Nearly There.........

We close the office tomorrow at 11 and go to the company picnic. Not something I'm terribly excited about. Why not just give me the afternoon off? I don't even like most of these people. Why do they presume I want to play volleyball or swim with them or even sit and talk to them? Why do company force socialization on people who do not have anything in common but their job? Particularly in this company! I'm not saying that I'm not "friendly" with the employees but lets face it, I'm not interested in the lottery, sports, gambling on the boat, bars, clubs, etc. You get my drift.

So, every year they spend a lot of money getting a clubhouse at a local park where the is swimming... with lots of other people I do not know. Last year I took a deck of cards and Carolyn and I played Uno. A few others drifted over and joined us. Carolyn shares my feelings about these things.

I guess we are just no friendly. But maybe that isn't true. Our senior aide will be leaving tomorrow. She told us today that she could always count on a laugh coming from either Carolyn's office or mine. That is nice. She called us Mutt & Jeff. I laughed and told her I'd not heard that in many years. Mutt & Jeff was a comic strip in the "funnies" for a long time. Two guys, one very tall and the other very short. Carolyn is tall and I'm average. But I guess we are funny. Other staff do laugh at us a lot. Still, for someone who's only known us a year to say that is flattering.

Anyway, I'll probably, I hope, be able to slip away around 3 p.m.

Tonight was the writer's meeting. We have four there. Two others were away. I've written up the meeting on the The Writers' Asylum blog for those who are interested.

I'm headed for bed very soon. I got a relatively good sleep last night but woke at 6 a.m. That is an ungodly hour but I have to get up early tomorrow. Dave's brakes went out on his car. He has to have a way to work. So, he'll take me, got himself and I'll pick up my car before I leave for the picnic or after I get back. He works 9-6 and I work 8-5 So it is a juggling act.

I'm headed for bed and the weekend. A 3-day weekend! Yipee.

A Nice Break

My brother, Bill, called me this morning. He had to drop a load in Mt.
Vernon, IN. That is only 30 minutes from here and we arranged to meet
for lunch. It was nice to see him, even for a short time. I don't get
to see him as much as I'd like because the distance and because he is
always on the road. He drives a big truck.

I came back to the office and tried to get some paperwork done. I've
not had a good couple of days. In fact, the week has not been very
good. Part of it is things at work but I know part of it is me.I have
just been down and last night I simply sat and watched t.v. shows on
Hulu. I picked Sarah up from daycare after work and dropped her off
and went to Joann fabrics to get some trims for her skirts, then I
went home. My original intent was to cut skirts out but I just found I
had no desire to do anything.

I don't have the terrible bouts of crying anymore. But in some ways I
wish I did. Now it is this awful empty feeling where you want to cry
but can't. I had such a rough couple of days at work. I remembered
several years ago under my old boss how things got terrible and I'd go
home to rant and get it off my chest. Jerry would sit and listen and
ask questions or offer sympathy. Sometimes I'd get annoyed at the
questions. Now, my stress pours into the air surrounding me and
darkens it. Coming home on Tuesday I was overwhelmed with the
realization that I'd only added to Jerry's misery with my gripes. He
couldn't fix it for me, hated that I had to work, hated not to be able
to take care of me. It must have been horrendous to sit and listen to
me and be totally helpless. It had to have simply cut him to the bone.

Tonight I'm very tired and on my way to bed. I've had a long day and
I've found that it is one of those days when I seem very confused,
unable to focus, and even my speech seemed affected during the move
briefing. I couldn't get the words to come out right. I felt very
stupid but I knew it was because I just was not all there.

Anyway, I'm off for now. Tomorrow night it the writers' meeting.
Lately I've been tired and not really able to focus on the meetings as
well as I would like so I hope tomorrow I'll find myself less tired.

End of a Busy Monday

I'm all tucked up in bed getting ready to turn out the lights. First things this morning I had a doctor's appointment with my new, old doctor. I used this doctor back in 2005 and had to change after a year or so because she wasn't on the new insurance. She is not and I immediately got in to see here. I go back in a month after she's reviewed my files and see what she wants to do for labs to get caught up. She want to review the last years lab work and tests.

I had lunch after this and went in to work at 1 p.m. and was so busy dealing with computer problems and records that I needed to process. One client called my boss and said I'd treated him differently than I had the white people.... that I had not given him as much time as I did the white folks.

Half my co-workers are black, as is my boss. You'd think my racism would have surfaced after 13 years. My boss told the guy that he worked well with me but he'd pass along his concerns. He did in an email to me. My opinion was that he thought he'd get special treatment if he used the race card. I told my boss that because the man had made the complaint I'd no longer discuss anything with him alone and all phone calls would be witnessed and he'd have to appoint the person to be the witness since I didn't want the man saying I'd chosen a white person over a black. I then made a call to the man with a black co-worker present and told him that all further contact would be witnessed. He never even acknowledged that he's made the complaint!

