Pope St. Celestine V

I was going to go swing dancing this weekend.  I’d paid my registration, RSVP’d for my housing assignment, figured out my budget for gas, started planning my packing list, even informed my family that I would not be available.  I had been looking forward to this for a while, hoping that it would be the weekend that would remind me of why I love swing dancing so much, something that’s been hard to remember lately as it’s gotten progressively more and more buried under a load of relationship & community dysfunction.  It was kinda like when a couple’s relationship is strained, so they go away for the weekend to rekindle that old spark.  I figured, a weekend away, maybe a few really good dances, the kind I haven’t had in a while, seeing some old friends, and I’d be good to go again, at least for a while.

Alas, instead I am currently sprawled across the futon in my living room here in Dayton.  There is no dancing anywhere remotely near, and I couldn’t participate even if there were.  You see, on Wednesday I did Something Bad to my leg.  I was at the usual Wednesday Night Swing, dancing with Bounce.  It was my first dance of the night, to Madeleine Peyroux’s I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate, which is my favorite version of one of my favorite songs of all time.  We were maybe a minute into the song, when I stepped back on my left leg, and felt/heard something go “pop” in my calf.  And that was it.  I was done dancing.  Bounce helped me get over to one of the chairs at the side, and then stood near me offering me water and grapes and anything he could think of to make things better.  It was very sweet.

Unfortunately, since the sudden pain was making me a bit nauseous, grapes and water weren’t much help.  However, soon after I was able get Swing Snark’s attention, and asked her if she would take a look at the problem.  Swing Snark is an Athletic Trainer, so she knows about these things.  She moved my foot and leg around, did the whole “Does this hurt?” thing, and told me that it appeared that my tendons & ligaments were fine, so it was probably either a muscle strain or tear.  I should ice it relentlessly for the first 24 hours, take ibuprofen, start stretching it after a day or so, and if it didn’t get significantly better in 3-5 days, see a doctor.  I found all of this extremely reassuring (I had been trying to worry through whether or not I could afford to go to the ER, and then which one would be best), and I’m so grateful that she was there.

Once I knew what the problem was, and that it wasn’t, like, life threatening or something, I had some other problems to deal with.  Like how I was going to get home.  My little car is a stick-shift, so I couldn’t drive it if I couldn’t use my left leg.  And then, if I could get someone to come get me, how would I get my car home?  And then how was I going to get to work in the morning?  Things like that.  As it turned out, the answers were as follow: Dad and Indy came to get me, the car stayed out by the dance studio until Thursday night when Johnnycakes and Pippi teamed up to help me retrieve it, Mariah volunteered to get me to work, and Pippi brought me home again.

Being a little bit disabled the last few days has made me realize how much crankiness and pride I have lurking under my usually sweet surface.  It’s hard for me to ask for help, even when I genuinely need it.  On Thursday I nearly didn’t get any lunch at all because I was too prideful to ask one of my co-workers to go get me a salad from the cafeteria, and too cranky to make the trip myself, knowing that I was going to have to be nice to all the people who would want to stop me to ask what happened.  And then, I know that compared to what some people deal with every day, this isn’t all that much pain, but it still has me completely worn out by the end of the day.  So I’m also getting a lesson in exactly how whiny I can be.

It also reminds me how much work dealing with a disability is.  For example, I need to go grocery shopping.  However, while I think I could do the actual shopping (I’d have a cart to hold onto after all), getting to the grocery store is a problem.  I haven’t tried driving again yet, and I’m worried about whether or not I’ll be able to make it both there and back.  And then once I get the groceries home, how will I get them into the house?  The answer to this problem seems to be to get someone to go with me, but I’m so unused to having to coordinate my schedule with anyone else’s that it’s taken me a few days to arrange things.  So far the plan is that Johnnycakes will go with me, both to help carry things, and to drive the two of us home if I can’t, and we’re going to go just as soon as he gets up from his nap.  Any time now.  I think.

The bright side is that little by little, my leg is getting better.  Today I’ve been able to walk around the house without the cane, and with only a few mishaps.  I’m starting to be able to stretch my calf muscle.  My steps are still slow and halting, but I’m getting there.  Hopefully by Monday I will be able to get myself both to work and home again.  And maybe before too long I’ll even be able to dance again.  I’ll look forward to that.

