I am Customer Service Oriented!
Because of impending financial doom at my job, and because things at work have been slow and lonely lately, I have decided to apply for a part-time gig. I got the idea yesterday. I can relieve my cash-flow worries, enjoy a lively and social environment, AND have access to discounted housewares. I can do this by becoming a sales associate at "HOUSEWARE HEAVEN" (aka the source of much beauty and joy in this dismal world)!
I was so enthusiastic about this plan that I raced down to the store, practically panting with hope that they are hiring. In fact, they are. I took an application and proceeded to answer the open-ended questions:
"Describe your experiences shopping at Houseware Heaven."
"Have you ever provided excellent customer service? Explain why and how you were effective."
I typed my answers on a separate sheet of paper, declaring my love for the HH service concept, as well as my own treasured Millicent Table and Echo Dining Chairs. I described how, in my current job, I marketed luxury condos to poor people, satisfying both the developer’s legal obligations and the needs of the clientele.
Then I got to the "References" section. It asks for a list of personal contacts. No problem. The second part asks for a list of my last three jobs, including the contact information of my supervisors.
Stumbling block!
I do not want my former employers to provide a reference to a Houseware Heaven manager. I want them to save all their admiration for when I apply for my next "real" job. I racked my brains for peers I have worked with--people with whom I'd feel comfortable sharing my retail plans. Done.
Then I thought about another thing. What if I were behind the register, wearing a Houseware Heaven apron (how cute are those black aprons?!), and a high school classmate showed up, wanting information about setting up her wedding registry? What if she flung her diamond ring in my face and talked about how she's doing her Ph.D. at Harvard and is marrying an ophthalmologist and having her reception at the Fogg Museum? What would I say?
I hate to admit it, but I would long to insist upon my overqualification. I'd want desperately to explain: actually, in my real life, my job title is
director. I'm just doing this for the company and the housewares. I have a master's degree! I have ambition! I'm important!
Of course, I would never say any of that. I'd help the chick with her place settings and pray, pray, pray that she wouldn't email everyone from high school: "I bumped into Dori! She has short hair now. She sold me silverware at Houseware Heaven. See you at the wedding!"
While I worry about that, I'm also going to worry about not getting the job at all, precisely because my job title is director, and because I have never worked a cash register (even though I wrote in my application that I am proficient in many computer applications, and that I am a “quick study” and committed to providing customers with efficient service).
My life is going pretty badly right now; I'm not sure I could handle disappointment from this particular love of my life.
Posted by Dori at 12:21 PM
Parking in Boston is a War
My lovely morning began with a $200 parking ticket for allegedly blocking a handicap ramp. The ticket was issued at 11:10 p.m., when all the handicapped people are usually out in full force (and lest anyone criticize me for insensitivity to people with disabilities--I am a HUGE proponent of barrier-free design, which is (sort of) a part of my job. This is my foster car I'm talking about (I don't own it, and it's registered in CA.) So I asked my friends on an online forum for a little advice.
Read on:
B: Were you blocking the ramp? If so, you should pay the fine. If not, challenge the ticket in court.
ME: Well, technically, a little bit of it was blocked.
HUGGER: Then you should pay the ticket. Take responsibility for your actions.
CRANK: I'm sorry, I know this is not the popular answer, but you were parked illegally. Pay the ticket and don't let the owner of the car pay for your stupid decision.
HAPPY: I agree - you don't know if a handicapped person was inconvenienced because of your car. It would be the right thing to do IMHO.
ME: It's the principle of the thing. The ticket was just mean-spirited. It was nighttime, the "blockage" was about a foot, and all this in a sleepy residential neighborhood. TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS? I wouldn't have parked there if I thought I was creating a problem for anyone, and if the City were willing to issue a parking permit to an out-of-state vehicle, I could've parked in front of my house where there is no ramp of any kind.
SIGMA: What, disabled persons don't hold night jobs? I understand your rage, but it's clouding your logic.
NICE GIRL: $200 SUCKS! I'm sorry :( It's a waste of money.
