frazzled and flowers

Tonight I am frazzled. Was told I had to come in to work early to meet with the boss. Now what did I do wrong? Turned out he just wanted me to see a patient quickly. That was fine, but the guy wouldn't shut up. And my schedule looked hideous, two hours of extra patients scheduled, a new patient scheduled in half the usual time. Then the new patient turned out to be a seven year old. I'm sorry, I do adult psychiatry ok, but there's no way I can do child psychiatry, and the therapist know that, but the therapist with ADHD and anxiety has been dropping the ball lately and so I had to cancel that appointment, and then patients' cancellations started piling up and I went from a full schedule to a lame schedule, and then back again. It took me almost an hour to get the last lady to stop crying. Finally I talked her into positive options instead of "I can't do it", and when she was able to admire my flower arrangement I knew she was good enough to go home (with enough drugs to numb her almost to oblivion, just in case). Wasn't as black and white as it sounds, and I do think the meds will help and all. But just as I was thinking my day was over and I could relax, I went out for coffee with the receptionist. She toldl me how she thinks her husband is developing alzheimers, how she has urges to cut herself, and how her multiple personalities slow her up at work and at least her coworkers don't notice "the one that is almost like me." I told her we weren't going to talk about all that stuff, because if I listen to her then she'll have to listen to me, and she really doesn't want to go there.

Oh Maaaaaannn! as they say in Captain Underpants. One more day and I can think about vacation. Right now the trip to Vermont just feels like more work. Part of me is hoping for a nonstop seven day blizzard so we won't have to go anywhere and J can spend all his time digging tunnels and we won't have to lug a car full of presents to Vermont and pretend that Santa tracked us there.

I made two flower arrangements this morning in a pressured burst of creativity before work. One is a tall vase of roses that looks almost really good. The other is a remake of an earlier arrangement. It had spiky yellow fake gerber daisies that looked fine in the box, but make the arrangement look like it had been electrocuted when it was put together. So I took out the daisies and replaced them with pink roses and baby's breath and now it looks like a bridal bouquet. Oh well. Hope A likes girly flowers.

I've promised two more arrangements by Wednesday - one for a table and one for a long shelf for medical assistants I work with. Seems like when I have to do it, I wonder what others will think and it gets harder to sense what is right. Maybe that's what the difference is between me and a professional - they know how to do it right because they learned it; I just have to use intuition to figure it out, and that doesn't always work reliably.

update

Been a long time, hasn't it? No excuses, just writers block.

Craft show went much better than expected. Lots more customers that I could have imagined. I did just fine, selling 2/3 of what I brought, and a couple more afterward. I've given away pretty much everything else. My husband is even starting to balk at how fast the flowers are leaving my house.

I've found a couple of web sites with discounted florals which I've eagery been ordering from. There goes my profits!

Been working more, too. Every day this week. Tiring, but I'm starting to get ahead financially, and Christmas doesn't feel like a burden. Even got presents for the kitties today.

We are planning a Christmas trip to Vermont, complete with a night at a hotel with a water park. That is our reward for driving two days to get there. Now we'll see if the weather cooperates.

I'm also working on, or at least thinking about, my literature and medicine work. The medical scholars are going to get an assignment to invent a character - each has a different one assigned based on the diagnoses in the short stories they've read. They then will have a writing exercise in january where they take on their character's personna, imagine them experiencing a really strong emotion - like anger, humiliation, frustration - and setting it somewhere medical. Later in the semester they will play the patient and tell their stories in a mock interview situation.

I was talking with a nurse today who was frustrated at how little her training explored the patient's perspective. She learned how to talk with regular folks, but those with pain or psychiatric problems were ignored. I gave her some stuff to read, maybe it will help a little. She is a very good nurse. She says she wants to work in a pain clinic "because someone needs to care about these people."

I also have a lead on someone else who is interested in starting a literature and medicine discussion series in Michigan hospitals. She is a nurse practitioner at U of M. She is quite busy, but is enthusiastic and would be a great collaborator. How nice to think nursing and medicine could work together, and how nice it would be to get all levels of the health care team to recognize just how much they all have in common.

Otherwise, life goes on. Jon is having temper tantrums lately, quite a new thing. If I ask him to do something he doesn't want to do, he starts whining and crying. Finally today, when he had to stop watching his movie so we could pick up Dad at work, and he started his show, and nothing I tried was working, I just said, look, I'm going to sit with my eyes closed until you are ready to go. I went in the other room and sat down, much as I really wanted to get in the car and get going, and wouldn't you know, he stopped whining and actually got ready. Maybe later I'll actually figure out what happened there.

Busy weekend with two holiday parties connected with work. Have to bring food for one. wonder if they'll mind if I just open a couple cans of baked beans. We are sending Jon to the grandparents, so that should simplify life a little.

In the meantime I'm dreaming of flowers. Shades of Pink for Anne, maybe, in a low container? A tall testosterone-laden one for the medical director in Jackson. I made a couple of assymetical ones lately - blue and yellow triangular for the neighbors and a Horvath curve one in yellow and orange for Lysne. My camera batteries are dead; I was unable to take pictures of them before they were given away. Just have to keep making more, I guess.