Making It Work

I've been working quite a bit more this week than usual; two stylists have gone away on holidays, and we were a bit short staffed for a week.

Believe me, I get that most people work far more than I do, and I don't for a minute think that I am hard done by. It's just that I'm not used to it, and I'm whiney by nature, so there you go.

I've only worked part-time since the kids came along, so this 5-day-a-week thing is a proving to be a bit of a jolt. I like the extra bit of money, but I hate the time away from home.
Who knew the house could deteriorate to the level of "Toxic Waste Dump" in 48 hours? I thought I might at least be able to halt the process somewhere between "It Looks Like Strip Mining Has Been Going On" and "H-Bomb Aftermath", but no. It would help somewhat if any of my family stopped using the dining room table as a storage facility.

I often think that if I won the lottery, one of the things I would spend my money on (right after liposuction and a self-cleaning car) would be Someone To Dress Me. This coming up with a different outfit day after day is exhausting, what with the accessorizing and finding shoes that go and it all being weather-appropriate. (I can usually manage two out of three. And some days I just aim for "Not Homeless".)

But the upside of working so much is that I rather like my job, so spending more time doing it isn't exactly torture.
Yesterday I cut the hair of one of my favorite clients, a physicist. He was off to the hospital to attend a brain surgery, where he was working on an imaging doo-hickey which was measuring blood flow while the brain was being man-handled, (or at least that's what I got out of it). He and I had a giggly good time over making jokes to the surgeon ("well, it's not like it's brain surgery. Oh, wait...."). Later, my co-worker Jessie (The Tattooed One) and I folded foil while looking out the front window and observing the rich panolpy of the human condition that Richmond Street provides. (Turns out the human condition needs some full-length mirrors.)
I had a lovely chat with a professor of French Literature, talked to someone about books on tape and was educated on Jewish food laws. And in between I had some coffee, talked about hair and made a few appointments for the rest of the week.

So, next week I'm back to my regular life, with 3 days of work and 4 days of not-so-much-work. And I'll be happy with both.