smiled, said he understood, and then proceeded to grind my ass into the ground. In spite of that, I came to the realization that working out does make you feel good! So there you have it....I'm a gy-m gy-unkie! Spent a little extra time in the whirlpool and steam room afterwards to ease my protesting muscles. Actually, two sessions in the steam room interspersed with a stop in the cool-down room. And then a nice cool shower. Somehow, after showering, I managed to jab myself pretty hard in the left eye while I was toweling off. If you happen to wear contact lenses, that is not a good thing. Initially, it appeared I'd simply knocked the lens off my cornea and into the corner of my eye. But when I tried to nudge it back, it seemed to be almost fused to the surface and wouldn't budge. I pushed a little harder and it spread its wings and took flight. The locker room at my club is lit with nice soft indirect lighting, and the floor is covered with a dark tweed carpeting, which doesn't lend itself to locating an errant contact lens. Even after getting a flashlight from the front desk and combing the floor, I came up empty-handed and empty-eyed. I resigned myself to driving home with one eye.

Considering that the slush from this morning had melted and then refrozen, I anticipated the worst. I made the wise decision to take side streets home instead of venturing out onto the freeway. Getting out of the office park (where my gym is also located) was a little more of a challenge. Like many office parks that were developed in the late 70's, it appears the designers were on 'shrooms or smoking banana peels when they laid the streets out. There's not a parallel or perpindicular street anywhere. Fortunately, having driven the maze for more than five years, I know the place well and can anticipate the curves. Once out of the office park, the streets return to a sane pattern and become less of a challenge.

So, here I sit...one-eyed doggie. That's one more thing I'll have to do tomorrow. I already have my semi-annual physical and anal probe tomorrow morning. Add to that a plea to my optomitrist to get me in tomorrow for a replacement lens.

Could tomorrow be even worse? Stay tuned.

Jaydog