insights into the world of caffeinated monkeys
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| javamonkey insights into the world of caffeinated monkeys |
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Monday, December 28, 2009 Advice Needed: Am I Dating James Bond? Ah, the holidays....now that we're reaching that final stretch, I've got a conundrum for you all. I need advice, and quickly. If you've been following things on ye olde blog, you know that I've been dating Kurt since the end of April of this year. Kurt is 39, twice divorced, with a 2 year old daughter (whom I have not met). And if you haven't been keeping up with ye olde blog, that should catch you up. Oh, yeah, I bought the dude an Xbox for Christmas. So, Christmas...a holiday to be spent with family and friends came and went. I asked for one thing from Kurt for Christmas--I wanted him to spend the night, which he has yet to do. He promised that he would do that, but that it wouldn't be Christmas eve, day or the following day, as he would be hoping from family event to family event, spending time with his daughter, his ex (who, in alternating weekends, had his daughter for Christmas) and her family, and his family. Fair enough. I didn't expect to hear from him over the weekend, and I didn't. But I get a text from him today--I texted him because my car battery died this morning, and I asked him how his Christmas was; his reply: "It was okay, but we need to talk. Nothing bad, but more than I can text." Okay...weird, but I asked him to just call me and tell me what was going on. And here it is: Kurt and Ex #1 (not the mother of his daughter) divorced many years ago, but they've kept in touch over the years. Well, not the past 7 or 8 years. Kurt has been in touch with Ex#1's family, but they haven't heard from her either. He decides to track her down, to get in touch with her and to tell her to contact her family, who is worried. In tracking her down, he spends hundreds of dollars, finds that she's named as a plaintiff in a class-action suit against a company that makes colonoscopy scopes (she has Crohn's disease), but otherwise is unsuccessful. Until Christmas this year. He got a call from the Highway Patrol in Nevada--there was a car accident near Las Vegas, single car, driver and passenger, both dead. The passenger had his phone number so the Highway Patrol called it. Apparently, Ex#1 was planning on getting in touch with him, but she died. So, Kurt borrows airline miles from a friend, flies to Vegas over Christmas to identify the body (indeed it is Ex#1) and flies back home. Kurt alerts the family to the demise of Ex#1. He tells me that his Christmas was okay, but he wasn't in Vegas long enough to gamble. So....I did the nice girlfriend thing (sorry for your loss--tried to be understanding and comforting), but the more I think about it, the more I just want to scream what the FUCK? His family let him just skip on Christmas? His friend transferred miles last minute to fly during peak holiday time? They let the friend transfer the miles? It wasn't a black-out date? Why didn't the Highway Patrol call Ex#1's family first? Surely she had identification or a cell phone or dental records? And if the accident were so bad that none of that survived, how did Kurt's number survive in that very accident? Would the Highway Patrol really call a random phone number found on a body at the scene of an accident? I need advice, and quick. I want to believe him, I really do. I like him a lot, he's a really sweet guy, but this story doesn't make sense. The more I think about it, the more things I find to pick apart. And if Ex#1 is dead, now is probably not a good time to question the status of our relationship--yes, she's an ex, but he loved her enough to marry her, and I'd question if he weren't upset about her death. But....yeah. Help. Leave a comment. Send an email. Call if you've got my number. Just please don't post it on my Facebook wall (we are Facebook friends). posted by jaime | 12:36 PM 0 comments Wednesday, December 02, 2009 A Very Happy Merry Hallogivingachuhmasza To All! I think I merged all of the October through December holidays in there, but I'm not 100% certain--I may have missed Talk Like a Pirate Day. It feels like the holidays have come too quickly this year--I finally started to get excited about Thanksgiving after dinner (but before pie, so I think that counts). And I love Thanksgiving! It's a great excuse to cook mass quantities of really rich food in massive amounts of dairy products (like butter) and then to smother them in more dairy (hello, heavy cream!). My favorite holiday came and almost went, and I didn't care. Well, I