Wooooo Girls

Two male colleagues, one who's known me well for years, and one who's worked with me for a few weeks recently started conversations with me the same way.

Exhibit A: "Take what you will from this question, but try not to get too excited...."
Exhibit B: "Try not to get too excited, but...."

Hmm. (to their credit, my almost immediate response was heeeeeeeeeeee! So they might have had a point.)

Someone else recently told me that my Facebook profile shot looks fantastic, and that "I'm one of the smiliest people" she knows. Really?

Is that how people see me? Flying off the handle with cheering at the happy life news of colleagues?

Should I be renting a hummer now?

Or is this all more irrefutable evidence of my long-held claim??

I shoulda been a cheerleader, man. It's my calling.

Dudes.

I'm exhausted.

In a way that's hard to explain, the depths of the exhaustion. So much so that today's parking ticket almost made me cry, right there on the sidewalk beside yet another unsuccessfully plugged meter. But hopefully, the teeth will come soon, and transit strike will end, Christmas will be celebrated, the First Ministers' Meeting will happen in January, they'll think I'm doing a good job at the new work, and we'll all sleep better for it.

And also? Just a few lessons from a recent Friday night out.

First: Late night shopping without kids IS as fun as you remember it was. Especially if you're with a girlfriend.

Second: While shopping wearing the pink sock monkey jammies your mom bought you at Target for the three-generations-in-sock-monkey-jammies photo op, it's much easier to feel sane if you don't look down.

and finally:

If you are a teenage member of the 'style squad' - St. Laurent Centre, I'm looking at you - and you're tempted to treat adults wearing sock monkey jammies like crap, please remember that there's a much greater chance that adults will write to your boss to complain about your behaviour. Just sayin'.

hypochondria, explained

The thing about fibromyalgia is that it's got weird, wildly variable, traveling symptoms. Such that one day, you're fine. Miss some sleep, get a head cold, and you can't figure out why your hip hurts so, or your pinky finger is completely numb.

Anxiety? check. Short attention span? yup. Light hurts your eyes and vision blurry? uh-huh. Grouchy tummy? oh, yeah.

And there are occasionally conversations like this:

"Yeah. The [Florida] Keys are pretty terrific. I think we were in Key Biscayne, (of course this was 30 years ago or so - so my info is HARDLY current) but some people had a car and we ended up going to...... oh..... dang. The word..... you know, those places where fishes are?"

Right. Those. places. where. fishes. are. (It's called fibrofog - and also, an aquarium)

Sure, there's stuff I can do: I eat bran every day. Every. Day. I avoid caffeine after 3 to try to sleep heavier. I try to stay active.

I keep my spell check on all the time.

I wear sunglasses and sit with my back to the window in meetings.

The best thing I can do? Figure out how to keep a thesaurus next to me at all times. Oh, and maybe move the baby out of our room.

It might be time.

More lessons in culture shock

Moving from the small office building of oh, somewhere in the hundreds in population to the office complex with somewhere close to twice the population of the town I grew up in is fun.

Really. It's fun. Especially for a people-watcher such as myself.

I've felt the need to create PSAs - for example, aimed at the lady last summer who was sporting the skirt that might have been from a few seasons back. It was apparently higher waisted than when she first bought it, and yet, the slit was in the same place it used to be, only, as you might imagine with the rise in waist, a corresponding, and truly, truly unfortunate rise in slit had happened. We could call that one "Madam, we can see your ass cheeks, or: Please consider boyshorts for the workplace"

Or for the lady with the unusual chunks of colour in her otherwise white hair "I'm not sure that you should let your berry-loving bird friend sit on your head while you watch scary movies"

But the PSA aimed at me? Well, it might be titled "there's a subtle but clear difference between the way ladies who are paid to organize and deliver things and ladies who are paid to be theoretical dress." Huh. Not quite as catchy as the last two. But probably an important one to watch. I mean, I wear boyshorts and don't let birds sit on my head, so I'm probably ok there. But it's a different aesthetic. Like cool boots but no lipgloss. Dresses but no eye shadow.

Sadly, almost a Daphne vs. Velma thing.

I'm doing my best to blend, but old habits die hard. Today, I used my wiles to bend my provincial colleague to my will and sign an MOU he had been stalling on.

Do you think he'll respect me tomorrow?

Mixed Grill

That's kinda how I've thought of this week.