Bl. Rose of Viterbo

Sometimes I get restless.  I get bored.  I start feeling sortof… on edge.  Without realizing it, I start wanting to take risks.  Cut corners.  Do something… inadvisable.  I’m itching for an adventure, a jolt of adrenaline, something different enough to break up the routine.  I want something fun.  Sometimes I find what I’m looking for, and I end up, say, watching high speed car chases in the police office, or trying to plant a light up manger scene king and headless cow outside my sisters’ house late at night, or, you know, stuff.  It doesn’t have to be something big, just a little something kinda stupid, and then I’m good for a while.  Sometimes I don’t get what I’m looking for, and I’m just vaguely cranky and dissatisfied, thinking dark thoughts about how boring and dreary my life is for a little while until I snap out of it, and all is well again.  At least for a while.

Last week I was feeling restless.  I wanted something, and I didn’t know what it was.  Combined with the usual birthday “you’re getting irreversibly older, and are really old now instead of just sortof old like you were last birthday” angst, I was spoiling for something big.  For a while it looked like I would be disappointed.  Everyone else in my life seemed bent on being, like, respectable.  Responsible.  Boring.  No one seemed at all interested in breaking out of their routine.  It made me sad.

And then, on Wednesday, things changed, and without realizing it, I embarked on, not one big adventure, but a couple of small adventures that served just as well.  It happened while I was sitting in Dublin Pub, having a CL Leadership Team meeting.  We had pretty much finished the business part, and were mostly sitting around talking.  A man started making a circuit of the bar, stopping at each table and talking to the people there.  When he got to our table he told us that he had four tickets to the Dayton Dragon’s game that night (that’s our minor league baseball team).  He couldn’t use them, and he was willing to give them away to anyone who would be willing to use them.  At first, all of us turned them down.  Everyone had plans, or obligations, or things they really ought to be doing on a Wednesday night in order to be responsible citizens.  I even thought guiltily of Wednesday Night Swing, which I’d skipped last week due to my sprained ankle (still not completely healed, btw), and turned them down.

After the man left, those of us still at the table kinda looked at each other.  Sugar Ray confessed that he would be really, really tempted to go if someone else were willing to go too.  Then Flo pointed out that, since she’s still on leave after her ankle surgery, she didn’t have to be at work the next day.  And little by little, I started letting myself be tempted until finally I said I would go home to change my clothes (I had no intention of attending a ballgame wearing my lovely, lovely polyester work uniform), do my best to find a taker for the fourth ticket, and meet them at the ballpark.  We asked the waitress if the guy with the tickets was still around, he was, and just like that, we were going to a baseball game.

It was a perfect night for baseball.  The sky was blue and clear, there was an early moon out, the air was soft and warm, and there was just enough breeze to make things entirely comfortable.  It was lovely.  The view was markedly improved by the opposing team’s third base coach.  Flo particularly enjoyed that part so much that towards the end I took a video of him running from the dugout to his post just for her.  And then while the three of us were talking, somehow we got around to the fact that The Avengers was coming out that weekend, and that all three of us really wanted to see it.  Sugar Ray said that his weekend was really booked up, but that he could maybe go to the Thursday midnight premiere.  Flo again mentioned that she didn’t have to get up for work the next day, so she was game for just about anything, and just like that we had a plan to go see Avengers late Thursday night, and I started texting people to see who else wanted to come along.

In the end, we were able to assemble a small company.  The first person to really commit was PM, whose initial weak protests that he would be all sweaty from lacrosse practice were easily overcome. (Him: “Midnight is really late for me… If someone volunteers to let me shower at their place, and if I can somehow feed myself and keep myself busy until midnight… I am willing to forego all sense of reason, I will ignore all responsibility and prolly show up to work on Friday as a zombie, I am willing to go.” Me: “I like your spirit, sir!”)  In the end both Sugar Ray and Flo ended up bowing out, so it was myself, Indy, Pippi, and PM who headed off to the movie theatre on Thursday night.

