Blessings

It's been a lousy month. We were blind-sided by church politics and will be moving soon. So while we're trying to sort out where we're moving (The front-runner is Corvallis, Oregon because it's close enough to Brian's family that we can hang out with them yet far enough away that we have a bit of distance.) I'm making a list of blessings.

A lot of people at the church have gone out of their way to show support for Brian. And perhaps responding to my "denial is bliss" approach to church politics, most of the church members haven't changed how they treat me or Shirley.

Dad's doing better and at a rehab hospital.

I don't have to work at [Fill in the Blank] hospital! Ever since the day when I had a 78 year old man who'd had his gallbladder out and he was my healthiest patient, I knew that my current job was leading to nursing burnout. (Out of any given five patients on my floor, at least one will be on hemodialysis, three will be diabetic, two will be incontinent, four will be obese, and all of them will be so weak that they can't walk safely unassisted.) Since the last move demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that working until just before the move is not conducive to sanity, I gave my two weeks notice two weeks ago. While I've got a lot of boxes to pack, not having to go spend ten hours a day at a job that makes me feel like a failure at nursing is a huge blessing.

The RNs at [Fill in the Blank] hospital have a contract! After two strikes, fifteen months without a union contract and God only knows how many ineffective negotiations between the administration and the union, [Name of Corporation], the California Nurses Association and the hospital have come up with a new contract that they both can live with. (Because irony is a cruel mistress, the announcement that they'd reached an agreement came the exact day I turned in my letter of resignation.)

I received a new box of wool! Carol over at the Sheep Shed Studio offers a pound of mixed-color Cotswold locks for $12.50! I used my mad money to buy a couple of pounds, sorted the colors according to the color wheel, and have been spinning my way through the red-orange-yellow locks. (I still have a bag of pink-purple-blue-and blue-green-yellow to process.) It's pretty much endless entertainment for twenty five dollars.

At first, the locks look like this:

Then I beat the locks with a flick carder to open them up and remove the bits of vegetable matter. (Apparently sheep hang out in places where there's grass. Who knew?)

I spin serendipitously, grabbing small handfuls of each color out of the box. Then I ply it with itself. The final yarn looks like this:

I have no idea how much I'm going to end up with for a final product. So far I've got about 250 yards and about half the box left. Should be enough for a hat and mittens or something like that.

The Mimi has figured out how to put large objects reliably in her mouth. While this means that we have to keep her in the play pen (another huge blessing, as Jim just gave it to us) while we're packing, it also means that she's growing more able to amuse herself without someone holding her.

Is sports a religion?

It's summer-time, and that means only one thing at our church--time for CCU. The Chinese Christian Union's summer sports are in full swing, and our church has at least seven different teams participating.

This means that Brian's schedule for evenings this week looks something like this:
Monday: Recreation League Volleyball 7:25pm, 8:55pm
Tuesday: Competitive League Volleyball 6:30pm, 8:15pm
Gold Division Basketball 8:30pm
Wednesday: Bronze Division Basketball 7:30pm
Friday: Youth Division Basketball 8:30pm

Now when the Good Lord was creating mankind and passing out athletic ability, He looked at my family and said, "Why make them embarrass themselves in public?" and passed us over. Consequently, I don't play sports. I scream loudly at any game I go to, but I'm not very "athletically inclined."

But sometimes, this disinclination towards sports makes me feel isolated from the rest of the congregation. I love my church, but from time to time I really feel like a fish out of water. (It's like the plot of a strange reality TV show: Take one redneck woman, place in an urban church in San Francisco...)

For example, at Friday's basketball game, I was sitting next to one of the teenage boys from our church. And this is what I heard him yelling: "Look at the muscles on Tony-he got them from Taiwan!"

Now I know full well that fourteen year old boys yell all kinds of strange things in public, whether or not it's at a sporting event. But what on earth is that supposed to mean?

Solidarity

In spite of all the insanity of the last month (which has included two patients leaving AMA, learning the hard way what "mandatory reporter" means under California law, and caring for an elderly Spanish-speaking lady who refused to believe that I was a woman until someone told her I was pregnant) I like my new job. I'm still getting used to it, and there are many days where I get done with my charting, drive home, and think "Thank God it's day shift!" but overall, I enjoy my work.

Unfortunately, I was hired on in the middle of a six-month long labor dispute between the hospital's parent company and the California Nurses Association. In mid-October, I was actually in the Kansas City airport preparing to visit family in Washington when I saw "[Name of Corporation] nurses on strike at ten Bay Area hospitals!" on CNN and realized "Oh my God! I just got hired by them!"

So as the negotiations between the union and the administration have continued and bogged down once more, I have made no secret of the fact that "I have no idea what's going on!" When they voted to strike again, it wasn't hard for me to decide what to do. I mean, how difficult is it to not show up for work?

Picketing, however, is another story. Picketing implies that not only do you support the cause enough to hold up signs and demonstrate about it, but that you are willing to share your convictions with others. And although I've been deluged with competing propaganda from both the union and the administration ("[Name of Corporation]'s Last Best and Final offer refused to address any of your concerns!" "We're sorry the California Nurses Association values their profits more than you our your patients...") I still find it difficult to filter through all the spin to sort out what the real issues are.

