St. Ardalion

You can tell it’s been a busy week when you’ve been trying to write a blog post for days, but somehow it just never gets done, and suddenly it’s Saturday again, and you still haven’t hit the magic Publish button.  And for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what made the week so busy.  Just it somehow was.  But now here we are on the other side, and to make up for my non-blogginess, here’s a picture of Sweet Pea being ridiculously cute, as she is wont to be.

Seriously, I think this kid may be the cutest baby who ever lived.  I know that, as her aunt, I am contractually obligated to say this, but still.  She is still so tiny, but already full of so much character.  She likes having her hands free so she can curl them up by her face, and she likes to push her head out of her bunting, stretching her neck out to try to see everything around her, for all the world like a little turtle sticking its head out of its shell.  She makes the most ridiculous faces, including the best little baby scowl that I somehow did not mange to take a picture of.  When she squinches up her face, she gets a little wrinkle just on the bridge of her nose which is amazing because I get the exact same wrinkle on my nose too!  We tried to get a picture demonstrating this miraculous likeness, but instead it just looks like we’re scowling at each other.

As for the news, well, Easter was good.  On Friday I got to go down to see Sweet Pea and Sae and Mr. T.  I brought Pizza Factory, and got to hold the baby, and hang out some.  On Saturday most of the clan gathered at St. Anthony’s for the Easter Vigil.  This year’s Easter Vigil bet was a tie between me and Mr. T – it came down to the seconds, and since all of us use our cell phones as our watches, none of us had a watch with a second hand.  If I were a little more unscrupulous I would declare it in my favor, but that darn conscience… gets in the way all the time!  14 even texted his bet in from Missouri, and he would have won, but he got it in too late, so it didn’t count.  Sunday was lots of family time.  Since we didn’t get to have the baby with us (she’s still much too little to be exposed to large groups of people), Boy-O brought the sugar glider he and his roommates adopted, and we got to play with it instead.  Which was also adorably cute, though not nearly as cute as Sweet Pea.

The rest of the week has flown by.  Thursday night was the first night of the Spring Theology On Tap series.  Adam Pasternak gave a really great talk on religious freedom, particularly as it applies to the current political situation.  I kinda love Adam, whom I knew back when we were both at UD, and it was a really great talk.  Unfortunately, I didn’t pay very much attention to it.  I was sitting in the back whispering and having fun with Pippi, and drinking really, really delicious Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, which had a little higher alcohol content than I realized.  After a while Pippi and I decided to order a pizza, and when the break came, various vultures of the male variety came over to try to steal some.  Lately I haven’t been in the most charitable mood towards persons of the male gender (this may also have something to do with the not-blogging), so I really rather enjoyed denying them all access to the pizza.  All in all, it was one of the most fun TOTs I’ve been to in a long time!

And while we’re on the topic of Men Are Strange, it’s so bizarre that right when you’re feeling cranky about men in general is right when all the guys start coming out of the woodwork.  Friday morning, our new maintenance guy was totally flirting with me while I made his badge, and then the guy who comes to empty the shred box decided to tease me about my somewhat battered door sign.  I ended up chatting half the morning with Atlas, during the course of which he said he might start coming to TOT himself, and then when I went down to lunch the pretty cute and slightly geeky (a good thing) lab manager decided to sit with me.  In the afternoon, one of the other maintenance guys (the much too young for me but pretty cute one) decided to come hang out in the HR office for a while, just, you know, for kicks, and then the topper was getting a message from Sarge saying that he was very sorry he hadn’t been able to come see me yet that day, but they had a situation in the ED they had to deal with.  It reminds me of when I started wearing makeup, and suddenly had the two single guys at my old work in my office building towers out of empty pop cans.

Men are strange.

Sts. Mark & Timothy

Yesterday, I got off work as soon as I could (very nearly snarled at the last person who stopped into my office half an hour past my official closing time with “just a quick question”), jumped into my car and drove down to Cincinnati through the pouring rain storm to meet a certain little person.  On Thursday, at 8:32pm, Sae had given birth to her and Mr. T’s firstborn daughter, and I needed to meet her for myself.

When I got there, AnniPotts and one of Sae’s friends were also visiting, but I quickly took my chance to hold my new niece for the first time.  We just kinda looked at each other for a while.  I don’t know what she saw (except the grin that would not leave my face), but I saw a tiny baby (only 5lbs, 14oz) with a long, skinny body, and huge eyes that look very hard at everything.

All bundled up she looks for all the world like a tiny, skinny pea pod, just filling out with baby peas.  Which is why I’m going to call her Sweet Pea.

