5038 Brush fire 1 - van

January 7, 2016

There's a fine line between genius and insanity, 

but the line between beautiful and ugly is really, really thick.

– Mil Millington --

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I haven't been keeping up with this blog because I've been stomping brush fires.  It's been one thing after another, and I don't know if it's age or just the way things go these days, but it seems like everything takes forever.  So much energy.

The battery in my van died a long time ago. Like more than a year ago.  Hercules gave me a jump one spring day, and I drove it around for a while to charge the battery, but then the next day it wouldn't start again (not even a rrr-rrr-rrr), so I let it sit.  I didn't do anything about it because I knew that the vehicle needed a lot of work to be dependable, and it was easier to think about buying oh, maybe a commercial van, or something, than to actually do anything.  So, in November I called my local garage folks, and they came and got it. They came out with some kind of electric pack, and they drove it to the garage.  They will also deliver, which is nice.  

So, they had the van for weeks.  The alternator was ok, but it needed a new battery.  And oil change.  And this and that from being left sitting for so long.  And brake lines.  Oh, and there's a gas leak somewhere, so they have to drop the tank to find that.  Then replace the fuel pump (gaskets leaking).   Every time they called with something new, they gave me an estimate.  Now, there was a definite communication problem there.  The numbers kept going up, so I assumed that was the total.  Nope, every call was just THAT problem.  In addition.  So at the end I was expecting a bill of about $1400, and was shocked when he wanted almost $3000!  (Something like $2994.)

I can't complain too much.  I told Mike I wanted the van to be dependable, so do whatever it needs to put it in very good shape.  I'm comfortable with what they did, I'm not so worried about the trip upriver now, but it was a scramble to pay that bill.

Then, the rest of the story.

The van had been sitting in the driveway for more than a year, driver's side about six inches from the edge of the lawn.  When the mechanic delivered the van, he parked it in the same spot, and I gave him a ride back to the garage in my car.  Big mistake.  I should have used the van to take him back.  Then I'd have seen this before he got away:

A surprise:


The fender:


The door:


The garage was closed by then, so I immediately called and left a phone message so there would be no mistake about when it had happened (or more accurately, NOT happened).   And then I took the van over the next morning so he could see it. 

Naturally, he claimed it looked like that when they picked it up.  Uh, no, it had been parked next to the lawn for more than a year.  There's no way it got hit there.  My neighbors can all verify that.  This happened when it was in your care. 

The scrapes went right down to the base coat, so he claimed that door had already been repainted once.  Uh, no, I bought the thing new, have been the only owner, and except for a scratch near the door handle, there hasn't been a single solitary mark on this vehicle in fifteen years.  I'm rather proud of that. 

He seemed to think he could get out of it some way until I said that it looked to me like someone parked too closely had turned into me trying to get out, scraping me, probably a large SUV or truck, and that the policeman had agreed that's what it looked like.  He looked shocked.  "You called the police?!"  "Uh, yeah.  If I have to go to my insurance company for a hit and run, they'll want a police report from as close to the accident time as possible."

So, they had it for another two weeks.  It now has a new door panel (supposed to be the same color, but it's slightly off because it's not as faded), and the dent in the fender is pulled out and the scrapes polished out.

This was all emotionally exhausting.

I don't want to dirty that pond, because with the van's dropped floor and 4 inch clearance, it can't go up on any old rack, so it's hard to find a good mechanic who has the right lift or pit to work on it.
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3544 Noises

Sunday, June 10, 2012

"Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace"

~Dalai Lama~

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There's still that sound coming from somewhere across the street.  Like high-pitched tree frogs with a mechanical undertone.  It drives me crazy.   Daughter and Hercules can hear it on my porch and in my front rooms.  They don't hear it in their house.  Nobody knows where it's coming from.  It's random, several hours a day, sometimes early, sometimes late.  A compressor?  A pump?  The source seems to be impossible to pinpoint.

I mentioned that the people directly across the street got a dog, Christmas of 2010, one of those tiny silky dogs that people like to put topknot bows on.  The girl there walked it a little at first, but quickly lost interest.  The man comes home from work and sometimes I hear him yell, "Put her in her cage!'  I think the poor little thing spends most of her life in a cage.  Two or three times a day they put her out the front door on a chain, and then seem to forget her.  She quickly does her duty, and then sits in front of the door and whines for half an hour, 45 minutes, yesterday afternoon it was an hour.

