Don't get around much anymore...

...which is a great song.

Just a quick post to let you know I'm still alive and still gestating.

Although, my OBGYN says it could be anytime between now and my due date, May 3. Actually, I probably won't even make it to my due date. I was told to start seeing the doctor weekly, beginning next week, and that it might be a good idea to bring a packed bag with me, just in case. If I show any signs of imminent labour, they're just going to admit me to the hospital and be done with it.

I've developed a serious case of pregnant woman waddle, and I get to enjoy the smirks of my coworkers as I attempt to navigate the hallways of our building, trying to remember that I can't suck in my gut as I squeeze by.

I have to keep reminding myself not to climb things, reach up for things, reach down for things, or turn around suddenly, the last almost causing me to fall over due to my new center of gravity.

Heartburn has reared its ugly head, and I keep a jar of Tums with me at all times. My feet and hands have begun to swell just slightly.

It's as though my body has suddenly decided to throw all of pregnancy's symptoms at me in these last few weeks, a final assault leading up to D-Day, as it were.

But, I feel surprisingly fine. Yeah, I'm tired, and I'm working too many hours, but it's not as bad as I imagined it would be.

I've popped in to see a few of you, commenting when I can, and I miss you all. My maternity leave starts April 18th, and I'll make sure to come visit you all then.

Assuming, of course, I haven't already given birth.

When Irish Eyes are Smiling...

Well, Saint Patrick's Day weekend in Savannah is almost over, and what fabulous party wouldn't be complete without tornadoes and a four county blackout?

I was actually very pleasantly surprised at how well behaved everyone's been this weekend. The arrest rate, overall, was down. Although some of the more memorable included the standard drunk-woman-swimming-in-a-fountain story, and the guy caught with his hands down another guy's pants, who then insisted that a graphic description of what he was accused of doing be read aloud to the night court. The woman in the fountain was sobbing when she went before the judge, and still just a little dripping wet. The judge asked her if she'd had her clothes on while she was in the fountain, and the woman said yes. "Well, at least that's something," replied the judge.

Last night, we did have some very severe weather. Severe enough that me and TFYO spent some time hanging out in my walk-in closet with a battery powered lantern and some books. A tornado passed very close to the house. It missed us, and took out the main distribution power substation instead, plunging four counties into complete darkness, including the city of Savannah, where around a hundred thousand people were whooping it up between City Market and River Street.

Again, I am glad that I live in an area where emergency services know exactly what to do when disaster strikes, and I'm glad that, generally, I live in a city where people are well behaved. The police used their car lights, and generators, to get enough power and light going to move people to shuttles and get them out of the downtown area in an orderly fashion. There were no reports of arson, or looting, and everyone pretty much did as they were told, and got the hell out before the storms hit the city itself. There was no wide-scale pandemonium from what I could tell, and that was very reassuring. If a hurricane ever does hit here, I feel confident that we'll either all make it out in time, or we'll be well assisted one way or another.

Ray ended up driving in to work to help cover the evacuation, although by the time he got there, the power was back on at our house.

Big kudos to Georgia Power, too. It took a little while to get power back to all areas, but it happened more quickly than I would have thought possible. Our power was only off for a couple of hours, and by the time Ray headed home, they were slowly getting power back in to parts of Chatham County. Of all the places I've lived, Georgia Power by far has the quickest response time. Makes me happy knowing all that stuff in the freezer stayed frozen.

It was another forty-five hour week for me, and I did work about an hour yesterday afternoon, plus I managed an air shift, too! I console myself with the fact that I do get paid overtime, and it will come in handy when I go on maternity leave, just five more weeks.

Thank you!

Just a quick post to thank all of you for your well wishes. I worked forty-five hours, thirty-seven minutes this week, and crammed it into five days. It's not too bad, but it's not the easy transition into my maternity leave that I had initially hoped for!

This is also a post to say thank you to reader Saphyre Rose, who sent me a lovely present for Baby J. The generosity of people I've met on the internet never ceases to amaze me. Just when I start losing hope for humanity (at least those that seem to inhabit my everyday world), someone goes and does something like this, for someone the only know online.

This is Rose's gift to Baby J:

She crocheted it herself, and the pictures just don't do it justice. She's a marvelously talented, and feisty woman. I do like reading her point of view. Thank you Saphyre Rose!

