I try to play a live tournament once a week. I can't play this week, because the other caregiver got sick and I was called in to cover two extra days. The way that the schedule was going, I knew there was a good chance that I wouldn't get a chance to play this week in any case.
Next week my wife is going out of the country, I'm only scheduled as a caregiver for two days, so I've been counting on playing at least twice. One of those poker days just got knocked out.
My wife leaves on Tuesday. I will be driving her to the airport, which is out-of-town but near the a poker room in another city where I was going to play. Then I got a call from my state National Guard headquarters, offering to help me expedite the paperwork for my military retirement pay, which I am scheduled to receive starting in September.
He made me an offer I couldn't refuse, but it complicates poker once again. On Monday I will be on my fourth day of caregiver duty, which is always tiring and messes my poker schedule up. The more consecutive days that I'm on duty, the more tired I am.. I usually need a day to catch up on my sleep before I try to play.
My plan was to sleep late before I took my wife to the airport for her afternoon flight. Now I have a morning appointment with the sergeant, my wife has to be at the airport in the afternoon, and I have to be register by 1600 to get a seat for the tournament at 1800. Not much chance there to grab some extra sleep.
I thought I was all set. My time was my own, I had the car. What could go wrong?
This.is is the recurring problem about which I can do nothing. When I'm not on caregiver duty there are things at home that don't get done. After I get my day to catch up on my sleep, the few days that I'm home often get jammed full of things that have to be taken care of at the expense of poker, which is supposed to be my job. The sergeant is going to be in my part of the state. Given my schedule, I don't know when I would get that opportunity again. I had no choice but to say yes.
I have referred to this by the title of a very good book, The Tyranny of the Urgent. The idea is that we let so many things become urgent that we don't deal with what's important. That's what's happening to me, over and over. The appointment with the sergeant is urgent, because I don't know when he'll be in the this part of the state again when I'm free to meet him. My job is important, and it loses again.
Computer programming has a word for cycles like this.. A poorly written program can cause a computer to run the same routine over and over. It's called an "infinite loop." It feels like I'm one now.
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