Friends, Avengers was awesome.  So awesome.  I won’t say any more about it because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet (which – why not?  Go now!), but it was worth staying up stupidly late, paying a ridiculous price to see it in 3D, getting three hours of sleep before getting up again to go to work, and having to fight my way through the day.  It was worth all of it.  It was that good.  Also, remember back last August when I was IMing with Zanzibar, and we decided that I was going to marry Captain America, but Z could have Tony Stark for his awesome eccentric uncle, and we’d split Thor as our big brother (tickle fights with Thor.  Nuf said.)?  Yeah, Ryan Gosling may still technically be the man for me, but sigh… those tall manly men with the blue eyes and sterling characters are sure tempting.  And just like that, I’d had my dose of adventure for a little while.

Also, I should mention that my birthday was Tuesday, and it was a good one.  I got ridiculously spoiled at work.  When I arrived, I found the hugest balloon boquet I’ve ever seen, plus roses and a card from my boss & coworkers.  All morning people kept popping in to say Happy Birthday, which puzzled me, because how did they know?  The volunteer services ladies brought me a very sweet present, and the head chef from the cafeteria personally brought me a special birthday cupcake that looked like the archetype of all cupcakes, with three inches of pink icing and sprinkles.

My parents and Pippi came to have lunch with me, and that was when I discovered how so many people somehow knew that it was my birthday.  It seems that one of my work friends had taken a birthday card around to half the people in the hospital and gotten them to sign it, and had it waiting for me in the cafeteria with another balloon (Me as I’m shepherding my parents out into the cafeteria seating area: “Now let’s find a seat… oh, it looks like I already have a seat!”)  And then there were more presents, including Star Wars Lego watches from Pippi.  She had originally been going to just get me one watch, but then she realized that the included figures came complete with lightsabers, so she had to get me two so they could fight. For the rest of the day my work desk was one big bower of balloons and flowers and gift bags.  It was rather amazing.

I am loved.

St. Joseph

Sunday afternoon when we were at the Family Homestead for St. Patrick’s day brunch (we had reubens: they are corned beef & cabbage, after all), Sae asked me if she could borrow some shirts.  When she was buying her pregnancy wardrobe, she wasn’t counting on the ridiculously warm weather this year.  So all her larger shirts are long sleeved, and geared towards keeping her warm in cold weather.  Considering the current highs in the 70s, and realizing that she’s not going to immediately spring back into her pre-pregnancy shape for some time after this kid finally decides to join us in the sunshine, she needs a little wardrobe help.

I had coincidentally just packed up a big bag of stuff to take down to Goodwill, so I headed home to get it, plus a few other things I thought she might get some good use of.  And now she’s got some well-washed swing dance shirts in her wardrobe, plus one of the t-shirts I inherited from Jacob, plus the Our Lady of Guadelupe t-shirt she originally gave me some years ago.  And it was nice.

Sae is so ready to have this baby.  Her official due date was Thursday, so now she’s overdue.  Today while she was home, Mom brought out the bags of baby clothes she had stored, the very favorite things she’d saved through all her pregnancies, and kept for nineteen years since Boy-O grew out of them.  She also brought out the christening gown that all of us were baptized in – a delicate embroidered thing of fine white batiste, with drawn thread work, and tiny white matching shoes.  It was passed down on her side of the family, and hopefully will keep being passed down.

I wish that Big Brother’s son could be baptized in that gown too.  I got to see pictures of him for the first time earlier this week.  He is so sweet.  (You can see for yourself on Indy’s blog.)  He is also still missing a name, though the deadline is coming fast.  So hopefully soon we’ll know his name.

Speaking of our expanding family, Boy-O is also adding to the family.  He and his roommates have adopted a baby sugar glider.  It’s also still waiting for a name, though Captain Nutters is a strong contender.  I think even a sugar glider needs a better name than that.  But it’s three young men and a baby sugar glider, which is about as ridiculously cute as a small marsupial can be.  It’s also a recipe for a sitcom.  I predict hijinks.

Saturday night Flo came to the St. Patrick’s day hang out at my house.  She looked at me, and said, “What a difference a year makes, right?”  And I had to laugh.

