RBO frustration

Today was a moderately crappy day. Here's why:

• My friends asked me to pick up their mail while they're on vacation. They left on Tuesday and will return on Saturday, so they said it was only necessary for me to go on Thursday. I fought annoying traffic only to find a note saying their mailbox was full and no more would be delivered. How is it full after only two days? What kind of mail do these people get?
• I was clumsy in the lab today. No major incidents, but a bunch of little oopses that I had to recover from and makes notes of.
• My tv wasn't working when I got home! O nos! Sound but no picture except for a blinky line of green light. I checked all the cables and stuff, which didn't help. So I slapped it and the picture returned for a second. After a bunch of tries, ending with me slapping it really hard, the picture came back. I guess we should start saving for a new one.
• It's humid as all get out here and the lab was swampy. yuck.
• Carpool Buddy was supposed to drive two weeks in a row to make up for lots of extra driving I've been doing. He ended up driving me one day this week.
• RA still has not done this 2-4 hour task that she needs to do before I can finish up the project I'm working on. I've been waiting since April. I desperately want to finish the lab parts of the project before I go on vacation in a week, partly so I can feel good about going away, but MOSTLY because I want the data in time to incorporate it into my August conference talk. RA knows this. Yet she keeps blowing me off, promising to do it every day and then not doing it. If she hasn't done it by 1pm tomorrow, I'm going to present some less desirable ultimatums alternatives, like me doing it myself or getting new material to do it later. Both involve more work for me, but if it doesn't get done tomorrow, the timing won't work out for me to finish next week. To be clear, this is something RA is piggybacking off my project to get something she wants for herself (that I might be a coauthor on if it pans out), not something I wanted her to do for me. Also, she has not read the manuscript I gave her in March, April, and May (increasingly polished drafts).

On the bright side, I exercised yesterday and today. This is good because I'm trying to lose some inches and because it means I'm not lounging like a baby seal all alone in my hot and stuffy apartment. Also, I already have my lunch packed, go cup washed, and coffee maker programmed for tomorrow. And as frustrated as I am with RA right now, I'm extremely fond of her and overall am very happy in her lab.

UPDATE: RA did it! Early this afternoon, I went into her office and told her I was moving on at the end of the day no matter what and that if she didnt' have time to do the Thing with the Thing, we'd find a way to work it out later. I told her why -- that if I got moving again tomorrow I'd be able to finish most of it before I go away and I would be cleared out of the space to Awesome Technician and an intern could work there while I'm gone, but if I don't get started tomorrow morning, the timing will be all screwed up and I won't be able to do much at all next week. So she did it. It took her longer than I thought it would so I had to stay really late to do my part afterward. But she did it!