Sketches of a week

I am due to run out the door in the general direction of Etobicoke soon, to meet a friend for lunch.  In lieu of deep thoughts, here is a quick run-down of the events of my week:

Last Sunday I had the good fortune to have an old friend (temporarily in from the west coast) over for dinner.  I wasn't sure if I'd be able to spend time with her, because another one of her friends went into labour on Sunday morning, and she wanted to stay at the hospital with the mother-to-be until the baby was born.  We didn't know how long that would take.  Fortunately for me, the baby very cooperatively popped out around 5:30 pm.  I could tell that my friend was tired after 5 hours of being a labour coach and holding one of her friend's legs up while she was pushing.  She didn't text me "Oh it was wonderful, and now C. has a beautiful baby girl!"  The text was "I'm done.  I'm leaving now.  I'm done."  (By the way, it was a beautiful baby girl and I saw the requisite photos of her little smooshy infant face pressed up against her mom's boob.  Lovely!)

I have agreed to host my mother's 70th birthday party - at her house.  My home is too small to seat my whole family (in fact my mom's house is almost too small to seat my whole family) so I'm going to handle it kind of like I'm a caterer.  This is going to happen next Sunday, so I'll be cooking and panicking all weekend and there might not be a blog post.  Probably not.  But don't worry, I'm sure it will ALL GO FINE.  Yeah.

Things accomplished at work this week:

1)  Saved one woman's job from the poor judgement of her direct supervisor.  I teamed up with one of the other managers to talk him out of letting her go.  He's a nutty old guy who should have retired a while ago, and she's his administrative assistant/"Girl Friday".  She will do anything to keep him happy, including never taking a lunch break, and running his personal errands on her own time.  She has never or almost never called in sick in the five years she has worked for him.  She's as loyal to him as if he were her own father.  But he's a bit loco in the coconut, and he became paranoid that she was padding her hours to rip him off.  It was the most unjust accusation in the history of unjust accusations.  I'm glad that the other manager and I were able to talk some sense into him and avert disaster.  He'd never in a million years be able to replace her.

2)  Turned a molehill that had turned into a mountain back into a molehill.  Suffice it to say that two of my staffers are in a power struggle, and there was a fuss over a small issue that resulted in one of them dissolving in tears before 7 am and almost walking out and going home for the rest of the day.  Each accuses the other of bullying her.  There is fault on both sides, and they are both hypersensitive when it comes this issue.  I am so used to playing referee that it doesn't bother me much anymore.  It all dies down in a day or two and then we go back to normal.  They're like two quarrelling sisters.

So it has been a busy week, but a good one.  I hope all y'all are enjoying the good weather.  I am off to do the same.  To Etobicoke!