Lagging and Dragging

This week has been a beast.
And it isn't over yet, though it feels like I've lived through it twice.
Did you wake up on Monday and go "mmm Wednesday!" too?

I saw my surgeon for a follow up on Tuesday and it was really really good.
They said I'm recovering very well, and faster than they expected, and that my bite is just a few millimeters off from where it should be, so all in all the surgery was a success.
They'll do an xray in a month so we can see if the bone and plate and screws have all become friends yet.  I still need to name my new metal additions. :)

Work has been incredibly busy, but not the kind of busy that energizes and rewards you, oh no.
This is the kind that leaves you wanting to lie flat on your back at 1 in the afternoon, or eat your weight in snack food (I've done both).
Hence the not writing much lately.
I am the manager for the Northwest region, and Part I rolled out this week, and Part II rolls out on Monday, so I have been swamped with that, in addition to training to two new women for my team.
They could not be any different--one of them is in her late 40s and is a husky blonde that wears snow boots and trucker hats almost every day (and often rolls her eyes at my high heels).  She is a divorced, skydiving Chicagoan with a kid, and likes to get trashed by herself nearly every night.  She gnaws on beef jerky at her desk and eats onion sandwiches a lot.

The other is fresh out of high school, a willowy vegan that must weight 80 pounds (honestly, I could snap her like a twig), has long reddish hair, and wears flowing skirts and little gloves with cutouts for the fingers every day.  She is single, doesn't drink, shudders when she hears us talking about anything remotely raunchy, and spends her evenings doing a "welcome committee" thing for people who have just moved to the city.

They sit next to each other, around the corner from the rest of us (we are spread out as a department, and are supposed to be relocating soon to a centralized area), and they don't talk to each other.
Which makes it awkward when I am trying to have a conversation with both of them at the same time.  It is an experience.
Especially when they call me on the phone and I can hear them clear as day without my phone, as they are literally around the corner.  And they could walk to my desk in 7 seconds.

If only February were as cool as this Medievalesque image depicts. If only...  Because there are fish in the sky.

I'm going to blame it on February.
DIE FEBRUARY, DIE NOW.
We haven't been friends and I'm not going to try now.
Trying to like February on the last leg of it is like in high school, when you're signing yearbooks and people are like "OH MY GOD, WHY WEREN'T WE EVER FRIENDS, YOU'RE AMAZING?!"
and you're like "umm... too late pal. But thanks anyway."

Visualizing my Feelings

Today I feel like Nick Nolte driving a Go-Kart.

Observe:

 

You get me?

Testosterone Refuge and The Wash Out

I really dislike being yelled at.  Which I feel is normal for most people (you don't enjoy being yelled at.. do you??).  But I'm getting used to it.
I am actually getting good at it! I remember to stop letting the insults and feelings get sucked into my lungs where they hammer against my chest and make my heart hurt.  Instead, I focus on the yeller's forehead becoming dewy with sweat, the way their nostrils flare, and generally how ridiculous they look or sound. 

I am becoming pro at this whole "being yelled at" because of a co-worker in my department that thrives on this stuff.  She is one of those "loud and proud" big girls that thinks being in her 30s in a department that is mostly younger than her puts her in charge.  Even though she has been passed up for promotions twice and I have authority over her.
That infuriates her and fuels her desire to yell at me, as a way of grasping at the power she doesn't have.  In a way, I sympathize with her, and how limited she must feel her options are.

But my sympathy quickly evaporates when I come into the office in a buoyant mood on a Thursday morning and am greeted by her shouting and literally pointing her finger at me--jabbing it into the air as if she can push the molecules into my face.

And she does it in front of the entire department to get attention and use it to her advantage; she loves intimidation and her wicked little plan is working.  At this point, I am the only one in my department (including my boss) that will stand up to her.

And yet, it is exhausting.
It interferes with my work and my mood, even when I try to put up a wall.