CYST: People in wheelchairs don't go out at night? What if you were handicapped and inconvenienced because someone idiot blocked the ramp? You'd feel a little differently, wouldn't you? Ugh, you sound like a horrible, horrible individual.
B: I remember attempting to get my father down a ramp that had a car's rear bumper poking out just enough to block him from going down the ramp. He couldn’t lift his leg over the curb, and the owner was nowhere in sight (of course). His condition made it impossible for us to stand and wait, so up we went to wait for the person to move the car. While my father waited inside, I waited outside for the driver. He said "it's not really blocked ... and I was just here for a little while." What a jerk. But karma had a good look at him that day and I saw the same car a short time later blocking a handicap parking spot. I had him towed. Debt paid.
LITA: I personally think people that break rules with complete disregard for the others that follow them rack up lots of negative Karma points. I appreciate your beliefs. I just don't agree with your thought processes in this regard.
SMARTY: Re-park the car close to but not blocking the ramp and photograph it. Send in the photo with a letter explain that you have a career in barrier-free design, and this is preposterous. Seriously, you learned your lesson. It's not like the $200 actually helps handicapped people in Boston. Tickets are a form of revenue for the city. Sorry if my morality sounds hazy, but parking in Boston is a war.
Posted by Dori at 11:50 AM
Best Case Scenario
OK, so remember how I was espousing
time and distance as key elements of a "successful" breakup? Meaning, the parties keep their distance from one another until substantial time has elapsed?
This has been the case with the Guy. We broke up about 2 weeks ago, and didn't talk or email at all. I've concluded that there would be no good outcome to our communication. If we talked, and he were all perky and fine, I would feel wretched for feeling wretched. If he were wretched, I would feel guilty and sorry. If we had a great conversation, we'd be tempted to get back together. And if we had an awful conversation, we'd wish we'd never talked at all.
But here's a scenario I never considered before--and this is what happened last night. He called me. In fact, he left me a somewhat wistful message. I called him back. He asked me how I am. I said, "horrible." He didn't say he was doing horribly, but the fact that he called wistfully suggests that he misses me at least a tiny bit. We had a funny and normal conversation.
Of course, I asked him if he's having sex with the First-year Resident Who Likes Sports, a possibility that I can't get out of my mind. And he said, "I haven't seen her at all and we definitely have not had lunch. I am not attracted to her. I'm never going to have sex with her."
That statement made me smile for the first time in two weeks (makes me smile just to think about it). He was puzzled that I even brought her up! He doesn't care that she likes sports! They haven't even had lunch! And not only have they not had sex thus far ...
He's never going to have sex with her. Really, could it get any better than this?
Posted by Dori at 11:04 AM
Reply All
OK, so remember how a long while ago, I wrote about my brunch with
D.L.? He works at our sister organization in a nearby suburb, and we've bonded a lot because we have the same job and many of the same frustrations.
He is hilarious, sarcastic, and friendly. Periodically we meet up and bitch about work (well, OK, he's more professional (read: discreet) than I am, and also more experienced professionally, so I do most of the bitching and he gives advice). We also exchange sardonic emails. Often I'll post a question to this professional listserv to which we both subscribe, and he will respond by answering my question and adding some hilarious insight. Yesterday I posted a question about how long to keep personnel documents, and he wrote back "cleaning house, are you?" (Granted, this is not one of the more hilarious insights.)
In his emails, he addresses me as "little d" and signs off as "Big D." If D.L. were not fully in love with his graphic designer wife, and if he were not the extraordinarily proud father of 2 kids, our dynamic might be categorized as a Thing. Currently it is absolutely not.
Anyway. So yesterday he responded to my question and then I responded to him, detailing some serious financial problems my organization is experiencing.
Do I have to continue? Or have you guessed where this is going?
Yes, both his response to me
and my response to him went out to the whole group--our colleagues all across the state. When I realized this, I crumpled in shame. D.L. called me and we winced together. And the listserv moderator emailed me this morning to "inform" me that this had occurred (as if I didn't realize!). "Just a reminder," he wrote, "when you reply to a listserv message, it goes to everyone." Thanks.
