Wasabi Dipped Thanks

I'm keeping my head above water at work, but just barely this week. I have that sense that I could be there until midnight and still have more and more to do. As I said to a client today, this is not a complaint. I have a lot of excellent projects and a couple of irritating ones on my plate right now, my very full plate. But thankfully I work for a company that respects the balance between employees' work lives and personal lives, so I'm not expected to put in 80 hours a week. I worked a little late tonight, I'll go in a little early tomorrow and I'll chip away at each task and project as much as I can in the 10 hours I'm there.

I'm realistic. Many, many people work many, many more hours than I do each week at very difficult jobs. Compared to those people I've got it easy. I work in a nice office with kind people, air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. But at a certain point I know my own limits and when it's time to head out to unwind. Leave the stress and phone calls and abundant emails behind, and go out for dinner with my favorite date.

There is nothing more stress reducing than dinner out with Joe. One, there's no meal planning, no cooking and no clean up. And then there's my date. Have you seen his hair? Or that sly smile? He listens to me complain and whine with minimal eye rolling. He supports me unconditionally even when I sound like a raving moron. He plays devil's advocate and politely stops when I say "stop doing that!" and he makes me laugh until bits of sushi rice pop out of my nose. We took our Groupon and we headed to my 5th favorite sushi restaurant in KC and had a tasty, delightful meal served by a young waiter straight off of The Jersey Shore with slightly less hair gel. So tonight I'm thankful for Joe and date night and work and L.A. rolls with unagi sauce.