Tomak Attacks!
Now that it's official, I can freely spout the good news that Kara is moving on to greener pastures and returning in a different role to her former company. I'm excited about this as a return to the former Kara because her current job did a number on her.
Like the day she told me about how the office manager pulled them all into a meeting to chide everyone on how an absence from the office causes your work to be dumped on everyone else and it's just not fair. You know what else isn't fair? Working 80 hour weeks and getting paid for 40. So, she then declares an entire month barring absences. That's right folks. No time off for the latter half of June, and the first two weeks of July. Can they even DO that in the office?
I need to stop complaining about my job. At the very least, they don't complain about anything as long as the work gets done or someone is covering you.
I can't wait for the old, fantabulous Kara to return. One more week! Oh yeah, there's the tons of free stuff she gets too. She always remembers me and my Asian tendencies.
Breaking Point
I've made myself officially sick thanks to stressing over things I can't control. So, as I sat in Urgent Care last night, which by the way, is a really fun thing to do when you're oh, 1500 miles away from home and totally alone, I am going to try to make a better attempt at controlling the stress situation.
Lucky for me, we didn't have any real work to do today since we finished up early yesterday. If you're wondering what I'm doing out in Denver, here's a stab at an explanation. I'm working as a technical advisor for the boss-man who doesn't deal with the nitty gritty. We don't do the nitty-gritty either, the tough stuff is contracted out and creating the actual product. Now that the product is coming into real life existence, the boss-man wants to know that he's getting exactly what he paid for. Hence me being out here to witness testing of the product. I have to be careful how I assess the situation, because anything that can be misinterpreted adversely WILL be. It's a problem of the office full of people who are not gainfully employed. Information becomes the most valuable asset, and gets amplified and exaggerated as it moves up the chain. How did I ever end up in such soul sucking work? Must be the decent paycheck.
I was reflecting back to all the fun I had during my MBA studies when something popped into my mind. Manage expectations. That's what I'm supposed to do at work. It translates loosely to, "Prepare the boss-man that he's going to possibly be let down before he gets let down, then when everything goes well, it's awesome!" I thought this was going to be the answer to all my stress related problems, until I realized that managing expectations requires you to take a pessimistic attitude with the addition of working out a solution for everything that can possibly go wrong. Even though you're proactive, you're STILL a pessimist. (This is also to be confused with being prepared, and over-prepared.)
According to a top ten list found on msnbc.com of things to do to live longer (eat healthy, exercise, more sex, manage stress, change attitude, etc.), I think the attitude change is key. I've been trying to be a better person lately. Really, I have. I've been withholding the snide comments that so deliciously cut people down. Sarcastic comments come easily. In fact, I don't really know what to say if it's not sandwiched by sarcasm.
As an engineer, I find that I spend maybe 5% of my time thinking of how something can be better, and 95% of the time fixing things that other people screwed up, or creating mitigation plans for everything that can go wrong. I've had a mitigation plan for my entire life like a which-way book until now. I'm not saying that I need to be passive, but I need to accept and believe that somehow, things work out in the end. I'm not prescribing to reckless abandon. Rather, I want to curb the overthinking and overplanning. Craig is the master of this. I think I drive him up the wall sometimes.
It's a hard habit to break. I don't really like being a Type A personality. I really don't. I don't know if I'm really this way, or if it was something I was trained to be given factors early in life. My whole life I've been striving to break away from the setting I was in. To overachieve and set myself apart on paper and physically from the cliques and mediocrity that I could never fit in with became an obsession. The things I've had handed to me in my life can be counted on one hand. In this sense, you learn to be extremely self sufficient. Not in the superficial kind of way, where you THINK you're a leader, but you're really a follower. But in the I'm-alone-most-of-the-time-and-I-am-comfortable-with-that kind of way.
So, I am giving myself permission to let things go, to pursue the things I truly enjoy, to put my feet on the coffee table too, and to learn how to relax.
Raining Like Hell.
Every dog in the vicinity is hiding somewhere. It started at 11pm with bright flashes and rumbling that were pretty close together. I stood out on the deck and watched thick lightning bolts make contact with another neighborhood, splitting the sky into fragments of bright grey.
I'm glad we're going to the beach tomorrow. Yes, you heard me. The beach.
It's too late since the wheels are already in motion. Melissa's on a Greyhound bus, due to arrive in a little over an hour. I'm sitting at the dining room table, bleary eyed trying to wake up as tonight is the perfect night for accidents on the road. The rain is flooding everything. We haven't had rain like this in a long time.
I don't know whose idea it was, or how this came up. That's the beauty of spontaneity! Though at this moment, I'm starting to lean more toward stupidity than spontaneity. It's fucking raining cats and dogs out there. And Jesus, that was loud! There's no way Craig is asleep upstairs. It's impossible. In fact, I don't know how ANYONE is managing to get some shut eye.
