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Fortnight From the Black Lagoon
Jul. 8th, 2008 09:35 pmMy life is usually fairly...busy. One could even say, intense. A normal week includes 54 hours spent working, more than that spent parenting, elderly parents, an incredibly large extended family, and a regular dollop of random insanity.
Two weeks ago, someone I know found 10 abandoned 7 toed kittens. In a characteristic show of bad judgement, I sent my poor husband to look at them. Now, an average person LOOKS at kittens. You can resist even a perilously cute kitten from a few feet away. My husband never chooses animals by appearance. He sat down on the floor next to the box of rescued kittens and IGNORED them.
Within 5 minutes, a gray kitten had crawled onto his lap and fallen asleep, and a black kitten had scaled up to his shoulder. And we have two new kittens. The black one was not yet eating solid food, and needed 3 days of cream of wheat mixed with milk and yogurt before he graduated to kitten chow. Both had earmites and fleas, one had conjunctivitis, but fortunately they were both Feline Leukemia negative. They've been treated, and are slowly emerging from quarantine. The grown cats are not amused.
This was just settling down to a normal 80 hour stretch of weekend call when Hotels.com called to ask us if we had purchased $1700.00 worth of hotel rooms. You guessed it; our credit card had been stolen by someone in Ghana. Coincidentally, we had recently paid off all our credit cards, and Charles had cut up all but one.
Tuesday was a comedy of errors involving an orthodontist, hair appointments, mini vans with empty gas tanks, non-functioning ATMs, and a vomitting child. I was grateful to have my day off end.
Thursday, my Mom was admitted to the hospital with a new diagnosis of congestive heart failure. On a HOLIDAY WEEKEND. The only bright spot was that it was to a little community hospital, so she wasn't at the mercy of Interns with THREE DAYS of experience! (The new batch of Interns always starts July 1st. Guess who gets stuck with the holiday?)
Today, my Mom is home, life just starting to calm, and...my nine year old's camp called. She'd been bitten by a bee (they thought) and was having some kind of reaction (they guessed), so they had called 911. (That part they were clear on.) So off we took...and beat the ambulance to the hospital by over 10 minutes. A very, very long 10 minutes.
So, Leah was fine, and incredibly brave about the IV and the ambulance ride, and got spoiled by the staff in a way she probably would have been even if it hadn't been Mommy's hospital. (And I know there were people in the waiting room thinking, why does that woman in the ratty t-shirt get to go straight through to the nurse's station? I just don't look like a doctor on my days off.)
Charles asks me how, with all this incredible stress, I could even dream of adding in the stress of a Pern club. And I think, because writing is CONTROLLED chaos. And don't we all need the illusion of control?
Two weeks ago, someone I know found 10 abandoned 7 toed kittens. In a characteristic show of bad judgement, I sent my poor husband to look at them. Now, an average person LOOKS at kittens. You can resist even a perilously cute kitten from a few feet away. My husband never chooses animals by appearance. He sat down on the floor next to the box of rescued kittens and IGNORED them.
Within 5 minutes, a gray kitten had crawled onto his lap and fallen asleep, and a black kitten had scaled up to his shoulder. And we have two new kittens. The black one was not yet eating solid food, and needed 3 days of cream of wheat mixed with milk and yogurt before he graduated to kitten chow. Both had earmites and fleas, one had conjunctivitis, but fortunately they were both Feline Leukemia negative. They've been treated, and are slowly emerging from quarantine. The grown cats are not amused.
This was just settling down to a normal 80 hour stretch of weekend call when Hotels.com called to ask us if we had purchased $1700.00 worth of hotel rooms. You guessed it; our credit card had been stolen by someone in Ghana. Coincidentally, we had recently paid off all our credit cards, and Charles had cut up all but one.
Tuesday was a comedy of errors involving an orthodontist, hair appointments, mini vans with empty gas tanks, non-functioning ATMs, and a vomitting child. I was grateful to have my day off end.
Thursday, my Mom was admitted to the hospital with a new diagnosis of congestive heart failure. On a HOLIDAY WEEKEND. The only bright spot was that it was to a little community hospital, so she wasn't at the mercy of Interns with THREE DAYS of experience! (The new batch of Interns always starts July 1st. Guess who gets stuck with the holiday?)
Today, my Mom is home, life just starting to calm, and...my nine year old's camp called. She'd been bitten by a bee (they thought) and was having some kind of reaction (they guessed), so they had called 911. (That part they were clear on.) So off we took...and beat the ambulance to the hospital by over 10 minutes. A very, very long 10 minutes.
So, Leah was fine, and incredibly brave about the IV and the ambulance ride, and got spoiled by the staff in a way she probably would have been even if it hadn't been Mommy's hospital. (And I know there were people in the waiting room thinking, why does that woman in the ratty t-shirt get to go straight through to the nurse's station? I just don't look like a doctor on my days off.)
Charles asks me how, with all this incredible stress, I could even dream of adding in the stress of a Pern club. And I think, because writing is CONTROLLED chaos. And don't we all need the illusion of control?
