Complications

I'm going on vacation this weekend. Taking 5 days and heading south to New Orleans where I've never been to meet up with good friends from college and their friends. I'm using a free flight that had to be used before February 2nd, and staying at someone's house, so I'm hoping the budget part of the trip is relatively manageable.

I remember thinking when I booked the trip, "I will have just taken time off from work for Christmas - it seems kind of silly to take more time so soon."

As it turns out, this trip could not be planned for a better time.

Work has been tough these past few weeks. A family I became very close with had to make difficult end-of-life decisions for a family member they loved so dearly. I attended the funeral for that person yesterday, and then returned to work to have a very difficult conversation about DNR status with another family. I went home exhausted and hoping for better today.

Alas, that was not to be. I had thought I was mentally prepared for what today would bring, but I forgot about the x-factor. The fact that one never knows what patients will be admitted overnight, how very sick they can be, and how complicated their family dynamics can be.

As the social worker, fixing and/or managing the sickness never falls to me. But managing and putting band-aids on broken, messy, and/or complicated family dynamics is most definitely in my job description.

Throw in my more typical (but still required, even on crazy days) tasks of introducing myself to new families and orienting them to the unit and the hospital, and my day went from predictably bad to unpredictably miserable. I didn't leave until 8:30pm.

I feel like this always happens when I'm working a short week and gearing up for a vacation. All the chaos that might have been spread over 5 days somehow knows to squeeze itself into 3. On one hand, I'm glad I'm dealing with it all, as I always hate to leave a mess for my coworker who covers for me when I'm out. On the other hand, I'm exhausted, and unsure how I'll rally to make it to work tomorrow... especially given that I'll be walking to work in a snow storm.

It's as though every ounce of my energy must be drained before being able to go on vacation to replenish it.

I don't even have the energy to pack.

And yet...

I still wouldn't trade this job for any other in the world.

California Trip - Photo of the Day - Day 4

Tea with Cletus.

California Trip - Photo of the Day - Day 3

This photo requires no caption.

California Trip - Photo of the Day - Day 2

What makes those Canadian children so much more advanced than ours?

California Trip - Photo of the Day - Day 1

Tim whips up a little lunch.

Gone Fishin'

Took a last-minute trip up to Maine Saturday to have dinner with my grandmother who just moved to Maine from upstate New York. I spent Sunday morning with my sister, then headed down to Portland to meet up with friends who live there, as well as a "special guest" who was in town visiting. We met up at the Yacht Club and headed out to their boat (which I had never seen). It was a beautiful day (though a little hot), and we just sat out on the boat, catching up, enjoying each other's company, and watching a 3-year-old "fish" with his Shrek fishing rod (apologies for the photo quality - a cameraphone and smudgy fingerprints do not a clear photo make).

I headed home to Boston around 8:30, and about 30 minutes into my trip, I saw a police car racing up behind me with lights flashing. I pulled into the right lane, and the car sped by me. I looked ahead, and there were a lot of brake lights on both sides of the highway, so I figured I was coming upon a relatively new accident scene.

As I drove closer, I could see many cars pulled off the road, and as I was waved through I looked to my left to see a banged-up SUV. As I turned my eyes back to the road, I saw a large pile in the middle of the road a little to my left, and when I got closer, I realized that it was a deer... no... a MOOSE.

Apparently, 'tis the season when moose are most likely to dart across the road, and because they're so big, it's rare for the car that runs into them (or the people in it) to survive. The good news is that though I have searched high and low for evidence of this accident online, I have found none, leading me to believe that this one, though involving many cars and one helluva large moose, was not fatal.

In other (happier) news, I got multiple paychecks this week, so I'm no longer bleeding money. This is good for many reasons, but most importantly right now, because this income will pay for the multiple pairs of shorts I have had to purchase for my new summer job. It sounds silly to whine about having to buy shorts for my summer job (especially to those of you who are working in jobs where you could never in a million years show up in shorts), but the truth is that I have very few (1 pair) shorts that fit me right now, and so I've had to invest quite a bit ($ x 4 other pairs of shorts) to make sure I'll have a different pair of shorts to wear each day of the week while working at camp (I'll be working with teenagers - they'll notice this stuff). And since my summer salary isn't particularly large, I'm allowed to whine a little when I have to invest in clothing for said job.

Anyway, I purchased a pair of Polo shorts when I was on a shopping spree at Ross Dress for Less in San Francisco last month. I have since decided that I love them, BUT they are last year's style, so they are impossible to find. I tracked down one pair on ebay, but they are a tiny bit too small, and I've been visiting every TJ Maxx and Marshall's looking for them for the past month. Yes, it's true, I've become a stalker of shorts. So on my trip up to Maine, I realized that there's a Polo outlet in Freeport (which is on my way home), and that they would be likely to have the desired shorts. Indeed, they did, and I purchased 2 more pairs, thus completing my summer collection.

