Odds and Ends

Today I discovered that the blog I've been hopefully awaiting each day, Big Mama Doc, was delayed because Big Mama had a stroke. She is away from home in a hospital with minimal use of her left extremities, if I understand the post correctly. When I saw this I was struck by two things. 1) technically I have never met this woman, but I feel like I know her and I feel grief for her and her situation. Blogging is an amazing thing that I can feel that for someone I have never met, spoken to personally or watched on television. 2) What a terrific lady that she still took the time to let her little (not really so little) internet support group in on the situation. While obviously we are all including her in our sincere prayers, I honestly feel she let us know so we would be less worried than we were. We hadn't heard from her and we noticed. I admire that in her, that she let us know. My prayers continue to be with her and her family.

Yesterday Nana, Lindsey and I went to Outback for dinner. I had a real craving for the Coconut Shrimp. We all ordered, and had just gotten our salad when Lindsey squeaked, then Nana squeaked and then I squeaked and we all got out of the booth. A Cockroach had emerged from the side of the table (by the window ledge) and run across the table. First at Lindsey, then Nana and then me, hence the order of squeaks. A Waitress saw it, and as we got out of the booth she ran for the manager. He appeared quickly and apologized profusely. Poor guy. It was his second day as manager. They moved us to another table and paid for our dinner. We left a substantial tip for the waitress and we will go back there. Clearly the roach came from outside, and frankly this part of the country, that's just life. If it had been on the plate, in the food or if we had been close to the kitchen my feeling would have been different, but really it was no big deal over all. The thing that struck me was that they seemed to feel we were being really nice about it. We didn't scream, we didn't threaten and for the most part we did not make a scene. Kind of made me think about what more would have been accomplished if I had carried on. If I'd left in a huff, I would have had to pay for my meal somewhere else and wouldn't have gotten my shrimp. If I'd carried on but stayed, my meal still would have been paid for, but they would have resented me and it's hard to go back to having a nice time with family and friends if you are all worked up. Getting mad and acting mad are not always bad things, but so often times they are not necessary to the situation and often make it worse. For the most part, I feel bad for that poor young manager. He looked like he took it personally. We have been going to that restaurant for two years, that won't change.

I still have not seen hide nor hair of the male new possibility. I refuse to contact him though. To quote John Crichton in Farscape, "It's a question of balls, ball's in his court." I plan to stick firm to this. I imagine if I called or e-mailed we would be talking up a storm again, but I refuse to settle. It is sad to me that people do not meet commitments. A dear friend of mine consoled me the other day that my generation and those after are different than those of my fathers' and grandfathers'. He seems to think I will get called. Like my brother he says that to many, even with a specific time commitment stated, time is a more elastic concept. Another friend of mine says she hopes I tell this gentleman (if) when he calls that he hurt my feelings by his behavior. I pointed out to her that if in our first phone conversation I went after him about a lack of commitment I would be guaranteeing it would be our last phone call. Mostly, for whatever reason, I guess I am just disappointed, I thought there was some real potential in this one. Life goes on.

Camp starts in less than four weeks. This means several things. 1) my sleep is going to become a rare and unnatural occurrence. 2) I get two months off of my old life in exchange for a completely different one. 3) I get to wear scrubs everyday and don't have to worry about looking professional or polished beyond that (the scrubs are always clean, have a logo on them and therefore are the simplest apparel set-up I've ever know). 4) No TV for 8 weeks. As it's rerun season, I don't mind, plus I find each year after camp I consistently watch less and less TV anyway. It's kind of a weaning thing. 5) I will have to once again immerse myself in the world that is male psychology.

This is the best and worst thing about camp. In so many ways guys are so much more simple than girls. I've often explained that dealing with girls is often like a one-month miniseries. Two hours every night, each episode building on the last and we all cry when it's over. Boys are sitcoms. Thirty Minutes of stand alone comedy and we laugh all the way through. For the most part that's true. You can have a screaming fit with one of my boys one day and the next day it's like nothing happened. Some people might see this a shallow, I see this as efficient. We get it out of our system and move on. Occasionally real issues/dramas occur, but they are the exception nto the rule. If someone doesn't say hi to you in passing you don't stress about what their agenda is or if they are avoiding you. We don't tend to keep records on favors. You either help or you don't and we all just get stuff done. Now, on the other hand, when I am having a bad day, no one gets it. If I think someone was insensitive about something, no one really is concerned. The same reason that they are easy to get along with makes it hard to explain to them why I feel the way I do about things sometimes. This summer, according to the current plan, I will be only one of six females on staff. A 35 year old woman (who will run the office, the job I had three years ago before becoming medic), two high school girls who work in the kitchen (one is autistic and has some hygiene issues that I will be in charge of addressing this year), another high school girl for regular program staff and a college student who may be in charge of a program department. The four girls will live in a house together, the other woman lives in a house with her husband and I live in the administration building in the clinic. I'm starting to get pumped about this summer. Wait till y'all hear the stories. It is one of the reasons I am most excited about blogging.

Today was the last day of End of Course Tests for my subject. I hate standardized tests. Now the fun projects can begin for the last three weeks. It should be good. Further, we only have 17 days of school left!