Talk to Me

During the course of a work day, my only usual communication with colleagues is by text or email.  Since I work the off shift, I usually don't speak to anyone outside of the triage nurse, an occasional doctor and my patients.  This depersonalization can be very frustrating.  This week, I've found myself completely overwhelmed by my schedule and the lack of verbal communication.  It seems the 4 schedulers have absolutely no clue as to who is on first.  They don't talk to each other either and this causes huge issues.  For instance, if Scheduler A tells Scheduler B that I have nothing going on, Scheduler B looks for an opportunity to make me busy.  Scheduler B does not tell Scheduler A that she has filled my dance card, and the next thing you know, Scheduler A does the same and I need to be in two places at one time.  This leads to ticked off patients and exhaustion for me.

Last night, I sent a rather scathing email to my supervisor who is probably as overwhelmed as me.  It was laden with complaints about my work burden.  No surprise, she sent me a response that I felt was dripping with sarcasm.  Knowing my style, you can guess that mine probably was also and she was just giving it back in kind.  Over the years, I've been careful not to send these types of emails (they're a lot like drunk dialing), preferring instead to save them as drafts and delete them at a later date.

Do you work in a similar situation where verbal communication has gone away and all that is left is the printed word?  How do you handle communication during times of crisis?  There are things I'd never say in a face to face meeting (or phone call), that seem to spill from my fingertips to the keyboard with abandon.  I wish there was a message that popped up asking me, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO SEND THIS MESSAGE?  

Did I Find a Reflecting Sign?

In all of my years of knitting, I've never taken a formal class-I am a self taught knitter.  Luckily, I've been the recipient of many helpful yarn store owners and employees who have been kind enough to give me drive-by advice.   I'm sure it helps that I've spent small fortunes in their stores.  I'm about to change all of that and heed the little voice that's been talking to me.  I signed up for a spinning class.  Nine AM sharp on Friday morning, I'll sit down at a spinning wheel for the first time in my life.  I'm very excited about this.  The yarn store owner told me, "you've been talking about this for years."  She's right.  It's finally time to explore my interests.

  

Please don't bring up the fact that I don't own a spinning wheel.  I'm trying hard to ignore that for now, though I am scouring Craigslist daily.

Oh, Sit on It

Finally! As promised, the furniture delivery men were here bright and early to deliver my new sofa and love seat. It's beautiful, but more than that, it's another room to use for seating purposes. That would have come in handy on Sunday when I was trying to hide from MLTL.


OK, so no big surprise, it's green. We've long established that this is my favorite color. What is a surprise is that the love seat was to be blue. The chair and pillows would have tied the two together, but I'm pleased with the two matching pieces so I won't make a fuss. The chair won't be in for another couple of weeks. I have that long to figure out where I'll put it in this small house.

Now I'm on the hunt for the perfect area rug for the living room. I think I'll choose something with a little blue. I need something to break up all of this wood. It's pretty, but it's cold despite the warm color. With time, I'll find the perfect tables and lamps to put in this area too. Really, what I need more than time, is another paycheck or two.


For the kitchen, I was looking for a pop of red to break up all of the brown. The window is an odd shape so I was having trouble finding the perfect pre-made curtains. On Saturday, I went to a la-de-da fabric store in town. Holy smokes! I smell trouble. That place had THE most stunning fabrics I've seen in a long time. Let's just say, this wasn't Joann's Fabrics and leave it at that. I think I gave the saleswoman palpitations when I bought this fabric and a box of Stitch Witchery. No ma'am. I do not own a sewing machine. Yes ma'am. I intend to make curtains with nothing but scissors and a hot iron. I think they turned out well for $20. What do you think?

I did not give you a panoramic view of the kitchen window because the sink is full of dirty dishes. Sheesh! That maid is such a slacker.

