Square Meals

I chose the title of this post based on my memories of my dad telling me about the 'square meals' he had to eat while enrolled as a student at a military college. A 'square meal' involves picking up food with your fork, lifting it to the level of your mouth, then bringing it in a straight line to your mouth, although apparently Google isn't familiar with this term. A 'square meal' is just a substantial, nourishing meal. Either idea works, though.

I'm in a sort of tricky situation right now as far as work goes. I have a love/hate relationship with work, with not a lot in between. But even when it's pure love, my job is not something I could do for the rest of my life. Based on money alone, I just... couldn't. If I weren't married to someone who makes over three times as much as I do (literally), I couldn't keep this job and feel like a responsible parent. But this is a story for a different blog, one that I started a while ago, but just couldn't keep up with all my health drama.

There are many great aspects to my job, however. One of them is that for the most part, I really enjoy my colleagues. Even though most of them aren't actually friends, overall, I couldn't ask for a better group of people to be around every day. Also, everyone has been super supportive as I've gone through all this cancer crap. I honestly don't know how people with inflexible jobs and/or jerkwad bosses could do this. Anyways, I have a colleague who is... um... interesting. Honestly, he's sort of nuts. BUT, he's not a bad person. I really think his heart is in the right place. I just think he has a hard time fitting in because he is ex-military, and quintessentially so. He had a fairly high rank in the military, whereas in our job you are treated pretty crappily as an instructor (see paragraph above), and I'm sure that's hard to handle. (It's even hard for me, and I've never had a job with any sort of status.) We are not a military institution. Most of the people in my department are fairly to extremely liberal, with a disproportionate number of atheists. Some of the women occasionally dress like hipsters, wear hats, have piercings in places other than their ears, and tattoos in places other than the areola of a reconstructed breast.

But I digress. The other day, aforementioned colleague - we will call him Admiral, lol - came into my office, plopped down, and declared that he was on a mission. He informed me that he wanted to arrange for members of the department to bring food for my family after my mastectomy, and basically there was no saying no. Like he said, he was on a mission. And honestly, it is suuuuuuper nice of him. Like I said, he is not a bad person. After the past two surgeries, my book club friends were awesome about bringing me food, but this surgery and recovery is a different beast, so more people is not a bad thing. Plus, my book club friends do a lot of other things, like help watch the kids. Admiral informed me that he had already spoken to one of my colleagues, who is also a book club friend, and that he was going to include all the book club members in his e-mail for his sign-up sheet, and wondered if there was anyone else he should put on his list. Um, no. I'm not going to sic him on my friends like that, haha. He then whipped out a pen and paper, and proceeded to ask a zillion questions, military style. Husband's name? Husband's cell phone (so he can let him know who will be coming each day)? Is he a decent guy? He must be, you chose him. Where does he work? Will he be home a lot? Kids' names? Kids' ages? Food allergies? What do they like? What do I want them to eat? How much do they eat? What pets do I have and do they need care and food and what do they eat? Do we want the food in recyclable containers only? Do we want it warm or not? How well can my husband cook? Is he capable of following written directions if the food isn't totally ready? What time do we want it delivered? Where is the best place for the person to park who is bringing the food? How often do we want food - every day, every other day, Monday/Wednesday/Friday or Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, and on and on and on.

OMG!! It was seriously comedic! I'm a little nervous about what the e-mail he is going to send out is going to be like. At least everyone in the department knows he is a little crazy, and that 'recyclable containers preferred' did NOT come from me, but I will have to warn my book club friends. (I said that yes, we do recycle, which in my mind doesn't translate into 'recyclable containers preferred.' LOL.) When he asked if there was anything I wanted my kids to eat, I said that I tried to feed them healthy food, but, you know... beggars can't be choosers. Plus, I'm pretty sure that everyone who is likely to bring us food is at least as health-conscious as we are. So... no special requests. His response to this was to pretend to write something on his notepad while saying, 'Gummy bears for dinner are completely acceptable.' Like I said, OMG!

It was like The Wolf in Pulp Fiction.

http://www.buzzquotes.com/wolf-quotes-from-pulp-fiction

I don't want to sound ungrateful. I really do appreciate it, and Admiral's heart is in the right place. I don't even really know him that well. I am not above accepting help at this point - it's honestly the only way we are getting through all of this, and I will pay it forward 100x over when I can. But... OMG. It's actually kind of funny, so I think at this point, all I can really do is laugh about it. Laugh and be grateful for what it is.

In other news:

• Today was the first day of my five-day intensive course. While it felt good to teach, and I feel like it went pretty well: a) gosh, I SUCKED (I haven't taught this course in a long time and it showed); and b) My HIPS! OMG, they. are. killing. me. :( It's horrible. I'm going to go up and lie in the bath after I finish this, but I'm really worried about making it through the next two days. I'm in a serious world of pain right now. Argh. 
• We are having our annual back-to-school department meeting on Monday. I'll be teaching, so I'll miss the meeting, but I read through the agenda anyway. One of the items on the agenda is to adopt department bylaws, which believe it or not, we've never had before. I read through the proposed bylaws and, without getting into specifics, some of them really irked me. Under different circumstances, they would make my blood boil, but... I don't have the energy to be angry. And I especially don't want to be angry when my department has been so good to me in so many ways. OTOH, we have a new Chair, so I feel like it is a good time to make some really positive changes. I've always been the one who has spoken my mind, not worried about pissing people off, and been an advocate for instructors. If I just let it go, it will be a missed opportunity. We've made so many good changes recently that I actually enjoy going to work again, and I feel like I mobilized the forces to make these changes happen. I'd like to continue in a good direction. But... I also don't know if I can take the stress of mobilizing the forces again, and the potential negativity of making waves with people who are being super amazingly supportive of me right now. I want to revel in my current LOVE. Sigh.
• My blood test results continue to trickle in, and so far so good. Nothing out of the normal range - aside from a few low values that have nothing to do with blood clotting (mean corpuscular hgb and mean platelet volume). I actually have an appointment with my PCP tomorrow to discuss the results of the duplicate blood draw I did way back when. Continued prayers and all that jazz. 
• Things are much better with my parents right now. Praises. 

And now, I am off to soak my poor, aching hips and try to prepare for class tomorrow better than today.