The thing is, it could have been much, much worse. There was no Big D/little d in the message, nor any sarcastic comment about anyone. Just depressing information about our budget which is no secret, although not something I would have expected to share with colleagues all across the state.
Posted by Dori at 9:50 AM
It's Like a Navajo Sandwich at the Cheesecake Factory
OK, so very very soon I will stop wallowing and reclaim my upbeat, cheery persona, and blog about something other than my fascinating sorrow. I promise. I am planning to pull myself up by my bootstraps, actively pursue new activities, and plan a new vacation sans Guy.
But I just want to say, before the window for petulance completely closes, that this is not what I
want to do. You know how you go to a restaurant, say, the Cheesecake Factory, and you're looking forward to a particular tasty combination of flavors? Let's just say it's the
Navajo Sandwich, all that veggie goodness rolled up in fry bread. And you're sitting in the booth, and the server shows up with those water glasses with the black straws, and informs you that they're fresh out of the ingredients? And asks if you want a turkey club instead? And you're shattered, because you don't want a turkey club, or even
avocado eggrolls; you don't want the amazing eggplant sandwich, or any sandwich other than the one you've been craving all day? Even if those other entrees are objectively delicious, none of them will hit the mark because they
are not what you originally wanted.
Such is my current state of mind. Yes, I will engage in enriching, distracting activities (like that Photoshop class at the Center for Adult Education, or parallel parking lessons at Friendship Auto School, or volunteering with the campaign for expanded access to health insurance). And yes, I will go on a different vacation, one that is not Romance in Paris. And yes, I will find another lovely boyfriend (please please let it be soon). But in the mean time,
this situation is not what I originally wanted, which was to enjoy a peaceful summer in the Guy's centrally air-conditioned apartment, and then take off for Paris in the Fall, and then happily ever after.
I was talking to my extraordinarily supportive friends E. and A. yesterday, and we were talking about
Ferberizing, which is a philosophy that, in a nutshell, prescribes letting a baby cry on its own at bedtime until (s)he learns to "self-comfort." Babies learn to soothe themselves by sucking their thumbs or cuddling with blankets. Eventually they stop wailing for mom and learn to deal with the frustration of sleeplessness on their own. While we all recognized that adults can soothe themselves by wailing to others (via blog, visits, calls, and emails to close supportive friends) I am hoping that soon I can stop wailing altogether.
'Til then ...
Posted by Dori at 3:52 PM
Waning Self-Indulgence
On Sunday (the day of the breakup) I gave myself a week for wallowing and self-pity. For seven days, I allowed myself to eat junk, live in squalor, do virtually no work, and engage in mind-numbing behavior, all in the name of my broken heart.
So let's report on that, shall we?
I read two books. Lest you think this was an intellectual exercise--the books were
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood and
Girls in Pants. These are installments in the "Traveling Pants" trilogy, and I'm owning it: young adult fiction.
I watched many movies. Netflix is the gift that keeps on giving. I watched
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. Yes, I did. It was so bad that I actually had to fast forward through much of the appalling dialogue. I also watched
Balseros which is about Cuban refugees, but I couldn't really get into that, and fast-forwarded through the last hour.
I watched much trash on TV, including
Gilmore Girls (How appropriate that it was the episode where Rory endures a breakup and Lorelai makes her wallow!), the
Queer Eye episode where they make over a nudist, and some hours of TBS and TLC. I also watched
Frontier House (which is a reality show on PBS, in its encore season, and which you absolutely must check out if you haven't already.)
Because I am Beginning to Get My Act Together, I got my hair cut yesterday and went out into the world in the evening. At some point today I am going to do laundry and go grocery shopping and conduct other re-entry activities, but I think right now I am going to eat some Eggo waffles topped with sliced bananas and peanut butter; I will sit on my couch for a while. Perhaps the "
Magic Bullet" infomercial will be on.
Posted by Dori at 9:19 AM
Oh, and one more thing ...
... after they finish watching sports they will retire to the bedroom and have yet more sex in their
Valencia sleigh bed (in antique white).