After her shrieking at me the second I took off my coat, I went downstairs to "get a coffee."
In all truth, downstairs is what I consider my TR.  Testosterone Refuge.

There are 2 guys in my entire department, which currently has 15 people.
And one of the guys thrives so much on the gossip, and helps propagate it, that I count him as a woman, and therefore part of the problem.
We have an excess of estrogen.  And also too many Alpha Dogs (well Alpha Bitches... to use the tecnhical and also accurate term) in my department.  There isn't just the personal gossip and snarky attitudes going on that any women in the workplace have; there is hard-core slander that threatens all of our jobs, and professional sniping.  It even negatively impacts the work we do and therefore gives our department (which is entirely new) a bad reputation.  There are whispers about all of us being dumped overboard so the company can completely rebuild our department.  That is how bad it is.

I work on the Second Floor.  It is teeming with women.
But the first floor, where my husband works, it is mostly men (especially in the Information Tech department that he works in).  And I can breathe the free air down there!
I've always been more comfortable with guys, and considering we hang out with a lot of them on the weekends, it is always refreshing to my spirit to sneak down the back stairwell.
I grab a cup of coffee from my buddy who grinds and brews his own, since the stuff the company provides is absolute crap.  He formed an official Coffee Clutch.  It is serious business.

Then I make the rounds and chat with a few people, and pretty soon my faith is restored and I am ready to march back up to my desk and let the sniping bitches and their attitudes roll off my back like so much water.
Then the head of the Help Desk grabs my eye, as I am ready to hop back upstairs.
We talk about some issues that have been going on, which have been complicated by the bullshit in my department.
He tells me, "wait for the wash out."  I don't know what he is talking about, and as he elaborates, I get it: all of the drama and bullshit can't last.  There will always be new drama and bullshit, but in the end, it all washes out.  Each day is a new day and there will always be a wash out, though it takes time.  Soon all of this animosity and pettiness will be like a wash--a dried out riverbed with only the memory of water.  Which is why I have included photos of washes in this post.
 I know I am not describing this as clearly as I understand it in my mind, but I am going to make that my new term: "Wait for the Wash Out."  It is like "the light at the end of the tunnel" or the "silver lining"... but fresher!

Getting to Know Me

So here is a post with a random conglomeration of stuff about me, so you can get to know me better.
I've included some odds-and-ends photos as well !

• When I hear the term "PR" I think not of Public Relations, oh no.
  I think of parties and Pop Rocks.  Simultaneously.
• Drama literally gives me a headache.  Not just an expression or an annoyance, but when I am smack in the middle of some bullshit going on, I get a throbbing in my temples and nausea soon follows.  Guess I wasn't built for reality TV.
• I love maps.  Love them.  And everything related to them.  I could stare at maps all day! Basic hand drawn maps, Google Maps, brainstorm maps, paintings that are map-like, road maps, geological maps...
  This weekend at one of my favorite local shops I found a mug that is a map of London in the most delightful colors and format (not a Tube map, but an actual map with historical sites and roads and the Thames and all).  They also had a plate with Paris mapped on it, and it had gold flakes for particularly special places (like Les Invalides).  I fell in love.  But dang, them maps on china is expensive!!
• I enjoy painting.  Mostly acrylics and watercolor, and I wish I were better at both.  I suck at the human figure so I mostly do abstract and landscapes.  And abstract landscapes.
• I love the term "Hipster Doofus" (bless you, Seinfeld), and use it as frequently as I can.  I feel it is particularly applicable in today's society.  Particularly when one is at the Apple store.
• Sometimes late at night I will suddenly grab my phone, sloppily type in a poem that has come to me, save it in my notes, then fall back asleep.  I find these poems later on and don't usually remember writing them.  They aren't too terrible.
• I love graphic Ts, but the ones I really adore are often overpriced.  For instance, this Great Gatsby T that I saw at the University of Utah bookstore last year--it has the old book cover, that one in vivid blue with the glowing eyes and that luridly bright city below.  I absolutely love it! And I had to have it but they only had XXL and it runs large anyway and as I didn't want an unfitted Gatsby dress that drags on the floor, I didn't buy it.  But this weekend at the new Weller's bookstore I saw it again (along with many a great other literary T that made me salivate mentally) and Eli and I GOT it.  Even though it was $30.  For a T-shirt.  I'm a freak.
  And that reminds me - I absolutely love this post about kids and their impressions on a book based on the cover. 

