Reboot

This blog is being rebooted here with a new title: Sapphire and Faded Jeans.

I'm not leaving this in place for long, but for those who want to travel to a new locale (with a similar view, I suppose), that's where I'll be.

Edited to clarify new URL: 11/2/09

Consideration

I'm thinking of moving my blog, closing this one down or at least marking it as 'done'...something.

What brought this on? I received news today that V.--our most elderly staff member up until a few months ago when she retired (at 96) due to ill health--is doing something similar to what my mom did last month. She has stopped taking her meds, refuses more medical testing, and just wants to be done.

With this news, and the events surrounding my mom's death, along with ill-health of good friends and other family, changes in Beast's job, Sparky's Adventures in Adolescence and other assorted worries, I am in a bit of a tailspin. All I want to do is sleep, do crosswords, play games online, and watch TV. Reading is a challenge--first time for that--and writing is both mentally and physically difficult. It comes as a bit of a surprise to me that my brain can cramp with the weight of stress.

I think I've reached saturation. I need an extended break from...well, everything. And since I can't actually take a break of that sort in my day-to-day life, I've gotta let something go, and hold out for something new and fun around the corner when I no longer feel like I'm on the verge of falling into the abyss pell-mell. It's even possible that any new blog I start might be a little more transparent. Then again, it may not. We'll see.

More weird dreams

So I woke up at 3 this morning with a terrible stomach ache. No more day-old deli sandwiches from Meijer, I think. In the process of trying to go back to sleep, I got to thinking about my mom...and then started dreaming about her. And then I was confused because I was dreaming that I was visiting her last month, but she was fine when I left (as she always had been in the past). I was so lightly asleep that I actually woke up at this point confused about whether or not she was dead, thinking about all the people I had to tell about the 'error' and worrying about that.

And then I went back to sleep and commenced worrying about our (non-existent) rental house which was actually a house we supposely used to live in (I'd never been in this house in real life).

I'm thinking this is looking like a really L O N G day at work.

Manager

Hey, guess what, folks. It looks like I may be stepping across the Big Divide and becoming what my business card says I am: Head of Technical Services. The Divide to which I allude is called Management. I have lived with someone belonging to that evil cadre for around 10 years (since he became a manager--I lived with him longer before he joined the cult). The new boss mentioned in passing that I will soon be doing job evaluations for certain individuals who do a lot of tech service stuff.

Yeah. I have an attitude about Management. I have never aspired to it. You can put that on being the youngest member of my generation in my family, you can attribute it to my undergrad days in Russian history classes, whatever. I don't wanna be a boss. I had a taste of it over 20 years ago, and the taste was foul. I know it was the recipe that was used, but y'know, once you've tasted something that made you physically ill (and it did, in my case, make me physically AND mentally ill), you're not really inclined toward tasting it again.

And, I like being the proletariat. I've no interest in becoming part of the problem, personifying the Peter Principle. (see "attitude about Management" above).

It's odd. My dad owned his own company/ies. He was Management most of his life. Of course, he was also Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, CFO, line staff, and PR department for many of those companies as well, and what it bought him was heart attacks at 47, 60, and 67 (not to mention the one that killed him at 74) and years of sleepless nights. The sleepless nights and heart attacks were all about the Management aspects of his work. The actual WORK of his companies he loved. The organizing of stuff he loved. But the hassles surrounding coordinating employees, finances, and customers...not so much love there.

On the other hand, I've also been Management for at least the past 16 years. I'm Head Scheduler, Financial Officer, Chief Goal-Setter, and General Shit-Taker for Sparky (this isn't meant to suggest that Beast does nothing, but he doesn't get into the scheduling and planning as much as I do simply because he travels so much among other reasons). That role has been lessening exponentially over the past couple of years, so it's probably a good thing that I'm being asked to do similar things for pay.

I wonder if I get a raise...? I wonder if I'll get more hours, and benefits? hah That's right: the economy still sucks, and it has started hitting our budget due to the vagaries of property taxes. Nevermind. I need to figure out a way to work smarter (i.e. more efficiently).

And suck it up. But, I still am not a fan of Management. Any more than I'm a fan of Lawyers. There are exceptions that prove the rule, of course. Hopefully I can become one of those while still remembering why I have Management Issues.

Doctors who need to be shot

So, a good friend posted this last week. I had known she wasn't handling the meds well, but didn't realize the full extent of her problems.

Then I saw her Saturday and found her to be quite ill. Not sick. Sick is different from ill. Sick is the flu. Ill is...this sort of thing.

I offered to kneecap the doctor several times. She demurred, for now, because her focus is on getting healthy again. And she's not into the whole physical violence thing. She's also stubborn as hell and not real excited about medical "science" right now, so seeing another doctor was far down her list of Things To Do soon.

Fortunately, sometime ago I 'friended' her husband on Facebook. Yesterday morning I saw this update:

Today I took [artcat] to the hospital for some test[ing]. She will be there for two or three days. Please keep her in your prayers. Tue at 9:50pm

Artcat is not a hospital kind of person. I was VERY concerned. This update came through just as I went to bed last night:

[T]est and more test.....things are improving. [artcat] is in room [#]B at [hospital]. In May she had a blood test that registered her hemoglobin at 13.4. Normal is between 12.5 and 18. When the blood count gets as low as 8.0 it is transfusion time. Tuesday's test registered 4.3. Things look like they are improving with the first transfusion and they are still trying to find the reason for the blood loss. They have one more test in the morning to rule out internal bleed. Wed [at ~10:00pm]

From another source, I found out that one of the things they are checking is how well her bone marrow is doing.

And I've just realized that I've never gone over my sister Ellen's illness when I was a toddler.... Suffice to say that whenever I hear the words "bone marrow" I freak the fuck out.

I really really want to kill this doctor of artcat's. All I can hope for is that those in the hospital are REAL doctors who are able to put her back together again.

Message?

Yesterday, while searching through the boxes we brought home from Beast's parents' house last summer, Beast found a wrapped Christmas gift for Sparky. We could tell right away that it was a video, wrapped in Christmas paper with a tag on it. The tag was yellowing, so this was obviously not a recent purchase. Well, that and the fact that it was a video (not a DVD or game)!

Turns out that Sparky has a new (to him) version of Mother Goose Rhymes in Song.

I'm thinking this gift is 15 years old, or so. Flashback.



[Anyone still have a VCR and want this?]

Yeah, I love the workin' Sundays

It's not VERY often that I call (or text) Beast as I leave work and ask (demand) a drink mixed and waiting for me when I arrive home.

Today was one of those days.

I think my tolerance for Teh Stoopud was maxed out today before 1:05. We opened for bidness at 1.

The vodka-tonic Beast mixed was inside me in less that 25 minutes. That too is unusual. He makes a mean 'un.

My fingers, feet, and brain are numb. That's a Very Good Thing, especially the latter.

Metaphor

About 45 minutes, I wrote a blogpost (on the memes blog). No big deal.

Except I just clicked back over to the Blogger tab and realized that I'd finished it but never published it. It was just sitting here in the window looking blank.

Welcome to my world, even worse than normal lately.