Folie A Deux

I mentioned that I took a sick day for the first time ever- there’s a little more to the story. I was actually at work through the worst of my sickness on Monday and Tuesday. It was mostly coughing, but the coughing was pretty violent, to the point where people from two doors down were knocking on the door to my office to offer me a cough drop. But I’ve never taken a sick day, and I could still get out of bed, so I wasn’t about to take one. It’s not just pride and martyrdom. The work doesn’t wait for me if I don’t come in. Someone has to cover for me. I hate that, and other people hate doing it, including me. I have complained about having to cover for sick colleagues. On Wednesday, I was starting to feel a little better when I got an email from the employee health department telling me that I had been exposed to a patient with pertussis about 5 days before I got sick. The testing had just barely come back. My cough was so aggressive that the diagnosis of whooping cough had actually crossed my mind, but I figured I just had a daycare-associated cold. When I talked to the health department, they told me that I had to put on a mask and immediately leave work for 5 days. It’s exquisitely contagious. I was able to talk them into testing me for pertussis- If I had it, Violet was exposed, and she’s in daycare. Pertussis is a bad thing at daycare. So I got some antibiotics, got V some antibiotics, and we holed up for two days while we waited for test results. And… negative. I didn’t have pertussis. I went back to work yesterday afternoon. I’m glad, because we don’t have to organize a scare and immunizations and prophylactic antibiotics for all the unsuspecting, innocent bystanders who were exposed to me and my cough. But I do feel a bit guilty for spending my very first sick day at home with just a cold.

We’d offer to hire her out, but she just refuses to wear pants while she works.

V and I spent the day home sick today. It’s the first sick day I’ve taken in … ever. We had a good time hanging out together, reading books, eating cheese and tacos, and taking antibiotics. We also had a photo session. I found some more new settings on my camera. More »

The weather here has been so amazing for the past few days. We’ve been outside without jackets, and today I drove around with the window rolled down. But spring hasn’t really arrived until the lime green tutu comes out of the closet. More »

I have a problem, and that problem is talking to people on the phone. I’m usually pretty good at getting things done, but if the task I need to do involves calling someone, I will put it off, feel guilty about putting it off, then wake up at 3am the following day with the realization that I didn’t make the call. You can’t call people at 3am, but you can lay in bed feeling bad about not calling. If I am lucky, I will go back to sleep within an hour or two, but some nights I’m up for good. Unbelievably, and counter-productively, I will often go through the exact same thing the following day. An unfortunate and unexpected part of my new job is my ear’s near-constant attachment to the phone, so when it’s on me to make the call I often talk myself into “doing it later.”

Too many nights spent staring at the ceiling have led me to force myself to do it now. As soon as I think about making the call, I make it, then and there. It’s working out awesome. In the last week, I’ve woke up zero times in a panic about a call I forgot to make. It’s awesome. Well, kind of. The waking up at 3 am thing hasn’t gone away. It turns out I still owe a bunch of thank-you notes from Christmas. And I said something really stupid at a party the other night. And the bathroom needs to be cleaned. And I should have fed Violet broccoli for dinner and not given in to the yogurt. I’m tired. Any suggestions?