Hey.

Sorry about that. I’ve been pretty busy with a non-stop barrage of editing assignments, job hunting and sojourns throughout Texas.

The first I can’t really go into because of NDA stuff, but it’s been a goodly amount of work and I’ve another 2 projects that I’m in the midst of right now. Sadly it doesn’t quite pay the mortgage, but it’s been a not insignificant amount of money that I’ve earned with them the past 6 weeks. So it helps.

Speaking of which, the job hunting thing continues. I was actually quite close to accepting a job in Plano last week but Jen and I determined that uprooting isn’t the best move for Daphne right now. She’s doing so great in all of her therapy and classes that it just didn’t seem like the right choice..

I did, however, have a rather interesting stay at a hotel up there.

I rented a car through Expedia (I didn’t want to put 500 miles on the Juke in 105° heat) and they gave me a really good deal on a room at the NYLO Plano.

Looks nice, right?

I checked in, got my room, and upon opening the door I found that it was nearly identical in size and shape to a freight container.

Replete with water-stained concrete ceilings!

Which, you know, was fine. Not great, but I just needed to stay the one night and then head home after my interview. Who cares if I’m sleeping in a Cinder Block Simulator?

I got settled atop the comforter, and worked on my proofreading until I was so tired that I’d read the same paragraph 5 times on a loop without realizing it. At which point I pulled the comforter and sheet back and found…a mattress pad.

Now I was pretty tired, so it took me a second to figure it out, but it seems that the maid service skipped the whole “fitted sheet” step, and just tucked a flat sheet in over the mattress. I stood there confused for a moment, then gave the equivalent of a mental shrug and climbed between the sheet and comforter.

And I’ll tell you, fitted sheets are a thing for a reason.

Without them, the flat sheet and mattress pad combo tends to bunch up as you move in your sleep, and you’ll subsequently awake at various points in the night contorted around a strange topography of bedding. This, in turn, prompts what I’ve called the “Smoothy Bounce.” That’s where you bounce your whole body up off the bed (while still laying prone), grab the sheets with both hands, and shoot your arms out sideways mid-air in an effort to create a small flat area for you to go back to sleep on. I did this several times that night…

The next morning, tired from lack of sleep, I slowly padded over to my personal Keurig machine for some “coffee” (I’m decidedly anti-Keurig, but that’s a post for another time), popped the lid, and was confronted by another man’s used Keurig pod, still sitting in the hopper.

Again, this is not a huge deal. But it’s not the way you want to start a day. Particularly when you have an interview in a few hours and you’re already tired from performing the equivalent of a Gabby Douglas floor routine all night in an effort to smooth your bedding.

So I (gingerly) removed the expended plastic caffeine nugget, replaced it with a fresh caffeine nugget, and went about my day.

When I mentioned these issues to the front desk as I was checking out, the young man just stared blankly at me for a few moments, then said “okay, I’ll make a note for housekeeping.”

Fantastic, Gustave. That’s very helpful at this point, since I’m checking out and all…
Wunderbar.

Okay, that’s enough complaining about my temporary accommodations; let’s talk about Daph.

Yeah, I guess that hotel story did go a bit long…

Daph is doing great. There were minor hiccups in her speech class this week, but her swim classes are still going, er, swimmingly.

She’s able to float on her back by herself now, and is starting to get the hang of doggy paddling. Her teacher even allowed me to take a quick video last week, since there weren’t any other kids around:

Awesome, right?

Shortly after we took this, we packed up the Juke and headed to Seguin to visit the grandparents. (Leg two of the earlier referenced “sojourns.”)

There was the requisite amount of relaxing there (I actually got a lot of work done, as I had a deadline looming) but Daphne did her usual swimming and swinging thing.

We also dropped in on my brother- and sister-in-law in Georgetown while we were nearby (leg 3), who both seem to be doing fantastically well. Was great to catch up with them.

And today, Daphne is wrapping up a quick speech therapy session before we hit her last swim class for the week. Actually this is a make-up day, as the pool was ominously closed yesterday for “decontamination.”

And given my squeamishness about handling a used Keurig pod, I really don’t think I want to know what that means.

Talk to you soon.

j.s.