A Series of Unfortunate Events

FROM JUDITH’S DESK

Note dated August 27, 2026

A collection of thoughts that didn’t make it to the blog.

The last few weeks have been busy at the office. And when I say busy, I do not mean the cute kind of busy where everybody has a full calendar and we congratulate ourselves for being productive. I mean slammed. Phones ringing, people coming through the door, emails piling up, deadlines moving toward us whether we are ready for them or not, and every task apparently bringing three of its closest friends along with it.

I had something outside the office this morning, so I did not make it in until this afternoon. One of my staff members had been here all day, and when I walked through the door, I could tell immediately that she had spent most of it trying to accomplish actual work while being prevented from doing actual work. She had barely been able to finish a single thing because she had been answering the phone, answering the door, dealing with this, dealing with that, putting out one tiny fire only to discover another one had started behind her.

When I walked in, she was practically bouncing from one side of the office to the other.

Approximately thirty seconds later, so was I.

There was no graceful transition into the workday. No sitting down, opening the computer, reviewing my list and deciding where to begin. I walked through the door and got absorbed directly into the tornado. Phone call. Question. Door. Another question. Something needs signed. Someone needs called. Somebody needs an answer. Somebody else has been waiting on something. There is paperwork on my desk that I swear reproduces when nobody is looking.

Eventually, I called my mother and asked her to keep the kids a little longer because it became obvious that I was going to have to stay late if I wanted any hope of actually getting through some of the work that accumulated while we were busy handling the work that kept us from doing the other work.

Stacie is staying late with me.

A little while ago, I got off the phone after explaining to someone the chain of events that had occurred in a particular matter. It was one of those explanations where you get halfway through recounting everything that has happened and even you start thinking, This sounds ridiculous when I say it all out loud.

I made some comment about how much I hated that everything had happened the way it did, but sometimes you get a situation where one thing goes wrong, then another, then another, and suddenly the entire thing has become a series of unfortunate events.

Stacie looked at me and said, “Well, I think that sums up the week.”

And I said, “Hell, I think that sums up my life.”

We laughed, because sometimes that is really all there is left to do.

There are seasons where life feels beautifully organized. The calendar works. The children cooperate. The office functions exactly the way you designed it. Everybody answers the email they were supposed to answer. Technology behaves itself. Deadlines stay politely spaced apart. Nobody calls with an emergency at 4:47 p.m.

This is not currently one of those seasons.

Right now, life feels more like standing in the middle of the office holding three files, answering a phone with your shoulder, looking for a pen you know you were holding five seconds ago, while somebody says your name from another room.

But strangely enough, there is something comforting about realizing that not every difficult stretch requires some grand explanation. Sometimes nothing is fundamentally wrong. Sometimes you have simply encountered a ridiculous concentration of bad timing, unexpected problems, overloaded schedules, human error, broken systems, urgent needs and ordinary life all arriving at the same address.

A series of unfortunate events.

So tonight Stacie and I are staying late. My mother has the kids. The office will eventually get quiet. The phone will eventually stop ringing. The door will stay closed long enough for us to finish something. And we will work our way through the piles one file, one email, one phone call and one problem at a time.

Because apparently that is what we do around here.

We survive the series.

And then, eventually, we turn the page.

JLH