Small pleasures

I don't mean to be totally warm and fuzzy, but as I recover I have been appreciating things I used to take for granted or not focus on perhaps as much as I should. I have focused on small pleasures.

Reading - I had been feeling sick for so long that I wasn't at my normal average of a book a week. When I was in the hospital, I overheard one of the caring and astute nurses observe that she thought a man on my floor probably hadn't ordered breakfast because he couldn't read the menu. She sent someone in to help him. I used to be an ESL volunteer for adults and I did occasionally encounter people who could not read or write in their native language, either. I always admired their guts, making time at the end of a full day's hard work to go and learn. I'm grateful that I am literate and can enjoy books.

BBC series - As you know, I am an Anglophile and I love to laugh. In between books, I have been watching some of the BBC series we own. Coupling, Fawlty Towers, The Vicar of Dibley, etc. Check them out if you haven't, they are hilarious!

Family and friends - I should say I have never taken family and friends for granted, but I have been blown away by how many caring phone calls, e-mails and cards I have received during my recovery. Even the volunteers at work have called to check in on me and wish me well. It is so nice to be cared about. My grandmother, who has historically had a hard time dealing head-on with serious illness and troubles in our family, has learned how to text at age 76! I had asked my aunt not to let her know how seriously ill I was, but my aunt did tell her and I was amazed when my grandmother texted me that "please always tell me how serious something is. I love you and I want to know everything."

For my picture illustrating family, this is an lolperson - hey, I just made that up - of my brother N, who had been bugging the fuck out of my other brother, B, by using his iphone storage, which had been used for podcasts, to take pictures for eBay. It finally ended after I made this picture and sent it to my parents.

Mr. RK - Again, I never take him for granted, but even I have been blown away by how he has been both cuddly and made of steel. We have gotten to "in sickness and in health" decades before I thought we would. It has been so difficult for me to accept so much care (luckily I can do many more things for myself now), but he has done literally everything for me without complaining, telling me I'm pretty even when I have felt as repulsive as the Bride of Frankenstein. One of the nurses I've seen at outpatient appointments told me to thank him for her. "Many people see their loved ones go through medical issues and they literally just freeze up," she said.  (Below is a picture of my other brother, who visits about once a quarter, and Mr. RK when we went out for Mexican food a few months ago.)
Humor! - I am laughing more than ever, and appreciating humor more than ever. Incidentally, one of my doctors (who is a really nice guy) has the initials SOB. Poor bastard.

See, you knew I couldn't be all Julie Andrews and falalalala for this entire post. And "fuck!" There, I said it.

Of saints, CT scans, and bright red underwear

Thank you all for your well wishes. Long story short, I had quite a scare and feel blessed to be safe, healthy and back home.

Mr. RK has been a saint taking care of me. I have a few weeks off of work to recover from some health issues that are, blessedly, treatable. He has taken care of the very exhausting (running around to grocery stores, drug stores, follow up  doctor appointments, etc.) to the very disgusting (helping me care for an open wound) to the Donna Reed (doing all of the cooking, cleaning, etc.) He is really the gift of my life.

In the meantime, I must ask: even when I am in crisis, why is my life like a sitcom?

I was in the hospital for several days and among other things, I had to get a CT scan...and going into the scan, right before the medication knocked me out, I thought, "Hmm. I am wearing bright red lace underwear, and all of the doctors can see it!"

Oops.

And mind you, the operating theater looked quite a bit like...Julia Child's test kitchen.

I told one of the doctors this. There was an oven, cupboards, the works...

And speaking of underwear, the gowns at the hospital only came in size XL. I am about a size S or XS, and on top of this I had lost about 20 lbs. in a week (I'm plumping up to normal now, yay), so they caved and let me wear sweats and t-shirts from home that Mr. RK brought me.

So one morning I laid out clean clothes, including bright purple underwear, and one of the specialist doctors just happened to pop by and sit on the couch - right by the underwear. I didn't realize this until after he left. Oops.

At least now I am only flashing people in my own home. 

