I accidentally signed up for five extra shifts this week. I mean, I signed up for each one on purpose, but in each case I short-sightedly peered at the day itself on the calendar and thought, “Yes, I could do that.” And I am not even pretending that I am as work-busy as people who work this many hours (or TWICE this many hours) EVERY week, but it is a startling change to my routine and the days are just flying by and I am not getting much else done and I am feeling fretful and frazzled.

Well! The kids are not up yet, and I have coffee, and I am not not not going to reach into the open bag of peanut M&Ms on my desk, and let’s see what there is to say.

I am reading a book that is kind of disturbing and kind of upsetting but also pulllls me back to it, and that is one of the best things in a book. A lot is going to depend on the ending, but right now it is a book success. This comes on the heels of two book failures in a row. First I tried this one (I am linking, but I don’t want to lure the author here to read something negative), and I kept feeling as if I OUGHT to like it, and I DID kind of like it, and yet I didn’t want to go back to it, and eventually I was like, “I do not have to keep reading this: I can just SAMPLE it, as I did, and then send it back to the library.” Then I tried this one, and after awhile I was thinking, “Haven’t we learned our lesson by now, that we NEVER end up happy after reading books about young boys coming of age via inappropriate relationships with older women and acts of dangerous stupidity with other boys?” “We” in this case being the royal we. Many others certainly love this sort of book, considering how many there are.

I was so glad for all the advice on the post about our difficult new cat. I feel as if we are making progress with her, but on the other hand yesterday there were like three or four big snarling spitting rolling attacks, so maybe I am imagining it. But there was ALSO a time when one of the boy cats walked past her and she was alert but did not attack, and he did not provoke her predator instincts by hissing and darting away. And we’re shutting her in another room while we feed the boys, and they are getting used to this, so that when I close a door and then call them, sometimes they don’t have to be dragged to the food but instead trot right up.

I LOVED the suggestions on the best chocolate to buy from a store! I am planning a gradual tour-of-eating through ALL of them. What I chose for the recipient in question was a bag of Lindt raspberry truffles (I remembered AFTER posting that I DID know she liked raspberry flavoring in general) and a three-pack of Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates (one of my own favorites, which I’d mentioned to her recently and she’d never tried).

Coffee is gone, kids are getting up, more another time!

We have a new cat, a 3-year-old female. We’ve had her for just over three weeks. She is simultaneously the worst cat ever and the best cat ever.

I will start with best, despite the word order of the previous sentence. She sits on everyone’s laps, even the little kids’ laps. She is super affectionate with people. She sleeps on beds at night. She cuddles with Edward when he’s lying on the couch feeling dicey. She purrs and does squeeze-eyes of love. I have never known such a lovebug of a cat.

But the worst: she chases the two other cats. We live in one of those raised-ranch-style houses where the main floor of the house is the upstairs; she no longer allows the boy cats upstairs. She will sit at the top of the stairs to make sure they don’t come up. If she catches them up here, she will attack them ferociously. Sometimes she will go downstairs and chase them around and attack them there, too. They are spending their days hiding under the beds or among the storage boxes. I count myself very lucky that the litter box is downstairs and that they have not yet stopped using it.

She is also MAD JEALOUS. Many of the attacks have occurred when she sees someone reaching down to pet one of the other cats.

We first tried using a spritz-bottle filled with water, and spritzing her when she attacks. But she does not seem to care much about that, or at least it only seems to reduce the duration of the attack, not the number of attacks or the time between attacks. We’ve tried Feliway, the spritz kind and the plug-in kind—but we’re in a windows-open season, so I’m not sure those are getting a fair chance to work. We’ve tried various “Look, everything is FINE, just FINE!” approaches, such as putting her in the same room with another cat, and assigning people to pet and reassure and feed both cats at the same time.

At this point we have to feed them separately: the boy cats are losing weight because she won’t let them at the food dishes, and she is gaining weight because she is eating all three bowls of food herself. So now we feed her; then we shut her into a bedroom and coax the other cats out to eat.

When we took her home, I told the shelter and the children that if she made life miserable for the other cats, she would have to go back to the shelter. But at this point, that would be a devastating decision: the children lovvvvvvvvvve her like they’ve loved no other cat, in part because SHE loves THEM. I know it’s possible to return her, but it FEELS unthinkable. So if you have any experience with this and know of anything that can help the cats get along, I would love to hear it. This is the kind of thing where of course I can search it online, but there are one million articles saying one million things, and I’d like to cut directly to the personal experiences of people I know.