did make pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread and a noodle kugel (which I think is why the Jews wandered the desert for 40 years--God was hoping they'd lose the recipe! I had texture issues with it, but in theory, it should have been noms). But that's not my usual Thanksgiving M.O., as most who know me can attest. I am starting to get excited about Christmas though. I'm having Christmas dinner with Kurt on the 10th, early, I know, but his schedule is getting hectic covering all the warm fuzzy holiday stories in Sheridan. That, and I think he's impatient to find out what his present is....but, I can tell the blog-world, because Kurt doesn't know that I blog. :) I got him an X-Box 360 and a Gorillapod tripod. Yes, I did buy my 39 year old boytoy an X-Box. But in my defense, he has one, but it broke (and he likes to play video games, especially if he only has a few minutes to relax--it's a quick way to take a mental break), and the only games I got for him are the free ones that came with it. Also, in my defense, I did spend a lot of money on him, but the X-Box came with a rebate Mastercard, and I paid off one of my credit cards. In FULL. And I had enough money to buy my roommate a Christmas present, and I'm shipping out pottery to people and local folks are getting cookie tins. So, thbpbpbpttt. :P Oh, and I got my roommate, Ben, a widget-charger: it's a big battery that can be charged from a wall socket, a USB port or from the sun; it can then be plugged into any widget to provide a charge (laptop, mp3 player, cell phone, etc.). It's pretty spiffy, and he'll be happy that it can be solar-powered. I live with a hippie. I managed to find the only other one in the state for a roommate. Ben also does not know the blog exists, which is why I can share. I'm not only excited about giving great presents, but also about going to the Bighorns to cut down a Christmas tree for the apartment. I'm thinking about hosting an old-fashioned tree-trimming party, complete with food, cocktails and ornament-making. Hey, it's not Christmas until someone makes a penis from the ornament dough. :) Ben thinks it'd be fun, but I think he's excited about food and booze. In not such exciting news, work has gone from being fabulous to being the pit of suck. My new boss is a dick. Some of it is understandable--I mean, I was out of the office for nearly 6 weeks for grad school/vacation/Economic Development Institute, and that's a long-ass time. However, the board, not me, set the policies regarding personal time off to state that if it's not used in the year that its accrued, it expires. And that I can't get paid out for unused time. And that I get 17 days of PTO. And although the board did agree to go halvsies with me on time for grad school (one semester=training; one semester=PTO), I took the fall semester, the first one as PTO. And that trip back east burned up all 17 days. And as far as my commitment to grad school goes--when I'm spending $42,000 out of my own pocket for this, which is MORE than my salary, I AM going to attend, whether or not that's convenient with the office schedule. I'd like to see you, Mr. Boss, tell me that I can't have the time off to go to residency--the moment you tell me that is the moment I tell you to take this job and fuck yourself in the ass with it. I also can't help that Economic Development Institute was the week after I returned to the office, and that was my 2nd of 3 sessions. And I had grant funding to cover the bulk of the training costs. And the board had previously committed to my completion of that program, so I could then take the next step and become a Certified Economic Developer (CEdC). So, yeah, throw a hissy fit about that--all of which was out of my control. However, my boss did more than throw a hissy fit; he demoted me. I will keep the title of Project Manager (we just bought more business cards and they all say project manager); however, my job duties are those of receptionist/website update bitch/grant writer. It's like I'm receptionist ++. I, thankfully, am not taking a pay cut; however, I'm not happy about the diminished responsibilities. There are a few really cool projects in the works that I could manage, but my boss wants me to have no part of them. I'm not sure if it's his way of paying me back for being gone so long, or if there's more to it. I've felt there's been a shift organizationally that's pushed me out of a leadership role and into a minion role, and I can't shake the feeling that it's because I lack a penis. I was told to edit a letter from the board chair to the mayor, and in it the chair praised my boss because "he may not have the fancy