Everyone remains on vacation

As Emily got ready for bed last night, the phone rang. A little late, but the caller identified herself as from the ski resort, and Emily was called into work today. Starting time: 7 a.m. The girls usually are on the school bus at that hour, so getting up to go to work was no hardship for Emily. I’m usually under the covers for another hour, so getting up at six was extreme hardship for me.

Excepting the arctic bout in November, we've had no winter. After the coldest November on record, we've had the warmest December with temperatures in the mid forties, although cold at night. I was surprised the resorts had been able to make snow, but they deemed four inches enough and opened their season at seven this morning, not the usual noon, to capitalize on the last day of the holidays.

That’s what Emily told me on the way home at three in the afternoon, plus, they called so late because they called down the list to put together a crew, and a lot of that crew said they were still on vacation. So, the sixteen year old who worked lifts today is scheduled every Saturday and Sunday for the rest of the season. You snooze, you lose, as is said.

Driving home at seven a.m., watching the sky grow grey, and narrowly missing two deer in the dusk I thought I’d just go back to bed. But it was seven thirty, so I took a shower, ate breakfast and went on to work. I needed to distribute the road department payroll and there were a couple more jobs I could get done before Monday, when all absenteeism should be over.

Job One was to locate the end of year manual among the files loaded to my computer in Auditor of State’s last upgrade. I thought I knew; I was wrong. I looked at every other file (I thought), then called. No answer, so I emailed, politely. Eventually someone who apparently wished he were on vacation today told me the last line of the printed instructions for the last upgrade would tell me where the manual is located. Having made his point, he also cut and pasted that last line.

In the meantime I had moved along to putting a fairly important letter to the county prosecutor on township letterhead. Our attorney drafted the letter, all three trustees reviewed it and the attorney sent it along last Wednesday. I set to work on it that day, and quickly unearthed two omissions, so I called. Of course, they all were not in the office. They weren’t there at eight a.m. this morning, either, but I got the call back going on ten, and our attorney thanked me for finding the problems and promised me a new draft.

So, the person with no authority set aside the letter that had been written by an attorney and reviewed by three trustees with authority, came home and wove some more fabric before retrieving Emily at the end of her shift. Now I have been out of bed going on fourteen hours, so I think I’ll empty the dishwasher, reset my alarm for seven o’clock (the shift starts at eight tomorrow), and go to bed. Tonight I’ll sleep like I’m on vacation.