Deadlines, online forms, permissions, and more, oh my!

This past week was pretty ugly.  As previously mentioned about 700 pages of copy-edited manuscript await my attention, and hardly had TPP begun that the page proofs of a journal article show up and the editor wants it back in 72 hours.  And that wasn't all folks!  No, he wanted a 250 word non-technical summary in English and a copy in French, Spanish, or Portuguese!  The great utility of the internet is that it allowed communication with my co-author in southern India, and she had a friend who speaks Portuguese!  Fantastic!  And then the gummint restarted and the Oct. 18 grant proposal deadline became a reality.  Yikes!  About 50 emails to and from collaborators, a couple of dozen sign-ons  to construct the proposal, and then make all the necessary (?) changes, and emails with campus grant people, and campus accountants, and the rest, and somehow it got done, and then NSF gives us a 5 day deadline extension (including the weekend), but all this still has to go through campus routing of permissions anyways, a process that started on Friday PM so now it's only a mild rush not a hell-bent, ghost-rider on a motorcycle rush.  Of course classes were taught, an exam was written (but it will be carefully checked on Monday just in case), plants were sent to a colleague, and student matters dealt with (You want to study in the Virgin Islands because ...?).  My book editor emailed to ask how it was coming; it wasn't, but now back to that.  It was not a fun week.  Any more of this and TPP will think about retiring.  Oh yes, he is thinking about it. OK, he will think about retiring sooner.