 One kid said about Gatsby: "I think it's a book about a haunted theme park and it stars a magical magic guy and he's good and evil and he's trying to get rid of the ghosts. And I think at the end, since it's haunted by a ghost, he tried to make the park go on fire and it did. "  And in a way, he is oh so right.  See more of them here.

• I'm addicted to the Dove peanut butter chocolate things.
• And fresh blueberry muffins.  I bake them on the weekends and get some dairy-free butter smeared on them and gobble them up while they're still piping hot.
• Drinking a cold Diet Coke is an extravagance to me.
• I despise the term "fiscal cliff", Kobe Bryant, and foam in all forms.
• I taught myself how to make killer jalapeno poppers.
  People BEG me for them (mainly my husband, who is the reason I decided to figure out how the make them in the first place). If I'm feeling really saucy I spice them up with 2x crushed red pepper and bacon bits.
• I love Southern accents, animals with big personalities, and rocks. 
  If I see a rock shop I have to pull over.
• I get car sick. Well, motion sick in general.  But most commonly in the car.
  Hand-held camera type movies also make me sick.
• I have far too many lippies.
• Some of my current goals are to find and get into a house this year, stop dropping the "F Bomb" before noon, and get into shape.
• Bookstores are like crack cocaine to me. If I were addicted to crack. 
• My aunt gave me a rabbit puppet for Christmas and it is eerily real.
  Some nights I make it sing and dance to music to scare the shit out of my husband.
• My best friend lives in Plymouth, England.  Permanently.  When I tell people that my best friend lives there they think it is a temporary thing.  Nope. She is English.  But it will be my life goal to get her to move here! We text every day and try to FaceTime as often as possible.  But FaceTime sucks, and the best solution is for her to just live here.  With me and Eli.
• In our apartment we don't have a washer/dryer.  This is the bane of my existence.
• Halloween is my favorite holiday.
• My stomach is almost always gurgly and weird and has embarrassed me on numerous occasions by making loud, strange noises.
• I adore thunderstorms, but we rarely get them in Utah.  The only thing I like about spring is the rain.
• I want to build a kickass treehouse someday soon. Hopefully when we buy a home there will be a big old tree suitable to this purpose.
• I completely suck at taking my prescription meds.  I'll accidentally stop my antibiotics, or forget it is time for a pain pill until I'm in agony.  I've tried pill boxes, setting alarms on my phone, etc. Nothing helps.
• I am a tea freak.  I suppose that should be Tea Freak because it is official and serious.
  I'm on my 4th tea of the day and I have more in my desk. Green, black, white, red, herbal, rooibus, hot, cold, sweetened, I'm in.  All of it.
  
• I love Hall and Oates. And the angry cat.

And I hate trying to move photos around on Blogger.
It shouldn't be this hard (Google, take note!).

Got any other questions about me??

xX  Mare

A Perk Up in the Work Up

I will be the Team Lead (a silly term for Manager) in my department for several regions.
This morning I've been building my own map of said regions using Google, and Anchorage is one of them.
When this map came up I gasped.

It really is the little things that take your breath away and change your perspective.
And it is reassuring to know that there will always be something in this world that can take my breath away unexpectedly.
Even when I am camped at my desk with a sore jaw clacking away on my keyboard and mourning my shortage of coffee.

I mean, look at those colors !! That bay!  It makes my wheels all wheely and stuff.

