I’m doing well. 

I need to go pull grass out of my flower beds and I’m stalling.  Every summer I promise myself I won’t let it get this bad, again. And, then, temps get over 80º and I hide in the house and the grass goes wild.  Then, Fall is  spent cleaning it up. Again.

I work for a medical reference lab in the Electrophoresis section of Special Chemistry. (Special Chemistry means there’s a little more to running the test than just putting it on an instrument and letting it run.  Sometimes that means making the reagents ourselves.  But, in the case of Electro, it means we have to look at the plate to interpret what is there.)  It’s both lovely and exhausting.  On good days, I feel useful and accomplished.  This weekend I was plagued by gremlins. 

The tests we run are for abnormal hemoglobins (even more abnormal than sickle cell disease, but that, too), looking for antibodies that are indicative of various lymphomas and some other particularly specialized proteins.  Which sounds very fancy.  But, we’re basically a factory for numbers.  There is some finesse to it and I get a kick out of the magic of chemistry when everything comes together and I see my results.  First, there is a plate with clear gel on it.  Then, I do stuff to it.  And, then, there is a pattern on it that lets me report something useful to a physician.

I work a “Baylor shift.” 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday and 6 hours on Monday evening.  Then, I get paid for 40 hours instead of the 30 I actually put in.  Off 4 days in the middle of the week is great because everything is less crowded and making dental appointments and getting other checkups done is a piece of cake.  And I have a nice amount of PLB (personal leave bank hours) because I’ve been working for this company for ages. 

I don’t mind that I have to spend 40 hours of PLB to be off for a whole weekend. It means 12 days of no-work in a row.  The thing that is complicated is the use of good-will capital that you acquire from being a good worker.  If I take too much time off close together, the day shift techs that cover for my absence get annoyed, as does my supervisor.  So, I have to spread it out and I really can’t spring it on them unless it’s a real emergency.  I have always worked odd hours and managing that kind of negotiation has always been part of my job.  To my frustration, my people who work regular work weeks don’t always understand that.  So, I just do what I can when I can and say “Sorry, I can’t do that.” when it isn’t realistic.

Sometimes, you just can’t fit one more thing into what you have going on, whether it’s because of time or money or just energy (emotional OR physical).