Love and Death (pt 1)

Ironically, there was an abundance of desire for both today. A paradox, to be sure. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Perhaps an explanation is in order.

To summarize what could quite possibly turn into a doctoral paper on the psychology of "mob mentality," I'll just say that my whole team blew up at me this past Tuesday for "never being at work." According to them, I take off too much time. The hilarious irony of that massively over-blown statement is that I was in the office *while I had scheduled myself to be off.* I had a telecon to attend, and I needed to create an executable for a help file for a guy who was going out of town. I came in because there was work that had to be done. This in light of the fact that my mom is visiting from out of state, and I don't get to see her very much. Anyway, irony aside, there were some other issues they have, apparently, all of which I listened to with stunned incredulity. "And . . . exactly *how* long have you all felt like this?"

"Well, it's been steadily getting worse over the last 6 months, but it's been dramatically worse the last two months."

Please rewind this blog to roughly the beginning of October, when we started fostering our two girls. Now, here we are at the end of Novembe. Roughly two months? HMMM.

In an effort to "head off at the pass" this exact scenario, I told my team immediately upon starting the fostering that there would be times where I'd need to take off to tend to the girls. That might be because they're sick; it could be that a sitter falls through at the last second. We've had enough friends with kids to know that just about anything you can think of won't happen; it's the bizarre stuff you *don't* think of that catches you off guard.

Anyway, I told them that at the beginning of October. I also told them that I needed their understanding and support, which I thought they had all promised. Now, almost two months later, that vague memory has apparently been sucked into the cauldron as part of the evil witch's brew that is the gossip mill.

Stand by for part 2.