I dreamed last night that my Twitter options gave me only one possible action for relating to other Twitter users, and it was “cuddle.” No “reply,” no “retweet,” no “message,” no “block,” no “mute”—just “cuddle.”

I recommend this book:

How to Weep in Public: Feeble Offerings on Depression from One Who Knows, by Jacqueline Novak. I have been having trouble lately with sad/despairing moods, and this book made me laugh.

After Ted Cruz dropped out of the race, I started seeing a ton more of “If it’s Trump vs. Clinton, I’m not voting.” I can see where that point of view comes from: if you’re offered two options, and you don’t want either one, declining seems like a good idea. It’s like if you’re going to a wedding, and the reception menu choices are shellfish, when you’re seriously allergic to shellfish, or steak tartare, when you avoid beef for health and ethical reasons, and RAW beef freaks you out even more. If you don’t WANT either one, don’t PICK either one. Hoard some extra appetizers, drink extra wine, ask your tablemates if they want their rolls, eat the mints in your purse, and order a pizza when you get home.

But this is not a wedding reception. Instead it’s an episode of Survivor, where everyone on the island has to vote for what will be served for dinner, and then everyone will be forced to eat the winning option. You CAN abstain from voting, declining both options. But then you will be force-fed whatever everyone ELSE chooses, even if it means dying of a shellfish reaction.

No one who knows you will mistake your vote for enthusiastic support. No one will think, “Oh, she’s choosing BEEF? After all these years of declining beef at my parties and ranting about how bad it is, now suddenly she WANTS beef??” Everyone knows this is Survivor.

There is an update on the post Reader Question: Gift Ideas for a Student with Cancer:

Hello
I wrote to you a few months ago about a student in my third grade class who was out getting treatment for cancer. I really appreciated all of the suggestions, and thought it was time for an update. The good news is that H is now considered cancer free and has returned to school!
He was gone for four months. Using Skype to keep in touch was useful, but it was kind of hard to arrange times when he felt well and it was good timing for us. We did send lots of pictures and cards. Each week one of the third grade classrooms send cards. He sent in his Valentines and we sent his home to him. He also had a birthday and we sent a video of us singing and holding up signs. He sent us a video of his how to speech that we did in class. I liked the idea of the ” flat H” and if he had been gone longer I would have done that too.
He had a pretty low immune system when he came back and no hair but I warned the class about germs and stocked up on hand sanitizer. He wanted to just slide right back into the rhythm of the class, but that took a few weeks. What really helped was having the Child Life specialist from the hospital come in and give a presentation about cancer, chemo, MRI’s and ports. I think it really made H feel better – that everyone else finally had an idea of what he had gone through.
Now his hair is mostly grown in, he is caught up both academically and socially. He still attends a lot of special events for cancer survivors, but otherwise is a normal third grader. Thank you so much for your help!
Becky

I would like to buy a small amount of good chocolate as a birthday present for someone who loves chocolate. I am wondering what, in your opinion, is the best chocolate that I could just drive to a store and purchase. If I had a See’s near me, that’s where I’d be going—but alas.

I am picturing the amount that would fill a mug, which is her other present from me—but if the recommendations tend toward chocolate sold in a bar shape or a pretty box, that is fine: it does not HAVE to go in the mug. I say “a store” because I would prefer not to have to order it: warm-weather shipping is expensive; also, the birthday is soonish. [Edited to add: if it comes from Amazon with Prime shipping, that would work too.]

All the questions you might currently have, I can’t answer. Is she picky about brand? I don’t know. Does she prefer milk or dark? I don’t know. How does she feel about soft centers / caramels / truffles? I don’t know. How about nuts and fruit? I don’t know. And so all you have to go on is the very basic question about what YOU think is the best. (It’s okay if your answer involves a store you don’t know if it’s near me or not. Even if the store is NOT near me, I suspect OTHER people, people who DO live near that store, will want to hear about it.)

