Orange Is the New Happy

I started a new job some weeks back.  I'm finally in a job working Monday through Friday, day shift, with no on call, no weekends, no holidays, and actually encouraged to take off the day after Thanksgiving and the week between Christmas and New Year's.

Life is good.

You know, the biggest problem with working a "normal" job is figuring out what the heck to wear in the morning.  I mean, thirty plus years of wearing scrubs makes one rather lazy about what one wears.  It also limits one's wardrobe quite a bit. Keep in mind that the last year in my last job, I worked from home.  Much of that time was spent in my pajamas.  You get my meaning here?  Mama had to go on a few buying trips to find some cute things to wear in the daylight, after all those nights working from home.  Thank God, my dear husband doesn't mind his beloved shopping.

And so it was that I found myself standing in the closet this morning, trying to figure out what to wear to work.  On a Thursday (translate:  I haven't done laundry yet).  Indiana weather is wonky at this time of year, and my office is like the frozen tundra -- though my office mate runs the space heater till it's nearly Aruba, so it's difficult to know how to dress.  I wear layers.  It's the only way to survive.

I stood there staring, knowing that I was going to wear a pair of chocolate brown pants, because it's fall, and it suits.  I debated for a while, then chose a Tshirt I had bought to wear to the prison.  In Kentucky. On a Saturday night.  In Walmart.   Yes, that was a moment in which my life morphed into a country music song.  Don't judge.  I debated about that Tshirt, bought in a moment of semi-desperation, because it is orange, and I worried it would clash with my cherry red hair.  It also has red (my favorite color) and gold glitter.  In other words, it was perfect for perking me up in the not-so-middle of a long work week, on a morning the puppy woke me up forty five minutes early, not so quietly expressing her displeasure about being in her crate and not being allowed out to empty her bladder.  I grabbed it, showered and got dressed, kissed the hubby goodbye -- he muttered a buh-bye that was so quiet and gravelly that it was pretty creepy.  I'm not convinced he was awake, which made it all the creepier.  But I digress.

So I went to work and started my day by calling back my first patient.  We sat down in my office, where she promptly exclaimed "you look AMAZING!  That color is BEAUTIFUL on you."  Keep in mind that I had never met this woman in my life, and here she is, loudly telling me how said orange color looks amazing with my hair and my coloring, and that I should wear that color all the time.  Next thing you know, she asks if I have a smart phone.  I pointed at it, plugged in to the charger on my desk.  She unplugged it and said "I have to take a picture of you so you can see how pretty you look."  She took a picture of me, then said "now, send that to your husband, with the caption 'beautiful.' "

I realized later that my phone had locked up -- it hasn't been the same since I dropped it smack into the dogs' water bowl -- and the picture was lost.  That didn't stop me from smiling the rest of the day, when I thought of that sweet lady and her kind words, said with such enthusiasm.  Happiness is contagious.  Spread some.

I love my job.

Speechless

We had a home invasion this weekend.  For three days, we were held hostage while our home was rifled.  Thankfully, only minor items were taken.  I've come to expect this every time Jill comes home.

They got in at about 6:15am on Friday morning, after driving all nght from Pensacola.  She had texted and said that they were close, so I jumped in the shower really quick, so as not to meet them all stinky.  When I got out of the shower, the dogs were going nuts.  I called out, only to find that yes, they had gotten home -- and that they had gone straight to bed.  So much for seeing them before I went to work.

I got home and was met with "the look."  "The Look" is something that her brothers and I hate to see.  It's roughly the equivalent of Vesuvius threatening to blow, without the lava.  It could go either way.  Turned out that she had just found out the they needed new tires, so it wasn't a happy moment, but it was fixable.  She then informed me that she had tried "every product that you have in your shower."  She was elated to find that apparently we keep "a LOT" of products in there, and that one of them had made her now waist length hair "super soft."

I asked her if it was the dog shampoo.  She did, after all, say she'd tried everything.  

She said she was impressed by the amount of makeup I have, and that she would take it home if I wanted her to.  She especially was interested in my eye cream, because she feels that, at the ripe old age of 23, she has developed laugh lines, and this isn't acceptable.  Oye vay.  

The next morning, she decided to go to breakfast with her brothers, and informed me that she needed shoes, because all she had were her boots, and they wouldn't possibly work for her.  She swiped my Keds for the morning.  I realized while they were gone that my brush had gone missing -- not cool, since Thomas and I were going to a wedding that afternoon.  When she got home, she insisted that she had no idea where it was, despite admitting that she had brushed Michael's hair with it.  She told me to use her brush, but she didn't know where it was either.  

You see how this goes, right?

They were home for the weekend to attend another wedding, so when she came down ready to go, she asked how she looked, and mentioned "I borrowed your purse."  HUH?  I don't even use a purse.  I took one look at her and said "that's not my purse."  "Well, whose is it?"  "Michele's."  Michele is my dear husband's first wife, who passed away.  

::crickets::

I've lived with this girl for nearly 24 years, and I think I can truly say that this was the first time I have seen her speechless.  There was a long silence, during which she looked, wide eyed, up to the kitchen at Jim.  Jim let her soak it in for a moment, then said "it's fine, Jill. Michele would be the first one to say you could borrow it if you wanted to."  She said "oooooookaaaaay" as she slunk out the door.

So off they went on Sunday morning, back to Pensacola.  Some people check to make sure that their visitors don't leave socks behind, or pillows, or, God forbid, pets.  Me?  I check for my brush.

Like a Rhinestone Kidney

My dear friend has a kidney stone.  A big, sometimes stationary, sometimes moving, painful-as-hell kidney stone.  She is not amused.  


She should be, given the fact that her granddaughter has deemed her kidney stone, a "kidney rhinestone."  Brings quite the visual to an otherwise miserable experience, doesn't it?  Me being me, the first thing that came to mind was a song called "Rhinestone Kidney," set to the tune of "Rhinestone Cowboy."  Problem is,  I am completely uninspired as to what the lyrics would be.  I've tried and tried and pretty much have........nothing.


Till another friend mentioned that perhaps it should better be set to "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds."  Perfect, given how many drugs she's on right now.  As in, they can't get the light over her bed to go off.  I mentioned that she could just shoot it out, since after all, she's in Texas.   She replied something about "one and done," and I seriously started being concerned about her nurses' safety.  


"Picture yourself on a bed in the ER
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody drugs you, you move oh so slowly,
A girl with a kidney rhinestone.


A nonstop spotlight of yellow and green
Towering over your bed
Look for the girl with the glint in her side
 Cause she's the one:


Tina in the ER, with rhinestones..........."


Oh, I could go on, but the Beatles made it confusing enough the first time around, don't you think?  And though she's on two heavy duty pain meds, it still doesn't equate to the stuff the Fab Four were smokin' when they wrote the song.  That being said, I think drugs are probably the only option when you have a Texas kidney stone.  I've never had one, but I know a lot of people who have, and I think it is best described by a friend who said that her father, a very stoic Marine, found himself on all fours, yelling "Sweet JESUS, take me now."

Maybe it would've gone better for him if he too had had a kidney rhinestone.