This year’s twist on my pre-BlogHer preparation frenzy

Every year, it’s the same thing. I leave for BlogHer short on sleep and behind on everything. Then I get even shorter on sleep while at the conference, collapse when I get home, get more behind on everything, and find that I now need a vacation to recover from my vacation.

This year, I made a concerted effort to avoid that phenomenon.

By flying to Portland before BlogHer for a vacation, getting back 10 days before I left for New York City, and covering another colleague’s full time job (while doing my own full time job) for four days in between the two trips.

AREN’T I CLEVER?

I think it still would have been okay if Boy Detective hadn’t gotten sick on Monday. I really WAS working hard to set some reasonable goals. I did some smart things, like packing everything I could several days ahead of time. (If you can guess how many miniature tubes of toothpaste I discovered in our bathroom drawers and cabinets while rummaging around for duplicates to pack, I will send you a prize. I am convinced C-Man goes to the dentist extra times simply to bring home the swag bags.) (And no, the prize is not a box full of miniature tubes of toothpaste.) (Maybe.)

Monday I was supposed to go clothes shopping for a few key items. Instead I stayed home that afternoon to monitor the feverish kid and make the judgment call on whether to head to the pediatrician, while frantically trying to catch up on my work that had slipped while I was doing someone else’s work.

Tuesday we did go to the doctor’s office. (It turns out my kid had a virus that was giving him a fever. WHO KNEW? It’s like the time I was diagnosed with vertigo because I was really dizzy.) Then I still couldn’t find the bottom of my work inbox no matter how hard I tried, and I was using some of tomorrow’s hours that night to finish today’s work, and I was striking items from my “can get done before trip” list and staying up later than I wanted to working instead of going to the gym.

By Wednesday morning, though, I was still feeling like I could handle it. I would go to the gym, go home and work – which would surely result in being caught up since I had caught up the night before. Then I would head out a couple of hours before I had to pick him up so I could run my last minute errands.

At 3:15 p.m. I wasn’t remotely done with work. So I was going to be working that night. But dammit, I was going to go shopping.

At 3:20 p.m. I was stressed out and realizing that this was WEDNESDAY which meant my mother in law had to leave early and I somehow had to fetch C-Man from work and get back in time for her to leave without picking him up so early that his boss would notice.

At 3:25 p.m. I was sitting in the car, now really stressed out, doing my pre-driving routine. Shut car door, seat belt, press button for garage door, check hair in vanity mirror, insert key, start car, start iPod, oops I forgtot to press button for garage door so let’s do that now, turn on air conditioning.

(If you are my husband, you already see where this is going. He knows the end of every movie within five minutes of it beginning. It’s so annoying.)

Between “press button for garage door” and the step that comes after turn on air conditioning, a certain amount of time normally elapses.

Now even if you are not my husband, you see it coming, don’t you?

Normally, there is not a step called “oops I forgot to press button for garage door so let’s do that now.”

That changes how much time elapses between when the garage door starts opening and the steps that come after “turn on air conditioning,” which are “shift car into reverse” and “back out of garage.”

OH YES I DID!

Backed my own damn car right into my garage door while it was only halfway open.

Nothing says “let’s leave for this event that requires lots of energy in a relaxed, well-rested state” like calling your husband to ask what the f*&k you should do about the fact that the lower panel of the garage door is bent and ripped out of the track, and the only car you own IS STUCK INSIDE.

And then I stayed up working until 12:30 that night, slept for two and a half hours, and got up so I could take a cab to the airport for my 6am flight.

The end.

Oh, hang on, answers to questions you may have:

1. Yes, I did end up getting some shirts, and they’re lovely, and some of them are even not black. I spent $50 for 5 shirts at Buffalo Exchange and I think that’s a pretty good deal.

2. The garage door was actually reparable and cost only $209, which sucks but is not as bad as the escalating estimate in my brain as I waited for the repair guy to show up. ($500! $1200! $2000!)

3. No, C-Man did not get angry with me. I’m a hot redheaded chick who spends his money on comic books and makes him go see Predators. If he has to spend $200 on garage doors occasionally because I can’t be bothered to look in a rear view mirror, his life is still pretty awesome.