Canon's Diary

Saturday, June 28.
In the afternoon, I came home from my psychiatric appointment and had soba noodles for lunch. Since I didn’t have any kakiage tempura, I tossed in some cabbage, pork, and carrots to make sure I was getting enough veggies.

I was a bit worried about work, so I turned on my work laptop to tidy up some tasks. I thought it would just be a quick check, but I was met with an overwhelming flood of emails. As I went through them one by one, I checked what had already been completed and what still needed to be investigated. Most of it was related to the initial submission documents for a project I’d just taken over. I compared the customer’s specification sheets with the estimate documents submitted by our sales rep. That’s when I found a few discrepancies between the customer’s specs and what we quoted. Uh-oh. Well, the sales rep is still pretty new, so it’s understandable that mistakes happen. But the submission deadline is Monday. I’ve got to hurry.

So I created a new spreadsheet, checked for inconsistencies between the specs and the data registered in our internal database, and made a list. There was just way too much to look over—no way I could finish this in half a day. The initial submission deadline is the day after tomorrow, on Monday, and it’ll probably take me two days just to sort out the current mismatches. Man, I’m in trouble.

For now, I canceled the tennis lesson I’d planned for today. I kept making tables to get a clearer view of everything while checking item by item. But even then, it didn’t look like I’d be done anytime soon, so I also canceled the tennis with my friend that was planned for tomorrow.

“Sorry. Looks like I won’t be able to finish work in time, so I can’t make it to tennis tomorrow.”

I sent my friend an apologetic LINE message. Before long, my wife came home from work. I was planning to make omelets for dinner, so I started preparing. I fried up some frozen chicken rice in a pan, then on another burner started cooking beaten eggs. Getting the eggs just right is tricky. What I had in mind was placing a soft, fluffy omelet on top of the steaming chicken rice, then slicing it down the middle so it would spread out beautifully and cover everything.
Yeah, well, things don’t go that smoothly in real life. Maybe I was feeling rushed from all the work stress, but the eggs ended up a bit too firm and didn’t open up like I wanted. Ah, well. Tough skill to master. Maybe it needs a hot, high flame to keep the outside firm while the inside stays gooey—but it all happens in just a moment, so who knows. I even tried writing something with ketchup, but that didn’t come out very well either. Can you even tell what it says? Yikes. Well, that’s just how it goes sometimes. My mom had made some gyoza, so we all sat down and had dinner together.

After dinner, I got back to work. I was low on energy, so I fixed myself a bowl of ochazuke topped with chopped green onions. Even then, I couldn’t quite get everything done.

Ah, today just wasn’t my day. But, well, that happens. Maybe tomorrow will be a little better. I decided to give up and head to bed.