Saying goodbye to S - the only thing she was ever, I think, super early for, and it was this.

Starting the new job Monday. Realizing that program people are extroverts, and policy folk introverts. For the first time in my public service career, working with a team where the boys outnumber the girls. We talk about bikes a lot. The kind you pedal, not the kind with engines.

Having the following conversation with the guy showing me around on my first day in my boss' absence: "If you bring your lunch, what I do is find one of the small boardrooms and lock the door. I'm not inviting you to join me - I don't want to eat with you in the least - I'm just telling you what I do." "As a model available for imitation?" "Exactly."

Experiencing the sudden and unexpected feeling of my heart singing a a little song of hope at the work I was doing yesterday.

Seeing some really great colleagues I haven't seen in a long, long time.

Getting hugs from those very same people.

Loving Phase 4 after being in the boonies for the past 5 years.

Experiencing the public transit commute again.....

Having a minute long conversation with Auntie Maiden on the phone today - "Hi, Katie" "Hi, Auntie Maiden" "I hear you have two beautiful children now." (to the tune of MlleL yelling mamamamamamamama from her time out - heh.) "uh, yeah. They're pretty great." "And you and Husband are doing really well" "Well, I guess so." "It's really nice to be talking to you" "Yes, you too." "24 years is too long." "Yes, it has been" (by the way, again, I was 14 when you ended our relationship - I hardly think I'm to blame for it being this long. Additionally, you could have answered my email if you had wanted to be in contact.) "It's been that long. 24 years. Well, I'll give you back to your mother now" (Hah. that's exactly what Mr. Maiden said almost every phone conversation we had.)

Running face first into Mr. Maiden's anniversary. Dad - it's been a year today, and I think of you and miss you every single day.

Eating pumpkin pie with MlleL tonight, because just as it has been for MasterP's labour, MlleL's birthday, MasterP's birthday, and Valentine's Day, it's Husband's night at classes again.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Beauty tips, Katie style.

Now.

You know I love me my spanx. Love, love, love. I wear them now to pretty much any event that requires a dress. They're fabulous, AND a slip. All in one.

What I didn't love about them was the waist. It left a line, and uh, well, rolled a bit. And required some tugging throughout the evening. So you could see it under dresses. Which was the antithesis of the whole point of them.

So for Husband's cousin's wedding two weeks ago, I invested in the higher power. The ones that go all the way to your bra strap. (In my case, I think if I pulled hard enough, the top strap.)

But here's the deal. The thing with Spanx is that while they make you look sexy with your clothes on, they're remarkably unsexy on their own. Particularly if your beloved sees you putting them on.

There's not much that will change that for you.

EVEN IF THEY'RE CROTCHLESS. Spanx, I'm looking at you here. For ease when nature calls, the package said. I don't know about you, gentle reader, but I really, really don't mind pulling down my undergarments to pee. Especially if my business is put away such that I can sit down without a constant gentle reminder of the lack of secure covering.

Who the hell thought that was a good idea????

no no no.

My cell phone rang as I was helping MlleL out in the washroom, actually, on Friday morning. As we came out of the hotel bathroom, Husband announced 'your phone rang'. Uh huh. I heard it too.

Strange.

I checked the voice mail, the one I'm not supposed to have since the changing of the plans, but there it is, still blinking away. It was a work colleague and friend still on mat leave. 'You need to call me as soon as you get this', she said.

So I did, going back into the bathroom for a bit of privacy - and a seat on the toilet lid in my jammies.

'Why are they calling me', I thought 'what could be so urgent in the office?' but no. That doesn't make sense. I'm leaving in a week - I'll have been in and out in 5 weeks - not nearly long enough to have acquired the kind of expertise on something that gets you called while you're on vacation. And why would a work colleague on leave be calling anyhow?

No. Something must be wrong. An accident. Someone dying. Maybe boss-lady.

Instead, the news was of S.

Beloved, beloved, beloved S, who's prayed for health ran out after ten short weeks of marriage. Tiny, angry, headstrong, brilliant, funny S, who had too much pain for 27 years.

MlleL told me on Sunday as we were grocery shopping that I should be happy and not sad because S is happy now that she can be with her baby (who lived for 5 days in January) and with God. It's hard to argue with that kind of logic.

But I wish we didn't keep having to have these conversations.