5:40 am. I’m up because I have to get everything done today. Get my work done, go to the Xmas party, take Buddy to the vet, all timed perfectly like a Swiss watch. It's go to be.
(And Bruno woke me up with his fuzzy face shoved into mine as he jumps up on the side of the bed. “Hey, wake up.”)
We took Bud and Bruno for a walk along the Yarra on the weekend and Buddy came up lame, for no apparent reason, and has been barely able to walk ever since.
He’ll be 11 years old next week. When he was 5 he was diagnosed with a luxating patella, a slipping knee cap, which there is an operation for, but the vet told us he wasn’t really lame enough back then – it was just when he first got up from sleeping – and his lameness stopped not long after that and he hasn’t shown any signs of it since, until now. The problem being, at 5 years old an anaesthetic isn’t a problem, but when he gets to 11, particularly for a flat faced dog, it becomes quite dangerous for him. So, you can understand, when I say I was hoping it wasn’t that.
The vet has him on an emergency cancellation list (actual appointments were some like January 20th) so he could go at any time, which is really inconvenient today which is my second busiest day. And then if he doesn’t go today he could go tomorrow, which is my busiest day with deadlines. I don’t know how I’m gonna get this all done, complete all the work I have, and do the rest. Hopefully it all just works out and that they will want to see him at, well, I guess 5 pm would be the best time. Then I could get my work done, go to Xmas lunch, then go to the vet. Or right now. “Can you come now?” The worst possible time would be lunch time today.
It’s all well and good that Sam swans about with no driving license, but today is when it comes into sharp focus that it’s really fucking inconvenient.
7.30am. Sam got up.
I’m finished most of my work by 8am. I made porridge and coffee.
I had to get everything done before the Xmas Party lunch. Then hand it all over to Boris.
11.11am. It started raining. I was going to ride my bike to the [name of lunch place] for stupid buggery Xmas lunch. Oh, fuck the rain.
Could I be a no show? “Oh no, we miss you so, it will be so lovely to see you, Christian, after all this time working from home, say the girls in the office. We miss your funny stories.” (Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely like the members of my team, but miss them? Nah)
12.15pm. I’m ready to leave for the Xmas party on my bike, I’ve got all the gear on ready to leave, helmet, stupid Kris Kringle present in a back pack, and the rain starts to fall. Grrrr! Damn you to hell rain!
So, I have to find an alternative way of getting there? Do I drive? No fun driving to a Xmas party, even if I don’t end up drinking. (It is one of the rules 101, I think it is rule number 82, don’t drive to a work Xmas party. You may think it is going to be ticketyboo, but there may also be a very valid argument for getting tanked. Don’t drive)
Sam springs into action. He finds what public transport I should be catching.
I catch an 86 tram and then connect with a 546 bus. Sam brings up a schedule on my phone and a map. (seemingly out of no where)
The bus was due 5 minutes after I get off the tram, however, I wait, and I wait, and I wait, and I wait in the rain, that really annoying rain that kind of falls sideways. Half an hour later the bus finally arrives. I am the only person on the bus.
I ask the bus driver to tell me where to get off.
Just as the bus driver is giving me the instructions to get off the bus, the vet calls. I am listening to the bus driver and I don’t answer the phone. What would be the point of answering the phone now? I can’t take Buddy now. As I cross Lower Heidelberg Road contemplating calling the vet back, I get a message from them, Can’t see Buddy, sorry.
I call Sam and get him to call the vet and discuss it with them. I’m still worried Buddy has some major damage, even if he is getting better every day. Sam gets an appointment for 9am in the morning. That’s not bad. (How the hell did he do that?) I have all my work done and Boris isn’t usually done with her side of it until mid to late morning, so not bad, all doable.
I head down the embankment to the boat house.
I head into the bar, my boss Tony Rivers is there organising drinks for everyone. I ask for shiraz, always the safest bet. He tells me everyone is downstairs. I head down to the plastic bubble in which we’d been deposited out of the light rain that was still falling.
I sit next to Jason Jones, who I note is in a pair of black track pants that fit him tantalisingly well. (Way to go Jase) I sit opposite Big Ange and (Theyappybogan, renamed) mum. (I do enjoy making up names for my work colleagues and sometimes when my opinion of them changes then too must the pseudonym). (Theyappybogan, renamed) mum holds court. (I guess someone has to. Ha ha) Big Ange does ‘the chatty chat chat’ too. They make a good pair.