Posted by Dori at 10:21 AM
How much do I feel disgruntled and sad? Let me count the ways ...
1) I got a parking ticket today because I forgot about street cleaning (I have a lot on my mind, OK? Don't you fascist parking people understand that?). I think I have probably paid well over $100 in parking tickets since I got my foster car last fall. In addition to the $85 I pay every month to rent a parking space to which I am too lazy to drive.
2) I am single. This means I will eventually have to go out on dates and have anxiety. This means I will have to endure, indefinitely, the torture of trying to "meet someone."
3) And this means that, when I finally do (God willing--please please let it be soon), I will have to identify and address his issues and have him identify and address mine. I will have to do ALL OVER AGAIN all the work that it takes to get to know someone and establish compatibility.
4) Also, I have no idea when I will next have sex.
5) The Guy I Used to Be Dating is working in a new building with this chick from Virginia who's a first year resident. She likes sports and she openly checked him out at last week's Fancy Doctor Dinner. She flirtatiously discussed how she has no one to have lunch with. Even though The Guy never eats lunch (and rarely eats at all), I can (and will) torture myself by imagining their future: they linger over hospital food and then have sex in the call room. And then afterwards he strokes her fucking shiny hair and tells her how great it is being with someone who can cope with his crazy work schedule. And then
she tells
him how she could sense at the Fancy Doctor Dinner that I was all wrong for him. And then they fall in love and get married and have a one-day honeymoon (between their respective rotations) which is fine with both of them because they both know how important it is to prioritize curing cancer. Then they both finish their training and earn a combined annual income of roughly eight million dollars, and they buy a house in Brookline where they watch sports while sitting on a couch from
Pottery Barn. And her
colossal yet tasteful emerald-cut engagement ring sparkles under the recessed lighting.
6) Pretty soon, I will have to get rid of the Guy's toothbrush so it doesn't mock me every morning and evening. I will have to decide what to do with the stuff he has left at my house. Maybe I will put it all in a padded mailing envelope and drive to his house when I know he's not there and put it in his mailbox like a grownup, with no note, or maybe a really short and breezy yet classy note, the kind that takes about four hours to write.
7) I desperately need a vacation and didn't take one because I thought I would go to Paris this fall with the Guy.
8) I have no motivation to do any work and all these people keep calling me with all their horrible problems and their dementia and I have to be compassionate when I don't feel like it.
9) I still can't find my gym membership card.
10) Somehow I have to live through today, and tomorrow, and the day after that ...
Posted by Dori at 10:15 AM
Memes
Apparently the term "meme" is blogspeak for "me me" meaning: narcissistic info about oneself. Some blogs start out with a list of "100 things" about the blogger--a list that is almost invariably mind-numbing. But Jen at
Quarter Life Crisis (who is newly married and moving to Seattle) has recommended this one, so here we go .
10 years ago: I had just finished high school and trying to find a paying summer job despite the fact that I had no skills of any kind. I applied to work at (and was rejected from) TJ Maxx, Taco Bell, and other fine retail establishments. I went to a temp agency where they found that my typing was "kind of light" and that the only opening I might be suited for was packing boxes at the Yankee Candle Factory. I turned that down because I didn't have a car and the factory was in another town.
5 years ago: I was wrapping up a research fellowship in Spain, enduring temperatures of 104 degrees every day, and trying to chase down my advisor and so-called collaborator. We fought all the time and he didn't finish reading my 74 page treatise until after I left. He was supposed to prepare it for publication, but he suffered a stroke and never published it and didn't explain why or return my calls/emails until I descended upon him a year later (I literally showed up in Spain and semi-confronted him). Since then he has presented our research in unimpressive venues and listed as first author his research assistant, whom he married last year.
1 year ago: I started my current job while finishing grad school. On my first day of work, I turned the copier and air conditioner on at the same time and short-circuited all the power in the office. The two women who were supposed to show me the ropes got into a colossal catfight and one of them thrust her phone number into my hand before she huffed off in rage. The other one slunk out soon after, leaving me alone in the dark. I have never cried so hysterically or for so long in my whole life.
