The other day one of my clients wondered why, on a particular prescription bottle, the number of pills was circled. And I used to work in a pharmacy, so I could supply the not-very-interesting answer! I shouldn’t say it’s not interesting, because it IS interesting to ME. I like knowing this kind of behind-the-scenes stuff.

The first thing to know is that in the pharmacy where I worked, pharmacy technicians (that’s an entry-level job) did almost all of what you might picture being the pharmacist’s job: counting pills and putting them into bottles, putting the labels on the bottles. The pharmacist would then verify that it had been done correctly.

At my pharmacy, a circled number of pills was the technician saying to the pharmacist, “I noticed that this number was not 30.” So many prescriptions are for 30 pills at a time, that one of the more common pharmacy errors is putting 30 pills in a bottle when it’s supposed to be 10 or 45 or 90 or 120. So a technician might circle the number to let the pharmacist know that the non-30 number was taken into account.

If the number is 30 and it is circled, I’m not sure what it means. That pharmacy might have a policy of circling all numbers, as a way to remind the technicians to check it every time.

If there is a “DC” handwritten next to the number, it meant the technician double-counted the pills. One reason for counting twice is if the medication is a controlled substance, such as a narcotic. Pharmacies have to rigorously document any controlled substance, and there are regular inspections. If the number of pills in the store differs from the number there OUGHT to be, there is trouble: even a single missing pill will have everyone on hands and knees looking under the furniture. So it’s common for a pharmacy to have a policy of double-counting any controlled medication.

Another reason for counting twice is if there’s a note in the customer’s file mentioning a past problem. If a customer recently received the wrong number of pills, for example, we wanted to be careful not to let that happen again soon afterward. Or if a customer repeatedly complained about getting the wrong number, we wanted to be able to say we had counted them twice. Sometimes the technician would count them twice and then the pharmacist would do a final count, just to be really, really sure. If the prescription is a narcotic AND it’s for a customer who routinely says they were shorted on the number of pills, the technician might count THREE times, and write “TC” next to the number.

If you see initials written next to the number, those are usually the initials of the technician who counted the pills and put them in the bottle. Some technicians like to do this because there’s no other way to know who filled what: if a number of errors are being made, a technician might want to be able to say, “My initials aren’t on this, so it wasn’t me.” Sometimes pharmacies will have everyone write their initials every time; other times it’s optional. Or sometimes only new employees do it, so that the pharmacist knows to be extra careful checking those.

In the pharmacy where I worked, the pharmacist didn’t add their initials because we had only one pharmacist working per day, and the computer added their initials automatically to the labels of all prescriptions processed that day. On the very rare occasions when we had two pharmacists, the pharmacist would write his or her initials after the tech’s: ST/CA would be Swistle Thistle (tech) and then Carla Alamo (pharmacist).

In fact, one reason many of the technicians wrote our initials on the labels of bottles we filled is that the computer ALSO automatically added the initials of the technician who had printed the label. But it was very very common for the prescription to be filled by a different technician than the one who had printed the label. It was annoying to see another technician’s initials on the label of a bottle I’d filled, so I liked to add my initials. “No, it was ME!!” Plus, if I made a mistake, I wanted to know about it; and if I DIDN’T make a mistake, I didn’t want to get blamed for it. Plus, I like writing my initials.

I like to know what’s in a pre-packaged See’s assortment, but they don’t list every single piece in the box—quite possibly because it’s not always the same, so perhaps I will need to get several of each box JUST TO BE SURE. See also:

What Pieces are in the See’s Candies Milk Chocolates Box?
Which Pieces Are in the See’s Candies Chocolate and Variety Box?
Which Pieces Are in the See’s Candies Soft Centers Box?
Which Pieces Are in the See’s Candies Assorted Chocolates Box?
What Pieces Are in the See’s Candies Silver Box?

I see I have not been consistent with What/Which.

I’m not sure how I missed the Nuts and Chews box before, and in fact I was pretty sure I HAD done it, but I can’t find it, so oops, oh dear, what a shame, I had to order another box.