St. David

So my brain feels a little like cornmeal mush, and mostly I want to crawl into bed where it’s warm and read a few pages of a book before I pass out, but I have laundry in the washer and brownies in the oven, so I’m up.  I would be wasting time on facebook, except it’s been so long since I was on there that everything feels like walking into a conversation that’s already halfway through.  So I’m blogging.  Enjoy!

The reason my brain feels like mush is because today I worked eight hours, clocked out and went to a doctor’s appointment followed by an attempt to pick up prescriptions (unsuccessful), then went back to work where I stayed until eight o’clock, over twelve hours since I had clocked in this morning.  These hours are because this week I was informed that the hospital inspectors are on their way, and a big part of the inspection is auditing the employee files to make sure that records of licensures, background checks, certifications, regular evaluations, and current job descriptions (among other things) are all properly present and accounted for.  And it’s part of my job to make sure all of those things are in their proper places in the employee files for them to find.

These are the employee files which, until Monday, were not actually at my hospital, but scattered in various hospitals and medical facilities around the area, depending on where our employees had transferred in from. While I knew that eventually they would all be brought to me, and I’d be in charge of organizing and storing them, I had thought that it wouldn’t be until after we were moved into our real offices.  You see, keeping employee files on the premises requires secure storage, something I didn’t have either in the trailer, or in my little closet masquerading as my temporary office.  The first I knew that they were coming to me earlier was on Monday morning when one of my co-workers showed up in my office, told me that she had a back seat full of employee files, and asked where I would like her to put them.  Even then I didn’t realize the scope of the project.  I thought perhaps we just needed to have the files physically on the premises.  I didn’t connect it to the idea that inspectors might want to actually look at them.  I found that part out late Tuesday afternoon.

The inspectors may be here as soon as next Monday or Tuesday.

Guess what I’m probably doing this weekend!

The good part is that I have help – two of the members of my HR team, plus a temporary helper are actually taking on most of the load.  Plus there’s the police officers who have been endlessly patient about letting us in and out of the locked room we found to store the files, and tonight even helped us carry the boxes back into storage from the nurses’s station where we’d spread things out to work on them.  This is why there are currently brownies in the oven.  Because men who carry heavy things deserve baked goods.   Plus, the pragmatic side of me can’t resist adding, if they know that good things are in store for them if they help you, they’ll be even more willing to help next time.  Not that it was hard to convince them this time around, but still.

In the meantime, I’m taking steps to help make my life more livable.  I’m slowly easing things off my plate.  For example, Indy is going to take over my ESL tutoring gig, and another person is going to carry the key for my regular Tuesday night thing so I don’t have to panic when I’m running late, and you know, like that.  And maybe one day my work will ease off, so I can only work eight hours instead of nine or ten or twelve.  It would be glorious to actually go home while it’s still light out once or twice.  Of course, that leaves less opportunities for flirting with police officers on the second shift, but still.  We must all make sacrifices.  And maybe soon I’ll have more time for things like dancing, or blogging, or actually having a life.  And it will be good!

The Epiphany

I can’t believe I have the windows open in January.  It’s just wrong.  But then, so is sweltering to death because of all the afternoon sun flooding into the room.  And, yeah, I know, my life is sooo hard.  The very idea, working in a place with actual windows through which actual sunlight (not to mention fresh air) can travel, windows that are even visible from my work station.  Amazing.  I mean, the last time I could actuall see out of the windows of any place I worked without having to get up and walk somewhere was… maybe three years ago?  Four?  I used to be able to see out a small slice of window at Ex-Job1, but then we got new office furniture, and Boss2 (the annoying one) made them put up just enough of a wall so that 1) she was no longer visible from the main office door (God forbid people might actually see her there and, like, ask her to do things), and 2) I could no longer see out of any windows at all.  Ex-Job2 had amazing windows, but they were all far on the other side of the bullpen from my little cubicle, so it didn’t actually help me any.  The people who were by the windows, of course, had one of the best views in Dayton (including the small herd of deer that would occasionally graze its way across the front lawn), but it didn’t do much for the rest of us.  Anyway, I digress.  The point of this is that first, I am working in a place with windows (note the “s”), there is sunshine coming through these windows, and since the day is ridiculously warm, particularly given that it is currently January and not, say, April, these windows are open.

