TheBanyanTree: Monday

[Monique Young]

It's the beginning of another week here at the Batcave, another opportunity
to get it right and persevere.

First task of the day: Walk the dog. I had to, she came into the bedroom and
began doing the earthquake thing. She can't just ask me to wake up; oh no,
she has to ram her body into the side of the bed a few times. Reminds me of
growing up in California, but since I have nothing hanging on the wall over
the bed I don't panic. I'm reading a great book, "Why I'm Like This," by
Cynthia Kaplan, very funny, and in it she talks about how she's scared of
everything, imagining the most preposterous disasters. That'd be me -- I can
imagine Dog earthquaking the bed, bed hitting wall, heavy fake Mexican
artifact falling off wall onto my head. I imagine heavy fake Mexican
artifact because that's what I had fall on me when I was young and we had an
earthquake.

Anyway, that's done. The dog has been walked, fed, and watered. Next on the
agenda: sorting out the client demands and working on those (I suppose,
first of all, I should check my calendar to make sure I'm not expected
anywhere this morning). My nonprofit is getting quite antsy because it's
approaching end of the fiscal year and the ED is panicked about a 2-year old
IRS amount due. So I work on client stuff for a few hours, then I go work at
the nonprofit for a few hours. Hopefully the panic level is kept to a
minimum today.

After that, for the evening, I have rather foolishly perhaps scheduled two
"get acquainted" social meetings. With my keen deductive reasoning, I
reasoned that since I'd be in that area for one anyway, might as well make
it two. First I shall meet the double PhD (Music, Computers, Master's in
Physics) for a latte -- he has promised to wear a flower behind his ear.
Then after that I shall meet the PhD candidate in urban planning, who has
promised to enlighten me on various urban planning issues that I have been
wondering about. (I told him he'd know me, I'm the Smurf. Long story.)
Occasionally I feel like I'm in over my head -- one new friend I met over
the weekend was asking me about the current political climate in california
and about the prop 13 guy. (We were at Third Place Books, a great place that
has social areas, seminars, live music, etc., so when I had no idea what he
was talking about I'd say, "Hey, what's going on over there?" and look
interestedly over at the gardening seminar slideshow.)

I hope the double PhD does not talk about his work however, because when I
searched him on the web I found many things which are all completely
unintelligible to me. Is this Sanskrit? I thought. It wasn't. Music. And
computers. Combined.

No Aikido today, because the dojo is closed on Monday. Even Sensei must have
his rest. Tuesday night, after more client work and seeing two clients, I
shall go to Aikido, and then meet up with orvis. Unorthodox we are, but we
don't care. (No, we do not have a "relationship." We have a "friendship.")

Wednesday I have thoughtfully scheduled Stephanie for first thing in the
morning so I can get her set up, then I'm off to my favorite client for the
afternoon. Then Aikido. Another social contact wanted to meet up on
Wednesday, but really, no can do. Thursday, a client I haven't seen in
awhile wants me to come over and go over things. Then . . . Aikido in the
evening. Friday . . . Aikido in the evening. Then maybe Improv, if I can get
someone to go with me.

Saturday Stew and I went to see the Hulk, he wanted to see it, but we
couldn't stay. I could see, slightly into the movie, that he wasn't doing
very well, so I asked him if he needed to leave, and he admitted he did
(there was a high people count). It never matters to me if I'm somewhere and
have to leave because his illness is bad; even slight schizophrenia can
disrupt one's schedule terribly, but I'm not likely to worry about things
like THAT. He was doing okay the rest of the weekend. Very tired a lot of
the time of course. Friday he's meeting up with a friend from school he
hasn't seen for months; she's flying into town to visit family, so he's look
ing forward to that. I hope he doesn't freak out beforehand then, something
he has been known to do.

Intermixed among the week's activities are hanging out with Stew, chatting
with Orvis, paying much attention to the Wonder Dog (who is currently
snoring her life away), and keeping up with various client demands while
making a few of my own. And scheduling in as yet unscheduled social visits
for the end of the week or the weekend.

There. That should be enough to keep me out of trouble. Well, one can hope
anyway.

Batman
Live, From The Batcave