Here’s the description See’s gives for the Nuts and Chews Assortment: “Featuring California-grown walnuts, almonds, rich caramel and more, enrobed in layers of milk and dark chocolate. Hand-packed with bestsellers, including Dark Almond, Milk Walnut, Scotchmallow®, Caramel and more.”

It’s one pound, and here’s what was in my box (see here for descriptions):

Caramel
Dark Almond (4)
Dark Butterchew (2)
Dark Nougat
Dark Pattie
Dark Peanut (not listed in Custom Mix options)
Milk Almond (3)
Milk Butterchew (3)
Milk Pattie
Milk Peanut
Milk Walnut
Peanut Nougat
Rum Nougat
Scotchmallow (2)
Walnut Square
looked like Walnut Square, but with almonds
looked like Walnut Square, but with peanuts (2)

The ones where I say they “looked like Walnut Square,” I would have just called them Almond Square and Peanut Square, because that probably IS what they’re called, but those pieces aren’t listed in the Custom Mix section.

I felt as if this box had GRACIOUS PLENTY Dark Almond pieces.

Also, the box overall seemed a little heavy on the peanut flavor.

Of the seventeen types, only one is the sort I tend to include in a Custom Mix—but it’s not because I don’t like the others. I really love the chocolate-covered nut cluster type of candy, but I always feel…as if I could make those myself, or something. And although I really like chocolate-covered caramel, for some reason I don’t think of choosing them. THIS MUST CHANGE.

Let’s see, that leaves sixteen types to put into categories. I’d say ten are kinds I might not think to order, but am very happy to see. And all the rest are ones I do like, but don’t go crazy for.

That assessment seems kind of unenthusiastic, but actually I think this was the first assortment that, for my tastes, would be a good value over the custom mix: I liked all the pieces in the box, and wasn’t disappointed by any of it. I liked the balance of nut pieces to caramel pieces, and I liked the mix of dark and milk chocolate. Custom mix is $23.00/pound, and the Nuts & Chews assortment is $18.50 a pound: for my own chocolate preferences, that makes the Nuts & Chews assortment a box I’ll order again.

I think one of the least helpful safety tips I’ve ever heard is the one about not having a predictable routine. I am wondering what life looks like, if the day’s schedule needs to be built with the assumption that criminals are watching and charting our EVERY MOVE, looking for patterns. All this tip does is give me a rush of adrenaline when Paul leaves for work at the same time each day: QUICK! LOCK THE DOOR BEHIND HIM! THIS IS THE MOMENT THE CRIMINAL WILL BE READY TO SPRING!!

By the way, if you do what I do and buy gift cards one at a time each time you go to Target, this is around the time to start. The number of weeks until Christmas is roughly nine, so in fact some of us may need to double up on the cards: I need three for classroom teachers, five for school bus drivers, three for music lesson teachers, one for a coach, and one for the mail carrier. I think I usually try to start in September, but spaced it.

I do notice this new job, as few hours as it is, leaves me with fewer available brain ports. I have to write things down immediately or they’re gone. And then I lose track of the lists.

I’m interested in Postcrossing again. I’d gone down to doing it mostly in December: I liked sending holiday postcards with holiday stamps. But suddenly I was in the mood to send cards, so I did, and now I’m at my sending limit and waiting eagerly for some to arrive at their destinations so I can send more.

Job update: As of right now, I would say I really, really, really like my job. Right now I’m working only 10 hours a week, down from 16, and I would actually PREFER to increase my hours, because I would LIKE to work more. When I left my shift yesterday, I was wishing I could STAY LONGER. Then I wished I was working there again the next day. Also, I had a couple of triumphs recently, where for example the staff nurse was visiting and coincidentally witnessed me being awesome, or where I reported something to the office and it turned out it was really good I’d reported it, or where I did something without being asked and it turned out the client was really hoping someone would do it but hadn’t wanted to ask someone to do it.