Also while in Freeport I learned about the FREE LL Bean concert series. Wicked good artists - some of them - and at a price that can't be beat. I have decided that I will choose my weekends in Maine based on who is performing at Bean's.

Who's with me?

Nostomania: West Coast Style

Anyone who has spoken with me at all in the past month has heard me answer the "What are you doing during your break?" question with a very excited "I'm going to San Francisco!" Being a student now, I got that question a lot more than I ever did while working in the "real world" and so I had many opportunities to joyously share my plans with anyone who asked ("I'm going to San Francisco! For 11 days! I'm so excited!!!").

Keep that in mind as you read below...

Yesterday I woke up way too early and made my way to the T stop. I will interrupt my own story to say this: Boston is head and shoulders above Oakland or San Francisco in ease of airport access by public transportation. Not only is it easier, but it's also CHEAP! $1.25 got me from 3 blocks away from my house to the terminal - including the bus that shuttled me from the T stop to the terminal, while $4.10 got me from the terminal to about a mile from my final destination in Berkeley ($2.00 bus ride to the BART, then $2.10 BART ride). Score one for Beantown!

I arrived at the airport and saw a rediculously long line of people, as well as a few shorter ones. I stood in a short line, wondering why on earth people would choose that long line over my shorter one, until I heard a man telling people that if they were flying to Phoenix or Las Vegas, they had to be in the long line. It seems that though US Airways and America West merged months ago, they have not yet merged their computer systems, and so all the flights that were America West flights had to have their own special check-in.

Of course, I was flying through Phoenix, so I lugged my stuff over to the long line, where I stood for the next 50 minutes. When I reached the counter, the man looked at me and said, "Are you looking for trouble?" I must have looked as confused as I felt, because he pointed at my shirt. "You are wearing a Patriots shirt and you are going to Oakland. Are you looking for trouble?" I laughed, and he laughed, and he gave me my ticket and took my suitcase, and I raced off (also, keep this interaction in mind as you read below).

By the time I got through the check-in line, it was already 30 minutes before my flight's scheduled departure, and I still had not yet conquered security. I got through security, only to have a woman pull my bag out for extra screening (despite the careful, liquid-free packing of said backpack I had done the night before). I arrived at the gate pretty much when the plane was due to take off, but I was allowed on because even more people were behind me trying to make the flight too. One plane movie and three episodes of Arrested Development Season III later, I was on the ground in Phoenix.

I had a layover of about an hour in Phoenix, so I grabbed a salad and checked the monitors for my flight information. The flight to San Francisco was leaving at 2:20 from the gate right next to the one where I had landed, so I parked myself on a chair and watched another episode of Arrested Development while eating.

The boarding began, and I gathered my stuff and headed towards the gate. The woman called Zone 2 (my zone), and I stepped up and handed her my ticket. She ripped it, said "thank you" and gave me my portion back.

As I began to walk down toward the plane, I had a split-second thought: "What if it's raining when I land? Will I BART or will I splurge on a SuperShuttle?" What happened in my mind as I was thinking this thought was the formation of a clear picture of me having to make this decision, and that picture of me was at the Oakland Airport, and not in San Francisco.

I gasped and looked down at my ticket, and sure enough, it said that my destination was Oakland, and I knew for certain that I had just been let on a San Francisco plane. Luckily, I had not made it far past the ticket lady, and I turned back to tell her that I needed my ticket back. She handed it back to me and thanked me for noticing (Um... wait, isn't that her job?!).

I looked at my ticket: Departure time, 2:10pm. Great. It was already 2:00. I raced to the boards and found my real flight gate information and ran down to the other end of the terminal to find that they were also just beginning to board. Despite my best efforts at sabotaging the trip I had been so looking forward to, I made it onto the right plane.

Apparently, I had been talking about San Francisco so much leading up to the trip, my subconscious mind automatically looked for it instead of Oakland. It is especially funny, however, that I had a conversation with the man at the counter this morning who specifically mentioned Oakland, and yet I still hunted down the SF flight.

So the title of this post is due to the fact that I think that I might have a case of perpetual nostomania (also known as "the grass is always greener"). When I lived here, I had an overwhelming desire to return home to my East Coast roots. Every time I went back to visit, I would feel stronger and stronger ties pulling me there, and I would be beside myself with excitement at being among "my people" again.

But now, after 5 months in Boston, I haven't yet settled back into those east coast roots, and instead have found myself missing the west coast a lot. I miss the burritos and friends and ocean and the mountains, sure, but beyond that, there is just something different about the west coast mentality that I think I connect with more.

Don't all you East Coasters get yer feelings hurt. I'm sure that in the next year and a half in Boston, I'll rediscover my love for living in New England (not just visiting), and I'll end up settling there for the long haul. But for now, there's the knowledge that I always have a home and second family waiting for me out here in California.

My heart, for now, remains firmly planted in San Francisco.