You know, I could stand a little barking, but that high-pitched "YEE yee yee, YEE yee yee, YEE yee yee" (keep saying that for a half hour) is driving me crazy.  How can they not hear her and let her in?

I miss the silence of the country house.  
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3539 Stress

Monday, May 28, 2012

"Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think."

--  Neil deGrasse Tyson --

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Clarifying  the previous post - the guy has not had reassignment surgery.  He's just wearing women's clothes now, and "being" a woman.  He is 100% male physically, and it all works.  He never felt that he was actually female.  It's just that in addition to all the maleness, functional testes and penis and attraction to women, he also has ovaries.  Just stray accidental ovaries floating around in there, nothing else.  (It could be worse - there are people with entire stunted twins inside them.)  Anyway, the estrogen from the ovaries causes some feminizing effects.  Since discovering the existence of the ovaries, he has decided he's "actually" a woman.

Huh?  "Actually?"  I know a guy who has four thumbs, twelve fingers.  Is he "actually" alien? 

If he had the ovaries removed, he'd be the husband and father, the MAN, he thought he was, and was quite happy being, before he discovered the ovaries.  I think he's incredibly stupid, and he's getting very bad medical and psychological advice.

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This month has disappeared so quickly.  Poof. That saddens me.  It seems that the older you get, the faster time passes.  I don't know whether it's because you get so much less done, or that over your shoulder you see a shadow catching up.  On the other hand, I don't want to get as much done as I used to.  It's time to slow down and watch the butterflies.

I've been thinking about stress, and the effect it has on health.  There's a lot more stress here than at the country house.  Not like there's stuff poking at me, it's just an atmosphere.  Days are a lot less relaxed.  It's like things are going on all the time.  There's no pause, no pause in time.  The air is dirtier.  There's an undercoat of noise.  It feels like there's more demand on me, even though no person is demanding.  And I feel like bits and pieces of my body are giving up.

The Man has been experiencing  a lot of stress, and it shows.  Nothing I can do about that, except not to add more.

Jasper doesn't seem to be more stressed.  I'm gone two or three days a week, but although that would badly distress a dog, I don't think a cat is stressed by that.  Oh, it's obvious he missed me, but that's not the same as stress.

Dogs are pack animals.  Their humans are their pack.  The most damaging thing you can do to a lone dog is to ostracize them from the pack, either tied outside, shut out of the room, or confined to a cage.  They need a pack, and they need to be with the pack, no matter what their status within the pack. 

Cats are just the opposite.  Most domestic cats come from lone-hunter stock.  They seem to like being alone, and if they don't have a lot of other stimulus, they will chose the company of one other animal or human.  (If they do have a lot of stimulus, humans become mere can openers.)  Usually a cat in a family will chose ONE of the humans to be his or her special human.  Cats don't jockey for status.  They assume their status is high, because there is no pack.  There are articles on what stresses a cat, but the articles address sudden changes, like how to handle moves, new people or pets, or schedule changes.  What about constant low level stress?

At the country house, Jasper saw birds and squirrels on the deck.  Here, he also sees other cats in the yard and on the patio, and at first it scared him so badly he pulled the curtains down.  Is that a temporary freakout, or a constant source of stress?  Can that be why whenever he is downstairs, he stays close to me?  He was more independent in the country.

I wonder if anyone has done a study on the comparative health of dogs secure within their pack (human or canine family) and dogs who are constantly stressed by being shut away from the pack.  I wonder if there have been any studies on the comparative health of cats who are the only pet, and those who don't get "alone time". (I'm thinking of those retirement homes for cats, that are supposed to be such wonderful places, but I wonder if it's actually stressing to cats who had until "retirement" always had alone-time when they wanted it.  Domestic cats are not herd animals.)

Theories?
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3284 Maelstrom

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

There is negative perfectionism and positive perfectionism.
Negative perfectionism is based on a fear of inadequacy.
Positive perfectionism strives for mastery.
-- Silk --

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In the past few days I have experience a maelstrom of emotions, ranging from anger, sadness, discouragement, fear, and disillusionment to joy, happiness, hope, and excitement, and everything in between, sometimes in quick succession and sometimes all at the same time.

Early Monday afternoon I met with the urologist. I had looked up the ESWL procedure scheduled for this Friday, and I had a bunch of questions and concerns, and when the office help said I wouldn't see him before the actual procedure, I had asked for an appointment to talk with him.

