Jet Lagged

Luckily, I was able to squeeze in a quick visit to my parents' home this past week. Originally, I had planned on leaving after my shift on Sunday night. I raced to get all of my dictations done and sprinted out to the parking lot in the snow. The usual 20-minute drive to the airport took over 45 minutes, and sadly my flight was canceled due to the current storm, which ultimately resulted in 13 more inches to the already established impenetrable wall of white fluffy stuff on my lawn.

ALL of Monday was spent in various airports and my new route included an extra layover and routing through O'Hare, where 200+ flights were canceled. So, I arrived in Phoenix late Monday night, over 22 hours later than planned.

The visit home was brief, but great. It was good to spend time with my quirky brothers and sister-in-law. We helped make gingerbread cookies on Christmas Eve. For reasons unknown, my mother had acquired a lobster-shaped cookie cutter, so many a ginger lobster was born. Being the reclusive group we are, we skipped the hometown Santa parade and gathering of the masses in the town plaza, and headed off to our traditional candlelit church service. The failing octogenarian organist played at 1/3 the correct tempo, and appeared to have a dissociative fugue during the 4th verse of "Joy to the World" as she suddenly began playing a different song with her left hand, while somehow continuing on with her right. It was very strange.

Many a homemade tamale was scarfed down by yours truly. The javelina are again on the rampage, and gobbled up mom's poinsettias by the front door. I hope they get a tummyache.

My parents loved the GPS unit that my brothers and I pitched in on. (It's always more fun to me to watch other people open the gifts I picked out than opening my own.) The MRE's sent by AG were a big laugh, although having arrived later than planned, there wasn't a good time for us to make a meal of them together.

Christmas Day there was prime rib, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade rolls, Yorkshire pudding, cranberry jelly, and cranberry relish. Sister-in-law outdid herself again with a chocolate cream pie and blackberry/raspberry cheesecake in addition to the assortment of holiday cookies. AG was able to call and is doing well. Apparently, there's a surplus of lobster and steak at the current base he is at, poor guy!

The flight home was uneventful. Half of the snow had melted away in my absence. No sooner had I made it in the door, when I got a call asking if I could work the overnight shift as someone had called out sick. I already had the early shift today, so that wasn't possible, but I got up extra early in the morning and called in to make sure they weren't in overwhelmed mode.

Today was the usual list of suspects: headache, nonspecific abdominal pain, chest pain, acute exacerbation of chronic back pain, neck strain, suicidal ideation, scabies, vaginal bleeding, et al. Guess it's back to the grindstone!

Home for the Holiday

Tomorrow I fly back home for a few days. The visit will be very short, but it will be good to be home for Christmas. I haven't seen my younger brother since he left for Kenya over 2.5 years ago. It will be nice to have a few days of warmer weather, too. I am a little nervous about the flight back here, as I work the overnight shift. I gave myself a four-hour gap between my arrival time and the start of my shift, but with the way the weather is around here, you can never be sure that a flight won't get altogether cancelled. At least I know the flight out of Arizona won't be a problem, it's always the small connector flights that are the problem.


I also just saw Army Guy for what will be the last time for several months. He went home to see his family. However, immediately after the break, he heads down to Georgia for Army Ranger training. Army Ranger school, if one passes each phase on the first try, takes about three months. Three months of being out in the field, being pushed to the limit physically, without access to a phone or the internet. Bleh. He does get a few hours here and there in between phases, but it isn't like we know when those will be, or what my work schedule will be like. I am happy for him as he has been wanting to do this since he joined the Army last year. And, I really can't complain at all about it, as originally he was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan for 15 months next fall, and that has been cancelled indefinitely. It's just a long time to go without communicating with someone. I suppose it will be a good period of time to throw myself back into my workouts, reading up on educational stuff, and maybe even getting some projects done around the house. I do wish that I was better at saying goodbye. I kind of just tend to avoid it until the very last minute. And then it is probably not very romantic to send someone off with warnings to keep their feet dry and change their socks often so that they don't lose any toes. Sigh. Wordsmith, I am not.


Merry Christmas!