Silent Night

So Margie’s had this big Friday deadline for putting together and refining and cleaning up a massive set of reports generated from the World’s Worst Report Generator Online.  And as Friday was roaring upon us, she hammered away at it until dinner — at which point I was finally freed up from my work stuff, and could lend her a hand.

We worked.  We worked.  It was really annoying work — mostly of the click – pause – pause – click – pause – pause – click sort … drilling down through multiple screens to change one setting, then rolling back up to the start to begin another report mod.  No real brains involved (at least none of mine), mostly just … patience … and … accuracy … and … patience …

Midnight ground toward us like Juggernaut.  Midnight Pacific Time, of course, which was when the site would supposedly close and any reports that the company got was what were defined.

Tick … tick … tick …

And Midnight Pacific — 1 a.m. Mountain — came and went.  And the stuff kept grinding.  Because there was a lot to do and if the site was going to let us do it, we were going to do it.

I lasted until around 3.  I was getting punchy enough that I was making data entry errors, which was NFG to the cause.  I left Margie with the understanding that she would be right up …

Crawled into bed on her side to warm it up.  Left the lights on to guide her way.

Morning came, with a gentle dawn upon my eyelids.   I opened them … to lamplight.  I rolled over.  Oh, Margie must have already gotten up.  Hmmmm …

It was 5:30 a.m. or so … and clearly, from the lights still being on, Margie hadn’t been to bed.

Wandered downstairs, made supportive noises.  She likened it to her own Blogathon. 

Went back up.  Went back to sleep.

Came down again around 8:30 a.m.  Kitten was up.  And Margie was still slogging, though the end was in sight.

Helped her with some more data vetting, report printing, reviewing, etc.  And finally — finally — put her to bed at 10:15 a.m., with shades down, white noise generator making happy wave sounds, and a foot warmer at her feet.  Huzzah!