She also has tiny, perfect little feet that she kept poking out of the bottom of her swaddling blanket.  This is AnniPotts’ hand holding them.  I’m betting she’s going to be one of those people who has to be completely covered up, except for one foot poking out from under the blankets at all times.

After a while she fell asleep in my arms.  Which was pretty much the best thing ever.

You have to concentrate really hard on sleeping when you’re only a day old.  It’s true.  After a while Sweet Pea started to wake up, and it was time for her to eat.  So I said good-bye, and headed out.

When I got outside, the storm was over, and there was a double rainbow in the sky. And it was good.

St. Blaise

Sometimes, when you start a new job, they don’t tell you what the perks are going to be.  Like really hot security guards.  They don’t tell you about that.  You just have to find out for yourself, the day you meet the head of security (you know, the guy you’ve been e-mailing multiple times a day about security clearances), and he’s six foot plus of manly pulchritude, complete with deep blue eyes fringed with thick, dark lashes, and a quiet, almost bashful manner.  And then there’s his staff, every man of them apparently picked for his ability to turn female brains to jelly just by walking by.  It’s ridiculous.  And of course my new office is twenty feet away from the security desk.  I swear, it’s like working with the cast of Zoolander.  It makes me feel so shallow, but still, the fact that I’ve got so much gorgeousness strolling past my door (and, you know, occasionally stopping by) definitely goes a long way towards making this job a lot more fun.

It helps that  they’ve all been really sweet guys too, at least the ones I’ve talked to.  The other day the one with the amazing eyes saw that I was opening approximately twenty million boxes of uniforms with my not-so-sharp desk scissors, and gave me his special, super-sharp police knife to open them with instead.  It was awesome – the packing tape practically fell off the boxes before I even got around to cutting it.  But then, most of the guys around here have been very sweet.  The IT guys have been almost disturbingly willing, nay, eager to get me whatever I want the instant I hint that I might have been possibly thinking about wanting it.  On Tuesday at lunchtime I told my boss that it would be really nice to have a scanner that I didn’t have to go back out to the trailers to use, and before my lunch was half digested, I had all three guys from the IT department down in my office installing a nice little desktop model that not only scans both sides of a paper at once, but can handle different page sizes in the same scan, and came with Adobe Acrobat.  And it’s not just them.  Our facilities director seems almost upset that I can’t come up with more things that I need.  The mischief part of me is tempted to see how far I can push this, but honestly there isn’t much more that is reasonable for me to ask for while I’m in temporary quarters, and I don’t want to spoil things for the time down the road when I will have real favors to ask.  I just have to hope that they’ll still be in the giving frame of mind when I actually need something!

Besides the abundance of really, really ridiculously good-looking men in my corner of the world, what my life has mostly been since they moved me out of the trailer into the building Monday morning has been busy.  Crazy busy.  Busy like I haven’t been in a long time.  People lined up out my office door and down the hallway busy.  Having to lock my door and hide to eat my lunch sandwich in peace busy.  I think I’ve only been this busy a few times before in my life, and those times mostly involved coordinating movie premieres, or arranging a month’s retreat schedule, housing, and travel arrangements for a traveling youth ministry team, or things like that.  I think this is the first time I’ve been this busy and actually got paid for it.  Which is kinda amazing, if you think about it.  Things have quieted down a little, but I’m still running all day.  I pretty much collapse as soon as I get home.  Wednesday night I fully intended to go to dancing, but then I fell asleep on the couch before I ever got there.  I’m sure that soon things will calm down a little, and I’ll get acclimated to the new pace, and I won’t be so exhausted, but it will take a little while.

In the meantime, this is looking like a very full weekend.  Tonight Grace is having a small bonfire.  I may have possibly instigated this solely for the selfish purpose of having somewhere to burn the pine branches I used to decorate my house for Christmas.  Then Saturday morning is our First Saturday Women’s group in the morning, and a birthday dinner for Mr. T and Fleur on the evening.  On Sunday I’ve heard there’s going to be a football game or something.  The Pessimist has bough a special tv just for the purpose, and is having everybody over to help break it in.  And then it will be Monday again, and I’ll be back at the hospital with the really, really ridiculously good looking guys.

Life is good!

St. Aquilinus

So I had this moment this past week, and I thought I’d share it with you.  I was nearing the end of my work day, and feeling pretty depressed.  The sky was gray, there hadn’t been very many visitors out to my trailer that day, and in general things were feeling bleak.  I wanted to just go home, read a book, and finish hemming the warm wool skirt I started sewing on Sunday, but instead I had a full schedule of tutoring plus dancing afterwards.