When I was shown into his office on Monday and took the seat in front of his desk, before I had a chance to speak he looked at me angrily and said, "You went to the internet! You can't believe anything you read on the internet! It just causes trouble!" or something like that, it may not have been his exact words, but that was the gist of it, and he was VERY angry.

I responded something to the effect that I went to the internet for questions, and have now come to him for the answers. Doesn't matter, I guess. It's obvious he doesn't like questions either. He's Egyptian, I think, has a heavy accent, and I got the distinct impression he doesn't like challenges to his authority. He asked what kind of questions.

So, I sorta blinked twice, and said, "Well, the most important one I guess, is that I have fragile capillaries. Could that be a problem?" His face turned purple, and he said, "Yes. I will not do the procedure. Do you have any other questions?" Well, that response pretty much eliminated the rest. I asked if it was possible that the fragility was only maybe in my skin, not the internal organs, and asked if there was any kind of test, and he said no, no, no, and reiterated that he would not do the procedure. Period. End of discussion.

I asked what next, then? He said we'd take the stent out and then "play it by ear". Those were his exact words. I was dismissed.

I was stunned. On the way out, I stopped at the desk to get the appointment for the stent removal, and was told that the first opening was June 30th.

I pretty much crashed then. June 30th is two and a half weeks away! This useless stent HURTS! It's hurting more every day. And there's no reason for its existence, let alone to be tearing up my insides!

I wanted to cry. I wanted to kill somebody. After all this, there's been no headway. There's been nothing but deterioration since April 2, when they removed a stone blocking the distal end of a ureter, and put the stent in the wrong place.

Driving home, I wanted to cry, but I was too angry to cry.

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You know, I got the distinct impression that it was not so much that I had questions at all, but that I said the words "fragile capillaries". One of the questions always asked is whether you have a bleeding problem or if you are taking a blood thinner. I always answer that I don't have a bleeding problem, I clot well and quickly and I heal quickly (in fact I have phenomenal healing ability), BUT that I do have fragile capillaries. I ALWAYS state that. And if it's not an interview, if it's the checkmark list, I always check "no" on bleeding problems, but then write in "I have fragile capillaries". So it was in my folder right there on his desk. It shouldn't have been a surprise.

(In fact, I suspect it's related to the blowout problem with my veins when anyone attempts to draw blood or set an IV. I just have thin walls, I guess.)

Now , here's the part that angered me more than anything else, more than his attitude, more than having to endure unnecessary pain for another two weeks, more than having no other avenue to resolve this -
I had the distinct impression that if I had not specifically asked, if I had not mentioned it to the nurse and she wrote it down as a concern when I made the appointment and if it had not been overheard by his office staff, no one would ever have asked, he would have gone ahead and done the procedure, and it's entirely possible that I could have started bleeding in and around the kidney, which is a life-threatening emergency. If I lived, I could have lost that kidney. If I had never mentioned it to him, he would have gone ahead and taken that chance!

By my actually bringing it up, he's now open to malpractice if anything went wrong.

And THAT's what made him angry!

That's not a conclusion I came to later. I had that impression right there in his office. Instantly.

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So, I have a double kidney with stones in the lower collection chamber, one of which is blocking the lower ureter, no stones in the upper collection chamber, but a stent in that upper chamber that is tearing up my bladder and doing absolutely nothing else since it's in the wrong chamber, and possibly tearing up the kidney, too, who knows, and I've had only one day in the past month or so that I haven't bled. My stomach is sticking out like I'm seven months pregnant, and it's incredibly tender, there's a nyt-load of edema going on, and since there's all that edema, but the doctor's scale says I've lot four pounds in the last month, I've probably lost a lot more than four.

There's a lump just in front of the urethral opening "down there" which I suspect is the stent poking the bottom of the bladder. It hurts. It hurts when I sit. It hurts when I walk. Imagine a fork shoved up in there, and then the tines are bent every which way, and the handle is hanging out. Now sit, and walk, and bend over. That's what it feels like. It HURTS!

I tell the doctor it hurts. I tell the nurses it hurts. Everybody just shrugs. I don't think they believe me. I tell them I'm bleeding constantly, and we're not talking pink lemonade, we're talking BLOOD! But nobody asks for a urine sample. I think they think I'm exaggerating.