It’s going really well, is what I am telling you. I feel happier with this job than I did without it. It fixed the suffocating ennui I was feeling, where I would sit in the house feeling, simultaneously, (1) trapped to the point of panic and (2) overwhelmingly free to do anything, but not wanting to do any of it. Now when I’m home, I feel happy to be home, and I play Candy Crush with relish.

And I have LOTS to think about. If you are someone who likes to think about other people’s families and other people’s lives and other people’s problems, this job has TONS of that. And I feel like I’m adding useful skills and knowledge to my apocalypse repertoire.

One thing I find interesting to think about is that, fairly often, I have to make client vs. employer decisions. Here’s a sample I gave Rob last night, thinking he would enjoy discussing it. I don’t know if you knew this already, but if an elderly person falls, there can be a lot of drama. If a client falls while I’m with them, I have to call 911—even if they seem 100% fine. Just for starters, it’s because I’m not allowed to help them up off the floor (it’s too likely to cause an employee injury), but it’s also because I’m not educated/authorized to determine if someone is hurt or not. We pass the buck to the paramedics and let THEM call it. Often the person ends up with a day in the emergency room and/or hospital, getting x-rayed. It’s expensive and time-consuming, and the client usually hates all the fuss and feels embarrassed about falling, and then their grown children worry and start talking about nursing homes, and so on.

Anyway, that’s not the example yet. Here’s the example. If a client TELLS me that they fell when I was NOT there, I’m supposed to report that to my employer. That is, if I arrive and the client says that she fell the day before but is fine, I’m supposed to report that. But what about when a client doesn’t KNOW that that’s the case, and tells me about a fall the day before, and says, “I’m only telling YOU: I don’t want any FUSS because I’m FINE.” Dilemma. And if I tell, she’ll know it was me, and perhaps feel betrayed, and trust me less in the future, and not tell me things that I really ought to be told.

What Rob said, and this is what I think as well, is that from now on, I will look for ways to inform clients that I have to report certain things they tell me. That seems only fair. Though it worries me to think that then they might not tell me things they really ought to tell me. Still, I would expect ANYONE I might confide in (doctor, lawyer, friend) to be clear with me if there are things I might tell them that they would have to report to someone else.

One tricky area is not knowing what the client really WANTS. That is, I have one client who seems to be rushing me out of the house at the end of my shift, as she goes up to bed (“Are you still here?,” she’ll say, or “Here pretty late, aren’t you?”—when I’m ALWAYS there until the same time). It makes me feel antsy, and I’ve wondered if I should ask my employer if I can change my hours so I arrive and leave 15 minutes earlier. But there’s a good possibility she may actually WANT me to be there as she goes up the stairs. She may ACT as if she wants me gone, and she may in fact truly want me gone—or she may want to act as if she doesn’t want me there, while actually being glad I’m there Just In Case. Maybe it’s lonely going up to a dark room she used to share with her husband, and nice to know someone is still downstairs; maybe it’s nice to have someone else shut off the last light; maybe she has visions of falling down the stairs and lying there until morning. Another example: a client may complain about a grown child who worries too much, while deep-down being grateful that they can use it as their excuse for going to the doctor (“I wouldn’t even BE here, but my daughter INSISTED!”). Just so, a client may act as if she wants to confide in me secretly, when actually she is counting on me to report it. The client may or may not be aware of that motivation in herself, which adds a layer of difficulty.

Rob says, and he’s right but it was annoying the way he said it, that all this complicated stuff is THE VERY REASON THERE IS AN ESTABLISHED PROCEDURE. Well, yes. But I like to turn the issues over in my mind. I think it’s interesting. Where does my loyalty lie? How much am I willing to bend the rules (for example, by pretending not to remember them) in order to do things the way I think they ought to be done? How DO I think they ought to be done? Things like that.

I have been buying used Lane Bryant jeans from EBay, because I hate so much going to the store: it’s far away, it’s in a mall, the sales are confusing and the non-sale prices are too high, things are often out of stock in my size; the website is not much better. But what I hadn’t noticed is that “Genius Fit” is apparently new, and different than what I thought I was buying. I have two or three pairs of them now, because of buying ahead of what I needed, and they are just not right. I am tugging them up in the back so often, I actually HURT MY SHOULDER doing it. One of the pairs also gradually pulls my underwear down, which cannot continue.

