Feeling the Love...

I've had nose t' grindstone this last week, preparing to present a talk at a conference, based on a paper I published  (with a couple of co-authors). It was an unexpected invitation, and very short notice, as one of my co-authors was scheduled to do it, but had to cancel at the last minute.

And as any writer knows, the minute you start trying to put thought to word processor your door becomes a people magnet. I'm on the condo board and people regularly come to the door, two or three a day sometimes, but never a dozen or more in a day before. However the minute I set to work the place became a madhouse of lost keys, leaking pipes which required inspection, requests for bike room security forms and visitor parking passes. People moving in and out did things they are not supposed to do, like jamming elevator doors and backing their truck up the sidewalk, completely blocking pedestrian access to the front door. The phone started ringing off the wall, the cats become absolutely desperate for lap-time,  I was suddenly the most popular (or at least needed) person in the building.

I'm to the stage of script prepared, power point presentation built. Now I must polish and make sure what I have fits into the time allotted me. Tomorrow evening I do a run-through with a conference organizer to familiarize myself with the software, and Saturday I present, via webinar. The conference is in Orlando and I am not a traveler. I could say, "not a traveler on such short notice", but that would be prevaricating as I am not a traveler - period. While my mind would love to gallop about the globe, my body dictates a radius of a few miles. 

Where I do travel is to the grocer's, as we are looking at barren shelves, and I do so want to eat dinner tonight. Breakfast was a frozen bean burrito, to give you an idea of the state of my stores. (I thawed it in the microwave first, I didn't eat it frozen, but you know what I mean.)

So, off to Mount Shasta or Hood, or McKinley (no, that's wrong, McKinley's the WalMart and today I'm only going so far as Sobey's.) 

Anyway, off to climb the mountain whereupon the fruit and veg aisle is, aka my motivator, for woman cannot live on frozen bean burrito alone.