Rachael

I was a candy-striper here, twenty-one years ago. I walked these very same halls in my pink-striped pleated dress. I loved that dress. To me, it had the cachet of historical reenactment. I was sure Florence Nightingale had worn something similar, when in fact I was wearing polyester circa 1986. But I loved the way I looked in the mirror. I looked like someone who knew what to do.

We had to wear white shoes with the dress. I was desperate to have a pair of big, clunky, brilliantly white nursing shoes, but I only had a pair of white tennis shoes from the discount store that had a thin red stripe running along the sides. I was ashamed of those red stripes.

The volunteer Auxiliary Ladies frightened me. Most were the age of the average patient, but they were so loud, so lively. Working in their pink pantsuits, monitoring flowers coming in and out, directing people to the right beds: it was their social hour. They had cocktails after their shifts. I wanted to be like them, but I was about sixty years shy of being able to join their ranks. 

My favorite part was pouring water. Keeping the water jugs full. I was good at that. I liked writing down how many cc’s I poured, enjoyed encouraging hydration (still do). I liked delivering food trays. I liked the little old ladies who didn’t really know who I was but wanted to chat anyway. I was painfully shy (hard to imagine now), but I tried to chat back.

My least favorite part was seeing people in pain, people who somehow thought the fourteen-year old in front of them could actually help them, could give them medical advice, could help them to the commode. I would apologize and scuttle backwards like a candy-cane crab. I’d fetch a nurse and feel stupid.

Mom’s still in the hospital today. She has congestive heart failure, atrial fibrulation, and extreme hypercalcemia. She might be doing a bit better today; I’m not quite sure. She ain’t getting out of here today, that’s for sure. It’s hard. Knitting is good. Nurses are even better than knitting, I tell you that (one in the ICU showed me the shawl she was working on in her down-time (Mom was their only patient that night) — it was good to bond with a knitter).

While I’m writing this, Mom is asleep and I’m showing Bethany how to knit socks on two circs. What do people do in the hospital without knitting? Unimaginable. Thank god Mom doesn’t have a roommate yet. Most people, we understand, watch TV in the hospital. I can think of almost nothing worse. Movies, sure. But no TV. It seems like such an assault.

The Auxiliary Ladies are still out in full force, although they’re less intimidating now, and now they’re the age of my mother. One yesterday pointed out that tiny little mama lying in the bed took up almost no room, and then she commented that she, herself, was about the same age and size as Mom. For four seconds I was fiercely jealous that this tiny 67-year old volunteer was running around delivering flowers and Mom was lying in the hospital bed.

I haven’t seen any candy-stripers walking the floor, although yesterday I saw one getting ready for her shift in the volunteer room. Looks like they don’t wear dresses anymore, something that they’re probably glad about. The girl was about fourteen or fifteen, and she sat alone in the room, wearing a pink striped shirt and white pants. She held up her cell phone and took a picture of herself. She grinned at the camera. If I’d had a cell phone back then, I’d have done the same thing.

Okay, I’m taking down this post. I’ve been overwhelmed with a WORLD of positive responses, from both you out there, as well as my peers and bosses. I was nervous when my bosses read it — I didn’t want to get in trouble of any sort, didn’t want to get Dooced, and I’m so glad I didn’t. As they pointed out to me, I didn’t do anything wrong. However, I hate stirring up any kind of drama, so that outraged post I wrote made my heart flutter on a day when I didn’t need that. But I’m so happy that I work for the best employer in the world. I have the ultimate support from everyone in my life. If one ugly emailer is jealous of my happiness, I can’t do much about that, nor do I wish to. She just happened to get me on a bad day. And I know it must be hard living with that kind of vitriol in her heart.

And thank you, all.
xoxoxo

Fighting a migraine for two days now. It hasn’t got me, but the migraine aura has me by the neck. Feels like someone digging their fingers into the back of my head — not painful, but not pleasant. The visual migraine got me yesterday, which is always kind of interesting. It doesn’t hurt — I just lose my vision in one eye or the other for about fifteen minutes. I stopped picking up stitches at that point for a while.

I couldn’t sleep last night. It was probably all the caffeine I’d taken in pill form all day for the looming headache. Got up and read from about 1am to almost 6am. Finally fell asleep and dreamed that a huge cat, bigger than a man, dressed like a Viking, was living in the back of our house, controlling Clara, making her forge an IronMan-like suit by breathing fire. Poor old sweatshop Clara.

