POTUS

Right in the middle of the mothers' visit and right when Gert's health was failing, the President decided to come to town.

Well, that's actually not true. We had known about the Presidential visit for a long time but, of course, we were not at liberty to discuss it. Fortunately, Chris did not get the call to go and work on it. Such a thing, even for a visit of only a few hours, requires weeks of long workdays and extraordinary stress. Unfortunately, four of our coworkers DID get the call, two of who work with Chris on the “difficult cases”. The office was understaffed and Chris' section was particularly understaffed, which meant long days for those of us who stayed behind in Chennai. And of course, when something so high-profile happens, all other work takes a back seat.

So while our mothers were visiting and while Gert was dying, we were also stuck at work until 8:00 and under an extraordinary amount of stress. Hence: these.

It weren't fun none, but it's over now and everything is back to what passes for normal around here . . .