MySpace-August 14, 2010-Fight Club

I’m not a terribly superstitious person until it comes to one thing. I don’t worry about broken mirrors, black cats, stepping on cracks. 13 is just another number, if it falls on a Friday, its just another day. The one thing that I’m very superstitious about though, is being on call.

Being on call just comes with the job. There are instances in veterinary medicine where I suppose you have enough seniority or are specialized enough that you don’t have on call shifts. I however, am not that person. Even in school, I dreaded being on call. Just the thought of that upcoming day, put a rock in my stomach. Being in practice hasn’t changed this.

I’m so superstitious that if I am on call, I don’t do anything. I sit at home. I don’t make phone calls. I don’t cook. I don’t watch movies. I sit. I wait. I worry. I live in perpetual fear of being called. In school, if I was on call later in the evening for the overnight shift, I would go out but rush back home before my shift started less I tempt the on call gods. Its happened before that I would be on call but wander down the parking lot to Laura and Rachel’s house only to be called while sitting on their couch. How can you take that kind of risk? I don’t feel that you can. Eventually, when I was on pathology and being on call seemed rather silly, I would relax, but only some. And it did bite me in the butt. I was baking a cake on a Sunday when I received a call regarding a dead piglet. I couldn’t just leave the cake. So I told the people they’d have to wait. They were okay with it but it still put that rock right back in my stomach.

For me being on call is like Fight Club. The first rule of being on call is that you do not speak of being on call. With the exception of essentially only stating that I am on call, I don’t speak about it. I don’t like it being spoken about in my presence for fear that even doing more than acknowledging it will lead to being jinxed and actually called in. At this point, I am being paid a bonus for coming in on emergency so I should welcome my calls, but I don’t. I’d rather be poorer.

I’ve also learned that if you’re on call, you should flee the building as quickly as possible. I learned at school if you stick around doing paperwork, you’re bound to be called. I was found multiple times on surgery that way. Sometimes, multiple times in a day. No body likes that.

Eventually, I’ll stop worrying. I’ve done a good job of convincing people, so far, that they really don’t want to pay my emergency fee ($100 minimum but more likely $150 because I’ll bring in a tech). Eventually, I’ll relax and be willing to do other things while on call. That day is not yet. I’m probably jinxing myself just typing about it…you know for the future because I wouldn’t dare write a blog about it if I was actually on call. Fight club.

[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger on 8/23/11.]

MySpace-August 10, 2010-Laundry Lessons Learned

I'm not meticulous about laundry. For me, I do two to three loads on the weekend and a load or two in between depending on my need for white coats or clean coveralls. Joe is very meticulous about sorting and washing appropriately. Though he does put gray t-shirts and light colored towels in white laundry loads...which is frustrating.

I like getting to wash my white coats in a load of whites because obviously that's where they belong. However, I'm not above putting them in a load of dress clothes which is what I did this weekend. I did however also have in that load of laundry a dark purple shirt which had never been washed before. I didn't really think about it then.

I have been hanging my clothes out on the laundry line to dry trying to save on energy and was doing so when I noticed that the lining of my white coats had a slight purplish tint. I didn't think too much of it as I hung this stuff up to dry, but when taking it down, I noticed that not only did the lining have a purplish tint but the rest of the coat did as well. In fact one coat, which also has jersey panels, was very lavender. The jersey panels remained white. My white coats were obviously no longer white. No longer did they say 'professional'.

Now how to fix it...

I first ran them back through the wash in a load of whites with bleach and hot water. Pulled out, my coats were still a pretty shade of purple. So they sat in a wet heap on my washing machine until something else could be figured out. I went to Yahoo! Answers and did find some answers and some products to look for.

Target and Michael's didn't have either of these products but remembering that one is used by quilters to remove bled colors, I went to JoAnn's. There I found two products. One by Rit Dye and one which was the actual product I was looking for. While standing there, reading the instructions on the product I wanted, I noted that there weren't any instructions for using a HE washing machine. I called the 1-800 number on the box, right there in JoAnn's. There was no answer but it did refer me to another phone number. I didn't think much of it since it was the weekend and everything. I called the next number and was greeted with 'Hot, Young Horny Women in your area wanting to chat now!!!!!' Ummm....that's not the laundry hotline I was expecting. Eventually, I just up and bought the product having found a newer box with the information I needed. Then I went home and tried to fix my coats. A bucket of hot, hot water and this stuff made my kitchen smell like a beauty parlor giving perms to old ladies so I moved the operation outside while I did dishes. After finishing the dishes, I went outside and my coats were white again! Miracle! So now my coats are white! Lesson learned. I did also buy some of those color catcher sheets when at Target...you know, just in case.