That's Me

I'm the girl who, on her first day back after a week off, tried to make Ramen on the stove at work. And was so entranced by the rolling boil that I almost let it boil over.
When I tried to strain the water out I ended up spilling a lot of the noodles in the sink.
The wrong end of the sink, with no drain (what is the point of that?!).

The girl who now lives in fear of a corporate email titled "to the person who spilled Ramen in the wrong side of the sink..."

That's me.

It isn't chocolate, it's blood.

The title of this blog is actually something I had to say to a person today when they told me I should wipe the chocolate off my swollen, cracked lips.

Ha.

I am 2 days into my recovery.  The surgery was Monday and the first night I just couldn't sleep! The day after surgery is always the absolute worst, and this time around was no exception.
Plus my back is screwed up from the operating table. They always turn the temperature down in Operating Rooms because it slows down your body's functions and is just safer, and I imagine those surgeon's get a bit hot standing there for a few hours, and a cooler temp means less nurses mopping at their damp brows.
I was on a special operating bed to give them a better angle for ripping open my face, and this bed also included special calf and leg massagers that lower the risk for blood clots! Though I only got to enjoy the sensation of a calf massage for a few minutes before they pushed the magic through my IV and I konked out.

So Day 2 sucked.  A lot of crusty blood and wooziness and the worst backache of my life.  And the Percocet makes me tired, but also somehow makes me heart race. So I'm exhausted but can't sleep.

Liquid diet. Gets real old real quick.

The hospital gave me official permission to take sleeping pills yesterday (a nice woman on the phone explained that Percocet has a little stimulant in it to counteract the sleepy opiate effect, which is why so many people can't sleep on it, including me), so I popped some Unisom with a slug of "Dream Water" last night and it was glorious.
I even slept in!

And I felt significantly better today. Better enough that I can officially say I am on the "road" to recovery.  Although "dimly lit, snowy path lined with ice cream and SlimFast" is a more apt word than road.
The pain was half as bad today, though I am a bit more swollen.
But that could just be a delayed reaction to getting a metal plate attached to my jaw!

Either way.. and here, maybe it is the Percocet and rocky road ice cream talking, but in the midst of this suckiness, I am grateful that I have a job I can take time off from, and that I can take a 3 hour bath without worrying about what I "need" to do.  Having serious medical issues really does present a strange moment of seeing your friends for what they are, and it is always hurtful when people you value, that you thought cared deeply for you, are silent (not even a "get well" text! Not even a "like" on a post-surgical snap of you on Facebook!).  It puts things in perspective and although it is a bummer when someone close to you lets you down, it is a fun surprise when the last people you expected wish you well and let you know they are thinking about you.
It makes the SlimFast taste a bit less bitter, and the applesauce a bit more cinnamonny.

Greatest Get Well gift ever? I think so.

It makes you look forward to that day 6 weeks in the future when you can chew again!

And it makes you fall more in love with the friends you already have.  The friends that send you a video of themselves post-root canal just to give you a laugh over the fact that their tongue is numb, the friends that give you finger puppets and Happy Meal prizes because they know how to make you laugh.

So this may be a giant non-sequiter post, and it definitely did not express everything that I am feeling, and I mentioned a few things I didn't plan on (and won't remember in 10 minutes) but whatever.

And puzzles. They ROCK.

Gross, sorry. 

Surgery

I had my big operation yesterday to fix my broken jaw. They wired my jaw shut to realign my bite, and then screwed a bent titanium plate over the crack to hold it all together. It was a 2 hour surgery, we were there for about 7 hours, and let me re-state, the team at Huntsman Cancer Institute is AMAZING.
I will be recovering at home for about a week.

So Long Suckaaaah

Because it is February.
Finally.

Too clever.

This kid needs some one-on-ones with the coach. And maybe glasses too.

Unfortunate name.

oh snap.

Please, NO MIDGETS!

BRILLIANT! haha

Unique argument, I suppose...

This should come with ever doll.

Another unfortunate name...

Just...WOW. See it? Do you see it?!

Me in 60 years.