In the meantime, I haven't been able to do anything physical, I haven't been to the old house in months and if I don't get out of there soon I will lose the buyer who's interested, my back and stomach are losing tone, which is dangerous because I need those muscles to keep my spine aligned, and nobody seems to care. Like two and a half more weeks don't matter. And I still have half a double kidney full of stones and blocked. That can't be good....?

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So, that was my status on Monday afternoon.

Late Monday afternoon, I got a call from the urologist's office. They had a cancellation Tuesday morning. Could I come in then to get the stent out?

Uh, yeah.

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So, Tuesday morning. Yesterday. Stent removal. Office procedure.

On Monday, during the unpleasant office conversation, I had pointed out that we still didn't know how the ureters from the left kidney were arranged - whether both ureters emptied into the bladder, or whether they joined into one before reaching the bladder, and that it was important to know that because if they joined, the stent itself could be blocking the lower ureter. I asked if it was possible to actually LOOK into the bladder with a scope, and then we'd know if there was one or two.

Apparently he hadn't thought of that. And you know sumthin'? I think that had a lot to do with the "cancellation". I think I piqued his curiosity.

When I arrived the nurse asked for a urine sample. (The first one in this office.) I filled the little cup with blood. The nurse's eyebrows shot up, but she didn't say anything.

The procedure involved a topical anesthetic swabbed around the urethra, and then a scope was inserted. With men, they use a flexible scope, but with women they use a rigid one (according to the internet - HE didn't say a single word to ME!). There's also a lot of saline pumped in to clear it out and expand things smoothly. The nurse stood next to me and told me what was going on.

The urologist cranked that damn scope all around like he was digging a hole. Then he grabbed the end of the stent and pulled it out. That surprised me. The stent has curls at either end that are supposed to keep it in place, one end in the kidney and one end in the bladder. When it's put in, a guide wire is used to keep the curls straightened out. I had assumed a guide wire would be used to straighten out the kidney end for withdrawal, but if there was any wire used yesterday, I wasn't aware of it. There were a few slight pinches, and a short feeling of heavy pressure, and then it was done.

I think the nurse asked him if he saw a second ureter on the left, and he muttered something about too much edema, so I guess that didn't pan out. I wonder if he'll ever say anything to me about it.

I put my panties back on, and the nurse told me that there would be blood for a few days, that's normal, and some pain and stinging on urination. They gave me a prescription for an antibiotic (Cipro) and a pain killer (Phenazopyridine). Six weeks from now, we need a 24-hour urine collection to find out my urine's chemical composition, and then we'll "play it by ear".

As I was walking across the parking lot, I suddenly realized I was walking without pain. The pain had crept up so slowly, and increased so subtly over the past two months that I hadn't realized how really bad it was until it was gone. Also gone was the pain I'd had in the right lower back, that I'd ascribed to my spine, because it was lessened by changing position. (Now I'm wondering if the stent had been pressing against my spine and had thrown it out of alignment.)

I threw my arms up in the air and shouted, "I'm walking! I can WALK!" I startled a few people.

Since then, I haven't seen a single drop of blood, not from the instant the stent was pulled and I was allowed to empty the saline load. It's a clear pale yellow, like evening sunshine. There was a little stinging when I piddled yesterday, but that's gone. I haven't even opened the pain pills' bottle. (And after reading the info sheet on it, I don't think I'd have ever taken it even if I did have pain. That crap can do some really nasty stuff!)

Of course, I wonder. Is all this pretty urine coming from the right kidney, and the left isn't working? Was all that blood coming not from the bladder, but from the left kidney, and now without the stent it's just building up in the kidney and not coming out? Is there any way I can know?

But I can walk without pain. I can sit without pain. For now, I'm happy.

Later, I'll think about the stones, and the blockage, still there. But not now.
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3250 Mystery Pork

Monday, May 16, 2011

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
-- Napoleon Bonaparte --

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I had a scare yesterday, Sunday. I went to the refrigerator yesterday morning for milk for my cereal, and found a storage container containing pork stuffed with bread, apples, celery, and raisins.

I recognized the storage container as the same set my daughter has, but I swear I had no idea where this one came from, or how long it had been there! Daughter and I had talked about stuffed beef rolls and stuffed pork chops a few days ago, recipies she'd remembered me making when she was small, and she'd loved them and wanted to know how to make them. I assumed this had come from her, because of the container, but I swear I don't recall her having given it to me. I had considered making stuffed chops myself and taking some over to her, but I didn't remember actually doing it.