I had to call his landlord who is another black co-worker and told her about the problem I was having and to give her details she needed on his file. She laughed and said, "I guess I must be white!" She is a big girl and every time she sees me she hugs me.

There is a saying in the department. "Don't tic off the case manager." Every one I know tries very hard to assist clients with problems but when you get a client who lies on you just to get special treatment, you just lost your advocate. We do not attempt to get even. We don't have to. We all know that at some point that particular client is going to be in trouble with their housing. We'll be waiting.

When the day ended in a flurry, I came home to spend the evening with Dave, Becca, and Sarah. It was nice. They had not been over in awhile and I enjoyed it. I ironed the fabric for the next round of sewing.

Now, it is time for beddie-bye. I'm tired and my back is not happy for being here. Hope you all are doing well. I have posted the link to my sewing blog. I have, at this point, only posted what is currently posted here so it won't be new stuff. But I'm looking forward to putting up some other things as I do them. I just counted and with the multiply blog, I have 9 blogs but only about 4 are open and active. Still, it is a lot. I wonder if this means I'm published?

Sarah Said...

A couple of weeks ago Sarah met a new friend who lives downstairs from her. The little girl is not quite a year younger and Sarah was very excited to meet her. Well, except for the language barrier. You see when they met, the little girl was pretending to be a frog and every time Sarah tried to talk to her she would say "Ribbit!"

Finally, Sarah, being a practical girl like her Mawmaw, looked at her, waved her hand and said, "I don't speak frog."

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Last Monday after work I joined Sarah and her parents at the zoo. It was a members only event where all the stuff that usually cost was free for two hours. Our zoo is a 4 hour trip but that's another story. As our time was running out we headed over to the bumper boats. These are in what used to be the monkey exhibit. It is a "Pirate Ship" in the middle of a pool of water. When we came to Evansville it had monkeys on the boat and alligators in the water. Today, it is an empty ship with three bumper boats in the water.

Sarah was so excited and getting tired. The line was long and as we were at the end, she kept telling her daddy she didn't want to wait. We told her she had to wait or we had to leave. The next minute she decided she wanted to get in the pool and play in the water. We told her she couldn't do that either. This went back and fourth for about 20 minutes with her father giving her all the reasons she couldn't get in the pool. Finally, she said, "Daddy, can you push me in and say it was an accident?

Raging Rain, Raging Pain

I woke sometime in the middle of the night. Since it was midnight before I went to bed it must have been in the wee hours of the morning. I'd guess around 3 or 4 a.m. It was deafening. The thunder sounded as if it was in the room with us and the rain was torrential. And I was in agony. My hands, feet, knees and hip were all screaming nearly as loud as the storm. I rolled out of bed and could barely stand but I managed to stagger down the hall to check things out. After I found everything secure, I went back to bed. I think I took some generic Tylenol but I'm not sure. I can't remember hurting so bad in a while.

On Saturday I woke with pain as well but it passed off after the first storm rolled by. Waking up in the midst of that deluge this morning reinforced my feelings that the weather here is a huge factor in my pain levels. My hands, particularly my left is still very painful. The sky is heavily overcast. My feet are better and so are my knees and hip. I have to tell you, I'm not looking forward to another storm like last night. I have no fear of storms, would even walk in the middle of one with great pleasure. Not this morning.

We did not get up to go to church because I overslept. Well, midnight to bed and awake before dawn and the pain all insured I was not able to get up. I'd have gone anyway but for the pain.

I've added another blog to my blogger account! I know! Crazy. Actually, I realized I'm putting a lot of sewing stuff up here and organizer than I am, I like having it a bit more structured. So, while I'll still post it here, there is a blog on blogger now devoted to my sewing and craft stuff. You know, the stuff I haven't done yet but am going to do.

Actually, the sewing is slow but I am enjoying it again. I had such fun with Sarah's Alligator skirt (http://dixiegirlsplace.multiply.com/video/item/462/Sewing_with_Dixie_Part_3). It came out so cute. I have several other items to make for her and I'm getting pretty good with keeping the video's at 15 minutes or less by cutting out a lot of needless stuff. I've learned to make slideshows, too! I still get annoyed with the Movie Maker program. It hangs up now and then and won't publish. I can promise you that no one would keep trying but me. There are two versions of Movie Maker. One is a Windows version and the other is a Windows Live version. I don't know why. The Live version is fine but harder to trim the videos. The Windows version works best for the trimming phase but I can't then transfer them to Live. Downloaded videos are in a Quicktime format and only the Live version will open them! So you can see it is a bit of juggling to get what I want. I'm getting better.