What have I been doing?

...apart from pruning my schedule?

It's been nuts! I don't even remember what I ran on Sat and Sunday. And I spent most of today thinking it was Tuesday, which it is now...just capped off a, dunno, 10 day work week with a day hectic enough to kick off some serious adrenaline.

And it was NICE! I was buzzing. It's been a while since I've felt like that.

See, I worked my morning job, then came home to eat a bit of brunch, a banana and some bread. Not a lot of time. Then it was off to the hospital for a follow up appointment (had eye surgery a few months ago)...they've done away with the bus route I used to take, but no biggie. I looked up another bus.

Then the appointment took forever and I realized once I got back to the bus stop and looked at the schedule that, wow, I wasn't going to be able to make it home in time to go to my afternoon/evening job. So I figured out an alternative way to get to work...thereupon some deliberation. I needed scrubs. Some of the residents are confused enough already, and if I showed up in street clothes, they might mistake me for a relative, or worse. one woman in particular periodically needs calming down that, no, burglars aren't burgling in her room. Anyway, they had scrubs in the hospital, which I had ironically been tempted by on my way to my appointment (such pretty colours!), but I knew I wouldn't have enough time to go back and get that hot lime green number I'd been eyeing.

Plan B, hop out of the bus at the Rideau Centre and go to Giant Tiger. This was the only other place I knew of which had scrubs.

Well, traffic eroded my time cushion, and this wasn't going to happen either.

Plan C, ride the bus towards work, and dash into another Giant Tiger nearby. I'd been there before--no scrubs--but they might have a largish t-shirt which could do. I guessed at the stop and dashed up some street or another--fortunately I wasn't too far off. Another defense for the urban grid system!

I went in there, and, lo and behold, there WERE scrubs on the pyjama rack. Didn't match, but there were some extra-small pants--VERY important because those suckers start riding pretty low when they're small and don't have a drawstring--and a small top. Size doesn't matter so much for the top; they're all too large on me. Except for the cute women's sized scrubs at the hospital in the cheerful colours, maybe...but I digress....

Got to the cash and the cashier was trying sooo hard to go that extra mile with her job. Got someone ahead of me to wait while a loaf of bread was exchanged, etc, etc...and she tenderly folded up my newly-purchased scrubs. How could I fault that?

I thanked her, and walked out of the store calmly, then bolted. Got to work one minute late. Caught up with the woman I was replacing, then changed, and WHOA, I'd done it. It was a rush. I needed some food, though; the cook gave me some, and I knocked back some tea, and got cracking.

And, yeah, the new colour (powder blue, really not me) threw some people off. I got a few lectures about being new, as in, me being new, not just my clothes. Only one such 'discussion' ticked me off, though. It was from a woman who was admonishing me for putting the wrong nightie on her. I reminded her that that was the one she had handed to me. !!! But she kept saying I was making all sorts of mistakes because I was new. Ok, please, I hope I'm snuffed out before I fail to recognize someone who has seen parts of me that I haven't. Usually that doesn't get under my skin, though--it's pretty thick. This woman has been grating on my nerves these past few days, though, mainly because she's terribly fussy about cushions. I'm not sure if this is a British quirk, but I've worked with three aged British ladies recently, and all three of them have been fastidious about cushions, and nobody else. None of the other residents are. I'm not talking about having cushions--very important! I'm talking about plumping them up a certain way every 5 milliseconds and lining them up just so, and having multiple cushions that have to go in a certain order, and are invariably not in that order when I'm directed to them. Which begs the question: are the residents actually able to manipulate these down-filled torture devices themselves, or are they toying with me? Oh, and those two cushions that are identical really aren't identical so don't try to cut corners that way and disrupt the entire cosmos, including planets that haven't yet been created. All this becomes a 5-10 minute endless ordeal sometimes, although I'm honing escape strategies. I am accustomed to putting down cushions or offering cushions as a matter of course, and actually the other two British ladies didn't/don't irk me as much mainly because they remember my name and we had/have decent conversations that didn't revolve around what the other girl (oftentimes me) did yesterday with the cushions and how I'm a bit thick because I'm new.

Note to self: remember the name of the person who plumps up my cushions when I'm dottering. Or I might wake up with one on my face.

Phew! I try to refrain about talking about patients, especially on my running blog, but this was so cracked, I had to get it out. And, yes, I'm an awful person, but all this will nurture a bit of healthy guilt, so that I can tolerate her all the more patiently next time. I must say, though, that there is some sort of blessed homeostatis at work in that place--when someone is totally off their nut, someone else usually gets back from outer space all of a sudden. Someone who is being totally unreasonable is often followed by someone who is suddenly and unusually angelic.

Anyway, it was nice to have a day go like that, wired and swiftly. It was like how I used to be in Seoul--I'd leave the house at 6 or so, and not come back until 10 or 11...I'd duck into various places for my meals, and nap on the subway between my jobs. It caught up with me after a while, but it was pretty exhilirating sometimes.

Running--uh--put me down for 2 miles. Feels like 20. I was getting lazy with the stairs, but I was good and sparing with the elevator this evening.

Anyway, I have pruned my schedule. :D Job A stays the same, Job B has temporarily been suspended (and conveniently resumes after my marathon--and I actualy had no hand in this), which means I can sleep in on Saturdays if need be. Job C will have reduced shifts. I worked the weekend to help my manager out, and then I asked her about working less for the next while. And I guess I'll conveniently ignore or postpone a possible Job D...at any rate, I'm really pumped about all this.

Gotta get to bed somehow...still have to work tomorrow morning...