The post-pandemic cold virus is no joke. Also! Every time our family falls ill, I harbor bitterness toward my children who bounce back after a day, while I barely feel human after a week.
Don’t care how old or how healthy I get… I will always crave a fast food spicy chicken sandwich when I have a cold.
Jolene is in her new home. The lady cat is in her new home. The boy cat will go back to his old home just as soon as his owner moves into a pet-friendly apartment. The leather chair we loved for years and no longer had rooms or use for has found a new home. Carpets have been scrubbed and couch covers have been washed. There is sadness here, but there is hope and even expectation and hope that accompanies fresh, clean starts.
I joined a book club, for both the accountability and comradery, but I am struggling to keep up with the pace despite having ample time to read throughout the day. I find myself dismayed by the decay of my attention span and desire to be in a paper book, after years of scrolling and filling my moments with fast media. The consequence and cost of the smart phone have come home to roost in my very brain, but I am determined to rehabilitate her.
I sat through a presentation today regarding my hospital’s master facility plan, a ten-year process by which we hope to expand services and upgrade facilities in a way that serves our community. I appreciate the care and effort taken by a locally-owned hospital that answers to tax-payers and elected officials who live and work right here. What struck me, though, was when my boss drew attention to our financial trends. We’ve been paying off debt for years without investing anything at all in our future.
Sometimes, you’ve gotta do both. I’m not just talking about money.
Two years ago, I put my name in the hat for a position at large on the medical executive committee at work, just so I could learn the ropes and meet the people. The voting ended up taking forever, and I mean forever. Where it was supposed to take ten minutes as part of the regular meeting, the vote went for two hours or so. Everyone sat there fumbling through recounts because things were split over a few names, one of which was mine. I didn’t win, but I was more embarrassed about sitting there during the delayed debacle then I was about not having a seat at a table I didn’t even know existed yet. A bunch of docs suggested rank choice voting for the next election, and it’s been groaned and laughed about at most meetings since.
Tonight was the annual medical staff meeting, with a nice dinner and also another experience with electing medical officers. This time, however, I didn’t run for anything. In my current role, I’m at a few tables already. I get the exposure and experience and influence I hoped for from the beginning. I know the doctors and have the community I longed for.
Instead, I voted along with the rest of them, with anticipation and confidence. And this time, we were truly done in ten minutes. I doubt anyone even remembered that I was the reason for their election-that-would-not-end two years ago.
I ran back and forth between our town’s rotary health fair and our town’s Nutcracker rehearsal all day, one held in the high school gym and the other in the theater. Then we came home and giggled a little and watched the Hornets almost beat the Nets.