Last night I got an email from Old Navy about cardholders getting 40% off, and although I think of their clothes as being pretty much the same price no matter what the sale is (this is the case with many, many stores, not at all just Old Navy), I realized I hadn’t checked their Tall Perfect Crew t-shirts in awhile, and I like to make sure I am UP TO THE MINUTE on new colors for those, because I have allllll the grey, black, white, and navy I can EVER WEAR, and every so often they offer colors other than those.

Anyway. There were no new colors on the Tall Perfect Crews, and I remembered from a recent post that the word “tunic” was a good way to find shirts that fit like Talls, so I searched tunic.

Wait. That is not a tunic. In fact, if I saw that just described as “relaxed plus-size hoodie,” I would think, “Nope, too short.”

 

Okay, these are also not tunic-length. My understanding of the word “tunic” is that it means “will cover your entire butt and can be worn with leggings.” I do not even want to wear that short boxy coral one with jeans, let alone leggings. And look at the side-slit! The skin of her torso would be showing if she were standing up straight.

 

Yes, THESE are tunics! Not available in plus-sizes, though. Hm. I will keep looking.

 

This too is a tunic-length top. Regular sizes only, no plus.

 

That’s a nice regular-sizes-only tunic-length shirt. Look at that excellent butt-coverage!

 

Tunic-length sweater for thin people.

 

Tunic-length sweater for non-thin people.

 

Do your legs touch at any point, even at the very very widest part? No? Then you may have a tunic. Here, this is plenty long enough to cover that embarrassing thigh-gap.

 

But are you plus-sized, even MODEL plus-sized, and would really like to participate in the leggings trend? I am sorry, this is what we call a tunic for YOU. Nice and short, a little EXTRA short in the tum region, with a nice high side-slit and oddly warped stripes. Also, we made the sleeves shorter, because we know plumper women like to show off those upper arms.

I did go to the funeral, and I was so grateful for all your encouragement to do so, even if that feedback might have been sliiiiiightly skewed due to me saying, pretty much verbatim, “If you think I shouldn’t go, don’t say so”—and so I also thank those of you who thought I shouldn’t go but refrained from saying so. It takes great internal fortitude to keep quiet when you think someone is making a mistake, or anyway it takes ME great internal fortitude, so again, thanks.

As the time to get dressed and get in the car grew closer, I grew increasingly stressed (“HOW DOES THIS EVEN WORK. WHERE WILL I PARK. WHERE WILL I SIT. WHAT WILL I SAY. WHAT WILL I WEAR. HOW MUCH WILL I CRY. WHAT IF ALL MY CHOICES ARE WRONG”), so all those “No, really, it’s a good idea to go” comments helped get me past the Bailing Out window, and then afterward I felt very glad that I went. The family seemed glad to see me. I was glad to be there. I was glad to have been there. It was win-win-win.

I have found a way to chill out a bit about my working situation while I figure out what to do, and that is to pretend I’m doing a series of jobs, each for one year. I immediately relax: “Oh, I can do this for two more months, no big!” Lots of things can change in a couple of months. Maybe in two months I’ll be settled into my new schedule and I’ll be content again. Maybe in two months my “I cannot leave her” client will have died or gone into a nursing home or moved beyond my ability to care for her. Maybe in two months my supervisor will be replaced. For now I’ll stop thinking I have to RIGHT NOW make the decision between “Quitting THIS MINUTE” and “Doing this for the rest of my life.”

Instead I’ll think about what job I’ll do NEXT, which is a fun topic rather than stressful, if I’m thinking about something I’ll only do for a year. Bakery again? Bakery was pretty okay. I always smelled delicious. Something in the school system? Something where I sit next to a computer with a pile of paperwork, occasionally chatting with co-workers?

Oh, I just finished this book and I think you might want to try it:

So Sad Today, by Melissa Broder. One of the reviews on the back describes it as “uncomfortable,” and I would say some sections certainly qualify—but it’s the kind of discomfort that can come from someone being really, really frank about themselves, not the kind where someone is describing, say, cruelty to animals. There was one chapter about a fetish, and I sort of skimmed that quickly: after 17 years of motherhood, the sound of someone about to barf fills me with nothing but horror. But I found a lot to identify with, and the whole thing reminded me of blogging I remember from years ago, where it was more like Online Diaries. One chapter is about a time in her marriage when they were non-monogamous. Another is a series of funny texts between herself and her Higher Self. There is a lot of talk about living with anxiety and depression and what that’s like for her, and some of her coping mechanisms. There’s an interesting chapter about fake crushes, and methods she does/doesn’t recommend for getting over them.