I've been a real grouch lately for reasons I'd prefer not to get into entirely. Family's up there. Work. Travel. I'll be in Denver for all of next week for work. It's probably the last time out there at least the way this current contract is set up. One day, they're going to wise up and fire us all. Until then, I will continue to complain about not having enough work to do, while avoiding the little bit of work that actually DOES come up because it's so freaking stupid.
On the bright side, we met up at Mike's house today to watch the US play Ghana in the World Cup. I was disappointed that the Ghana lady with the pot-on-her-head (and bone through her nose probably) wasn't in the stands. But fear not, the US was adequately represented by a bunch of mostly overweight Uncle Sam's, and a bunch of people acting like total boneheads. Go USA! USA! So, we watched the US get slaughtered partly by circumstance, and partly because of their own stupid mistakes. A lesson later reinforced during my women's game this evening: there is no room for mistakes when playing defense.
It makes me unhappy to think that I'm possibly the dead weight on the team, or on any team for that matter. Ah, the concrete jungle, such a dagger!
This weather is scaring the crap out of me, but I need to start making my way down to the bus station now regardless. It would be much scarier for Melissa to be standing there waiting with those unsavory characters. I'm off!
Steroids.
Let's talk about steroids.
This morning, I took Craig to emergency care because his poison ivy rashes were becoming unbearable. It was obvious that he was miserable. Luckily, we have two treat and release triage type places in the area. Craig has a PPO heathplan which is kind of a pain in the ass because you need to find your own doctors. I have an HMO which isn't great for everything, but it's very good for general health issues.
We got to the clinic early, and nobody was waiting to be seen. Despite this, it still took almost an hour to get in and out of there. Craig now has 56 steroid pills which need to be taken in decreasing dosages over a two week period. He pops the pills, I go to work, and get back to the house some ten hours later. He opens the door, and like magic, was restored to his original self. He still has the rash, but he is not swollen at all.
So, lesson learned: if you have poison ivy on places that are sensitive (like eyelids for example), you will need to get steroids to treat it from the inside out. Hooray for steroids!
They're also good for my asthma and severe allergy episodes once in a while.
Itchy and Scratchy
We had another low key weekend. I'm starting to enjoy them. On Saturday, we took the Acura in for an oil change and an A/C diagnostic. Later we went to the park down the street from the house to play tennis and soccer. The quick stop-turns in tennis got my shins going, so we went over to the soccer fields shortly thereafter and within the first 5 minutes, Craig launched my ball across the field with a swift kick and it rolled and rolled until we couldn't see it past the far goal. He ran off to get it. By the time I caught up (I chased the other ball), he was already in the brush looking for it. It was hard to tell exactly where the ball entered, and once it goes in, it's immediately invisible. There's just too much brush and undergrowth. He's stepping through it cautiously, and I'm about to jump in too, but I'm nervous because I don't know what's living under there. There could be giant rats or huge insects. Who knows? But more obviously, the brush was comprised of thick fortified (almost wooden) vines with large thorns and barbs every half inch. Nature's barbed wire.
Craig's really looking hard for my ball. It was a ball he gave me as a gift last year. A nice pink and white nike ball, and then eventually, the matching bag! I tell him it's not worth it and to get out of there before he gets poison ivy or something. It's not worth getting all cut up and possibly bit by god-knows-what for a $15 ball. Plus, these things get lost. It happens.
The rest of the day was low key. The next day, we drove down to DC for Craig's soccer game and took the Acura WITH AIR CONDITIONING!! It was perfect! I really really like the car. I got to play too since they wanted another girl sub. Come to think of it, I think I've played every game except for the very first one. It was a good, fun game, and the weather couldn't have been better. Since it was an early game we had the whole day ahead of us too. Oh, I forgot to mention: the majority of the weekend was consumed by watching world cup games. :) (Duh.)
I felt like cooking so we could have some real food this week. I made us burgers on the George for dinner, and chili from a recipe I got from Men's Health magazine (it's good) for us to have for lunch. Watermelon too. I've discovered that I really like watermelon, which is weird because I distinctly remember NOT liking it.
Monday rolled around too quickly, and I was less than thrilled to go to work, especially since I didn't have access to the building. A clerical error by the gatekeepers led to my badge being confiscated on Friday afternoon, and of course, the guards who sit outside all day (yes, both of them) have nothing else to do, and anxiously dream of the day they get to do something, so they immediately sprung to action when they saw that I couldn't badge in. The damn red light kept blinking at me. Blink blink blink. No no no. They graciously gave me a freebie day for access. I was annoyed. It's not like they haven't seen me come up to this stupid office every day for the past 16 months. Jesus.
Anyway, 8 hours later, I arrive home to a very pouty Craig. He turns around and points to the back of his knee. "Okay, so you have a scratch," I observe. "It's poison ivy."
