It's been an eventful few days!

Tuesday and Wednesday night were restful because I relaxed and got eight hours of sleep.

Thursday night I helped film a long and difficult (for the decision makers and the town) school committee meeting. The town is projecting a large deficit for the next budget year and most of it will be in the education budget. There were a lot of people there (usually there are less than 10 people in the audience) and a large amount of public comment. The officials knew that airing the full meeting, live, would be very important. Therefore, they were very understanding when we needed to delay the beginning of the meeting due to technical difficulties. First, we couldn't get the live feed to work. Once we got the live feed going, the sound cut out. The next thing I knew, the director was putting a camera on my shoulder and telling me that we would be going hand-held until he could fix the problem. I spent the first 30-40 minutes of the meeting pretending I was a tripod. I made the committee members laugh when I pointed out that, even though they can be very funny, it would be a bad idea to make me laugh this time. Unfortunately, it turned out that the camera was set for timelapse so the footage and sound we shot with it was unusable. Our director planned on asking the other TV station that was covering the event for their footage of that part of the meeting. I was really sore and exhausted and only got between 5 and 6 hours of sleep Thursday night.

Friday I had a good day of work but Susan's car that I've been driving broke down on my way home from work. I had quite an adventure! Thank goodness for AAA, experienced helpers, nice state troopers, a good friend, and neighborhood mechanics. The short version is that I had pulled over but was still in an unsafe area where three lanes merged into two on a major highway. A state trooper came and used his car to push mine about 200 feet farther up the breakdown lane to a safer spot where I could wait for the tow truck. They towed me to Susan's mechanic and, because he's a friend of hers and lives very close to us, he drove me home. Unfortunately, though I left work at 4:40pm I didn't get home until 8pm. For various reasons I ended up not going to sleep until 1:15am. The plan is now to have Rad (the mechanic) fix Susan's vehicle on Monday. Susan is going to let me use her main car to go to work and she'll get a ride with a co-worker. I'll leave work early and bring her car back so she can go to tennis. The I'll drive my car to Rad's so he can figure out whether or not I should fix it and I'll pick up the car I dropped off on Friday and drive it to the local music show. I told Susan that I would pay for the repair but she said to wait and see how much it is since what happened wasn't my fault.

This morning I got up at 8:30 and Steve picked me up at 9:30 to take me into town so I could meet up with my cousin Jonathan and his wife Page. The three of us drove out to the eastern part of the state for my cousin's, Jenny, baby shower. It was a lovely day. I can't put into words all the joy and gratitude I felt today. Jenny's husband, Jason, is really nice and they make a great couple and will make terrific parents. Her friends and friends of the family all had a good time. I got to see a lot of family on my dad's side, a lot of whom I haven't seen for 12-15 years. My Uncles Les, Mike, and Eddie were there, along with my step-Aunt Amy, Aunts Lisa and Margot, and cousins David, Dana, and Melissa. I really enjoyed just hanging out, eating, and talking with everyone. It felt like we picked up where we left off since we'd been pretty close when I was little. I said that I would not be a stranger any longer and I've been invited to their Seder. I can't wait!

Now I'm watching "U. S. Marshalls" and will go to be soon. I plan on sleeping in tomorrow. :)