One of my clients died, and I am not 100% sure I am allowed to say so. The HIPAA training we’ve received is so tight, I’ve wondered if we are even allowed to say we HAVE clients, or if we are supposed to pretend we are secretaries or CIA agents or something. My general feeling about HIPAA is this: if I can tell you some non-embarrassing information about a person, and then even if I gave you a WEEK at gunpoint to find out who I was talking about you couldn’t do it without committing crimes, then probably I am not violating anyone’s privacy.

Anyway, I am not VERY sad, because this was a situation where the end was a mercy sought by all, including the client. But of course I am still some sad. I am also upset because I was planning to go to the funeral [edited to add: I would have gone to the visitation instead, but they’re having only a funeral], and then Paul said he thought that would be really weird. “Maybe if you’d been her full-time caregiver for, like, five years,” he said. And I was going to ask for group input on this, but I realized two things: (1) Paul has already ruined it by planting doubt, despite being a person who didn’t attend his own father’s funeral so maybe I could just dismiss his opinion on this, and (2) I don’t want to hear even one more person confirm his opinion. I would really like it if “going to a funeral” was in pretty much EVERY SINGLE CASE considered a normal, nice, non-weird, routine, CITIZEN OF THIS PLANET thing to do.

I don’t mind if we make exceptions for people who attend in bad faith (wanting to cause a scene, wanting to make others unhappy, not even knowing the person or his/her family but going for the free food, etc.), but high attendance at a funeral is considered a GOOD thing, and low attendance is considered a SAD thing, and I don’t see why it would be weird to attend the funeral of ANYONE I had a connection to, including co-workers, parents of friends, the town librarian, etc. She was my very first client, and I took care of her at least once a week for nearly ten months, and I will be continuing to care for her husband. If I were her husband/children, I think I would be touched to see the caregivers attend the funeral, and it would make me glad because I would think it meant they were actually fond of her and so probably took good care of her when she was alive.

This also brings my job to a crossroads. I have been thinking for awhile that my continuing stress levels after ten months may mean this job is just not a good fit—even though in some ways it is a GREAT fit. Losing this client means changing my schedule again, and my supervisor tried to give me a client who is so out of my league, it gives me a sick feeling to think she’d be willing to send someone so unqualified. The care plan is packed with notes from the nurse about how the person taking this client MUST be able to do X, Y, and Z—all CNA/LNA-trained tasks, none of which I can do. I emailed my supervisor yesterday morning saying so, and she hasn’t replied. The last time I turned down a client, she took it badly, and I am still having occasional imaginary arguments with her in my head about it. I am trying very hard to put into practice the philosophy of this book:

It is helping somewhat, but I am still flinching with anticipation of the email I am likely to eventually receive. I am trying to remember that the ABSOLUTE WORST that can happen is that she can say “You know what, this isn’t working out”—which I AGREE with, but I would be sad to leave one of my clients. The second-worst possible outcome is one that might be the BEST outcome, which would be for me to continue spending three short shifts per week with the one client who is exactly what I had in mind when I sought out this job, and then quit when that client no longer needs me. Despite all this mental coaching, I am still getting a gross feeling every time I hear a “new email” sound. Because the ACTUAL thing I’m worried about is not the practical outcome with regard to the job, but rather the number of things she could say that I will hate and want to argue with.

Breaking news: I just received a completely friendly and good-natured email from my supervisor. Well. This just further demonstrates two things: (1) How very nice it would be to be the sort of person who doesn’t think about bad things until they actually happen, and (2) How VERY MUCH my supervisor influences my job satisfaction, because in one email I went from “I think I’d better quit” to “Sure, I’ll take on those additional shifts!”

[Edited to add: Then she called later, and we had a conversation in which said she was sorry about the mix-up in my schedule: she said hadn’t realized the client I’m literally not qualified to care for was “so much work,” and she referred to the shifts I AM qualified to take as “light, fluffy shifts.” It was subtle but effective: I was left with the impression that I requested the alterations in my schedule to suit my lazy ways, rather than based on whether my skill set was an appropriate/safe match with the client’s needs. So. We’re back to “I think I’d better quit.”]