On a whim, right before I turned off my computer, I decided that,  since the next day was payday, I’d check to see if my newest pay stub had been posted online.  I looked, and it was.  When I saw the number on it, first I thought that was the amount I was paid before taxes, and I kinda sighed to myself.  Then I looked again and realized that no, that was the amount I was being paid after taxes.  I kinda blinked, and the triumphal trumpet blasts started playing.  And you know, there is nothing to break a girl out of her funk like nice round numbers on her pay check!  As I drove away, it was all I could do not to roll down my window and yell things out into the traffic, things like, “Gainfully employed!  I’m gainfully employed!  Gainful f-ing employment!  I’ve got a freaking job! Yeeeeaaaaah!”  You know, like that.

I had a little time to kill before tutoring, so I decided to stop in to Half Price books, both because I think it’s shameful that I work so close to a used book store and hadn’t stopped in before, and because, you know, I could now afford to spend a few bucks on a book.  I headed straight to the crafts section to see if they’d gotten any decent knitting books in.  And there, on the shelves was a book that is kinda one of the Holy Grails of knitting: Alice Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle Knitting.  Until it was recently republished (after being out of print for some twenty years) the only way you could get a copy was by paying huge bucks on eBay.  (Even now there’s still a copy of the first edition going for $65.)  But there it was, on the Half Price Books shelf with a sticker on it that said $15.99.

It gets better.  Below it was a copy of Knitting In The Old Way, another knitting Holy Grail, for $14.99, and The Harmony Guide to Aran and Fair Isle Knitting, and The Art of Fair Isle Knitting by Ann Feitelson, all really excellent books.  There were a couple of others, but that’s what I can remember right now.  All I know is that I hit the total knitting jackpot.  It was a amazing.

And then, as I was looking through my armful of incredible knitting books, trying to decide just how many I could afford to bring home with me, one of my favorite songs of all time came on over the store radio.  I swear, if heavenly light had started shining down upon me, and birds came to perch on my shoulders while the animals of the forest crept close to bask in my awesomeness, I would not have been surprised.  Then, of course, I checked the time, discovered that I was now late for tutoring, checked out in a hurry, and headed off to the rest of my day.  But it was pretty cool.

Work continues to be that odd mix of very busy and lonely.  However, things are looking up.  The day after I wrote my last post I had a real conversation with the admin in the next trailer (all about socks, and what color of shoes are appropriate with dark blue uniforms), and then ran into her again later at Target.  And then yesterday I found out that on Monday they’re moving me out of the trailer into a temporary office off the hallway between the security box and the ER, so hopefully I’ll be less isolated soon.

Also, on Friday the rest of my actual HR team (I really do have a team, I swear!) came to tour the building where our real offices will be located.  It was really, really good to see them.  I think part of why I’ve been getting so lonely is because I feel so disconnected and on my own, not part of a team that I am supporting, who will support me in return.  It was great to see these people with whom I have been e-mailing, who I don’t know very well, who don’t really know me much either, but with whom I hope to build something that will make having to wear heels to work maybe almost worth it.  And maybe one day I’ll even know them well enough to give them nicknames for the blog.  :)

The tour of the building was very interesting.  It’s still under construction, and won’t be ready until sometime in March, so we all had to put on ill-fitting hard hats to go in.  So far they’ve got drywall up, so you can see the shape of the rooms, but not much else.  I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.  I had heard much about fabled windows of amazing size, and I had been hoping (against all past experience) that perhaps one might be visible from where I’ll be sitting.  But of course not.  And the way it sounded like the front office is going to be set up sounds like a very awkward arrangement.  My boss didn’t sound very sure of what she remembered from the plans (the arrangement of the font office is not exactly her first concern right now), so I’m hoping dher memory is inaccurate.  On Monday, after I get moved, I’m planning to see if there’s any way I can get a look at the building plans to find out.

The really interesting part was when we were done looking around, and tried to leave.  The guy who was supposed to be giving us the tour had never showed up (he’s insanely busy, so this wasn’t much of a surprise), so we were showing ourselves around.  When we headed back to the door we’d come in through, we discovered that it was locked.  We found another door going out through the construction, and it was locked too.  It was late in the day, after hours, so there were no workers around, and it was getting cold.  One of my co-workers started making noises about things starting to look like something from a horror movie.  I didn’t much care about that, but I had left my coat in the trailer, and I did mind the cold.  Thankfully not too much later my boss tracked down what must have been the last construction worker still in the building, who let us out the far door into the muddy rock patch that will eventually be our parking lot.

