Diaper Duty

This week it rained a lot and the leak returned in the textile storage room.

My reaction was calm.

In that first picture you will notice some sad, soggy white lumps (and in the GIF, sad sack GOB Bluth) which are actually cloth diapers. We keep them on hand for various cleaning tasks, because they are soft cotton and very absorbent. They have also proven to be quite useful for sopping up watery messes. Each morning this week I cleaned up any standing water that had appeared overnight, stuffed dry diapers into the spots where water was coming in, and then checked back periodically to switch out any wet diapers. 

In other words: I spent a major portion of my workweek changing diapers. Hmm. If I wanted that for my life...

I WOULD HAVE BECOME A STAY-AT-HOME MOTHER

Or maybe there is some metaphor there about the collection being my baby. 

Maybe when it grows up it  will learn how to clean itself and make its own damn padded hangers. 

Some People Work In Mines

In her book Bossypants and in interviews, Tina Fey will qualify her comments about how exhausting her work life is by saying "but some people work in mines." Meaning: she acknowledges that there is a difference between the stress she experiences and, you know, the stress of knowing that at any moment you could be buried alive.

Which is basically to say, that in a week when Kiev burned and protests erupted in Venezuela, I'm going to start complaining about how difficult and intense my week has been.

So let's dive right in. On Tuesday, I was putting some boxes away and saw this:

That's right: our brand-new storage facility betrayed us and water was SEEPING IN THROUGH THE WALLS. Fortunately the raised shelving did its job and no artifacts got wet. So I was able to downgrade my freakout level a little and at least pretend to be calm.

We got it all sopped up and the problem has yet to reappear. But then the continuing drama for the week was communicating with our building company and getting them to come and take a look. And of course, they always seemed to call or show up at the exact moment when something else was going on.

And there just always seemed to be a lot going on. I had to manage volunteers for a coworker who was out of town, had extra volunteers of my own in to make padded hangers, donation inquiry calls that always seemed to materialize into long conversations, and a request from our museum director to come in and work a bit on Saturday.

The Saturday thing ended up being fun, but I was just sooooo ready to begin the weekend and relax. But then, on the way home I got a text that my roommate had fallen at the climbing gym and was in urgent care at the hospital.

So poor Olivia has a broken ankle and needs basic assistance moving around the apartment. This is obviously much worse for her than it is for me, but it just sucks to see a friend suffer.

But to summarize, where Olivia faced a legit trauma this week, most of my woes can be happily classified as first world problems. And the best thing about FWP is that they are easily remedied by first world solutions. And for me, the best remedy this week has been pictures of Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski in Sochi. While I wasn't able to watch their live commentary, the photos of them were full of enough transcendent fabulousness to ease all my woes.

screencap via senanyc

BEST WEEK EVER.