Yesterday: I tried to survive the loss of my relationship with the guy who has been known progressively as the Guy I Like, the Guy I am Dating, and my Guy. I have nothing but love for him, but I just don't think we are suited for a future together. Very sadly, I have been through a substantial number of breakups in my life (seven--and this only includes the breakups that have occurred after at least 3 months of dating, and that have entailed angst and teeth-gnashing).
So very sadly, I know the routine: Day 1: Sleep as much as possible. Exercise (in order to become tired and sleep). Cry hysterically in the shower, feel nauseous around food. Day 2: Email/talk with supportive friends. Cry in the car. Have carte blanche to eat/buy whatever I want. Do virtually no work. Plan busy but not overwhelming week of comfort and recovery. I'll keep you posted on days 3 onwards.
Today: I basically procrastinated all day on email, craigslist, and so on. I will go shopping this evening with my friend K. and use up a gift certificate bestowed upon me by my friend R. on occasion of her wedding. Then I will go to the gym and work out in order to become exhausted and therefore fall asleep.
Tomorrow: Similar, hopefully more productive at work. Attend my writing workshop in the evening.
5 snacks I enjoy: Smartfood, virtually all kinds of cheese/crackers, Pepperidge Farms Goldfish, cherries, salt and vinegar potato chips ...
5 things I would do with $100,000,000: buy a house, buy a car, buy lots of beautiful housewares from Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel, buy generous gifts for friends and family (esp. my mom, who would get a new house also with a huge kitchen), travel, make massive donations to worthy and cash-strapped charities.
5 locations I’d like to run away to: Yellowstone Park (a lifelong dream), Thailand (for the food), the Grand Canyon, Australia --Great Barrier Reef (if it didn't involve so much flying) ...
5 bad habits I have: pulling out my hair when I get stressed out, procrastinating, multi-tasking to the extent that I don't get anything done, shutting down/withdrawing when I'm upset instead of articulating my needs, visibly zoning when I'm bored.
5 things I like doing: watching independent movies, writing, swimming, reading engrossing books, bonding with loved ones.
5 things I would never wear: capri pants, shorts (outside of the gym), stilettos, tube tops, thong underwear.
Posted by Dori at 3:44 PM
Prejudice ... with a side of carmelized-onion-and-goat cheese bruschetta
So I attended what will probably be my last medical-professional function on Saturday night. The Chief of Some Department hosted an elaborate dinner for the medical residents and their significant others. The party was held in the garden of the Chief's suburban mansion. The guests swilled around tables set with white linens and centerpieces, sidestepping the tiled pool and hot tub. I was among two other non-medical guests, swimming in a sea of talk about adrenocortical carcinoma, medulloblastoma, and other stimulating topics.
Whenever I was introduced to a new person, his/her first question was whether I was in medicine (those of us not in medicine, apparently, are called "civilians"). When explaining my work to Henry, a very friendly, very chatty guy, he asked whether I know anything about Section 8.
In case you don't know about it, Section 8 is one of the most effective housing subsidies we've got (although it doesn't address the supply-side aspect of the issue). In a nutshell, (per the
New York Times), through Section 8, "the government guarantees subsidies for rents in the private market. Families, most of them at or below the poverty level, pay 30 percent of their incomes toward rent, and Section 8 vouchers pay the rest. At the moment, the program covers about two million people, a majority of them elderly or in families with children."
I said to Henry: yes, of course, I'm familiar with Section 8.
"And have you heard Ellen's story about it?" he asked. No, I hadn't.
"Well, Ellen [a colleague in the Department] just moved into this really nice apartment with her husband and her two little kids. They ordered a flat-screen TV from Best Buy, and it arrived while they were out. Apparently the neighbors signed for it, but then by the time they got home it had just vanished--and they eventually had to get UPS to reimburse them. Ellen talked to the landlord and it turned out the neighbors who signed were Section 8 tenants. Is there some law that they have to live there, is that why they were there in that nice building? And isn't the landlord obligated to tell the other tenants that they have a Section 8 neighbor?"