And that’s pretty much my news.  So far this weekend has been mostly eaten by a cold that I had been trying to pretend I didn’t have.  That only worked until about eight o’clock Friday night when I fell asleep on the couch, and didn’t really wake up until ten o’clock the next morning.  Yesterday I managed to get a few things done (tutoring, the last few rows on Mr. T’s last sock, the guage swatch for Fleur’s birthday present), but mostly I slept.  This morning I woke up without my alarm, feeling really rested for the first time in weeks.  It was marvelous.

Bl. John Alcober – the 5th day of Christmas

The past few days have been full of Festivity.  First there was my parents’ Anniversary (they’ve been married now for 41 years).  It was a laid back sort of affair – hanging out at the Family Homestead and watching movies all together.  Mariah brought over most of her truly impressive alcohol collection, and we mixed Gin & Tonics with St. Germaine, and concoctions of ginger liquer mixed with Creme de Cacao or orange juice, plus many, many Shirley Temples for Fleur.  We watched A Muppet’s Christmas Carol together (I cried at the “Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it. I am sure that we shall never forget Tiny Tim, or this first parting that there was among us. “ part, and so did Mariah), and then we watched Raising Arizona, which was much more cheerful.

On Wednesday we had our Family Gift Day, which was mostly lovely, the first part, anyway.  This year AnniPotts and Boy-O collaborated on their presents, which included cleaning out the used book store.  Apparently they found a whole series of really ridiculous romance novels with nerdy heroes (The Nerd Who Loved Me, Nerds Like It Hot, Talk Nerdy To Me, My Nerdy Valentine, etc.), and gave one to each of the girls in the family.  Except Fleur.  She’s not old enough for even the most ridiculous romance novel.  Mariah had already given me my Christmas present (two very nice cardigan sweaters when I was freaking out about not having an office-y enough wardrobe), but she threw in a license plate cover from Fiber Works that says “I’d Rather Be Knitting.” I thought that was pretty cool.  I gave up on trying to finish Mr. T’s cabled socks, and instead gave him a gift card to Olive Garden.  I figure the socks will have to be a birthday present after all.

The hard part was that after we’d done all the fun present giving, Mariah brought out the last of the boxes of Jacob’s stuff, the ones that have been sitting in her living room for months, ever since we moved them out of Sae’s basement.  It seems like no matter how much of Jacob’s stuff we go through and distribute, there’s always more.  Or there was.  I have it on reliable authority that this was the last.  And it better be.  It took us five and a half hours.  It felt like infinitely longer.  At one point I thought we were never going to get out of there.  But we did.  I now have custody of what was Jacob’s stuffed R2D2, his George R.R. Martin books, the letters I wrote him while I was on NET, his The Tick figurine that used to balance on a bit of plastic wall until somehow we lost the wall, and his Baptismal candle, among other things.  And now we’re done.  I think.  I hope.  Please, God, let us be done!

Thursday was better, though I felt like I had a hangover most of the day from the emotional overload the day before.  I kinda just wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and not come out again until the next day, but CO2 was in town for Christmas, and had volunteered to lead our Catholic young adult group in a Posada.  This is a Mexican (and other Spanish speaking countries) tradition in which you act out the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.  Afterwards you have a party, complete with a pinata.  I love pinatas!  So I packed up the vat of Buffalo Chicken Dip I made in my slow cooker, crackers, napkins, rope, and a whiffle ball bat to hit the pinata with.  And I was glad I did.  There’s nothing like whaling on a pinata to chase the holiday blues away.  And our pinata, a very jaunty blue pony, put up a fight!  Everyone got a turn blindfolded, and then we started whacking on it without the blindfold.  It was pretty sweet.  Once it was finally eviscerated we cheerfully adjourned to our meeting room for food & hanging out.  And it was good.

Tonight, in a few minutes I’m heading out to the Welcome Back Dinner for PM (my long lost Minion).  After dinner people are heading over to Tank’s, but I don’t think I’m going to.  I’m just tired.  I want to stay in and, I dunno, paint my nails.  Or something.  Tomorrow is Mariah’s Big New Year’s Eve Party, and then New Years Day is another family day.  We’re not having our Huge Family Party this year.  (We’ve thrown three weddings this year.  That’s enough parties for a while.)  But we’re still going to get together and hang out, and probably go watch Tin Tin.  And somewhere in there I swear I’m going to get some sleep.  Really.