So I told the union rep that while I wouldn't cross the picket lines this weekend, I wouldn't picket for them, either. And I asked if they had some form of e-mailing list for keeping people up to date on what was going on. Receiving official e-mails has been a marked improvement over listening to workplace gossip for sorting out what's going on, but it leaves quite a bit to be desired.

For one thing, I'm getting sick of "solidarity." I think the concept is fantastic, but the word is starting to be just a bit over-used.

And then there's Jim. Jim goes to our church, and is also my uber-manager. I'm not sure what his official title is, but he manages at least three nursing units, one of which I work on. He's several steps above me on the org chart, and I'm reasonably certain that he's been a nurse longer than I've been alive.

He's also single-parenting two toddlers.

While my part in this whole strike and lockout mess has been fairly simple (don't show up for work) Jim has been working eighteen hour days to make sure patient care continues and all goes smoothly for the hospital. (Yet another reason why you couldn't pay me enough to work in nursing administration.)

But the church has really rallied around Jim and his kids. Families from our church have been watching his kids for the last several days. Just to make sure that in the midst of all the strike insanity, Jim has one less thing to worry about.

Union politics be damned--now that's solidarity.

Mini golf and earthquakes and new jobs, oh my!

On Friday, we were asked to go along to the monthly youth group outing. This month's activity was mini golf and arcade games at this place about 45 minutes south of us.

There were about thirty teens there, and I was very grateful that when Kimily co-ordinated rides for people, she made sure that someone picked up Brian and I. Why? Because otherwise the chances for getting lost go up exponentially.

"Go easy on the junior highers!" someone teased me before we started golfing. As if! They completely and utterly toasted my butt. I don't know what my final total score was, but I had several holes that I scored higher than 9 on. Thankfully, the kids didn't harass me too much.

Orientation for my new job started yesterday. The weird thing about pregnancy is that I can't tell if I've just got butterflies in my stomach, or if Shirley is being exceptionally active. As Shirley's main form of entertainment at this point seems to be kicking my kidneys, I was glad she decided to sleep through the majority of orientation. (If your butterflies know judo, it's probably the baby.)

I'm accepting bets for the final number of times I will need to purchase new pants before Shirley arrives in March. I'll keep a running tally on the blog, and the winner will get... something. (Probably sock yarn dyed in colors of their choice.)

I felt all domestic this evening, and made a Dutch apple pie from scratch. And just as I was putting it in the oven, we had a 5.6 earthquake. At first I was fine, because it felt just like when the Air Force jets would break the sound barrier over our house when I was a kid.

When I realized "Oh crap, that's an earthquake!" I got considerably more nervous, especially in light of the 2004 tsunami and the fact that you can see the ocean from our bedroom. But I'm guessing if the house didn't shake enough to knock over my potted plants, I probably don't have to worry about tsunamis too much.

Sick, but less whiny

Two and a half weeks later, I still have the @#$%ing cold! Thankfully, the doc gave me antibiotics and they work reasonably well. I've stopped running a fever, coughing up green stuff, and feeling like an asthma attack was going to happen at any minute. But I'm still coughing. While it's been about a week since I had a coughing fit so bad that I started puking (The first night I was back to work after I started the antibiotics, I accidentally vomited all over the staff bathroom. I appologized profusely to April the night housekeeper when I asked her if she'd mop up.) the regular coughing fits are annoying.

I had an immunocompromised patient earlier this week. (Medicalspeak for "we don't know why, but your immune system has decided to take off on an extended holiday, so don't be surprised if you get deathly ill from some common problem that doesn't trouble most people.") She asked me why everyone else was wearing gloves before they cared for her, but I was wearing a mask as well. "Does this mean my family should be wearing masks too?"

"I have a cold," I told her. "I've had it for nearly three weeks now, so it seems to like me. But I don't imagine you want it." She agreed that this was a reasonable precaution.

We got to hear Genghis' heartbeat at the doctor's office visit. Apparently, in spite of all the worry I've had over losing eight pounds due to morning sickness while not being able to take in much calories, he's doing all right. Since the morning sickness has eased a bit (when I'm not coughing) I've started gaining the weight back. I'm only about two pounds heavier than my usual non-pregnant weight, but the baby bump is growing steadily.

I've been knitting EJ a pair of socks for his birthday next month. (As usual, I'm too lazy to go find the camera.) I'd forgotten just how hard it is to knit a full size pair of men's socks in Army desert tan. Cursed short attention span!

On Sunday, we went to a different church to watch Nancy, one of the gals I work with, dedicate her baby to the Lord. She adopted Lydia from Guatemala earlier this year, and she is a beautiful little girl! (The usual toddler preference for pink coupled with her dark hair means that the resemblance to Dora the Explorer (her favorite character) is striking.) It's been wonderful to see Nancy's joy at motherhood these last few months. When I do get around to downloading pics, I need to post the ones I took of the service.