I was horrified. "Landlords have no
obligation to rent to Section 8 tenants, but they may choose to just as they would choose to rent to anyone else. And families with Section 8 vouchers aren't fucking sex offenders, they're just low-income. So nobody has any obligation (or reason) to disclose their financial situation to their neighbors. The concept of poor people living in an upscale apartment complex is actually called
integration. And it sounds like a plasma TV left on a doorstep could have been stolen by someone other than the neighbor who
signed for it."
Henry was a little taken aback. "Well, yeah, I guess so. Ellen ended up moving, you know? She had two little kids and after that happened ..."
I'm pretty sure Henry is not a bigot, and I'm pretty sure he's a good and smart person (curing cancer all day, you know). And he's also a person of color, so potentially, he might be slightly more aware of prejudice in its different forms than your average white guy.
So I was reminded that "public education" isn't just about trying to make progressive policy palatable to conservative rednecks. Sometimes (maybe oftentimes!) it needs to happen at upscale gatherings where liberal, well-educated people are passing shrimp cocktails and tuna steak kebobs and bemoaning the current political administration.
Posted by Dori at 1:55 PM
In other hilarious professional exploits ...
Last Fall, I retained a family-owned cleaning service to tidy our tiny office. Even though I have repeatedly explained to the Dustbusters administrators that our office is staffed between 9:00 and 5:00 and that cleaning needs to occur in the evening,
every single month the cleaners either come in the middle of the day or not at all.
Every single month I observe that their service concept is just not meeting my needs. They were supposed to clean last night (after three reminders from me), and they didn't. So enough. I called today and explained that I was
"terminating our cleaning relationship." They were not heartbroken, even when I asked them to send back my keys.
Posted by Dori at 9:39 AM
Andre the Intern
Andre the intern has been on the job for a few weeks now. He is big and bumbling with unkempt curly hair. His work experience includes a stint at Godiva: on his resume, he wrote: "compensation: $10/hr. plus chocolate." His reference (college professor), chuckled as he described Andre's initial diligence, his disappearance mid-semester, and then his ultimate finals-time rally. Overall it was an affectionate, if not exalted, description. Andre was polite and appropriate and genuinely interested in our work. I hired him.
Andre arrived on his first day with a huge 2-liter bottle of Pepsi. I asked him if he was on his way back from a function of some kind; coming from a party or something. "No," he said, "I drink about two of these a day." I asked him if he wanted a cup. "No," he said, "I drink it right out of the bottle." He proceeded to do so.
We discussed his learning goals, and when I suggested general areas he might want to learn about, he just said yes, eagerly, to all of them. Every day, he describes his situation as "swell." He responds to all of my directions approvingly. He says:
"Sweet." He keeps his Pepsi by his side and goes to the bathroom maybe three or four times during a two-hour shift.
Today he was very, very sick. He showed up sneezing and coughing and my instinct was
to ask him
to get the fuck out of my office. But of course he was already in it, he'd already
touched my computer, and all I could do was offer him tissues after he wiped his nose on the back of his hand and then wiped his hand on the edge of the conference table. (I then washed my own hands and cleaned off the keyboard as subtly as possible with cleansing solution.)
Andre proceeded to cough and sneeze some more as he worked on a mailing, and I imagined a mass epidemic resulting from our innocent outreach efforts. About halfway through the envelope stuffing process, he busted out a sandwich--a gooey one, with lettuce flapping around the edges. Out of the corner of my eye I observed the amount of snot, crumbs, and general debris that was accumulating in each envelope, and I tried very, very hard to squelch the urge to either recommend that he clean up or take the task away from him.
I successfully squelched. Andre finished the mailing and suggested doing some Internet research. He picked up the tissue box, his Pepsi, and sandwich #2 and headed towards the computer. It was time for intervention.
"Do you want to take a break, maybe, before you get started?" I said, trying really hard to sound like a manager and not a kindergarten teacher. "I like to keep food away from the computers." (This is a lie. Even though I know I shouldn't, I eat in front of my computer all the time.) Andre nodded amenably. "And then maybe you could wash your hands? I just want to make sure that everyone in the office stays healthy."
