Perpetuum Miserere

You know, I really hate those blogs by whining depressed teenage girls that just go on and on about how horrible their lives are. And I don't want this to turn into something like that. But this has been a rather dismal day, and it hasn't been much of a week, either. I'll spare the litany and try to make light of a few things.

So, I went to the physical therapist on Monday. Today I hurt worse than ever. At least I have some muscle relaxers that don't immediately put me to sleep, but I've grown concerned about whether things are really getting any better, as I'm inclined to think they're not.

Despite the increased pain I've been trying desperately to fly this week. I scheduled three flights for the week, for Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, before I pick up the airplane on Saturday to fly north for a bachelor party.
Monday I went to the airport and the instructor didn't show up. Okay, no problem. I figured I could wait until Tuesday. I came home and fell asleep with my face in the crossword book on the living room floor. I don't think it's healthy to spend so much time lying on the living room floor.
I was looking forward to today's flight that much more, because yesterday's didn't go. I met the instructor yesterday, we were going to do a bienniel review--although I got hold of some of my flight records today that will probably eliminate the need for that review--and he was confident we could get the whole matter finished in an hour. Then I could fly again Thursday and be ready to go for the weekend.

And of course today I had to call the airport and cancel the flight. Weird set of circumstances. I could attempt to explain but it would be, oh, five, six pages worth of jargon, so I'll spare you. What happened was, at the very last possible minute (today) I discovered that we were sending out an individual on deployment, to fill a deployment line we don't actually have. It's at another squadron at another base.

I can fix problems like this. It isn't really hard to do. But we're trying to send the guy out tomorrow. I can't necessarily fix things like this in 24 hours. I've done it before (I am, after all, a minor deity of Mobility), but then that time I wasn't trying to leave work at 2'30 to go to the airport. I had to cancel the flight so I could make sure there wouldn't be any unpleasant surprises tomorrow (as there often are).

Get this though. It's my boss's fault. He said so himself and I totally agree. He shook hands with the squadron commander at the other base and agreed that we'd fill the other squadron's line this month if they'd fill one of our lines in August. No problem. The real world can work on handshakes, but the Air Force is in no way the real world. We occasionally bomb the real world, but that's about it. A handshake, you see, is agreement between two people. But in the Air Force it takes at least ten people to get anything done. This means 4/5 of the required people have no idea what's happening. This is actually so common in the military we created the word 'snafu' to describe it.

As I said, this particular snafu is entirely my boss's fault, and he said so. And I had to cancel a flight I was really looking forward to (I managed to get one for tomorrow). And I was in pain the entire time. So I should hate my boss right now, right? But I don't. Normally I would; I don't care for authority and generally dislike most authority figures, if not immediately then eventually. That has not happened with this boss in almost a year, and given that I'd been in a sour mood for quite some time when today's little fiasco cropped up, if this didn't turn me against him then I can't imagine anything will. This is such an unusual situation for me it's creepy. I mean, I'm actually a little scared.

Yes, it's just another day here in Smitty's World. Interesting things also happened in the World Outside (the Hamdan trial, primarily), but I just feel like wallowing in self pity. And, you know, watching American Idol...