Can you spell "discombobulated"?

What a day what a day! It all ended up fine, but after I got to work this morning, things were out of control! I was so discombobulated!

I scheduled a telephone interview with an elder in Alaska for 9am.

About 45 minutes into the interview, I got another call from Ambulatory Infusion (where I get my zometa IV and they draw my blood) - when I finally got the message after the interview, it was, "Deanna, we were wondering if you were going to be coming in today for your zometa appointment - it was at 9am". Crap! I'd forgotten to write the appointment down on my calendar!

I'd also made arrangements to talk to a writer at National Geographic right after the interview. The writer (Margaret) wanted to ask me questions about the Wolf Dance. At the back of the magazine, there's a feature called "Flashback" and she'd decided to focus on a Lomen Brothers photograph. But before I could call and talk to her about it, I had to reschedule my zometa appointment. The Flashback feature on the Wolf Dance will come out in March.

Then, Eddie only had a half day at school today. No problem. I don't have anything scheduled, so I'll pick him up and then we'll just hang out today.

While I was talking to Margaret, I got an email from one of my grad students who is also in my folklore class: "Are we still meeting today at 1pm?" Double crap! I even confirmed the meeting with two students yesterday. But somehow, my brain didn't connect the home part of my brain that knew I had to pick up Eddie with the work part of my brain that made arrangements to meet with the grad students. What's Eddie going to do?

So, I call the parents - admit that I'm discombobulated to my dad and ask if they can watch Eddie for me so I can meet with the students. Fortunately, they could.

Had an okay meeting with the grad students, then picked up Eddie and on our way through downtown, we saw all sorts of munchkins in costumes! "What?!!?", I said to Eddie. "The downtown merchants are doing trick-or-treating today? I thought it was tomorrow! I guess we need to go home and put on your costume so we can do that. Do you want to do that?" Eddie did indeed want to, so we came home, he put on his costume (he was self-conscious at first until we got downtown and saw all the other kids) and we walked around downtown. We bumped into the Osborne-Goweys and some of his classmates. By then, it was time to go to my colleague's house for a potluck dinner to welcome our new faculty member (we're now back to the numbers we had in the department when I started nine years ago - the position was approved about six months before the worse of the recession hit).

Good dinner, good visits, met new grad students. S. and his wife made an excellent chicken curry. Yummy!

So, it all worked out. No work on the writing project though. It'll happen. Sooner or later because it has to!

Happy Halloween everyone!

P.S. Eddie is a penguin.