Working from a cave, under a bunker, under a rock

I have a love / hate relationship when it comes to dealing with one Senior Collaborator (SC), with whom I have recently submitted a rather large grant proposal. I love working with SC because they are the kind of person who is a wealth of information and has something useful to add to just about any topic I am interested in. SC has worked with and knows a lot about a wide variety of organisms, knowledge that has come in handy on a number of occasions. What I don't like about working with SC is the unpredictability. You never know quite what you're gonna get with SC. Last time we submitted a grant, everything came down to the last minute and I was fairly uncomfortable with the "process". There were a bunch of complicating factors, but when SC asked me if I was interested in collaborating on a second proposal for July, I had to think about it for a bit. In the end, the scientific opportunity (and the need to get money in the lab) won out over how I felt about the last grant. As much as I did not like the process, it's a collaboration and I can't always get things done the way I want them done (*twitch, twitch*). In the end the proposal was solid, despite some minor issues.

I had assumed that it would be a couple of weeks before I heard from SC about this grant, since we have 6 weeks before the deadline. To my surprise, I got an email on Friday with a few pages of rough draft and a commitment for more this week. SC also wanted to talk on the phone about some progress they had made on our first collaborative project and to get an update on where we stood on our end. No problem! I let SC know when to call me and carried on my way. No call. I called SC's office and cell. No Answer. Tried again over the weekend and again today. Nothing. So begins what will undoubtedly be another epic writing process.