I was floored. I know my memory is sometimes faulty, and for the past two weeks I've suspected the anesthesiologist in White Plains had given me Versed or something in the same family in spite of my having told him it causes me severe memory problems, because little things have been slipping the past few weeks, like anything that takes less than a few seconds I might not remember, but this is BIG! Whether I made it or Daughter gave it to me, it would have taken more than a few seconds, and I don't remember it!

It really scared me. I was afraid to mention it to Daughter, to ask, because she seems to think I'm pretty decrepit already.

Sunday afternoon she asked if I'd found the pork, and if I liked it. Found? Um, yeah, but how did it get there?

Mystery solved.

After my interrupted sleep Thursday night, utter dehydration, and severe IV trauma Friday followed by almost an hour of intense trembling (which is major muscle exercise!), I was completely wrung out on Saturday. I was cold and tired, and at about 7 pm I went upstairs and crawled into bed, still dressed. I just wanted to get warm in my soft fluffy nest, and maybe nap a little.

I fell asleep over a crossword puzzle and woke up at 3:30 am. Went downstairs, was surprised to find that the kitchen TV, lights, and computer were off (I had assumed I'd left them on), went outside for a cigarette, and then went back to bed. And fell asleep immediately again.

That's what I know.

What I didn't know:

Daughter had brought the pork over at 7:30 pm-ish Saturday. She rang the doorbell twice. When she got no answer, she tried the door. It was unlocked, so she came in. She knew I had to be home because of the unlocked door, my purse on the counter, Hal in the garage, and Fred in the driveway. She called me several times. She put the pork in the refrigerator, then went upstairs to look for me.

She found me in the bed with the light on, the covers up to my ears (so she didn't know I was fully dressed) and my face planted on the open crossword puzzle book. She said "Mommy? Are you ok?" a few times, but I was obviously comfortably asleep. She didn't want to startle me by touching me. So she went back to the kitchen, turned everything off, and left, locking the door behind her.

I can't believe I didn't hear the doorbell and didn't wake when she called or spoke to me. Seriously. That almost scares me. But I guess I really was completely worn out.

And I'm not quite as crazy as I was afraid I might be.

(The pork, once I knew it hadn't been sitting there for weeks, was delicious.)
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3242 Costs of defense; Baby names

Saturday, May 7, 2011

A classic is something that everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read.
--Mark Twain --

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This is an excellent article on what 9/11 and the resultant security has cost. It's especially exceptional considering the source. I don't usually think of Yahoo as presenting well-researched hard news.

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Well, the baby did get a name before leaving the hospital. Daughter and Hercules wanted to wait until they'd met her before naming her. You know, some idea of her personality or something. Of course I can't tell the name here, but, sigh, it's pretty ordinary, and I don't think it's a family or friend retread. Which is good.

Of course, being over 65, I found something (Get off my lawn!) to be annoyed about. Their delay didn't bother me at all, but the impatience of others was grossly annoying. Not so much their friends, but other family members.

When friends called, they asked how Mommy and baby were doing, and so on. They might ask somewhere in the middle if a name had been chosen, and that was it. Family, however, really pissed me off. It got to where that was the first question they asked. And when told there was no name yet, they pushed! And pushed and pushed. Like it was of absolute vital importance that they know what the baby's name was, immediately!

I don't understand what was so hard about referring to the kid as "Daughter and Hercules' baby". What's so important about a name?

My suspicion was that they weren't so much simply wanting to know what the baby's name was --- they wanted to know who she was named after! So they'd know whether they should be flattered or insulted. That pissed me off.

I was also annoyed that Hercules' mother thrust herself into the naming game. She had no right to push or reject any names. Me, I stood back and said, to every name Daughter and Hercules explored, "Yeah, that's nice/unusual/strong/unique/pretty" as applied. I made no suggestions. I figured it wasn't my place to suggest or disapprove any names.

Hercules's mother wasn't of the same opinion. She and I have similar first names, and she suggested brightly that our name would be appropriate. That's the first time I expressed a definite opinion. I hate my first name, have always hated it, and asked that they please not saddle the kid with it. And I didn't much care if I insulted Hercules' mother. I don't think she should have put that kind of pressure on them anyway - and yeah, it was pressure, unless she's really so stupid as to assume the kids hadn't already considered and rejected that.