Bowls of sweet potato chips and dipping sauces are lined up down the middle of the table.
Tony Rivers comes and sits with us too, and he also likes a chat.
(Theyappybogan, renamed) mum talked (nonstop) about her kids. (roll of the eyes) She is quite the extrovert, picking up on every little thing everyone had said, all the way down the table. (good ears, if nothing else) Her kids call her 10 times during the lunch. She says she should teach them to be more independent, but she likes being depended upon. (Yeah, good onya, I think, for putting those sorts of kids out into the world. Mother of the year?) (Do you think there is any truth in the idea that helicopter mums are, actually, destroying civilisation as we know it? The jury is still out?)
Big Ange talks about her kids, but, you know, sprinkled with other topics. Work anecdotes. We’ve all worked for multiple law firms, myself included, so we do who’s who of the legal profession. I’m the only one who’s worked for the black law firm, which gets denigrated by all present, but the other law firms for which I’ve work most present have had a stint at.
Tony Rivers talks about his running, all around the world. His next run is across England. He is quite a go getter. Super busy, an over achiever, and yet, pretty much, always happy, always has time for his staff.
Boris comes and chats, I tell her about Buddy’s leg, she tells me about her dogs’ sore paw, most likely infected with a grass seed.
We had a big table, everyone was there. Oh, except Mia Papas, I don’t know where she was. I missed Mia… you know, when I realised she wasn’t there much later.
I ate fish & chips.
I had flourless chocolate cake and coffee for dessert.
Goong Chung gave out the Kris Kringle presents. Everyone’s presents seem to be in substantial brown paper bags all sitting next to one another just behind us on a bench. Mine was in a single use plastic bag, being used for a second time, and Goong Chung missed it. I have to tell him there is a present in the sad little white plastic bag. It’s okay, he gets it and Betty Boo gets her present. I only vaguely look at her reaction, it could have been positive, perhaps. (Oh I know, I should care, but seriously, I fulfilled the brief, a present for $20 to $30, anything beyond that was way out of my interest zone)
I get some bit of landfill which I’m sure I pull convincing faces of appreciation over. (You know, being a secret Santa, you never know who was responsible for your bit of tat so you have to smile convincingly for all present just in case)
Tony Rivers wanted to go and play on the boats on the river, which was part of the promised experience, but most of us believed it was too cold. I certainly felt the fact I had got my fat arse there and on time was about as much as I was prepared to endure.
Once the presents were given out, and the coffee was drunk, we all got up and headed back up to the carpark like Brown’s Cows. (Whoever Brown was?) They were all organised into lifts, with the rest being rounded up by Tony Rivers to be whisked back to our CBD office.
I’d said I was fine, that I’d organise my own way, I didn’t want to go to the office, after all, after I had done so, I realised I could well have been dropped part of the way.
Then I was racked with indecision. Stupid me. I know I said, but… oh, the uncertainty to go with who? To do what? They were getting Ubers back to the CBD. Who paired up with who? What to do? Don’t you hate being the odd one out even if it is by your own doing? Speak up? Why don’t you speak up? Then don’t wonder why you have been left out? So uncertain of who you are? So unsure. Grrr.
I trudge off to the bus stop, before I am thought of as a voyeur… that is looking upon those who have much better organisational skills than yourself.
4.43pm. I’m sitting at the bus stop heading home.
I wonder if people think I’m strange? (I’m sure no one else picked up on my moment of indecision, let’s face, people only care about themselves)
The bus just never seems to be coming? Same problem I had with the buss getting here. It is as if they are only running on the hour and not ever half an hour. (Who’d have thought?)
5.15pm. The stupid bus finally comes.
I pull long grey hairs out of my nose, as the bus does its best attempt to inflict motion sickness on those that travel within, and wonder if anyone noticed at the lunch? Too much time spent in lock down, I think? (I must have a word to Sam when I get home)
I swap over to the tram at the Queens Parade shops.
5.45pm. I’m home.
Ordeal over and done with for another year, and everyone came out unscathed. I only had two glasses of red wine, makes quite a change to Xmas parties passed.
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