Okay. I’m going to try writing on the front porch. Hopefully Lala left me some coffee. If she didn’t, I’ll make a latte and work on the script for an hour or two. Then I will go to Target. We use a baby-gate to keep the animals out of the carpeted part of the house. Yesterday, while speeding on caffeine, I cleaned everything, washed everything, mopped the whole house. I took a flying leap, trying to jump over a still-wet part of the floor while simultaneously unlatching and opening the gate I was trying to jump through. Strangely enough, that wasn’t a good idea. As I fell, I made a conscious decision to take the gate out in my fall, rather than twisting and trying to save it. In breaking the gate, I saved my own ass. It’s rather sobering to splinter a nice wooden gate, though. That’s too much caffeine. That meant it was time to sit and knit.

Now. To the porch. Carefully.

We live at sea level. Lala sent me this picture. She rode there today, training. From sea level. I’m tired just thinking about it. I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and sink deeper into my armchair.

Deep in some knitting. DEEP. Finished a sweater I haven’t told you about, and I LOVE IT, but I’m not photographing it until I take a shower and put on lipstick, and since it’s Sunday and La’s on a training ride to Oregon or something, I’m in no hurry.

I steeked the MomRedux sweater yesterday. I just cut. Yep. I did. I plan to handstitch the armholes before I cut, but the front steek, I just cut. Just kept snipping. Not even a drink or a lie-down after, as EZ sagely recommends.

And it worked.

Now I want to knit more, so I will. Just wanted stop in and tell you about Pandora. Are you listening to Pandora? I’ve been listening off and on for more than a year, but I’m really into it now. It’s what they call a Music Genome Project — they analyze each song  (all songs, it seems like), break them apart and put them back together next to songs that are similar. You tell them your favorite song or artist, and they make (FOR FREE) a radio station just for you. You can give the thumbs-up to the songs you love, and thumbs-down for the ones you don’t (and those won’t replay). It is the BEST way to find new music, new artists that suit you to the ground and that you’ve never heard of.

Lala and I love it so much that we put an old laptop into our record cabinet, so we can pipe whichever station we’re into that day all over the house. I’m now in my room, listening to a station she made, Blossom Dearie.

Ooh! They have a typepad connection I just found — it’s in my sidebar, to the left. Give it a listen. Click on one of my stations over there to try it out — you might like the Y’allternate one if you’re feeling rockin’ folky, or Blossom Dearie, if you’re feeling jazzy. The Electro Music Radio is what I listen to while writing the screenplay I’m working on, might not be the best one to sample, but go for it if you want to. You have to register to listen, but they have good privacy policies and don’t spam or sell lists. Then just jump in and make your own stations!

(Lala just sent me this, from the TOP of Mount Diablo):

is what I have been doing. 15 hour shift yesterday (which is better than the 18 hour shift that loomed imminent for a while). Yawn.

So I’m at work. Boring. The most exciting thing that’s happened so far this morning is that I ate my eggs. I love a good hard-boiled egg. With salt. And because I work in close quarters with four other people, I announce it when I come out of the kitchen and slice the eggs at my workstation (a whiff of eggs, without notice, can be alarming). "Eggs on the floor!"

"Eggs on the floor," they repeat. It used to be a joke, but now it’s just a thing, as things go. I find the fact that we say it seriously quite amusing.

Still. Boring. Ooh! I thought I had nothing to show you, but I just remembered I DO have one picture for you.

This is the MomRedux sweater! Hers is obviously on the left, since it’s all fancy with a collar and all. Mine is the darker one (that’s what I get for trying to remember the color while ordering yarn online), and while I added one repeat in the middle section of dots to add a tiny bit of length (okay, that was accidental), otherwise, it’s spot on. Size, width, patterns, everything. I’m really proud of it, happy with my copying-ability.

So happy that I’m kind of scared to move on. It’s all done, just need to steek it, attach the arms, and make the collar/facing/button-bands.

I used a terribly sticky yarn, Jamieson’s Spindrift, so for some ungodly reason I felt confident enough to make a really narrow steek. 6 stitches. First, SIX STITCHES? Why didn’t I make it an odd number, so that I actually HAD a center stitch to cut down? Gah. Second, I’m not sure how I want to reinforce the steeks. I’m tempted to trust in the godlike powers of wool and just CUT away without reinforcement, because the thought of trying to machine-sew a straight line with my machine along that dark wool fills me with pre-planned frustration (and the steek is rather puckered in places — wouldn’t be easy to sew). I tried to reinforce it with crochet, my usual method, but the stitches are SO dark and small, I just couldn’t do it. Man, I know I should at least machine-sew the armholes. Yeah, I can do that.
That would be easier, actually, since those steeks aren’t as puckered
as the front one.

Anyone ever had trouble with this yarn running away after a steek? Can I just cut the center one? Please?

Also, Lala gives thanks. Yarn-related thanks! And I must mention this: last night when I got home, she was trippin’ out, saying she was unmotivated and not driven enough. She said this WHILE RIDING A BIKE IN OUR LIVING ROOM. On a trainer. For an hour and half. With no one making her do it. She is crazy but very, very cute.