I made a little joke to Paul, saying that I was trying not to be offended that jeans meant to fit a genius didn’t fit me, har har, and he carefully explained to me that “genius” referred to the awesomeness of the fit, rather than to the wearer. Yes. Thank you, Paul. I understand now. Originally I was thinking that jeans would fit differently based on the intelligence of the person wearing them, but now I see my mistake.

(image from Amazon.com)

My sister-in-law, my sister-in-law’s sister, and I have all decided to re-read Little Women. As an aside, I don’t think of my sister-in-law’s sister as “my sister-in-law’s sister,” I just think of both of them as my sisters-in-law. But every time I go to refer to her that way, it seems I should provide an explanation, because otherwise it’s confusing: how would I have two sisters-in-law, if I only have one sibling? And actually I DO have two sisters-in-law, because Paul has a sister, but my brother’s wife and my husband’s sister don’t know each other. Plus, it seems like it matters that the two I AM referring to are sisters of each other. So anyway. “Sister-in-law’s sister” it is. Now the word sister is looking strange.

ANYWAY. We are re-reading it, if you’d like to join us. Our deadline is Saturday, and I started reading it this morning, and now here I am at the computer instead of reading, and this book is thicker than I’d remembered. It is also a LOT preachier than I remembered. My goodness. I had barely started it when the girls, who were not going to get any presents for Christmas, started reprimanding themselves and each other for feeling slightly sad about that. Most of them are doing it in a way I find funny/pleasing (like the way any of us might try to adjust our own behavior), but I’m finding Beth (and the way the others worship Beth) close to intolerable.

Back in late spring, I bought a clearance Easter wreath at Target. It was made of paper flowers, and was nice bright Eastery pastels. It pleases me TREMENDOUSLY that in the summer sun the flowers faded to be PERFECT for fall: now they’re mostly white, with tints of golden yellow and barn red, and the leaves have faded from spring green to sage green.

I realize this is going to sound very silly to many of you, but I have been blowing my own mind recently by WEARING DIFFERENT EARRINGS. Wait, have I already mentioned this? I’m getting deja vu. Well, I will go ahead, and you can stop me if you’ve heard it before. I tend to wear MATCHING earrings: if I am wearing a BLUE shirt, I will look through the pile of BLUE earrings. (The late ’80s were a good time for me: so much matching!) Or else I will wear silver or gold or otherwise neutral earrings. But today, I am wearing a dark purple shirt, and I put on the DARK TEAL earrings I usually wear with shades of teal. IT’S SHOCKING. Yesterday I was wearing a dark teal shirt, and I wore GREEN earrings.

The nice thing about being sort of timid and non-adventurous by nature is that it doesn’t take much to really SHAKE THINGS UP. No need to have an affair or buy a sports car: I can manage my midlife crisis by CHANGING EARRINGS. Or BUYING A NEW KIND OF CRACKERS.

Speaking of affairs, I dreamed last night that I had a long-standing arrangement with my ex-husband, that once a year at a big family reunion we would sleep together. It was all out in the open: that is, both spouses were fully aware. THAT part of the dream was, I’m relieved to say, just UNDERSTOOD TO BE THE CASE (in real life, the one where my ex-husband and I have had zero contact of any kind since our divorce, I would not enjoy this arrangement). The part that was interesting (interesting to me, I mean: other people’s dreams are understood to be Not Interesting, which is why I’m keeping this mercifully brief) is that I was standing around with the ex-husband’s wife, who was very nice but of course things were a little awkward between us and we were fiddling with our drinks and trying to think of what to say, and I said, “Did you ever realize, back when you were imagining marriage, how many accommodations you’d end up making?” And she said, “NO!” and we were both laughing a little crazily.