"Sweet," he said, polishing off the sandwich and sidling into the bathroom.
Posted by Dori at 9:11 PM
Here Comes the Bridesmaid
So as Melinda over at
Anything Said has reported, on Sunday, our dear friends R&R were united in holy matrimony. The wedding was at the Fruitlands, which is where Louisa May Alcott lived for a while, and where "the view is just the beginning." (Meaning, it's a beautiful, beautiful spot which also features a labyrinth, two museums, and a tea room). The weather was perfect: sunny and temperate. I was a bridesmaid along with two other primary friends of the bride. (K. was my co-bridesmaid and W. was the MOH; that's wedding-speak for Maid of Honor.) All three of us wore
maroon dresses.Everything about the day was magical. We had an amazing brunch in the morning, at a hotel that features a chocolate fountain. A home-visiting hairstylist created "up dos" for all of us. The extraordinarily attentive photographer captured every single moment, pin by pin, spray by spray. Gabriel, a (male) friend of the bride who had come all the way from San Francisco for the event, lolled around with us during the beautification process, and we briefed him on all things wedding: alterations, curling irons, strapless bras, etc. He was lovely.
Some other highlights:
- Setting up shop in the "bridal chamber", where the event staff had laid out wine and cheese for us to snack on while we dressed and waited for the ceremony to begin. There were many more slices of cheese than crackers, so we "went commando" and ate the cheese by itself.
- Standing alongside R. as we peeked through the window watching the guests arrive. She was radiantly beautiful just by virtue of being R., and by virtue of wearing such a stunning and flattering dress. But most
exceptionally beautiful was the excitement on her face as she watched the gathering of all these people who love her --I felt honored to share it.
- Watching the groom's face when he saw R. in all her bridal glory. I will never forget that flash of love and delight.
- R.'s perfect certainty that she was making the right choice. Absolute absence of cold feet. She commented at some point about all the decisions associated with the wedding planning. "The decision to marry Ryan was by far the easiest one. A total no-brainer."
- Bruschetta toasts doused with vinaigrette; brie baked in a honey crust; almond cream wedding cake. (All the food, really, was excellent.)
- The moment when the strap of R.'s aforementioned stunning and flattering dress disintegrated, and, within seconds, four different women materialized with safety pins, advice, and support (ultimately the strap stayed off, for an asymmetrical look).
- When the sun was setting, and the reception was in full swing, and I looked around at my friends and felt this moment of pure joy. We were all celebrating together, and I felt so lucky to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right people.
Posted by Dori at 9:47 PM
No More HO
So my Guy is now a SECOND YEAR RESIDENT, which is one rung higher on the ladder of the medical hierarchy (think
John Carter on
ER). Today, July 1st, is the day a new crop of residents descends upon hospital wards nationwide. Therefore, if you're not feeling well, today is a bad day to go be treated.
Last night, I attended a welcome dinner for the new residents in my Guy's department. The food was delicious, plentiful, and free.The current people behaved like it was the
last day of school (since they just finished their first year) and the new people behaved like it was the
first day of school (since they know nothing and no one.)
The new residents, shell-shocked and nervous, are still recovering from the brutality of internship. One woman mentioned that she did hers at a hospital where they call the interns "House Officers" or HOs. "I'm done being a HO," she declared.
It was very interesting to see the dynamic of the battle-weary interacting with the bright-eyed. There were about 30 people at the dinner--ALL of them were doctors/medical people (even the significant others). I met a guy doing a "derm fellowship" (that's
dermatology). I heard about some lecture on bioradiology (a field which I was told is too boring to describe). Everyone exchanged reviews of the "attendings" (think
Susan Lewis on
ER). And they were mostly married/engaged. Incredibly, a number of them had small kids (presumably at home with child care providers).
It was a trip into a dazzling parallel universe where everyone is brilliant, well-employed, and exhausted.
Posted by Dori at 1:48 PM
