Sick

It's taking me longer than usual to get over this cold; seems like it's really sticking with me, and it's driving me nuts.

There are times I really am torn about my job. I was just ready to start screaming the other day. My boss leaves me a Christmas present and thanks me for all my hard work.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually fooling them into thinking everything is fine. My managers have been another reason why I've stayed so long, admittedly, but they've still got to please upper management, and the whole thing is a mess. We have too much management. Ridiculous amounts of metrics that only have the purpose of looking pretty. We should be all out there finding out about what the customer wants. Management be damned - they're not the ones paying for the product.

I'm on vacation today; I managed to get a little Christmas shopping done. Amazingly, Christmas shoppers aren't pissing me off this year. In fact, very little is. Maybe I'm looking at the world differently, but I think I've also been more approachable to people. I was fumbling around with a large box in front of a store today, and just about to start rolling the cart out to my car on the far end of the lot (I prefer to walk than jockey for a space). A man approaches me and asks if he can help me.

It's kind of funny, actually. After the self defense courses and getting a good idea of what's out there, I've become very suspicious of society as a whole, but not of individuals within it. If anything, I am more likely to trust because I'm more confident in myself, my judge of character in a glance, and my ability to handle a situation if it went wrong. I certainly can't say I'm a badass, but I would pity the fool that thinks they're dragging me into their car.

This guy seems like a nice guy. I can probably get the box in my car myself (it's not heavy), but he's so earnest that I figure what the heck, if nothing else we can chat on the way to the car. I tell him that I usually do the liberated independant woman routine, but that I'll give in this time. He laughs, and helps hold the very large box onto the cart while we navigate the lot. I'd already turned a corner too quickly in line and managed to tip the box off, so help is always good. We chatted for a bit; his birthday is tomorrow, and he'll be 62. He's off to the liquor store to get the last of what he and his wife need to celebrate the holidays.

The box didn't fit in the car, no matter how much wiggling and shoving we attemped, so I decided to do what I did last time something didn't fit in the car - we just took it out of the box. Without that, it slid in fine, but we had this box. He insisted on taking it back up to the store for me, as it was on the way to his car (which was all the way on the other side).

Sometimes I forget how nice those little connections with people are. I feel sometimes that we get so rushed this time of year that the mass of people is just one more pain to deal with, and then you get that reminder that every one of those people are just like me - too much to do, not enough time, and all just carrying on in life. I smiled all the way home because of that man.

I'm sitting around the house watching Trauma: Life in the ER on Discovery Health. Seeing if I can scare myself. More than anything, I wonder, how can we all get into our cars each day and get out there, given what could happen? It's amazing.

Speaking of hospitals, I'll be in one tomorrow, and am actually really excited about it (which amused the preop nurse and my doctor, and scared a few other people). It's a very minor surgery to remove a lipoma on my back, but it's my first actual surgery so I'm actually really curious how it'll go. I've gotten lots done ahead of time; cleaning the house, making sure all the animals are good to go for the next couple of days (just in case I don't want to move much), getting lots of easy to cook food in the house, doing some laundry, the shopping, and a little practice on my instrument of choice (as well as a lesson today). Mostly doing the stuff I know hubby won't do and making sure that stuff was in order.

They don't want me to eat after midnight tonight, and I'll probably be out of the surgery center around 2pm. I'm going to eat the nurses if there's not a sandwich there.