This dream isn’t hard to figure out: I’ve been thinking a lot lately about marriages, and all the accommodations that get made over the years. Some people happen not to change very much over the years, or happen to change in ways very parallel to their spouse, so that they end up saying, “Well, SURE, marriage takes EFFORT, but you just MAKE THE DECISION to…” or whatever. Meanwhile, other people get married to someone who is not AT ALL the person they would (or should) choose twenty years later, and/or they change a LOT. I’m at the age where a batch of divorces are happening among my peers, as people stand at the midpoint of their lives and say, “This is silly. I’m not spending the rest of my life like this.”

This post is taking a bit of an unexpected turn, for one that started with paper wreaths and earrings. But the dream has got me thinking about something I was already thinking about. I grew up in a religious tradition that says there are only a few reasons divorce is allowed. Misery is not one of those reasons. Wanting to live in two completely different and incompatible ways is not one of those reasons. HATING EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR LIFE is not one of those reasons. As I get older, I find it harder to understand this system. One of my friends comes from a similar tradition, and her parents honestly hate each other but have been married over fifty years because they feel they are not allowed to divorce.

I am, as you might imagine, on the side of NOT doing that. Which doesn’t at all mean I take marriage lightly. Don’t you hate it when people act as if the only possibilities are the two extremes? Like, either marriage is UNTIL DEATH, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU HATE IT, or else obviously you are someone who divorces someone after one small argument because you are a frivolous idiot who doesn’t take commitments seriously and thought marriage was supposed to be all fun all the time. I am in the middle somewhere, as I’m guessing most of us are. I think there are a lot of good reasons to stay married even if it’s not going well; I also think marriage is a useful social contract and that there are a lot of good reasons to end that contract if it’s no longer useful, just as there can be good reasons to end any other kind of contract. I like the Judith Viorst quote: “One advantage of marriage, it seems to me, is that when you fall out of love with him, or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you maybe fall in again.”

There is an interesting thing happening as I work for the same clients week after week. Well, it is interesting to me. Here is what it is that’s developing: a possessiveness I associate with love.

As I get more familiar with a client’s house, and start to know what needs to be done and where things are and where things go, and get to that point where I can arrive at work and immediately start fixing the things that are not right—at the same time as all that is happening, the house is becoming, in a certain sense, MINE. As I take care of a client, and grow familiar with the amount of lotion it takes to cover her back, and which foot she holds up first for a sock or slipper or pant leg, and which pillows she likes to have behind her, and how she likes her coffee—at the same time as all that is happening, the client is becoming, in a certain sense, MINE.

It reminds me of when I worked in the infant room of a daycare. I was never confused about who actually owned the babies: I never felt as if I wanted to adopt them, or that the babies should prefer me over their parents. But by taking care of those babies day after day, there was a sense in which I felt part ownership in those babies. My work was forming them; my efforts improved their comfort and happiness; that time and effort and investment and care made those babies, to a certain degree, MINE.

There is huge satisfaction in this. “Possessive” is a word we tend to use with negative connotations, but in this case the meaning is stripped down, and positive. It is not particularly satisfying to invest time and effort in something that belongs to someone else: why would I take care of someone else’s house, someone else’s child, someone else’s skin? When the transfer happens, and the house, the child, the client become in a sense MINE, it changes the feeling. I am tutting over something that I want to take care of because now I am invested: if I feel ownership, if I feel POSSESSION of the item or place or person, then it is feels right to care about it, to take good care of it because I want it taken good care OF. It starts a good cycle, where working improves my feelings about working. It is also good for the client or the baby to get that kind of invested care, rather than apathetic “This isn’t MY house/baby/relative” care.

I have noticed already, however, that good possessiveness can get mixed up with the bad kind of possessiveness, the kind that involves jealousy and competitiveness. A caregiver might want to be the favorite caregiver, for example, and might, either on purpose or without really realizing it, withhold information from other caregivers in order to keep that crown. I saw it in myself recently: I found a way to coax a client to do something she’d been consistently resisting; it was hard to share that information with other caregivers. I wanted to be The One She Cooperated With, as others struggled. I liked that other caregivers were failing, and I was succeeding. Those are not feelings to encourage, or nurture, or indulge. I try to remember the caregiver who trained me, who left me a sheet full of tips she’d gradually acquired over the years: her impulse was to help the client by helping me, rather than to watch me struggle and fail in order to feel good about her knowledge and experience.

