Tuesday is My Hump Day

I am having tremendous fluctuations in my mood this week. I have experienced the high highs and the low lows. Not like killing myself or anything, but if you know me, then you know I am a glass half full kind of person. I continue to have these feelings of needing to change everything about my life that I have not changed in the past 6 months and then snapping out of it to remember how fortunate I am in my life. It is truly exhausting and I will be happy when I can sit with myself and reflect. For now, G is still out of town and I am rushing around my life with madness, sadness, gladness, happiness, and knowing full well I am acting like a crazy person. Completely out of character, I called one the ED nurses a Dirty Whore and although he really is a dirty whore, the comment was inappropriate and I am like the appropriate police at the hospital right now. My very best friend has told me that I am normal. That things will even out when G comes home and I get news on the promotion I am up for, and 100 other things reconcile themselves. Even if she is totally lying to me, I love her. She had to remind me that she cried last week and I was there for her. WOW-thank God I am a good friend and that I have a good friend that reminds that I am capable of more than craziness!

Not Tonight, I'm Too Tired.....

I started my day with the birth of a baby. A new life came into the world in our emergency department. I ended the day negotiating with a 4 yr old who hates bed time and makes it a nightmare for anyone trying to talk her into actually getting some rest. It dumbfounds me that children spend so much time trying to get out of going to bed, when adults spend so much time trying to get to bed - for one reason or another.

There is so much I want to write about catalysts and judging a book by its cover - full well knowing that we are not talking about books when we say that, and then there is the politics that I want to delve into and yet, with my husband out of town and me as a single mommy, I am just too exhausted to think. I do not think the training session I had tonight with Psycho Liz helped. Anyhow, I have profound and provocative things to write about, just not tonight.

I LOVE MAY!

Oh I am in love with May. Not because of Mother's Day or Memorial Day, or Cinco de Mayo, or even the beautiful May Day. No, May brings Jen Lancaster's (www.jennsylvania.com) new book; Such a Pretty Fat. I have waited for this for many months and if you are reading my blog regularly, you will remember that Bitter is the New Black and Bright Lights, Big Ass had me snorting, rolling off the couch, and chasing all things in my house away. Seriously, any woman married to a man that calls her an "ass hat" while bent over the freezer case of a designer grocery store wretched in pain from their own version of slugbug is my new best friend - even if only from a distance! This is a must read.

Reason #2 for my May celebration is the release of the SEX IN THE CITY movie!!!!!! How could you not be on the edge of your seat waiting for the return of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. Then there are the MEN of the City: Big - what can you say about him that has not been said? Smith makes the elastic in my panties melt - and he is on the cover of Men's health this month for goodness sake. It is all I can do when in my gym to not lick their edition. Call me strange, but I think Harry has something that makes him desirable as well. Just not naked on the white couch! Steve is sweet and cute, but not my type - and yes, there is such thing as not my type - BITCHES! 135 minutes of fabulous and I only have 25 days to wait.

In case you are wondering, I have talked my friends into seeing the film at the first showing on that Friday. Is 10:45 too early for pomegranate martinis smuggled into the local theatre?

Is Happily Ever After A Fairy Tale?

So I have had an interesting week with the women in my life. On Friday, I went to see Made of Honor with one of my very best friends, who happens to be almost 15 years older than I am and has been married for more than 20 years-giving her an interesting perspective on love, marriage, and the next step in her life as the empty nest is moving toward her in clear view. So this movie was romantic and there were passionate kisses, and there was PATRICK DEMPSEY. If you do not love him, please don't tell me because there is really no reason not to - and don't give me the "he is looking a little weathered around the eyes" bit, because Holy Shit, that makes him even more beautiful than his teenage geeky Can't Buy Me Love days! Anyhow, our conversation afterwards was whether or not love could remain passionate and fresh and all of the things that these movies portray and my friend said emphatically No. But I want to disagree, I want love to be passionate and fresh and funny and important. I want to be in love and giddy and all of those obnoxious things with every fiber of my being every day and beyond my daughter, I want it to be the most important thing in my life. I want to disagree so badly and yet I am not living that kind of love and neither is anyone I know. In fact, there are more women talking about having dirty sex with men who are not their husbands than there are who are even talking about their own husbands. I had dinner tonight with my two best friends, girls I have known since middle school. I cannot even tell you how awry that conversation went, and then hair bands started to play and two of us laughed about the memories that music conjured up. I am not unhappy, but I know women who are and what the hell is so hard about marriage and relationships? Do women want too much? And why can we not have it all?

These Are The Days of My Life....

Have you ever had one of those weeks in which you lay awake worrying, stay up late doing research, and getting lost during conversations with people? All the while putting on a happy face and conducting your life like nothing is happening? That is the week I have had. Needless to say, G and I are having to make one of those terrible decisions that shake you to the core. I had one breakdown that caused me to have to pull over in my car to calm down. The second breakdown of the week came on Friday, when we actually received some good news as a surprise. I was so exhausted and so taxed, that all I could do was burst into tears in the office of the very person providing the good news. I am not a crying, breakdown person, so I am sure I scared the hell out of this person, as well as more poor husband. We have not survived this alteration, but I plan on writing a book, blogging, and sharing this story, as it is a journey and one that most people take without support.

