MIA

I'm going to do something really out of character and take the weekend off. Blogging, anyway. I still have two twelve hour work shifts ahead of me, and it's going to be a crazy weekend all around. The play that Gumby and Surfer Dude are in is in its performance weekend. (I saw it Thursday and it was wonderful. If any kids were ever born to be Oompah Loompahs, it was these two). Sasquatch is in day one of a two day birthday sleepover blowout....and my mom and Stu get here today for a brief one night visit. I'd really love to spend some time with them when I get off work tonight, and it's kind of hard to sit in my dining room and drink wine if I'm hunched over a hot computer trying to be profound.


I'll most likely be back Monday, or Tuesday at the latest. I think I just need to take a little time and breathe.

and the verdict is...

I don't know.


It all went well. They loved the house. We went through every inch of it (including the Silence of the Lambs basement) in the hour they were here. We talked new roof and we talked asking price and we talked time frame. They left to "crunch some numbers". Something tells me we'll be talking more - and soon. I'm not a bit worried about that.


It's the numbers that concern me. I have no illusions of making a killing on this house - not in this market. (It's one of the few things in this divorce that I can really work myself into a fury about. If we had been able to hold onto this house for a few more years and put some money into it, we could've made a bundle. Or lived in a showcase. And I have the comps to prove it). I just want to break even. I can't sell at a loss. I have to have enough money to put a down payment on a new home for the kids (two and four legged) and me. If I can sell this house and still not have enough to buy a new one I might as well stay put.


I have a few intangibles, however, that I think tilt the equation somewhat in my direction. But right now I also have lightning really close and if something were to happen to my beloved laptop I think I might curl up and die. Check back in tomorrow for the saga of the X factor.


Here's a hint. Think love.

spic and span

I have been cleaning my house for the better part of the last twelve hours.


And ignoring the fact that it still isn't done, I feel pretty good about it. I moved around a bunch of stuff, got rid of a pile of crap I've never liked and just generally puttered around. My mom left her super duper vacuum here and I put that baby to good use. You can take paint off the walls with that thing. (Or clean up after three heavily shedding dogs).


What prompted this? you may ask. This doesn't sound like my "put my feet up and stuff my face with popcorn while I read a book in one sitting" plan, I know.


But I wasn't counting on the absolutely out of the blue phone call from a friend asking if she could bring someone over to look at our house. Someone who is apparently very interested in buying it. Sight unseen. Someone I've never even met.


They're coming today. Cross your fingers. Please.


Did I mention that little bungalow around the corner is back on the market after the sale fell through?

the fruit doesn't fall far...

My boss slid into the chair next to me today and said


"Your name came up in conversation yesterday..."






(I hear this a lot lately, and I'm not quite sure why. I don't get the feeling that it's in a bad way, I just think that for some reason I'm a topic du jour. And I'm not the thigh master voice, do you hear me? That WASN'T me. I know who it was, though, and if the persecution doesn't stop I may crack like an egg and spill the beans - to scramble the food metaphors).


So I said, warily


"Oh?"


(Before I go any further I have to say this: My boss is one of the funniest women I have ever met in my entire life. I mean, this woman is quick. And the whole irreverent tone of our department is set by her example. Just because you're a professional doesn't mean you can't have fun with it. And, no. She's not the thigh master either. But only because someone else beat her to it).


And she said


"Yeah. Word on the street is that the sweet, quiet person I thought I hired is gone, and in her place is a rowdy, "take no prisoners" woman with a big mouth."


I sat there - speechless - pondering my options. She stood up to walk away. And as she did, she called over her shoulder with a grin


"Jesus. Took you long enough".

confessions of a ranting correspondent

I'm exhausted.


Totally exhausted.


And I had the day "off". When I come home from work I'm tired. When I have the day "off" I'm whipped. What's wrong with this picture?


Well, let's see. How about we start with what isn't the problem. It isn't about keeping up the house by myself because I'm used to that. It isn't about dealing with the kids because I'm used to that. It isn't about staying on top of all the logistical things because I'm used to that, too. It isn't about the shopping and cooking and cleaning and driving and wrangling and breaking up fights and finding the remotes and wiping up muddy dog prints and doing laundry and paying bills, because that's all par for the course. Granted, I'd rather not do them all on the same day, but rub a lamp. We all have three impossible wishes we'd like granted. Aladdin doesn't live at this address. Never has.


Today my problem has been that I have spent the day running around making everyone else happy and haven't gotten to do a damn thing I've wanted to do. There was a party tonight I was really looking forward to (and it was a lot of fun), but I was so stressed by the time I got there I could barely relax. All I could think of was everything I still had to get done.


My kids still tend to look at the world in terms of "what can you do for me?", rather than "how can I help you?" and in spite of the fact that I'm kicking up quite a shitstorm about this, still just don't get it. When you're supposed to load the dishwasher and your mother comes in the door to two sides of a sink full of dishes and you tell her it is done because you can't fit another thing in and then your mother proceeds to do just that (in about thirty seconds), it doesn't look so good. And to follow that up immediately with a request to go on eBay to buy some new clothes is just plain foolish.


And to top it all off, I found out today that something is being planned for my birthday at Bunco tonight. There's only one problem. I won't be there. I worked my whole schedule this week around a business trip of the FG's, a trip that later fell through. By then it was too late for me to do anything about it. So I'm working on Bunco night and will be a no-show at my own party.


I know in the grand scheme of things it isn't the end of the world. So why do I feel so rotten?

tongue twister

One of our doctors made a very serious mistake this week. With any luck I'm wrong, but I think he'll be paying hell for this for a long time. It's too bad, because he's a great doc and a really good guy, but he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.


He was in an exam room performing a pelvic exam on a woman in her thirties. As usual with pelvic exams, there was a female nurse in the room with him to provide legal recourse if he was accused of any impropriety. The standard thing for the doc to say, right before they start the exam, is "Okay, you're going to feel my hand on your leg". This eliminates the element of surprise for the patient, and prepares them for the exam.


What he meant to say and what he actually said were, unfortunately, two different things. He said "Okay, you're going to feel my thigh on your leg". When the nurse cracked up (with the patient right behind her) our cute young thang doc still didn't realize what he had said until the nurse, with delicious glee, repeated it word for word. He turned shades of red not even identified yet, finished the exam as fast as possible, and fled the room. Everyone in the unit had heard about it within a day.


Enter another one of our docs - the department prankster. He and one of the nursed fiddled with cute young thang's pager system and, kindly, let everyone else in on what they had done. By the time our poor, tongue twisted guy came on duty we were all clustered in his area trying to look like we were busily working. When he logged on to the voice activated system, it played his outgoing message that would greet anyone who called him. A breathy female voice, channeling every bad porn star ever said:


"Well, hey there, it's your thigh master".


The look on his face as this reverberated through the room was definitely worth the wait. And everything you've read really is true. You absolutely can't afford to make a single mistake in emergency medicine. Because there are people out there who will crucify you for it.


Heh.

the big moment

Last night, for (I'm pretty sure) the first time in sixteen years, I walked in the door to an empty house. I worked all day, and when I came home at ten, it was to complete quiet. The boys were spending their first weekend with their dad, and this was the singular moment I've been dreading for about three months. I may complain about the chaos, but I'm awfully used to it being there. I may complain about my kids, but I'm awfully happy being around them.


And you know what? It was fine. Peaceful, even. I can't believe that it went as easily as it did. Thank god.


I'm off to work, and will write more about this later. But all I can say for now is...


Wow.