Living With Narcissism

Narziß Artist Francois Lemoyne 1728

Do you know a narcissist? Do you live with someone who has narcissistic personality disorder? If the answer is no, consider yourself blessed. If you're not sure what NPD looks like, this is the best resource I've ever read concerning this problem. I'm convinced that this is the underlying toxic stew that drives Mr. Larger Than Life. Of course, the overlying problem these days is his head injury and this makes him nearly impossible to deal with for more than a few moments at a time. Pre-injury behaviors (what we call premorbid behaviors) are often heightened after head injuries-making pre-injury days look like a walk in the park. Put him and Rachel together in the room and an accidental alcohol OD starts to look pretty good. Today was no different. Rachel wanted to watch cartoons, and MLTL wanted to watch sports on TV. There is one TV in this house. Guess who won?

This man wasn't in the door 2 seconds before he began to tell me how to put the 4 day old vegetables and spinach dip he bought into serving dishes. I don't know what possessed him to buy the vegetables 4 days ago, or what made him buy marinated vegetables to serve with a dip. He doesn't really think right. The dips, made of dairy products, were on the warm side, making me think they were out on the counter for hours before he came over. He also brought some kibbee which he'd had the restaurant make in a manner I've never witnessed in my 52 years of eating Arabic food. It was mixed with all kinds of vegetables and stunk to high heaven. I didn't even want to put it on the table. However, he had to be told a dozen times how wonderful it was. It isn't enough that he brought this dicey food, he NEEDS to be told countless times how wonderful it all is. I've never met anyone so insecure.

My husband, trying to clean out our garage and make it a safer household for four cognitively impaired women, put some paint cans in my father in law's garage until he could deal with disposing of them correctly. Since that day, MLTL has griped about them every 15 minutes. They don't belong in his garage, and even though they aren't in his way, he is not about to let them stay there for a minute longer than necessary. Today was no different. On several occasions throughout the afternoon, he mentioned the paint cans. He is incapable of seeing how busy we've been with this move or how we're trying to float these 2 homes right now. He only cares about the space 6 cans are taking up in his 3 car garage. Argh. It's so frustrating trying to please someone who can't be pleased. As of now, I've given up trying.

Years ago, about a year or two after we got married, I made a mild joke about the men in that family being babies. Oh my God, you'd have thought I'd called him an axe murderer. He went on and on for about an hour about this benign little comment. I was chastised up and down for that little slip of the tongue and never repeated my faux pas. It had become clear that MLTL had no sense of humor. None. In the 24 years I've known my husband, I've never once seen or heard his father laugh. It's sad really, but that's the way it is.

Experts suspect NPD has roots in childhood and people with this type of personality disorder may have been abused or neglected. From what I know of his early childhood history, this is true for him, but he doesn't perceive or recognize the abuse. In his perfect world, his deceased parents have been elevated to sainthood. I find it interesting, but only from a distance. If confinement for anything more than a few hours occurs, I find myself overwhelmed. I can only please so many people at one time and Lord knows, there's a limit to how much wine I can consume.

Other than that, dinner was great. Here's hoping you had less eventful holiday meals. Next year, I'm making reservations.

Pondering the Menu

From The Tale of Benjamin Bunny by Beatrix Potter

With my head firmly in the sand, the holiday has snuck up on me.  We're going to have a quiet one.  Well maybe.  Mr. Larger Than Life is coming and because a shout is a whisper to him, it ought to be fairly loud with all these empty walls and floors.  Rachel will be here too and she should keep me fairly busy.  I hope it's nice so I can swing with her out on the porch.  Sebba is bringing her new beau to meet the family.  Nothing like trial by fire for the young man.  At least he doesn't have to contend with the dog who pretty much hated all her boyfriends.  If Duke's ashes fall off their perch, we'll know something isn't right.

I still don't have living room furniture yet, though I ordered it today.  It's coming just in time on Tuesday.  Nothing like Procrastinating, which you all know by now is my middle name.  The windows will be clean though as long as it doesn't rain.  I hired a contractor to do that dirty job tomorrow.  I also have someone coming tomorrow to help me clean the empty house.  Ha. Slacker is my confirmation name.  Really though, there are miles of hardwood in this house and it would be nice if someone else would do the heavy work here for a day.

