The problems of being employed

Into the final stretch before the operation, so in full lock-down mode (well, almost full lock-down mode). Slept really badly last night, waking up with a racing heart and a feeling of panic. Not a panic attack, I hasten to add, I am fortunate enough to not get those, but a sense of impending doom. July 8 is a pretty momentous day in general. A couple of good friends have birthdays and it is also the anniversary of my father’s death (in 2017), so  it is always one of those days I look at on the calendar with an eyebrow half-cocked, like Carlo Ancelotti receiving news of a bad tax decision. Got up late though. One of the things about turning the light on and reading in the middle of the night is that when you do inevitably fall back to sleep, it’s as if you are starting afresh in terms of hours. So, at 9 o’clock I dragged myself out of bed and started making coffee.
 
Spent the morning doing the translation. Well, to start with, I spend about 90 minutes going through the changes made by my réviseure who is definitely hot and cold. When she is good, is very, very good, etc. Yesterday, she wasn’t. A half-assed job, with errors missed, new ones added in and, for some reason, a pile of additional acute accents throughout the text. This may be down to software incompatibility, or not. But either way, I had to re-read and re-read again, making sure every space is noted, every correction accepted or declined, every unintended addition removed. It’s like if I give her too much text at once, then it causes meltdown. None of this is helped by the fact that the text to be translated was an almost impenetrable maze of council-speak gobbledygook, with notes taken by a francophone (I suspect) and full of errors in itself. Trying to simplify, correct and improve the original source language before not translating and especially not “over-translating” is bloody difficult. But it is a translation and not one that was to be shoved through AI, so I take it and embrace it. Or I will do. Eventually.
 
Around noon, I started a series of calls. First, to my stepmother, then to my friend Don, out in Thailand, then to Gienek out in BC. Always a pleasure to catch up, however briefly our conversations might be. Ottawacker Jr. seems to be holding up well to the impending operation. I think he will be missed by the football team; they had their first game without him last night and lost 4-1 against Ottawa City. That is more goals conceded in one game than in the first five in which he played. Good for his ego, probably. As he is in quarantine pre-op, we couldn’t go last night, but I am sure the reports will flutter in.
 
Spent the rest of the day manically trying to get the allotted words translated. Managed in the end. Quiet night in…