I'll admit I don't like her. She never shuts up, she pushes herself in even where she's been told to back off, she's a ditz. She sees signs and omens everywhere, and if she finds out your exact birthdate and time, she'll run your astrological whatchamacallit, and then for the rest of your life she'll be predicting things for you and "helping" you make decisions. Daughter had asked her not to come to the hospital when she was in labor. She did. Daughter didn't want her to know the time of birth. She does now.

When the kids mentioned possible names, she had to know the "meaning" of the name. Like it matters, you fool! One of the early names was "Sojourn", as in "Sojourner Truth". I actually liked it. But she didn't, because it means "a temporary stay", and OMG! That's a bad omen!!! Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad....

I could dislike her for that alone.

Oh, cripes.
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3211 What Classic Movie Am I?

Friday, April 8, 2011

The hardest memories to rewrite are the ones stored before language, before there were words to describe them. Those are the ones that continue to influence our reactions for the rest of our lives. We may be aware that there's something unreasonable going on in there, but we don't know what it is, because it isn't in words. We reason in words, but we react without words. And even when we reason, it's built on a foundation of no words, something we can't describe, and therefore can't easily change.
-- Me, in post #2179, 12/23/08 --

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What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Every time you take the test you get a different set of questions. I took it several times with the maximum number of questions, trying to answer as honestly as possible (except some statements make it confusing, like "People find it difficult to read me, and that's fine with me" - well, what if I DON'T think people find it difficult to read me? That kind of thing.), and it came out the same every time.
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1289 More Museum Day

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Back to the Maritime Museum today, to process last month's renewals forms and payments. There's about 65 of them, and in three and a half hours I got through about 40. I'll have to go in tomorrow to finish.

I talked to the volunteer coordinator, Betty, about the envelope stuffing. She kept interrupting to object, and I got mad. I don't often snap, but this time I did. I told her to please shut up the hell up and hear me through to the end.

When I got to the end, she agreed with me. Wonder of all wonders. She said to write it all up and submit it to Russ. He may or may not have to take it to the Board.

It took me three hours to stuff 24 envelopes yesterday for the April renewals, and tomorrow or next week I'll have to stuff 65! And, when Betty took the 24 to the post office yesterday to mail them, because of the different premiums for the different membership levels stuffed into them, and the differing amounts of paper, every single one of them had to be weighed separately to calculate the postage.

But from talking with Betty, I learned that arguing "time" isn't going to get me anywhere. I'll have to approach it from a cost angle.

Many of the premiums are such that they probably get immediately tossed into the trash (the window decals, magnets, maybe even the notecards). And yet each of them does cost the museum some amount. Plus, postage has just gone up, and if gas prices continue to rise it will likely go up again, so mailing premiums that most people don't really want is an extravagance.

The two changes I'd like to make are to:
1) Consolidate the new and returning members' letters into one. No one will be offended if it's not personal. And...
2a) Do away with the premiums altogether. Betty says that the premiums are to encourage people to join, but really! No one is going to pay $50 for a "friend" membership just to get a randomly chosen refrigerator magnet with a photo of a lighthouse on it, when they can buy one in the gift shop for less than a tenth of that. All members get free admission, and a 10% discount on all merchandise and events anyway. What more do they need? If Russ or the Board insist on the premiums, then...
2b) Print up a paper coupon for inclusion in the envelope, which will allow the member to show his membership card and the coupon in the gift shop, and select a gift or a rebate appropriate to the membership level. If members want the premium, and live too far away to visit the gift shop, then they can request that it be mailed. That's still cheaper than mailing them in mass to everyone.

I have to go in tomorrow. And probably next Monday. When I have so much yard work and house work I should be doing. This is exactly the situation I wanted to avoid when I kept refusing any volunteer assignments with continuing responsibility!!!!!!

Unhappiness.

I didn't write it yesterday, but I came seriously very very close to saying "I quit", and walking out, when the data base was screwing up on searches again. NO STRESS ALLOWED!

I didn't, only because no one else knows the procedures, and I didn't want to leave them in the lurch.

Once I get this envelope stuffing situation under control (or determine that the powers that be refuse to recognize it as a problem needing fixing), I'm going to write up the procedures to be followed in such a way, with such clarity, that an idiot can pick them up in mid-month and follow them. Once those things are done,

the next time the stress starts

I will feel able to quit and walk out

without feeling the least bit guilty or worrying about what anyone thinks.

So there.
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