Today was pretty good. I don't know why, but yesterday I started thinking of the one bit from the Simpsons where Bart has hid something of Lisa's and tells her to find it, she will have to follow a series of clues, each more fiendish than the last. Of course, it being Bart & Lisa, she finds it before he finishes the sentence. And I was thinking it would be fun to do something like that in a nice way.

Yesterday Connie from work was upset, her father has something akin to Alzheimer's disease, and she's been slowly losing him for a long time now. I can't even imagine how horrible that must be, though I worry about it pretty often for my own dad (Alzheimer's runs very strong in his family). Her mom died of cancer a few years ago. Anyway, she had a doctor's appointment with him yesterday, which made her upset, and on top of that she was late to work and wanted to use her paid time for it. Our supervisor would let her, but she's gone so Connie got some random supervisor on the phone, who said she would need to run it by our supervisor to get approved, only our supervisor's not back until after the paycheck for that period is issued. And Connie's already got financial difficulties thanks to caring for her father, so not getting her full paycheck because of some bureaucratic BS is a serious problem.

I feel bad... there's nothing I can really do. Doctors are the only ones who can do anything, and of course they can't even always help enough. I feel stupid being like, "If there's ever anything you need," or any of the stuff people usually say. But when I was thinking of the above Simpsons-related project, I figured I could at least give her a minor cheer-up today.

So anyway I made this puzzle where I had several questions, and then certain letters from the answers spelled out a message, "look inside your candy jar," because she has a candy jar on her desk. Then in the candy jar was a rhyming note which pointed to another note which pointed to another note, etc. I actually had a lot of fun coming up with the clues, and incorporating them with things in the office such as a coworker with middle name Lamont or a mysterious pile of generic mac & cheese that's been sitting in this one area for months now.

I went to the office earlier today, and someone was like, "Earning overtime?" My response, "no, doing this scavenger hunt thing for a friend," and I earned a weird look from the lady. It was great, though. I worried that one of the notes would be found at the wrong time or by the wrong person, but everything went according to plan.

At the end was a gift card to Hobby Lobby, where she shops at sometimes. I had orig. thought of maybe making one of my weird homemade cards or coupon book, but I figured on the off chance that she didn't find the treasure hunting process as amusing as I did, I should reward her.

I guess I didn't need to worry about that, I got an email from her saying she found it and had a blast doing it, so woo! I win at life.