[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger on 8/10/11.]

MySpace-August 1, 2010-Wedding Planning Is Hard

Wedding planning is hard. Joe and I haven’t really even started planning our wedding but even now, I’m totally overwhelmed. I got my Wedding Planning for Dummies book, I got a book for Joe about being a groom, I’ve signed up for theknot.com and still have no clue where to start.

Joe and I have yet to set a date. We were to do that as well as setting a wedding budget and household budget this weekend. But Joe slept in too late and then he mowed the yard. I figure some rough dates for which inquires of churches and reception halls can be made is the first step. In my ideal world, I’d like to get married in early spring so that I can take advantage of forsythias blooming and using them as centerpieces. That sort of puts a time crunch on wedding planning. AND I’m pretty sure you can’t get married in the Catholic church (as I would like) during Lent. Easter isn’t until late April. BUT if I wanted to wait till 2012, I still could get married in early-mid April. Possibly then getting forsythias for my use. Other dates would be sometime in June or early September. 2011 would be okay for those. And seriously, if you want something done sort of fast, I’m the one you want doing it. I’m well organized. I just would like everyone else to be the same way.

Its also very hard, as I still have to figure out, to plan a long distance wedding. Google only has lent me so many leads for reception halls in the DeSoto area. Who’s going to go to these places and see them? Can I trust pictures that are sent to me? What about food? Can I get a caterer or does the place do it? What if the food is crap? What about the bar and alcohol? Do I need to take a weekend off and fly to Missouri for some planning?

I’m making lists. Lists of things to do, things I want, ideas, guests-for sure and maybe guests.

I ran some ideas past Joe and he’s been super (and surprisingly) supportive of these. One is renting (or purchasing) a 1989 Crown Victoria. Joe loved that car so very much and we both enjoyed drives through St. Joe in the middle of the night in search of milkshakes listening to ‘Tales Designed for Suspense’ in it. I can just see us driving away from the church in it, Joe in an old man hat, me snuggled next to him in the front seat. We’ve found one for sale about an hour and half away from here. We could afford it if we got a loan AND it would probably get along better in the snow than the Turdcel (not that I don’t really like that car for Joe too). But the questions remain, will it last for as long as it takes for us to get married? The other idea I had is about favors for the wedding. Since I would like to use royal/blue ribbon blue as one of my colors (the other being white and with accents of yellow), I thought that maybe giving out blue ribbons would be cool. Sort of a nod to my horse showing days; they would have our names and the date on them. Sort of up in the air about using rosettes or bookmark ribbons. Bookmarks would be cheaper and more practical-people may actually use them, but rosettes are so much fancier. I really think that favors should reflect us-so I’m also thinking of some little food items since we love to cook.

There are so many things to think about. Budget being a big one. I asked Joe what he thought weddings cost and he told me $10000 to $15000. Is that what we should aim our budget towards? That’s a lot higher than I would have thought for our budget, but then again, if we could do it, it would be fantastic. I could get so much of the fancy that I would like. We haven’t approached my parents about helping but us planning for the most of it, will just mean that there’s more budget for other stuff!

Joe’s been so supportive of my early on craziness about wedding planning. Probably one of the first things we’ll do (hopefully not before setting a date and maybe not even before setting a venue), is purchase some wedding rings. Mostly because I need to get my engagement ring checked because I’m afraid that one of the stones is loose. And that its sort of dirty. And really, the wedding rings will be fairly cheap. Comparatively. 

So basic list of things to think about…
Church, reception hall, wedding rings, wedding dress, tuxes, invitations, guest list, decorations, flowers, DJ, bar, caterer, cake, and on and on and on…

Its all going to come together! I know it!

[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger on 8/2/11.]