On the Mend

For the past couple of days, it honestly feels like the universe has been trying to apologize for the misery of Monday, and earn my friendship again. Magnanimous person that I am, I will allow it to do so, and agree to love life again.

Tuesday was free cone day at Ben and Jerry's, so that made it automatically better than any day that doesn't involve free ice cream. The sunshine, random encounters with several friends en route to Harvard Square, leisurely browsing around used book stores, lovely flowers from my amazing husband, and good dancing in the evening were just icing on the cake. Or candy sprinkles on the cone, as the case may be.

Yesterday, though, truly restored my faith in my profession - I was scheduled to work at the Good Place again, and it was as pleasant and wonderful as my first day there two weeks ago. This is a clinic not amazingly far from home, owned by one doctor who, as far as I can tell, shares my interest in exotics and practices fairly high quality medicine. The building is clean and brightly lit and spacious, the clients are cooperative, and the support staff are the kind of people I'd want to hang out with even outside the office; the hardest thing about working there is not getting sidetracked with conversations about movie quotes, favorite authors, and computer games with the SF junkie/gamer/larper/computer geek tech who's on shift with me every time I'm there.

The schedule was filled with new puppies and kittens, who were all miraculously healthy. They have every drug I could want in stock, and every reference book I need on the shelves. The techs know what I want before I ask for it, and have it done by the time I finish writing up the record. They treated me to lunch, and when there was a break in the schedule after a client cancelled their appointment, they pointed me towards the comfy bench outside in the sun so I could take a break and read for a bit before anything else needed to be done. They want me back next month, and in June. I could get used to this.

Even better was the news that a complicated case from earlier in the week that had been haunting me with constant worries of whether I had handled it properly apparently is doing amazingly well, and has recovered completely. I am apparently not an abysmal failure, and merely needed a good scare to keep me humble.

The sun is shining. My new dress is hemmed. I've got pretty cross-stitch patterns to work on, and I've ordered the yarn to finish making myself a shawl. I think I'll bake a cake tonight, just because I can. I have a new episode of Veronica Mars from earlier in the week to watch. I have plans to go to lunch with a friend, and my translating projects are proceeding at an impressive pace. The universe is forgiven for its previous suckitude.

Observations From An Uneventful Day

If you ever find yourself in the situation where you want to make your life sound more interesting and eventful, it helps to realize that you can turn anything into a ballad by interspersing your description of events with a repeating chorus of nonsense syllables.

F'r instance:

I baked my love a cake tonight,
Sing hey, ta-ra, ta-ray;
The batter didn't come out right,
Sing hey, ta-ray, ta-ra-la.

I added too much butterscotch,
Sing hey, ta-ra, ta-ray;
The result was nearly a total botch,
Sing hey, ta-ray, ta-ra-la.

It baked up fine, all lovely and gold,
Sing hey, ta-ra, ta-ray;
But I left it to sit in the pan until cold,
Sing hey, ta-ray, ta-ra-la.

The chips had stuck in a gluey mess,
Sing hey, ta-ra, ta-ray;
On the bottom of the pan, to my distress,
Sing hey, ta-ray, ta-ra-la.

So remember when baking a golden cake,
Sing hey, ta-ra, ta-ray;
Butterscotch chips are a big mistake,
Sing hey, ta-ray, ta-ra-la.

Much better and more eventful than just actually saying what you're thinking.....