PS I will visit your blogs as soon as I'm able...pretty tired at the moment, but again, thanks for all of the good thoughts and well wishes, my friends!

Friends, Romans, countrymen...dictated to Mr. RK

So the bad news is that I am still in the hospital and cannot visit your blogs. good news is all the tubes have been yanked out of me now and I can eat again.and now having been pricked many times I have thumbs of steel. Cross those unpicked fingers for me and I hope to see you soon.

I has a sick

Promise to be back in blogland as soon as I am upright.

It gets even better

Pardon my delay in blogging, but it is crunch time with our biggest event of the year, and I am busy 1) running around, 2) answering stupid questions, 3) running around, and 4) answering stupid questions.

However...now and then there are moments of out and out hilarity (witness the Rev. V.V. Bright the Second), and this week I think I had the most bizarre and funny phone call that I have ever had at work.

Technically, a volunteer had the call. Get this: a guy calls and his wife works for one of the employers that has a team at our event.

He calls to WARN US: the team is coming dressed up as pirates!

And HE DOES NOT WANT TO DRESS UP AS A PIRATE.

My volunteer is trying hard not to laugh. I am only hearing her end of the conversation.

"Well, no, I don't think you have to dress up as a pirate...did you talk to the team captain? It was his idea. Oh, I see. Well, no, you don't have to dress like that, I don't think, if you don't want to. Yes, I will let them know here that there will be about 100 people dressed up as pirates. Thank you for telling us."

I kid you not. He kept her on the phone a whole five minutes.What the fuck are we supposed to do? Tell him it's OK not to want to be a pirate?

The kicker is, the team captain is a friend of mine. I e-mailed him, subject line, "Arrrr!"

He said, "I can't believe someone ruined the surprise!"

Someone who should still be in diapers, apparently.

Welcome to my work

I love my job, but that doesn't stop it from having moments where I feel like I've woken up in the middle of a Stephen King novel.

Witness today. We have an event coming up which requires registration. Some people don't want to go online, so they send in registration forms.

A volunteer is tying away, putting these into excel, and he says, "Um."

He says, "I think you should look at this. The Rev. V.V. Bright the Second (not his real name, but yes, he filled in Rev. --- the Second) has written some more information on his registration form for you. Other than his name and contact information."

Keep in mind, it’s from an adult, but he lists “SAIF” (our state worker's comp insurance company) under “Parent/Guardian.”

By the word “walk” he writes, “Olympics, too?”

In the line for a donation, he writes “LOVE.”

And some other stuff we can’t read…

Times like this I can't decide if it's a joke or real. Or, as my friend K suggested, the result of lots of marijuana.

But last year, someone signed up for an event with the first name of a major city and the last name that means the equivalent of stinky. So we'll call her St. Paul Stinky. I thought that must be a prank until I found out this was a real person who volunteered at one of our chapters.

This year her sister signed up the entire family and called their team - wait for it - the Stinky Family.

I suppose that's better than the Stinky Feet.

And no, I am not making any of this up! I'm not that creative.  Maybe I would be after lots of marijuana, but that's not my bag.

Things I like Thursday

I like it when people are funny and irreverent. Mind you, I'm not going to start cracking jokes at a funeral, but I have no use for stuffy formality.

We have a new volunteer at my office. I didn't really know what his skills were, and he wasn't sure what he wanted to do, but we chatted and I knew he would be a good addition to my office because he has a great sense of humor. As it turns out, he has mad IT skills and is a fast learner. He said he already feels like he's a part of the crew, and that has made him really dive in and do great work.

I especially love unexpected humor. Like this e-mail that I got from my cell phone carrier, when I was inquiring about why the new phone I want is available for new customers and not current ones.

So, we had a sudden run on the Nexus and ended up with alarmingly low stock.  Meanwhile we had just sent a mailer out to our prospects offering it, and everybody was biting their nails over whether or not we would have enough to fill the orders...so we snatched it down from the member services site in hopes we would not sell out too quickly.

But I still have some.  And you can have one if you want it.  

Success! That's another thing I like: getting what I want. That is another post altogether. What have you been wanting lately?