Monday, October 30, 2006

Details bordering on TMI.

So, details on the Lacy Prairie Shawl - Cherry Tree Hill Supersock mill end from eBay, on size 7 needle, not doubled. No pictures, sorry, because I don't trust myself to not lose my mind if the phone rings while I'm holding my beloved camera. Crazy has to settle down to just weird first. But I'm really happy with it, and it is now a permanent part of the "I'm stressed, but I need to knit, but plain isn't quite right because I need a structure of a pattern to lower my blood pressure," library. The pattern, once you get past the 11 stitch border (which you could make 9 stitches and I may on the next one) is mostly things happening with three stitches and yarn overs. Yo, k3, yo, slip 2, k 1, psso, yo, k 3... There's some variation for shaping on each of the three pattern rows. It has a blood pressure lowering, breath slowing beat that is wonderful for stress. It's easy to see where you are in the pattern, so you don't need markers or a note pad to track rows. It's lace for dummies, and I like it, I can't wait to see it blocked. Very feather and fan-like in that respect.

Cousin C and I considered a betting pool on how many calls we'd each get from my mother today. By noon we were at a total of 7 calls, each on the same theme: "Great aunt is in the hospital!"

Just as she has been for the last three days and she's doing okay and she's tired of listening to my mother so she can't quite handle a phone call from her. She has the smarts to tell my mother that she has visitors and can't talk too long. But this is just a clever ruse. She must be Dying, and the Doctors Aren't Telling The Truth!

Meanwhile, I have a second pool running at work, a private one, in which I tally up the number of truly too fucking stupid to answer questions I get asked each day. One had the misfortune of hitting my email after the 2nd crazy mother call. I did, after a while, sort of answer that, by directing the supplicant to the source of the answer, and if you can't find it yourself please quit your job now, you are a menace. That was the second "help me do my job" question from this person that morning, so I think I was being generous.

The second question came in after a long meeting that ran very late and left me with a new list of detailed tasks on a very tight timetable. And the question came from someone who likes to boss me around. And the question was so moronic. I can't repeat it here without using business details, but it was one of those things that left me staring slack-jawed at my monitor, feeling my blood pressure rise until I could hear my pulse in my ears, and it was late and I was very tired and hungry.

And then and there I declared a new policy, which I will share with my boss: I am not going to respond to truly fucking stupid questions anymore, because they are fucking killing me.

And yes, I will say it to him exactly that way, in those words, and he will get it. Because he is cool. High maintenance, not an easy boss by any means, but cool. And because they asked these questions in writing, so I can hand him a sheaf of idiocy to prove my case, which I already know he doesn't doubt.

We're just so busy and overwhelmed and doing so many things at once, it's hard to address the morons among us. And so they survive, and collect paychecks, and I pick up the slack. And I deal with my mother, and tonight Dudley chewed up one of my coasters and I yelled at him like he'd killed a cat, because I am under way too much stress.

Did I ever tell you about my yoga classes? I took lovely yoga classes on Saturday mornings last year. For a while. Until my mother recalibrated her crazy to start calling me AS I was leaving for the classes, three or four weeks in a row. And I didn't tell her I was taking the classes, or what time they were. But she who never called on Saturday morning took to calling EVERY Saturday morning with the Latest Horror About My Father, until I dreaded the class because I dreaded the call that would come before it.

And I know internets, you are reading this and thinking I'm exaggerating or twisting timelines or whatever. All I can say is, I'm not. I'm holding back. But who the hell would believe the real crazy?

4 comments:

KatyaR said...

I can sympathize with you--my mother was crazy as a loon, even before she developed Alzheimer's. The things she put me through would make your hair curl.

Congrats on the knitting, though--I'm anxious to see how the shawl comes out. I want to make one so badly, but the last time I tried it, it was a total disaster. Maybe with a heavier weight yarn, I dunno, but I really want to try it again.

Oh, and congrats to your daughter--it's great to get good news now and then, isn't it? :<)

dragon knitter said...

i understand as well. only with me, the crazy is inflicted by my mother and my son. talk about a sandwich! he stepped on a needle, and i took him to the doctor. they said he needed to go to an orthopaedic surgeon. i took him ot the surgeon today, and after they took the initial x-ray, he pulled the damned thing out himself. oy.

i do understand

Cinderellen said...

Oh Catherine...not so much fun being the grown-up, is it. I often wonder why the idle and the stupid seem to have bigger paychecks than I do, but you know everything has its cost and all you can do is your best. Set your limits, separate your life from your job, and know that everything passes.

Nana Sadie said...

And pick up a yoga video to try at home? Put phone ringer to "off." Spend some giggle time with Dudley and Murph.
And keep on knitting that great shawl pattern b/c it IS a terrific stress-buster...Thank you for the details!
(((hugs)))