Or I’ve noticed that some caregivers want to complain that they are the only ones who do a certain task—but what they really value is the possessiveness of the complaining. If another caregiver starts helping with that task, the first caregiver isn’t then made happy; the first caregiver instead has to find a way to criticize the way the task is being done, or find another task that they’re the only one to do. This kind of possessive competitiveness can lead to some very clean client houses: “I am the ONLY ONE who washes the heating vents!!” This is where the caregiver who trained me had trouble. “No one else ever launders the curtains!,” she said, rolling her eyes at the laziness of some people, people who read the employee manual and saw the part about how we are not a housecleaning company and do not for example launder curtains or wash walls. “No one but me seems to be able to refill these supplies!,” she said, refilling them when they were only halfway used up, before anyone else would have a chance to do it.

The trick is to figure out how to harness the good, job-improving, client-life-improving parts of possessiveness, without tripping over the bad parts.

My two teenagers, especially the 14-year-old one, enjoy humor of this sort: “Photo of ginger-colored guinea pig; caption about Donald Trump’s hair finally leaving him.” “Pair of photos comparing Kim Davis to the repellent receptionist of Monsters Inc.”

I get why they like it. I have been known to snort at a particularly clever one, now and then. But I’m gradually going from “Closed-lipped smile” reactions to “Lectures” reactions, because this stuff can’t go on. It’s fun and tempting to make fun of someone’s physical appearance, but we teach children NOT to do that.

It’s bugging me more and more, I think because of the underlying message. Those jokes seem to say this: “If Kim Davis were hot, she’d have a valid stance worth hearing out; but she’s not hot, so she’s ridiculous.” “If Donald Trump were hot, he’d be a good political candidate; but he’s not hot, so he’s ridiculous.” We’re not saying those things. I hope.

I find I have to spell it out, even to myself, when I catch myself snickering. It helps to reverse it: if I picture my favorite candidate being mocked for her/his appearance, my immediate reaction is incredulity. Why would the way a candidate LOOKS be an issue? And also: Is physical appearance seriously the best argument anyone can find against the candidate? Then there must not be any REAL argument against them. This is how I am forcing myself to see it when someone mocks a candidate (or any other person) I DON’T like or support. It’s making me cranky to have to defend people I don’t like, but I feel like I am just DONE with the physical-appearance jabs. If Donald Trump is a good candidate for the job, his hair is less than irrelevant; if he’s not a good candidate, mocking his hair makes it seem as if detractors can’t think of any better reasons to call him ridiculous.

It’s definitely tempting to find a repellent person EVEN MORE repellent by shuddering at their looks. I can see the appeal of that, and I do feel it myself: if someone supporting an ugly point of view is herself/himself ugly, it feels so RIGHT and APPROPRIATE; it fairly CLICKS INTO PLACE. But that’s fairy tale stuff, to think that ugly on the inside shows as ugly on the outside, and that pretty on the outside means pretty on the inside. It doesn’t work to seriously measure the legitimacy of a point/cause/platform that way. A hot person supports it: they have a valid point and we need to consider it; a non-hot person supports it: we dismiss the cause while pointing and laughing?

No. Surely that is not what we’re doing. And it really ISN’T. We dislike the opposing cause or candidate FIRST, and then we find other reasons to dislike them, and unfortunately physical appearance is one of those things. It is, for whatever reason, a natural reaction. But it makes the mocker look shallow, and severely undermines the strength of the actual objections to the cause or candidate. As soon as someone compares George W. Bush to the MAD Magazine guy, as if that’s a legitimate point to be making, I find I’m not really taking anything ELSE they say seriously.