letters behind his name or have experience with economic development per say, but he's worked with everyone on the board--he's homegrown." My boss is part of the good-ole' boys club, and I'm a woman. This is the guy who screwed up a site visit for a $1.5 million grant to purchase a facility to house start-up companies. And somehow I'm the one who was demoted? What the hell? I don't understand it, and I'm none too happy about it. I've been keeping an eye open for other things, but it's a tough market out there. I've been biting my tongue, because I need a paycheck, pittance that it is. It's been a stressful few weeks, needless to say. The upside of things is that if I do need to quit, Ben has offered to assist with things until I can find something new. Kurt has been amazingly sweet, supportive and encouraging--I need to focus on graduate work and either bide my time or find a new job--Kurt is more than willing to travel to make things work, saying that if he can't drive to see me, he'll fly to see me. I believe him. Which is a whole other weird thing for me, as I never thought I'd get to a point of seriousness with someone so soon, especially not after Ian. I can't explain it, but things with Kurt just seem right. It's not easy--we both have odd schedules, I have grad school, he has a daughter (and I have not met her, but I'm not ready to do so), he's nearly 10 years older than I am, etc.--but he's worth the effort, I think. He's genuine--honest and hard-working. I respect that he doesn't tell me what I want to hear, but that he tells me the truth. It's hard to find someone who will do that. Especially with someone who can be as difficult and stubborn as I am. He deals well with my quirks, and I deal well with his. Sometimes, I think that's the toughest thing. posted by jaime | 4:16 PM 0 comments Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Which Internet Do I Use, Again? Best line ever! My former boss thought that I installed a whole new internet on his computer when I installed Firefox. :) That's just too good not to share, even though I haven't worked with the old boss since May. Which is probably the last time I updated ye olde blog. And then it was to gush over Kurt, so it wasn't really an update. So, updates--summer's been fun, glad it flew by and fall is here again. I will be back East in October--grad school residency in VT, followed by Homecoming at Juniata. I'm excited about both, but have a massive pile of work to plow through before I leave in, gulp, a week and a half. I'm working on some of it from home, amazingly enough. Those of you who keep up with me on Facebook have heard of the sinus infection of doom, which started last Thursday with me being incredibly exhausted. So I went home and slept on Thursday. From 5 pm at night til 8 am the next day. Friday, I got up, went to work, and felt my sinuses slowly turn to concrete--I left work early on Friday, hit the drugstore then back to bed for me. I woke up Saturday morning a pile of pain and ouchy, and willingly went to Urgent Care at 8:30 am. On a Saturday. People, I was dying! This is proof. So the Urgent Care PA, who used to be the PA at the primary care guy's office (til the bastard left town and left me MD-less), saw me on Saturday; we've been through numerous sinus infections by now, so I got my antibiotic cocktail and was out the door and back to bed. I was prescription-filled, medicated and back in bed by 10 am. Sleep, sleep, sleep only to wake up at 1 am on Monday morning (I count that as late Sunday night) because I thought my left ear had ruptured. I went to the ER, willingly (that's 2 doctors in a 48 hour period, both seen willingly!), to find that my eardrum had not exploded, but that my sinus infection was trying to take over my head (my left eye was swollen and goopy, my left tonsil was swollen to the point where I couldn't swallow). A quick swap of antibiotics to something stronger, plus the ear-numbing drops and Vicodin for the rest of the pain, and I was on my way back home, to bed. So, let me now rant about why our healthcare system is fubar. I'm a single woman. I make decent money for a single woman (which is shit, just so you know), I have health insurance, and I take fairly good care of myself, for someone who tries to avoid the medical profession. First, let's take the insurance, the one that yet again jacked my rates, the 5th time in 9 months, because they just don't get enough of my paycheck every month. I think they'll cover the urgent care visit, but I'm sure they'll fight me on the ER visit. Probably because I wasn't actually dying, and I didn't call for pre-authorization. Dude, thought my eardrum had