I had an opportunity to spend some time on the various units within our hospital. I have always thought that I would find my way into the surgery service. Things were quiet, so I offered to take on the tasks of our verifiers (which got me some strange looks, but if you don't know me, then you have no idea that I prefer to stay busy, even if it means hunting down tasks that are not mine!). The floors are so quiet and so, I don't know, clean. The halls are lined with work space where surgeons, residents, nurses, and the like, sat charting. Ugh. It was too quiet. I finished my task and got back to the ED as quickly as possible. So we are responsible for the urgent care clinics also, but even those facilities are busy, busy, busy, and exciting in their own respects. So I was registering a patient in the ED, which required me to go to the patients room, and he says to me, "Didn't I know you in prison?". This was funny on many levels: 1) I have never been in prison, 2) The medicine desk is right outside this particular room and everyone heard him say this to me, 3) Even if I was in prison, I would have been in the women's facility, while my new friend would have been with the men. So I replied, "Sir, I do not do confined spaces, and I certainly do not do stripes of any sort!" These are the days of my life.

If you make a guy laugh, make sure he is not coming off of abdominal surgery

So I applied for a promotion within my department a couple of weeks ago and had my first interview today. There are two or three interviews in this process and the next one is a panel, but more on that one at another time. One of the questions was what do you do best? Of course I said, "Talk to people" and it is true. I have been in my current position for 90 days and I strive to meet one new person each day. I talk to Otis, the groundskeeper, who has been with the organization for more than 30 years and to Momma, who works in the cafeteria and makes sure I eat vegetables everyday - she calls me Angel Baby and on my worse days, she is what I need, and to Yolanda, who keeps the ED so clean, you could almost eat off the floors. I tease the nurses, EMT's, Police Officers, doctors, and security officers. My best friend has worked there for almost three years. She teases me that she has been there for 3 years, I have been there for 3 months and I know more people than she does. So I am funny, really I am funny. Unfortunately for 5F- who had abdominal surgery last week, I am funny. I am pretty sure I am responsible for much of his continued pain.

Anyhow, my Director disagreed with me, she said she thought I do listening best. That blew me away, until I realized that we had just completed a listening exercise in which I succeeded and she failed. After all the time I spent in sales and figured that I could not remember conversations because I was old and tired, I have discovered that I just did not care what the people were saying to me because the topics, conversations, prospects, etc, were just so damn boring, meaningless, and trivial in the grand scheme of things. Now I am in an environment in which we are considered essential personnel, we are each an important piece of something that just works. Most of us are there because we truly care and if we did not, we could not serve the homeless, the drug addicts, the criminals, the abusive, those that are abused, the men & women who serve in the police force or as fire fighters. We could not dig in the pockets of those broken by car accidents, found down, or victims of crime with such a compassion. When you think about these people, the employees and our guests, how can you not care about their stories, how can you not want to listen?

Next topic: How I can get into an elevator, ride up and down because I always forget to push the buttons, and laugh at myself when I get busted in the act of being blonde!

Blathering, but I am Back

So you are thinking one of two things: Thank God this silly girl took a break from her random rants or God where have you been. Regardless of which camp you are in, I am back!
So I started my new job on January 28th, spent the first week in orientation and the second week in computer training - as sick as a dog. I literally sat at my computer sweating with fever and trying to catch the snot with Kleenex as it ran down my face. Gross for you the reader, but even worse for me as I have a booger thing! So why not call in sick you ask? Well, 1) it would have put me behind in my training and I could not get to my job until I went through each class, 2) I hate calling in sick, and 3) I did not have any sick time. I am a co-lead within my department and by February 14th, the other lead was so sick, she could not stand up straight. She ended up with pneumonia and was out for 5 weeks. A week after she left, our Supervisor resigned, leaving me to learn on the job, apologizing for my mistakes along the way, and the person in charge. On top of this, I was sick the entire month of February.

The good news is that my co-lead is back and working her way back to healthy, the better news is that I too am healthy, and the best news is that I am being considered for the Supervisor job.
And my 90 days review is 5 days away (ok, so I have already seen it and it was all positive).

I am still working out with the trainer 2-3 times a week and feel great. My body is changing shape and I feel great. Now that the weather is getting nicer, I am going to try and walk after I get home at night. My running is getting stronger, but I am still not able to endure for as long as I want to distance or time -wise.

I have read two of the most delicious books ever: sTori Telling by Tori Spelling and The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. sTori Telling was a delicious tale of Tori Spelling's life and her answer to all the tabloid stories about her from before 90210 until now. What I discovered is that she is a poor little rich girl and our mothers were created from the same bolt of crazy. I always thought that Shannen Doherty was a no-talent ass clown, but this confirms that she was also an arrogant, manipulating bitch.

The Other Boleyn Girl was a fabulous book as well and I was reading it for my book club. I was hesitant to read it because it is a time piece and over 600 pages, but once I picked it up, I could not put it down. It is the story about the fall of Catherine of Aragon, the separation of Rome/the Pope/the Catholics and English, and the advent of the Church of England. It is so well written and I have bought the next book. We went to see the movie as a girl's night out. I went with low expectations and so I enjoyed it, but fully understand why the critics hated it. They left so much out that you would have had to have read the book in order to understand any of it.

So I think it is really cool that people are reading my nonsense, and I am sorry I have been gone for so long. Life is going well, with a few bumps and bruises along the way. I am jazzed about baseball season - Go Rocks! and have knocked off a few more things on my list.

In case you are keeping track, I have done nothing with the Jillian Michaels thing, but I did watch the season finale of Biggest Loser - go Alli.