For those wondering, I am managing at my new temporary promotion better than I had hoped. There've been no major crises, and no one has seen fit to show me the door, yet. And I do get an office to myself until they hire someone else to do the job. The office has a door which is nice to close while I work through lunch. I've popped in to see a few of you, and I imagine once I finally go on leave I'll have a bit more time to read you all and maybe actually write a bit myself!

St. Patrick's Day is coming up, and it's a big time in Savannah. It's so big, there's even a news crew from TG4 in Ireland doing a documentary on how a group of immigrant Irish Catholics seemed to flourish so well in an area dominated by Baptists. I've always wondered that myself. The greened the fountains yesterday, after having to delay it from Friday (we had storms). We are not going to the parade this year. In truth, the whole festival has slowly turned from a celebration of Irish families into an excuse to get drunk in the streets on green beer. The crowds are usually huge and rowdy, and I'm just not up to dealing with it. Maybe next year, when I'm not in need of a bathroom quite so often.

I'll try to post again next Sunday!

Oh, and I forgot...to Rotten Correspondent, my due date is 56 days away, May 3rd. Although, TFYO was a week early. Judging by my size and how much Baby J has dropped down in the last couple of weeks, she may be early, too.

Breaking up is hard to do...

Oh, ain't it the truth, Neil.


On Thursday, our production director, my immediate supervisor, decided to give two weeks notice. Our general manager, as is her right, decided the two weeks weren't necessary.


What does that mean?


It means I'm now the interim production director, half trained, half aware, and half way out the door.


Which wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't almost eight months pregnant.


For those who don't know what a production director does, let me explain. The production director is responsible for producing and dubbing all the commercials that air on our stations. In this case, the production director is also responsible for a nasty little thing referred to as "continuity", and I hate it.


I can make commercials all day long. I love sitting in the studio in front of the board and my audio editing software. I love fiddling with little bits of audio, and making them fit in the right places. I love picking out music, tweaking scripts, doing voice overs and character voices. I've gotten to the point where I can read the visual representation of a wav file the way other people read heart beats on a monitor. I can tell where someone has taken a breath, where the percussion solo is in the music, and where I've spliced in the sound effects, just by looking at the wav form.


What I don't like is sitting in the office in front of my computer trying to figure out which spot is supposed to run at what time of day, how many times, and which sales order it's supposed to be associated with so that the billing is correct. That's continuity. Continuity is sorting through what we call "traffic", which is a piece of paper (or many pieces of paper) that describes which spot runs, when it runs, how many times it runs, as well as any times it is prohibited to run. And I get to keep track of it all on a piece of software that is ungainly and maddening, and not very user friendly. Add in our new internet streaming system, and I spend a lot of time in front of a very angry and petulant computer.


The worst thing about being the production director is that I don't seem to get to do much production! I was at work from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. last night, but I did take a one and a half hour break for dinner with my family. They came to rescue me. The funny thing is, I spent most of the day doing paper work, and trotting from one end of the building to another hunting down salespeople for production orders that hadn't been turned in, or were incomplete, or catching up with orders that had been placed, but didn't have traffic or instruction. I didn't actually start doing production (i.e. dubbing or audio mixing) until 2 p.m. Then we had a ton of orders that all came in at 5 p.m., just as we thought we were done putting stuff in to run for the day. We had at least four clients who had to be added to the broadcast logs at the last minute. Fridays are always bad since we're planning commercials schedules for the whole weekend, but this was probably one of the worst Fridays I've ever worked.


And this leads me to my next bombshell.


Because the hours of a production director are so long, my blogging will be severely curtailed. I may try to pop in now and again before my maternity leave, but you might want to just save yourselves the trouble of checking in here for the next seven weeks. The irony is, now that I've been promoted (at least temporarily), I'll probably have a hell of a lot more to write about!


So thanks to all who read and comment here regularly. I'll try to come see you as much as I can. For those who use Bloglines or Technorati or some such thing, you'll know when I post. I would encourage anyone who hasn't to read some of my older posts. They are much better than the drivel I've been spewing out recently.


But if I have to choose between seeing my kid before she falls asleep and talking to y'all...well, I'm sure you'll agree TFYO is cuter than you. Well, Willowtree might not agree, but I think he's delusional. He thinks dishwasher detergent talks.

I'll leave you with my favourite picture of me at work. Thanks y'all.