ruptured--not the time I'm thinking "hey, let's see if my insurance covers it" because I was too busy thinking "dear God, make the pain fucking stop!" So, thanks. Makes me really wish I didn't need to have insurance, because if I just saved my monthly premiums, I could have a health emergency fund to cover my own self. Except that if I tried that, something catastrophic would happen, like my colon would literally explode. It's just waiting for that moment, I tell ya. And what's more--my insurance doesn't cover prescriptions, but offers me a discounted rate on drugs. I paid $80 for 10 antibiotic happy pills, the ones that the ER doctor prescribed. After the discount. Without insurance, it would have been $166 for 10 pills. That's groceries for me for a month, and I just blew it on 10 pills. That have to be taken with food. Guess who would be eating rice if she weren't going back East for grad school? So, I have shitty insurance, and I'll probably have to fight a bit to get the ER bill paid, but at least I have some semblance of coverage. But why did I have to see 2 doctors this weekend? Really, one visit should have covered it. But the Urgent Care guy didn't want to break out the big gun antibiotics, because it probably would have set off my stomach issues and prescribed a Z-pak, which has worked swimmingly in the past. But he should have noticed how bad the infection was, as it was already spreading to my ears (he commented on the left ear being swollen), and given me a script for something stronger if need be so I could just have it filled later Saturday or Sunday even. (Because heaven help if a doctor work on Sunday, unless it's the ER doctor). So, I had to go to the ER, and that guy could have killed me. I know that the ER dude doesn't have my complete medical history, and when I'm in pain, I vacillate between moaning in the fetal position and yelling incomprehensible things at people. So, not a good person to get medical history from. So I brought my friend, Janelle, along to provide said history, and I brought a tote bag full of all of the drugs that I am on. The nurse went through everything, including Janelle telling her what I had taken within the last 24 hours, which included a Z-pak pill not even an hour prior to my ER appearance. In comes the ER doc, with the "no, you haven't ruptured anything, but your ear is infected, and yeah, I can see why that would hurt" routine. He swaps my antibiotic, gives me drugs, and I get my first dose of the new antibiotic before I leave the ER. The next day, I get a call from the pharmacist at Walgreens--that Z-pak is designed to stay in my system for the next 2-3 days, and I should wait to take the new antibiotic, because those drugs can't play nice together, and can cause cardiac arrythmia. Well, oops, too late for that--already took the first dose in the ER, not an hour after taking the Z-pak pill. So, um....making my heart explode certainly would resolve my earache complaint, but not in a desirable way. If I had a patient come in with a freakin tote bag of medicine, I'd at least check the PDR for interactions before I gave them something to take. So, I made an executive decision that if the new antibiotic didn't kill me in the ER, I was going to proceed in taking it. I feel better-ish. I can sit upright without being dizzy. Sinuses are draining properly, although it's still ouchy up there, and my nose is all sore from blowing it. And I'm out almost $200 right now for meds and urgent care, not counting whatever the insurance doesn't cover for the ER visit. I should be better by the 11th, when I fly out. I got some much-needed rest, although I don't think Vicodin-induced sleeps count. I'll be back in the office tomorrow, trying to get through what I need to so I can leave with a clean desk. As for Kurt, I'm not sure what's happening there. I like him, I do, but I've realized being sick for so long that I want to be with someone that is there when I don't feel good. I don't want them to hold my hair out of my face when I puke, but I do want someone who will rub my back or make me soup or hold my hand in the ER because I think my eardrum ruptured and I'll be permanently deaf. Kurt's reaction was "I feel fine and can't risk catching anything" which is not what I wanted to hear, especially not after it was confirmed that it's a sinus infection, and I'm not contagious. I have a feeling that things will work themselves out when I'm in grad school--if I don't hear from him while I'm away, I definitely know where I stand. And if it's where I think it is, I'd rather be single. posted by jaime | 8:04 PM 0 comments |
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