Without You...

I can't stop crying this morning.  And it's a combination of me being silly and way too much going on.

Or maybe not so silly, but I do have to wonder how I'm going to react when my parents go or my godmother, or someone who is in my day to day life...

A nun I've known, pretty much all my life (I was three when we met) passed away yesterday.  She was stern and and serious and she expected you do to exactly as she said, and as scared as I could be of her when I was little, and as frustrated and angry as she made me as a teenager, I sit here blubbering over her.  I haven't seen her for more than a decade.  But there was something about her always being there and now not, that is messing with my head.  There was always something to read about her in my high school newsletter - yes, I still get them.  And even more yes, I went to a high school that produces quarterly magazines.

And this realization is making me laugh.  Because if it hadn't been for her, I don't think my mom would have gotten the nerve up to have me even apply.  In so many peoples' eyes she was just "the help."  But not in Sr.'s.  And her children should have just as much a chance to make it in the world as anyones.  And that also boosts my heart (to bursting a little... And I'm also sure the waterworks will follow in just a bit...they're just giving me a chance to breathe, you know, so I can maybe wail a little bit.)

Sr. was my mom's boss for 18 years.  She was my principal.   She was what an adult in power should be and act like.  Those were some pretty big comfortable shoes to fill by subsequent leaders of the school.  I couldn't tell you if they succeeded; when I left I left for good, as it were.

And yet, my one forever-memory of her is what she told my mom when I up-ended my life and got myself on a sailboat to Mexico:  "How exciting."  Which was not what my mom expected to hear at all.  Sr. was proud (!) that I was having my adventures when I was young (in my twenties) and not waiting until later, because, well, what if there aren't any laters?  As I sit here with a battered hip and a messed up posterior tibialis tendon, a slipped disk, and really tired shoulder...NONE of which the sailboat gave me thankyouverymuch, I have to agree.  I don't think I could do the sailboat thing now, much less in my 50s or 60s as my fellow cruisers were.  Not with my battle scars.  (Or do they magically get better after you retire?  That would be awesome.) And it was her, ah, blessing on the matter that made my mom not exactly /like/ what I was doing, but bring her much closer to being okay with having a crazy-pants daughter.

When I opted to move to Tahoe instead of LA, totally okay.  Seattle?  Sounds like a plan.  I think in her head she thinks (and maybe I agree) that I'm still adventuring a little, because she never really got a chance to.   I promise to settle down some day, really.

So thank you Sr.  As mean and horrible as I thought you were (ah those teenaged years), I also loved and respected you so very much for everything you did for my mom, my dad, my brothers, and me.  And though we never moved beyond the Sr.-is-not-a friend relationship (do as your told!) And I KNOW I never hugged you, I will miss you so very much.

And now I need to go cry a little more so I can put on a braver face at work...I have an interview I need to be in a lot better shape for than I am right now.  Oh life, you are nothing if not challenging.

You Know You're In the Big Time if you have a Receptionist

I've officially hit old-fashioned-ville, population, me.

Or is it just me?  It's been several years since I sought a new doctor-type person all on my own...well, with the help of the insurance website to make sure they're part of the fold, as it were, but you know what I mean.  What I've gleaned from my needs and the wonder of this experience:

• Check the address posted against the google.  I joked with my coworker that I didn't want to end up with some back-alley quack...and dude...seriously, google maps? I give you props.  You kept me from signing on to one doc. who's address, you guessed it, apparently was accessed via a back alley.  Seeing as I need to go apres work?  Which means traipsing around Seattle after DARK.  Um, I can be naive, but man oh man, mami did not raise an idiot.
• If the address is in Seattle proper, I should not be dialing long-distance.  Funny thing here?  NOT the same person with the back alley address!
• And this is where I'm sure I'm putting on the old-fashioned/back-in-my-day-airs...if you want me as a patient, you must have a receptionist.  Even if it's you putting on your receptionist hat.  You're with a patient/don't like answering your phone/you really do just have a one-man office?  There are these things called answering services! With real, live people!  Call me (or rather, no, thank you, do not call me), set in my ways, but I will not leave my number on your voicemail, especially when your message is (names changed to protect the inane  "Hi, you've reached Jane, leave me a message and I'll call you back."  Really, Jane?  Cuz I'm calling your personal voicemail?  It harkens back to my dumfounded realization that people use their sexybunny@hotmail addresses on their resumes back when I was temping for HR.  HELLO?  You are trying to get a patient!  At least fake me out by saying I've reached the offices of Fictional Physical Therapy, Inc!

