doctor visit

Finally headed to a doctor today, only to get confirmation it was only a cold. I had thought so, then my throat started hurting, so better to check.

The thing is, with 4 pregnancies in 5 years, 2 children, plus 27 months of breastfeeding, I haven't seen anyone but my OB, the RE, or the nurse practitioner/lactation consultant at the pediatrician, in a long time. Anything I needed, the OB could cover, including two rounds of antibiotics with my daughter (bronchitis in the beginning, sinus infection near the end).

So, found a 24-hour clinic near my home, they took insurance, they had appointments, and I was in and out in no time with a negative strep test and perfectly clear lungs. And so I am off to bed to try to catch up on some rest and hoping it does all just clear up soon.

And you know what? It was weird to go into the doctor, see someone, and walk out. I had to fill out the patient history form and I tensed halfway through thinking there'd be the how many pregnancies/how many children question, but it wasn't there. I was just a patient with a cold.

work tears

So, I burst into tears today at work. Awesome. Back story: I work remotely for a company based far away. I'm organizing an event with one of the head guys. I'm also organizing an event the very same week with THE head guy. Let's call them Top Dog and Nearly Top Dog. These two have not entirely been getting along lately, and the Top Dog called me last week furious I had done something Nearly Top Dog wanted me to do. We worked it out. Yesterday, I did something for Nearly Top Dog's event that Top Dog wanted me to do - and was something I thought was a good idea and should be done and maybe Nearly Top Dog wouldn't like it but tough. So Nearly Top Dog calls me this morning and lets me have it. I apologize, I weave around, I explain, I invoke Top Dog - but Nearly Top Dog was having none of it. Why? he keeps asking me, why would you do that without asking me? (Because I knew you'd shortsightedly say no and it's the right thing to do and I'm empowered to make these decisions, jerk, is the technically correct answer.) So finally I say, I...I...I....I can't talk to you right now (obviously crying) and hang up.

My initial thought was good, maybe he'll feel bad he made me cry. But then I really did start to cry. I'm sick and yet working hard on these two events and these two jokers had been putting me in the middle for weeks of whatever it was that was going on between them and Wah!!!!!

So after I calm down I think, great, now what. I need to call Nearly Top Dog back and apologize for hanging up and (hoping he feels bad) just agree to move past this. Before I can, Nearly Top Dog calls. He apologizes, I apologize, he tells me there's been a lot going on in the office, tensions are high, leadership of the office is in question, etc, but that he and Top Dog had a big clearing the air meeting yesterday and things were back on track and obviously I had gotten caught in the middle. So we're all good. (and it is all good - I do love this job, and I love it exactly because it is challenging.)

But back to my first reaction when I hung up. It was definitely good, I hope he feels badly that I am crying. I've worked for some powerful women in my day - one of whom told me never, ever cry. Another of whom said, a good cry, strategically played, is a powerful tool in a working woman's arsenal. I think I've absorbed lesson #2. What do you think of crying in the workplace? Verboten? Or, when used wisely and not too often, a good strategic move?

The creme

The Best of the Adoption/Loss/Infertility Blogs of 2009

I was just reading the instructions for the Creme de la Creme list 2009 style. I've never participated, but, well, why not? So I'll go through my archives and see if anything jumps out at me.

Or maybe I'll try extra hard to write something meaningful this month of blog posting. Today is not that day, however. I don't know what I've got, but it is terrible. And lingering. Last week I was blah and lethargic and felt like I had a slight cold. Over the weekend, it turned into full blown cold, plus cough. Sunday and Monday were horrible. And when the baby is sick, too....well, let's just say the get plenty of rest thing is, well, not exactly happening. Every day I think I must be getting better, but every day is blah. And then yesterday my throat started hurting like crazy. So do I have more than a cold?

Anyway, anything I've written this past year that you think is great? Are you submitting?

My November Guest

My November Guest

MY Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane. 5

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist. 10

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why. 15

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise. 20

- Robert Frost, A Boy's Will, 1915

sick

*cough*cough*cough*

See you tomorrow.

oversharing

Yesterday I went to a jewelry party, hosted by one of the moms from my daughter's summer co-op, featuring jewelry made by the mom I like. The one that shared with me this summer what a lousy year + she's been having, with cancer, miscarriage, financial troubles, marital troubles, infertility due to the cancer, etc. I told her a little of my troubles, over e-mail, and said I thought life was easier when you were able to share more that life can be really, really tough.

Well, I was there at the end of the party, so for a few minutes we were alone and she again mentioned some of her worries, but said she thoght it was finally getting better. And I sympathized with her, and said it was so hard when you're in the shitstorm to see a way out of it, but that way would come. She told me our exchange this summer had meant a lot ot her and she was really touched we had connected, and how much she appreciated it. We continued to talk, and her marriage is tough right now, because her husband, who had been the breadwinner, is having a lot trouble finding work (he is a consultant) and money is tight and he is depressed and talks about how much better off she'd be if he left, or even if he died and they had the insurance money. So we talked about husbands and their weaknesses and somehow I ended up saying that what I had not told her was that my marital problems included my husband having an affair. She was shocked, genuinely shocked.

I walked home thinking I had overshared. That it was too much, and we weren't really that good of friends, and it wasn't entirely my secret to share - that I had somehow betrayed my husband's trust by sharing. Women's friendships, right, are built on sharing. And men can spend all day with each other and come away not knowing anything about the other guy's life. But is this too much? Is it my secret to share? If she feels very strongly, she might not want anything to do with my husband, so even though we haven't socialized much, any thought of us getting together is gone?

My husband viciously betrayed my trust 2 years ago. He knows I've shared with friends and knows I've needed the support from friends. He probably does not think I still share. And I rarely do. And I know he thinks it's in the past and done. He does not know how present it sometimes is.

I hate the greeting card industry

I mean seriously. I was going to do a post about the start of NaBloPoMo and how I was doing it again this year but didn't have as much going on etc etc etc. Last year was the horrible in-laws and then the wonderful birth. The year before was my marriage, and part of my sanity, dissolving before my eyes. We'll see what this year holds, but I'm sure something will turn up. But then my dumb-ass mother in law, the most passive agreesive idiot I know, had to turn up the crazy (albeit only slightly) to kick off the month.

So my husband's birthday was last Monday. No acknowledgement. Later in the week there were two greeting cards in the mail to the two kids, each with a Halloween card, each with $5.

This afternoon, she sends my husband an e-mail. "Did you get the cards? Cause I hate sending money through the mail and jsut wanted to make sure they were received."

Which translates roughly into, 'pay attention to me, it's been too long with no craziness and I can't stand being ignored.'

Husband says to me, if she wants to see her grandkids, she has to do better than did you get the cards. How about I'd like to move forward and resolve our problems and be in my grandchildren's lives again - or at least meet my grandson. Then he snorted and said, my counselor was right: pathological.

I linked to all their/her craziness with greeting cards in this post. Her passive aggressive I'm reaching out ot you because I sent you a card bullshit drives me nuts. That we're the bad guys because we don't acknowledge her cards. Is there anyone on this planet who puts more stock in the greeting card industry than this woman? Garr.

Well, so that was my Sunday. We need to use some back channels to make sure the in-laws know we're off to visit my parents for Thanksgiving, and thus the little guy's first birthday. Which I am sure will only piss her off more, so maybe buys me yet a few more months of not having to deal with her.