Chaotic Good

A couple updates before I launch into today's events:

Bobo's picture retakes went much better Saturday. The photographer was excellent, and Bobo behaved himself this time. The next one due is a family pose we'll probably do sometime in December (but not for Christmas, we don't do Christmas).

In Say-say news, his last speech appointment was yesterday. He's doing so well, the therapist said he's ready to be released. We'll come back around his birthday for a recheck to make sure he's still doing well and not relapsing. It was hard saying goodbye. We all got a little teary-eyed, well, all except for Say-say. I don't think he quite understood that it was the last appointment. Say-say drew her a picture the night before, and G- took a picture and printed it out so we could give it to Ms K to say thank you.



I can't begin to explain what it all is, but he says it's called "Alie" (as in "Alien"). She loved it of course and made us promise we'd drop by every now and then. She was and still really is such a part of this kid's life. He could barely say 15 words when he started with her. We had resorted to sign language to try and figure out what he wanted. He's so eloquent now that he tells intricate detailed stories that involve lots of pictures he draws himself. Maybe we can stop by during their Halloween festival. Wow, is this what it's going to be like every year when he changes teachers?

And onto the day's events.
Have you ever been in a building where half the power is out, but half is on? A transformer blew about 20 minutes after I got to work today. But only parts of the building went down. And not just this side on, this side off. One person's PC worked while the ones in the two adjoining cubicles went down. The calculators at checkout started getting very very light while the calculator in the accountant's office started moving very very slowly. The fans employees had turned on (it got quite hot with no air conditioning) worked fine at checkin, but were slowing down in the file room. One at a time, the PC's that did work eventually started shutting themselves down. The checkout credit card machine wouldn't work at all even though it had power, but the one at checkin was fine (until we found out the printer had stopped working). Only two out of five spool printers were working (again, even though there was power to four of them). Lights were on at checkout, but off at checkin.
At one point, I had to walk around and turn off anything that was beeping in alarm. When the majority of my people migrated to the file room looking for something to do until their PC's came up, one of the checkout women alerted me to a beeping in the storage room. Yep, you guessed it. A vital piece of our equipment, the computer that monitors our phone system, was flashing orange lights and beeping frantically. By the time I had got the supervisor in charge to come check it out (the supervisor who was trying to conduct interviews in this mess), the whole system had shut itself down. But our phones didn't go down immediately. They went down while our IT guy was talking the IQ and I through checking our backup computer system.
It was the most godawful mess I've ever seen. Power slowly drained out of everything, piece by piece. And then, just as suddenly, it was all up again. Again, slowly, piece by piece, the power came back to everything. The calculators started working, the PC's were all fine, the printers were online again, everything worked. I can't imagine what would have happened if the electric company hadn't gotten the power back on when it did. We probably would have been completely down by lunchtime.
And it was sunny and beautiful outside. It didn't start storming until the end of the day.

Oh, did I mention Say-say had to come in to see the doctor because he told G- he had put something up his nose? The doctor couldn't find anything, but we have to watch him for the next 72 hours at least to see if he develops a sinus infection which would mean an ENT would have to perform surgery to get the object out (which by the way was a rubber string-like piece from an oversized Kooshie ball).

What a day. And it's just Wednesday.

I Don't Like Mondays

You know that line in Hitchhiker's Guide, where Arthur says "It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays." I just can't seem to get the hang of Mondays. They tend to be chaotic and miserable. Today of course was no exception.

I've got this melancholy cloud hanging over me, and it tended to color everything I thought and did today. I'm having boss issues, which is never a good thing, but when your boss goes from halfway decent to snapping witch in one day, just what are you supposed to do? (I suppose a British "what is one to do?" is in order here, but I can't remember how they say it.) So I'm going to rant here since I'm pretty sure no one with whom I currently work reads this.

Our "Practice Administrator" (hereafter known as the Ice Queen) has pushed me to the edge these past few days. I really don't know what crawled up her ass and died, but she has been incredibly snappish and dismissive to both me and the other front office supervisor. I won't bore you with specifics and tech talk, but suffice it to say she has treated us like so much dirt on her shoe. And our dear Nurse Supervisor (hereafter known as Nurse Ratchett) has got me so aggravated I feel like I'm floating on the tension. (Ever been so tense you felt like you could blast off?) At one point today I really wanted to just throw my hands up and say "If you think you can run my department too, have at it." I don't know why people like to pretend they know what they're talking about when there's an obvious expert standing in front of them. I know, I know, I'm not as assertive as I should be, but I'm not that person. Why can't we all just get along?

Oh, and Ernesto is headed our way. Last time a tropical storm came over top of us, everything was flooded for hours. It made for interesting TV but insane traffic. Of course, anything's better than Katrina, obviously. I'm sitting here struggling not to cry as I listen to Anderson Cooper replay the coverage from last year.

Changing topic for a moment, aren't coincidences exciting? Gary turned the channel to VH1 Classic tonight (a channel we never watch) because Elvis Costello was on (a family favorite). Fiona Apple was singing with him (of all people). Now the coincidence is that I had just read in the "Parade" magazine that comes in my Sunday paper that Apple is her middle name, and her last name is actually Maggart.
K - we watched a channel we never watch, and I read some random fact about one of the performers. Exciting right? They eventually sang "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?". I called myself at work (told you I do that a lot) so I'd remember to change my screensaver tomorrow to show the lyrics to that song.
So what part of this is going to show up next? Something else regarding Elvis C? Something regarding Fiona (these things tend to come in threes with me)? Or will someone point me in a new direction from what they exclaim when they read my new screensaver? I'll keep you posted.

K, time to pay some attention to Anderson Cooper. He's in the lower 9th Ward. What a guy.