We are having our first interval of events where it would really make things much better and easier if I weren’t working. TWO of the kids are having medical issues of the sort where the nurse calls YOU to tell you when your appointment with the specialist/equipment is, and already I had to call out on a shift once (Edward needed an MRI, and the MRI machine is quite booked up and you take what you can get), so now I really really feel as if I’d better not do so again. Because of various changes in client schedules, my hours are down to only ten per week, which makes it even more ridiculous when I have to take some of them off. But those ten hours are in four different shifts, two of which are right smack dab in the middle of a day. It makes things tricky.

Today I am waiting for a call to tell us an appointment time, and I’m trying very hard NOT to do the thing where I waste a lot of time thinking of all the things that COULD be wrong with it, when none of those things are yet the case. (They could call while I’m at work and can’t answer my phone. They could say, “Your appointment is at [time when I am still at work].” They could call and say the appointment is the NEXT time I have to work. I could miss the call AND the appointment. I could say, “Oh dear, but I have to work then!” and they could imply that I don’t sufficiently prioritize my child’s health.)

Because maybe instead it will be one of the many things that would be GREAT! Maybe they will call right after I get home from my shift, and they will suggest an appointment on a day I’m not working, at a time that would be perfect!

Anyway. It would be a lot easier if there were no job schedule to work around. I’m finding it stressful to figure this out. And that’s on top of the medical stresses. One of them is that the medication Edward takes for his Crohn’s disease has apparently stopped working, so now we start again with trying medications and reading horrifying lists of side effects and going to closely-spaced appointments, just when we had gotten to the cruising altitude of auto-refills and twice-yearly check-ups.

The other is that William fell and wrenched his knee, and it’s swollen and the doctor winced when he saw it and I got the impression I should have taken him to the emergency room the day it happened instead of waiting for the next morning, and when they did an x-ray they found bone cysts. Bone cysts. What even ARE bone cysts. They’re halfway through his shin bone; the doctor said if they spread much further, the bone could just snap as William is walking along. Anyway, we will need to see specialists about both these issues, the knee and the bone cysts, and I don’t feel as if I understand even what is going on yet, so I’m looking forward to the appointments but also nervous about managing them with my job.

One thing I really wish is that my workplace was the kind where I could try to fill my own shifts. I’ve had jobs like that before, and while it’s hard to say to a co-worker, “Please please pleeeeeeeease can you work for me 1:00-3:00 today, I will OWE YOU,” or “Listen, can I trade my 1:00-3:00 shift today for your 1:00-3:00 shift tomorrow?,” it is easier than saying to a boss, “I’m sorry, I suddenly can’t work 1:00-3:00 today.” The tone. The tone of voice a boss uses when an employee calls out. It’s the WORST.

If your child is invited on a pretty spectacular playdate, along the lines of “Our family is going away for the weekend to stay at a cool place and do cool things, and we invite your child to come with us”—do you do…anything? I mean, if Elizabeth’s friend invites her to a movie, I get anxious because I think, Do we pay for her ticket? do we send money for snacks? (I usually go with no and yes, respectively, but it’s a guess.) When the event is something MUCH MORE than that, I am proportionately more anxious about it—though also less anxious, because I don’t even know what the options are, the way I do with movies. I think I probably need to make it clearer what’s involved. It’s not like a trip to Disney. It’s more like a trip to a family-owned vacation house, with outings for mini-golf and ice cream cones and dinner out.

So that is the first question: Do you do ANYTHING different, or, if this hasn’t come up before, do you think you WOULD do anything different?

And I guess the second question is: What are the options, if any?

For example, I wondered if I should send money for them to order take-out one night. But maybe they already have dinner plans, and that would kind of mess it up.

I could say the money was for “a treat—pizza or ice cream or something,” and let them decide. But is it kind of awkward to hand someone a lump of cash? It seems a little awkward. And how MUCH cash. And I don’t want her to think that if we do something with HER child, we expect to receive a lump of cash. But I think it’s safe to say that we are not going to do anything reciprocal here, so perhaps it will not come up.

Are there LESS awkward things I could do?