Flotsam

Each morning, I dress in the dark, so as not to wake The Nearly. This morning, after shuffling about looking for socks and smacking my shin into things, I stumbled out into the living room and turned on the light. There, before me, was what looked like the scene of a tiny horror movie. Drops of blood everywhere, small smears of it, miniature pools that could be analyzed by miniature forensic scientists for miniature evidence. This was an unsettling thing to come upon at 6:07 in the morning. The source, I eventually discovered, was Willie, one of our three cats, who was hobbling rapidly around the apartment licking at one upraised back paw. She wouldn’t let me near her, so I dragged The Nearly out of bed (I think I have blogged before about their unnaturally close relationship) and he cradled her and rushed to the bathroom to the assess the damage. We got her cleaned up, ascertained that it was merely a gash to one of the toe pads of her paw, and devised a brilliant first-aid plan that involved toilet paper, duct tape, and a birth-control cozy (yes, I knit myself a birth-control cozy—those little plastic pouches are not very attractive) fitted over the whole thing like a sock. We had no sooner affixed our brilliant invention to our cat and let her loose than she jumped cleanly out of the whole contraption and commenced hobbling madly around, bleeding for all she was worth.

This is the kind of week it has been, for me.

I have to ship pages of the bound volume I am working on to The State (a small, eastern state, which asks that you Live Free, or, you know, not at all) by Wednesday—a deadline that seemed so unattainable I was sure my director had simply pulled it from a tree, like a peach.
So, last Saturday, I was in my office.
And Sunday, the day The Lord set aside specifically for rest, that day I went into work, too. When I turned on my computer, however, it said “Press F1 to retry Boot or F2 for System Utility,” and that is all it would say. And our tech support department was at home—day of rest and all.
Monday morning they took away my computer, from which they were unable to recover anything, to replace the hard drive, promising to return it “By noon Tuesday.”

Today, calling my clinic for the results of my 24-hour cortisol test, I reached Nurse Hard of Hearing, or Nurse-Deaf-as-a-Goddamned-Post, for short.
“I’m calling for some test results,” I said, after giving my name.
“What?” she replied.
“TEST RESULTS?” I queried.
“Eh?” she said, cleverly.
“I am CALLING for my TEST RESULTS!!!” I boomed, strident.
“Are these ultrasound results?”
“NO!!!” I shrieked, “A Blood Test!!!”

Several people chatting in the next office quieted all of a sudden, no doubt to speculate as to what I was being tested for—Syphilis maybe?

I was eventually able to give her a phone number to call with the results, and returned to my desk during a five-minute break from running about like an escaped (and very, very, busy) asylum resident to find a message on my voicemail from the same nurse assuring me that the cortisol results “Look OK,” (I’ll be the judge of that, I thought bitterly) and that Dr. Doctor will call me in the morning.

IF I manage to meet my deadline tomorrow–and speak with Dr. Doctor, and avoid any more feline carnage–I will try to pry myself away from my celebratory wine bottle (bottles?) long enough to update you.

p.s. The date for the Great Midwestern Infertility Mojito-a-thon has been set, by the way, so mark your calendars for December 3rd…