duck-shaped pain

I went to bed last night at a normal, reasonable hour (which would be midnight, which is a reasonable bedtime in my world), fell asleep fairly quickly, but then woke up three hours later. Because I was COLD, you see, and my bedroom is far and away the coldest room in the house.

Like freezing cold, most of the time. Nice enough in summer, but it makes going to bed an ordeal between November and March. No one seems to have any idea why this is, but this room has always been colder than those surrounding it. No one's ever been able to find anything wrong, it just seems to be a design flaw in the house. I could move to the adjacent bedroom, the one that currently serves as my office, which is a bit warmer, but switching furniture and other items around seems like such a task. And that wouldn't solve much, since I would still be doing some essential daily tasks in the cold, and it's a lot easier to go to sleep under a pile of blankets than it is to sit at the computer and work with them.

So I lay there, inert, freezing in bed for a while. I tried putting on my pajamas, and that didn't help any. Finally, I got up and went to the living room (much warmer) and sat and watched mellow morning TV for a while. I watched an infomercial for a KitchenAid stand mixer (something which I covet, and thought many other people coveted as well, so going the infomercial route seems a bit � desperate) and the early morning Denver news, which consisted of endless repetition of two stories: a semi being overturned north of the city and the fact that it was cold, much colder than usual.

The part of the state I am in is much warmer, relatively, than over there. And I was in a warmer room than I started in. And I had three blankets on me. But I was still freezing cold. Finally I just gave up and went back to bed, grabbing another quilt and my down comforter out of the closet and putting those on my bed in addition to the blankets already there. Which seemed to do the trick. I got back to sleep and didn't wake up until noon -- something that's making me feel really crappy and annoyed and feeling like I'm wasting what remains of my vacation.

Then again, my vacation might go on longer than originally planned. I went to REI yesterday to look for a present for my dad and while I was looking at the gloves, I ran into The Employer. He was there looking for a GPS unit and buying some shoes. I hadn't seen him since early October, and wasn't planning on seeing him until I went back. But here we were.

He wasn't terribly surprised to see me, I think. I told him that I would occasionally be in town during my vacation -- more of a cover-your-ass thing than any sort of promise. So we stood there and talked for a while, me telling him where I had gone and him complaining about all the crap that was going on back at the job site.

So here's the crucial moment:

Me: "So, anyway, I'll be ready to come back to work on the 7th, and I can work up until Christmas."

Him (sounding really vague): "Well, um, I think I'm going to be gone during that time. Things are going to be so busy! I don't know if there's going to be anything for you to do."

(Riiiiiiiggght. If there's one thing I know from working there for two years, it's that there's always something to do there�)

Me: "Well, I'll give you a call on the 7th, and you can tell me if there's anything for me to do."

Him: "Okay."

So does this mean I have a job or not come December 7th? I have no idea, but this is not in the least bit surprising. At this job, people work completely at the whim of The Employer -- when you think you have hours, you don't, and when you don't want them, it's 60-hour week time. I've been through this before, on a much larger scale, after I broke my leg. I was ready to go back to work in May of that year. When did I finally get to go back? Late August. I don't think a delay of that magnitude will happen here. If it does, though, so what. I have school starting in January and that's more important to me than work. I just thought it would be a good thing to work from now until school starts, to pick up extra money, but if there is no work, I'm not going to be torn up about it. It would be nice to know for sure, though.

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