Another Installment in the Working Mom Chronicles

Here I am, at the office. I have a new schedule, which is a long story (and possibly a blog post to come), but what you need to know is that I am working remotely thursday mornings and in the office Thursday and Friday afternoons.

Yesterday morning, I settled in to a nice, comfy chair at a Starbucks near Clio's school, turned on my computer, and discovered... that there is no free wireless. I thought hotspots were everywhere! Never mind, I thought to myself, I have some good reading materials on my desktop. As I opened a study on creating Demand for the Arts, my laptop informed me that I was running on reserve power, which lasts about long enough to read the message that it's going to shut you down, before shutting you down. Luckily, I found a new spot at a table with an outlet; unluckily, my power cord was nowhere to be found (until I got to the office in the afternoon and found it on my desk.) A morning well spent.

Now, here I sit, pumping away, trying again to read about creating Demand for the Arts. Until suddenly, I hear a "crack" and notice a sudden loss of suction.... What a surprise: a broken breast pump. Milk everywhere, yada yada yada. So I start to pack up my things to head home and get this milk out the natural way, except I'm the last staff member in the office and a freelancer is trying to print a funding letter that has to go out TODAY, and there's no toner in the printer/copier. I tell her to just use the other printer but guess what? It's not on and doesn't appear to have a power button (seriously. neither of us can figure this out. there's a red button with an X but if anything, that's just the off button.) So we find the toner and learn how to install it and get it up and running. At which point I realize that I have three days worth of expressed breastmilk that is likely going bad. Why? Because I can't seem to remember to bring the cute little cooler and the fun little ice packs that come with the electric breast pump, but since this stuff is only good for so many days, I have to take it home and get it into the freezer today. Because of the broken pump, I had already packed all the little bags of milk into one nice big ziplock bag (because all I need is milk exploding everywhere on the subway... knock wood) sans ice, figuring it would be fine for an hour. When I went to throw away the paper towel I used to clean up the milk on my desk, I noticed that the garbage was overflowing. So milk back in the refrigerator while I go desk to desk and empty everyone's trash.

Seriously, people. Two children is more than enough.