Poison ivy. Yeah, we don't exactly get that in the concrete jungle. Instead, we get other annoying afflictions (usually parasites) from living in close quarters like lice, scabies, fifth disease, ringworm and conjunctivitis. It looked like a scratch to me. He said it was itchy.
This morning, I could barely get up. I had a late soccer game with the girls last night, and got home just shy of midnight. By the time I was in bed with my eyes closed, it was probably one. The goddamned alarm clock went off at seven. Craig was exhausted too. He turns off the clock and says, "mmmm HMMMMMMMMMM!!!" I know he's trying to say "Wake upppppppppp" by his intonation. It takes an enormous effort for me to respond. "mmph." And I flop unenthusiastically to my side. Another 10 minutes pass, and Craig finally squeaks out, "waaaaaaake up" so I know he means business. After willing my eyes to open, they finally do, and I'm looking at a very tired looking Craig who can't even open his eyes.
I get up, hop into the shower. When I get out, Craig is still in the other bathroom getting ready. About 10 seconds later, he comes out of the bathroom and he still looks asleep.
Except, he's not asleep. He can't open his eyes because he has poison ivy on his eyelids and surrounding eye area. He looks extra tired and kind of pathetic. I send him off with a sheet of Benadryl pills, warning that they'll make him drowsy.
He's been out of it ever since he got home. Stupid Benadryl makes you tired as anything, and he has to take them every 4 hours to control the itching. The knee scratch is oozing something fierce. I hope the baking soda bath helps to dry him out a little, but we may try Aveeno tomorrow too just in case. I feel really bad partly because it was my ball he was trying to get (motivation was sentimental), but mostly because I can't do anything to help. The rash keeps blooming, so I don't think it has fully run its course yet.
All the bedding and clothing from that day has been washed. There's a good chance that I got some of the oil on me too, but I don't have any outbreaks yet. Could it be that poison ivy is the one thing I'm NOT allergic to?
The Cooldown Period.
I've had to take a break from blogging, especially when I've had nothing interesting or particularly nice to say. And this is also the reason why I haven't really been speaking to anyone either. I'm still feeling a bit jump-kicky, so we're not qute in utopia yet.
I've decided that I am completely stressed out. Thank god my job is a non-contributor to this stress load. I woke up last night clenching the hell out of my teeth, and my jaw was sore like I chewed gum for 5 hours straight. Dammit. I'm going to the dentist today to fix a tooth I cracked, presumably from clenching.
I was having a bad dream. I was (somehow) living with my parents again, except their house looked exactly like my house. It WAS my house, but their rules. Anyway, they're acting all weird, like, space-cadets and they come into my room completely oblivious and announce, "We've decided to move the big jacuzzi tub from our bathroom into your walk-in closet."
WTF.
They thought it would be a good idea for them to have a super big bathroom, so knocking down the wall between my bathroom and the walk in closet made perfect sense.
And they began construction themselves, and there was plaster dust everywhere. I felt like I was kicking and screaming while tied up and gagged. I couldn't do anything. I woke up with my teeth clenched, and partly tearing.
And then I thought, this makes perfect sense given the current state of things. But what's weird about this whole thing is that they really have no control over me anymore. I don't want to say I don't need them for anything, because that sounds harsh. But I am not dependent on them for anything. That's the better way to put it. And I suppose that I choose to continue a relationship with them because I enjoy it. There's a lot to be said about being entirely independent, and even more to be said for a distance cushion of 250 miles.
So while I investigate other activities to channel my stress such as yoga, or simply doing cardio to the point of exhaustion, I'll wrap all this stuff up and put it in the far corner of my mind.
Here's a big kudos for Tina who knows everything, and if she wasn't the big mother hen that she is, Craig would be exposed to the crazy-me. I will not let this erode me.
And in the way of thank-you's, here's another one for Craig who slaved over the Acura (which I love love love, by the way) to make it ready to go. It took a little getting used to especially after only having the Xterra, but I love that car. It is exactly what I was thinking of when I realized I wanted a "zip around" car. Unfortunatley, I have to leave it home today b/c Craig is going to work on it some more when he gets home. And tomorrow, we're taking it in to get the A/C diagnosed and also an estimate. That's going to be like, $1000 but I'm pretty sure I need A/C.
Oh yeah, my sister graduated from college. If you want to piss her off, ask her anything about where she's working, or what her plans are.
I was present for the giant cattle call ceremony, which was alright, but impersonal. The individual college super-special ceremony which happened a few days later looked 1,000 times nicer. It was weird to think that I was doing this a mere (?) four years ago (!!!) and then holy crap, I'm old. Despite this, we're still not on par yet, and who knows if we ever will be.
Melissa is too busy to care because she's packing up her stuff to "get the hell out of here" and start college in the fall. I have a feeling that once she's gone, she's gone for good. Good for her!
And the other girl in the picture is Monica. Her birthday was earlier this week. I sent her a couple of gifts via amazon.com which should arrive early next week. Better late than never.
TGIF.