This place where I’m working, which has this miraculous multiplicity of windows, also happens to be a trailer, but we don’t press that point.  We overlook it.

As you may have gathered, I have now transitioned from multiple jobs into only one job.  I have cleared out my various desks, taken my things down off all of the bulletin boards, including the drawing of a buff young Jedi Indy drew for me on the back of a Panera paper bag during a somewhat boring CL meeting years ago, intended to illustrate my future young Padawan learner, the postcard from the NE Girl Jam I went to years ago (still the best design for a swing dancing event postcard I’ve ever seen), the prayer card from Sae & Mr. T’s wedding, and lots of other little things I’ve pinned up over the years.  I pulled my boxes of tea, the ziplock bag of powdered milk, and my bottle of Tabasco sauce from the bottom desk drawer, washed my coffee cups and the big plastic tumbler I use to make blackteawithmilk, and packed everything into a spare grocery bag.  I transferred all my files onto my external hard drive, deleted everything personal off of the office computer, and turned my work ID, office keys, and official letter of resignation in to Boss J.  By the time I was done it was well past quitting time, so I shut the computer down for the last time, and gathered up my stuff.  Big Boss walked me out to my car and gave me one last hug, and then I was done, driving away into the dusk.

There was more to it than that, of course.  Job2 gave me good-bye bagels and a gift certificate to KnitPicks.  Job1 threw me a good-bye luncheon down at Jimmy’s Ladder 11.  There were a lot of people there, which was nice to see, and they all said lovely things about me.  For my going away present, they gave me a Coach bag, which was awesome.  I’ve been needing a new purse since my beloved black and silver bucket bag irretrievably bit the dust.  I’ve found a few temporary things since then, but nothing was just right.  Either it wasn’t big enough to hold all my stuff plus my knitting (one of the most crucial factors for a bag), or it was so open that stuff fell out at the slightest provocation, or it was made from cheap material, or something.  I knew exactly what I wanted, and for the last couple of months I’ve been periodically stalking it on e-bay, but I still hadn’t found quite what I wanted at a price I was willing to pay.  Apparently I told one of my co-workers more about my search than I realized when we were hanging out after the Christmas luncheon, and she decided that she was going to find me the perfect bag as my going-away present.  And I think she just might have succeeded.  It’s big enough to hold all the stuff that I carry, made of black leather (which means it will last), with a top that closes securely, and in the classic, unfussy style I prefer.  Time will tell whether it’s really as perfect as I think it is, but so far it’s just right!

I think the reality of me switching jobs hasn’t totally sunk in yet.  I’ve gotten used to working at so many different places over the last few months that this feels rather like just another temporary change in venue.  It was very hard to say good-bye.  Many of my now ex-coworkers were very melancholy about it.  The sad thing is that, while I like most of them very much, I’m not so close to them that the relationship will continue once we’re not in the same building every day.  There are a few that I hope to stay close to – Boss J in particular – but I know that I’m not good at staying in contact with people.  I have good intentions, but my life is busy and it’s easy for me to get distracted.  Next thing I know, it’s months since I last talked to a person, and then years.  I’ll even write letters, and then forget to send them.  It distresses me because I do genuinely care about the people I’ve lost contact with, still think about them fondly and want to see them.  I’m just horrible at actually picking up the phone.  But hopefully I’ll be able to overcome my tendencies enough to stay in contact with at least a few of my old co-workers.

And now we’re heading into a busy weekend.  Tomorrow morning I have the First Saturday Women’s Group, then tomorrow afternoon is the wedding of one of my ex-coworkers, and then tomorrow evening is the CL Epiphany Party.  On Sunday we have both a Roommate Cleaning Day and Extended Family presents in the late afternoon.  I’m supposed to bring an appetizer, and I’m torn between Jalapeno Popper Dip, Cream Cheese Sausage Meatballs, or maybe a Stuffed Baguette.  Opinions?