So um, yeah, I'm off to see a Physical Therapist on Monday.  Is my shoulder going to kill me again?  Actually it's doing a lot better.  I won't jinx it and say we are besties, but whatever manipulation + evil injections I put it through this past December and into January, I think I turned a corner!  No one expected me to be 100% cured, but there is a distinct lack of searing pain running from shoulder to finger tips when I find myself writing up the Purchase Order Invoices or inputting Journal Entries.  I ended my agressive treatment the last week or so of January...so far so good.  I'm still working out what my "upkeep" is going to be.  Basically I need to go in once a month....maybe once every 6 weeks, to keep things cracked loose!  To remind my shoulders they are actually NOT connected to my earlobes.  To relieve a little stress in my lower back when my shoulder muscles decide that actually, they are made of rock, not flesh, and are out to torture and possibly maim me.  We cannot all have awesome relationships with our bodies, I am living proof.

So no, PT for my shoulder!  Instead I need to see a man about a foot.  A bit of a twisted foot.  Or maybe it's impact damage...I'll know more Monday afternoon.

On Thursday I went to get my yearly physical done and shock and awe, everything seems to be okay!  Except for the swollen ankle that was perturbing both my doc and me.  I'd kinda stepped funny a couple weeks earlier and the swelling would go down and stay down so long as I iced and elevated, but the pain in my heel was constant.  Then I over did it the day before running all over the office and by Wednesday night felt like the skin from my knee to my ankle was just too tight...when I sat to elevate and put some heat on it, it did not look like my leg.  It looked like my 6'4" version of me's leg.  Especially when compared to my non-swollen one.  I didn't quite freak out, but I'd never been so happy to know I was going to the doctor's the next morning.  By then my calf was a more normal me size, but the ankle?  Pretty puffy.  An x-ray or three later and nothing is broken, but PT was highly recommended, so Friday I spent ALL DAY trying to find someone.  Well, between actually working.  Fourth time's the charm.  Which leads me to one more:

• If my issue is a twisted ankle, or really a twisted ANYTHING that is causing lots and lots of pain, and I explained this first thing, to make sure we were both on the same page, and you don't have an opening in the next few days, please don't waste my time by taking ALL OF MY INFORMATION and then offering me a spot in MARCH.

I know, I am just sooooo picky.

Is it Live, or is it Memorex?

There is currently a very high screeching sound going on somewhere outside my window.  A cross between a rubber hose being run across your more squeaky clean pain of glass...and a demented cat going ballistic in a mano-a-mano style take down (or would that be paw-to-paw...claw-to-claw?  Can you tell it's kinda early for me?).

And truly I can only describe it as above because I cannot, for the life of me, tell if this ghastly screech/squeak is coming from a mammal's throat or not.  As it's not driving any of the animals bizzaro-nutzo, I'm leaning toward "live."

No, I am no animal expert.  But if the noise is so nails-across-the-chalkboard irritating to my ears, it must be stun-educing to those poor animals whose decibel range exceeds our poor excuse for auditory conductivity.  As such, and having been a family member with various generations of dogs living in a city, I should hear howling.  This being Capitol Hill and there being an UNUSUALLY large amount of canines within the vicinity (or maybe it's just a whole lot of poop coming out of one dog and that's the real explanation for the unbelievable amount of sidewalk "obstructions" since the start plastic bag ban), I expect to hear a whole lotta howling to protest any man-made cat-fighting sounds. (Cat vs Seagull maybe?)  This goes above and beyond the loose-timing-belt-on-an-engine noise.  Oh my ears and whiskers, yes.

What's most surprising to me is just how damned loud it is.  I live blocks away from the freeway and the business core, not to mention the astounding amount of bars and restaurants and (of course) coffee shops.  And yet, it is so very quiet here usually that this ailing cat/80s-era Tercel, maybe, is drowning it all out.

Maybe it's the fog-ceiling that is causing it all to bounce back down to the ground and all over our apartment building?  I can buy that.  Sometimes I do wish I'd studied Science or another STEM major and WAS the Nuclear Physicist I imagined myself being when I was a kid.  (I also imagined myself as an Astronaut, a Fireman, a Librarian, a Secretary, a Farmer, a Policeman - briefly, then I realized I'd rather be Bo or Luke Duke as they had much more fun.)  Where was I?  Right. Trying not to lose my mind from the screeching and pull a Numb3rs jag and figure out, using MATH and number theory, just where the hell I should aim the sling-shot* to make it stop!

It's dying down now.  Either the fight has moved on, or the vehicle/person running the halyard line through the un-oiled block has given up (this, at least I know is not the case as there is neither a sailboat nor a flagpole - which has the same parts yet different names for those same parts - anywhere near here.)

The sounds of silence (well, the usual traffic hum and possibly a helicopter) are so very sweet in comparison.

Now, back to the game...

*Note to self, buy a sling-shot.