That leaves me to ponder the menu.  Honey Baked Ham?  Ho-hum.  Roast leg of lamb?  Now we don't really know our oven yet, do we?  That could be a disaster.  OK.  How about stuffed grape leaves?  Yum.  I'll have to find a slave to help me roll them all.  I'll make a ham too-the Barefoot Contessa's mango chutney glazed ham.  That sounds pretty tasty.  Some cheesy potatoes because that sounds easy.  Roasted asparagus is pretty simple too, and a salad. I'll buy dessert and the bread, although I've had a hankering for those lemon bars again.  Those sound spring-like, don't they?  There!  Now that wasn't so bad, was it?  Remind me, I need to buy earplugs.

What are you making for dinner on Sunday?  If you tell me reservations, I'll cry.  

Fill in the Blank

Dear Doctor ___________ (just fill in your name if the shoe fits):

This may come as a surprise to you, but I'm a busy woman. When I'm at a hospital, nursing home, or a patient's home, and I make a call to you, I am not doing so for my health. I am doing so for the health and comfort of your patient. The least that I think you could do, out of courtesy, even curiosity, is return the call.

When doing so, please try to be patient with me. I promise I'm not wasting your time, I'm clarifying orders. If I had prescriptive powers, believe me, I wouldn't be calling you. I'd be writing the orders without your input and you'd be superfluous.

Last night, I threw in the towel after I'd waited two and a half hours for you to return any one of the four pages I made to your number. I called my hospice doctor instead, who by the way, answered on the fourth ring. That's what I call service.

On Monday night I called you, but your service said you were unavailable until Tuesday at 3:30 PM and I should call back then. Again, I called my hospice doctor who answered on the second ring and gave me some orders I could write. When I called you Tuesday at 3:30 PM on the spot, your receptionist tried to give me orders. I'm sorry to tell you, I can't take orders from a receptionist. Since you're an MD, you should know she can't give orders-it's against the law. When I told her this, she hung up on me! I want to let you know about this, but hell, you probably already do. She is one of your staff members and from what I know of private practice, behavior at the bottom of the pecking order is a reflection of what goes on at the top. When I had my boss called her back, she was as nice as could be and explained you're out of town until next week Tuesday. In that case, you can't be my patient's doctor until then-no matter what orders your receptionist gives me. What really burns my arse though is that in between the time I called her and then my boss did, she called my patient's home and tried to bully his wife out of selecting our hospice services. Now really, is that behavior necessary? We weren't trying to get rid of you, in fact, we were trying to include you in our plan of care. If it were up to me, I'd tell the patient's family this-just so they could know how unscrupulous you really are. To my mind, there is only one reason to behave that way, and it's all about the green.

Finally, just a note to my personal doctor. For God's sake, would you fix your phone lines already? They've been on the fritz for a few days now. Don't make me drive all the way over there just to book an appointment now-I'm way too cranky.

Sincerely,

JAN
Just A Nurse

Sneaking it in

I've been getting a little knitting done here and there. My shawl may look like a big blob of nothing, or maybe a giant beret, but truly, it's nearly time to call it a shawl. I think 20 more rows, and it'll be time to consider what I'll do for a border. I'm thinking of a simple "unvented" Elizabeth Zimmerman border. That woman was more clever with pointy sticks than anyone ever deserved to be and for that, I'm grateful.

So according to EZ, in her book Knitter's Almanac, "when you have worked 40 to 50 rounds on 576 stitches, you will have created a stunning circular shawl roughly 72" across-large enough for anybody." I have worked 30 rows at this stitch count and will shoot for 50 and I've used probably 800 or 900 yards of wool. I'm so close I can taste it! It'll probably take nearly the rest of the month to finish, but I'll try hard. I think I'll use her method for the knitted on garter stitch border that she describes in her book.


This is the most recent neighbor I've met. I don't know if this is Mr. or the Mrs., but there are two of them who are protectively guarding their nest-right smack in the middle of my porch. I get the bird version of stink eye every time I walk past them.

As an aside, Rachel is doing great. I talk to her staff every day, and I stopped by to visit yesterday. She seemed happy and seems to like her caregivers. Her roommate loves the house. All is well. Thank you Lord.