Feeling much better after beer, Booga Bag, and Bend It like Beckham on PPV. What a wonderful movie - probably not something I'd have gone to see in the theater even if I'd been able to see movies when it came out, ("Teenage girls who play soccer?") but that's because I'm an idiot. It's rich and funny and touching and full of the complexity of cultural assimilation, tradition, how family can drive you nuts even if you love them, parents terrified to let go, following your dreams...if you haven't seen it, rent it, you won't regret it.

My mother called, she's home, the doctor came and is keeping my father for observation as I'd expected, but no unusual bad news. His heart is a tired old piece of shit, we all know it, any one of these calls could be the real thing but this one apparently was a false alarm. Maybe we can have a quasi-normal Thanksgiving after all.

I realized something when listening to her - how some people are able to put the facts out of mind and honestly feel like everything that happens is "A Total Shock." That's the phrase she used repeatedly - he was FINE and then he had these chest pains - like, what, these came out of the friggin' blue??? His heart is in utterly terrible shape, he's had everything but a transplant and he's too old for that. I was scared for him at my husband's funeral, I thought the stress would be too much for him. He's scrawny and frail and every day is a bonus day at this point. But my mother acted like he'd never had a twinge of a heart problem before -

"OhmyGoditwastotallyunexpected." Give me a break. Even my DOG expects this. He was a tiny puppy the first time he was hauled to Grandma and Grandpa's because Grandpa had a heart attack. Seriously - I'd just gotten Murphy from the breeder in Miami, he had traveled from Miami to Melbourne to Orlando, and had one day in his new home when Grandpa had a heart attack and I spent my vacation over there taking care of things, when I'd intended to stay home and bond with my new puppy. New puppy spent his first week in his new family in Grandma's house in his crate while we were at the hospital. It's amazing that Murphy still likes to ride in the car, he has not had many good times that way. And that was not the first heart attack by any means, he's had angioplasty, a quad bypass, stents, another bypass, his heart is designed by Dr. Frankenstein by now. But every time he has another crisis it's a fucking shock to them. I'm just amazed by the capacity for denial. Maybe that's why I was so diffferent with my husband - I never had the ability to deny what was happening, so I had to learn to cope with the reality. My parents don't cope. That's my job.

Meanwhile, after that unexpected detour into medical crisis world, a place I'd thought I was blissfully free of for a while, I do have a Tale from my old henhouse. Now, I could be reckless and give lots of details here, because there is no way in hell I'd ever want to go back to work there so a burned bridge doesn't bother me, hell, that's a bridge I'd blow up, but I'm restrained by the very remote possibility that my source may be "outed" if I speak too freely. So I'll use code words and change details. You'll still get the picture.

Remember Queen Bee? Queen Bee had monopolized an overflow secretary as her very own personal Minion. Minion was hired to be the overflow secretary for all, but as it turns out, wasn't up to heavy intellectual lifting, but Queen Bee specializes in busywork, so nature took its course, and pretty soon nobody else gave work to Minion, because she was ideally suited to useless busywork. This situation was in place when I left. Apparently, after I bailed and they shopped for a new paralegal they assessed their future needs and the secretarial situation hit critical mass, and the lawyers decided that enough was enough with Minion drawing a salary to wait on Queen Bee, while doing nothing useful for anyone else. Both Queen Bee and Minion were informed that the times, they were a'changin' and various things were tried to make it work out for everybody involved. It didn't.


Skipping a bunch of identifying details here, but the end of the saga is that Queen Bee has now accelerated her game plan - she is now openly at war with Former Beloved Boss, is badmouthing him to upper management, and things are very, very ugly, openly hateful things are being said, the dysfunction has hit an all-time high. It's Baghdad without the actual explosives. And all because of one person. I'm just so glad I'm out of there. Every time I feel stressed in my new job, I must remind myself that it could be worse, I could be in the middle of that crap. I'd much rather deal with honest work stress.