I must be conflating more than one umbrella conversation. Someone should make a pretty parasol that won't break and you can use to slice watermelon, but I'm not going to hold it against the slicing umbrella that it's not pretty.

Because, fuck, BADASS.

Also, ludicrously expensive. I am of the school where I lose the cheap ones sooner, but that's a whole different level of not cheap.

Still, I need to give myself something for Christmas, so...

I'm still carrying my World Wildlife Fund umbrella from the early '90s, so paying anything for an umbrella is well outside my normal thought process.

No one has ever given me a free umbrella, but access to free tee shirts didn't stop me from buying my own, so. Maybe in LA I could have an umbrella last 20 years, but most of mine have died due to wear and tear. I have only lost one or two, tops.

I've had an umbrella for over 10 years. It's now next to my desk at work, which is not so useful.

Goddamn I nearly started some shit and had a breakdown at work today. Pulled like taffy between a bunch of important people none of whom would plant a fucking flag in the ground and settle things. I'm chill about it now despite sub-optimal outcome but damn should I not have been in that position.

I unilaterally cancelled a meeting later this week because so much shit was thrown at me today alone that I already don't have time to prep for it. So I feel you.

Having a friend be the coordinator for a team that is now approaching as unwieldy as my Worst Instrument Team Ever is ....awkward.

Managing the people above you is a pain, brenda. I'm sorry.

I have to rewrite a budget for my principal who is still pissed at me. Yay? Hi. Did I mention that I'm not an admin but I'm a teacher?

Boss lady said she was doing a Goodwill run, and we decided that we'd also put some work stuff in her truck to take along as well.

She left work first, I followed an hour later. But of course was staying late to chat with other colleagues, when she sent me the text (fifteen minutes after I was due to clock out) that said "goodwill things weren't put in my truck, so put away in barn and I'll make a trip tomorrow".

My instinctive reaction was that, wth, she couldn't put that shit into her own vehicle? Or take the two minutes to roll it into the barn herself?

It's a little stupid thing. Maybe she was in a rush to get somewhere else, but fuck. The implication I took from her text was that I'd somehow failed to take away from the general "we" of the plan to put it in her truck to mean "me".

I think I'm also suffering from exposure to the overachiever that was my previous boss lady, and hell, I miss her. New boss lady spent the previous Friday afternoon redoing some volunteer potting. When I went to ensure that the two benches were free for the children's ed programs, I found them full, and there was muddy potting soil everywhere. The greenhouse has been a pigsty at many points in the past, but I have never had the pleasure of getting muddy pant-cuffs from walking through it until now. And I'm a slob. I'm a fruit fly and mosquito enabler. I'm a stuff-dirty-dishes-in--it-the-oven slob, throw-it-in-the-attic sloth. And yet how flthy they left the greenhouse astounded me. And it's not like I hadn't informed her of how those areas needed to be kept clear. And then the basic lack of respect for a public space...

Then she got stubborn about a bee in her bonnet in terms of priorities. I felt like a heel, because she brought it up in front of the intern, and I had to argue with her with that witness.

I feel like I've gotten too big for my britches. I've been through too many bosses, carried the load on my own for too many years, that I simply can't stay here. Unless I take the directorship, I don't belong here. I'll never be content with a new fucknut for a boss, and a director will never be happy with a know-it-all bossy-pants for a subordinate. At least last crazy boss lady held back and honestly said "I have no idea wtf is going on" and let me lead while she found her footing, and that worked seamlessly.

New boss lady seemed content to sit back, but she came in this Tuesday with a flurry of emails that said "territorial!" and she's been urinating all around the boundaries of her position.

I'm still waiting for the chance to actually talk to her, about priorities and shit. Things are so fucked up that the intern said to me "when you see the DoH, send her out to me" (which made me simultaneously gleeful and horrified).

I am way more likely to leave my umbrellas safely at home where they will neither get lost nor keep me dry than to lose them. I used to have a telescoping umbrella in the car, when I had a that-sized pocket on a door, but I don't have that car anymore. I probably do still have the umbrella. It's possible I tossed it in the trunk, but that's not much better than leaving it at home.

I did spend a possibly unreasonable amount (although not in the realm of self-defense umbrellas) on a Blade Runner style umbrella because I thought it would be useful to have a light up shaft since Winter is the rainy season and the dark season here, but I haven't had many occasions to use it. Looks nice in my faux butter churn.

I currently have two umbrellas in my office and one in my apartment. I should be covered, given that I generally won't carry one unless it's actively raining when I'm heading out. They are all crappy, though.