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May 31, 2005
Can't You Have Just One Bite?
That's what I overheard one of the nurses saying to VLC this afternoon as VLC politely refused to eat one of the fifty thousand or so donuts that were served at today's all day contract ratification meetings.
You got that right, bloggiefriends, for those of you who have even the foggiest what I am referring to. We settled the contract. And a great one it is! Still the best paid nurses in the state, and now with one of the best retirement packages. And yes, the nurses at this particular hospital can now get health insurance for themselves and their spouse if they retire at sixty. The ratification vote was overwhelming, almost all of the 741 nurses showing up to vote. One of the nurses said to me, "I've been in nursing for thirty years, and I have never felt so empowered as I do today." Wow, that warms the organizer's heart.
But this is not a blog about organizing nurses, this is a blog about CR. Which is good, cause for two very long days I've been drowning in an ocean of evil gak, clinging to my cottage cheese snack packs and the sound of MR's voice on my cell phone as though they were a life boat. Yikes, these people eat crap!!!
I knew it would be rough on Monday when the nurses showed up with their contributions to our impromptu Memorial Day picnic, eaten during a caucus break in the hotel conference room. All kinds of pasta salads, covered with mayo and oil... cold cuts and cheese, rolls. All homemade, so I didn't want to offend by not taking any. My strategy: I took the lettuce that someone had brought as sandwich garnish and made a big bed of lettuce on my plate. Then I topped it with tiny dollops of the homemade salads, not even a tablespoon of each. That way, when one of the nurses saw my lunch and commented, "I see you're eating sensibly," I could truthfully say, "I tried your salad and it was delicious!" Of course their food tastes good... it just isn't good for me!
I was ecstatic that one of the nurses, the tall fit one from the ER, had brought a giant fruit tray. Ignoring the silly whipped cream dip in the middle, I went straight for the melons, apple, grapes and pineapple. Yum yum yum! See, I eat fruit! I ate a big plate of that, and dug the almonds out of the trail mix to munch on while others were downing potato chips and such. I also had one of my cottage cheese packs (80 cals) for lunch with my salad, to be sure I was getting some calcium and protein.
For dinner we ordered out pizza, but I got just the house salad, which was pretty generous and included carrots, celery, and all variety of bell pepper. They ignored my instruction to give me JUST VINEGAR on the side and instead gave me oil and vinegar. I HATE THAT!!! I really dislike the taste of bad quality olive oil, and I don't want to eat it if it's been sitting on the stove all day and all night. I actually heard myself say to a co-worker, "It's like totally oxidized, dude!" So I put mustard on my salad instead and drizzled some roasted red peppers (packed in water, not oil) and a few homemade dill pickles on top.
We finally got a tentative agreement, and the bargaining committee all went out to a local bar of moderate dive-ish-ness, where I joined in the festivities by ordering my new favorite drink: the Skinny Bitch. That's vodka and diet Coke with a lime. Delicious! Don't worry, I wasn't driving... the insurance company hasn't gotten me a rental yet so I've been catching rides with a co-worker who lives relatively near by.
It was very late and we live far from the negotiations hotel, so the staff folks all got rooms and parted ways for the night. Of course the first thing I did when I got to my room was call MR... I felt like I deserved the wonderful treat of hearing his voice on the phone after my long and harrowing day of negotiations. Talked for a little while, and went to sleep dreaming of my Orange One and megamuffins.
The hotel had a free breakfast buffet, and I had a small scoop of eggs and two snack packs of cottage cheese. More calories than I would usually have at breakfast, but I didn't want to go crazy on saturated fat and they had cottage cheese snack packs at the hotel breakfast, so I was very excited about that. Put two in my cooler bag for later, and ate one mid-morning. Also made myself a little snack from red and green peppers and fat free salsa that I bought at the corner Wawa convenience store. For those of you who aren't from around here, Wawa is a big Northeast US convenience store that is getting into fresh foods and has some pretty good offerings in terms of fruits and veggies. Not cheap, but if you're on the road and desperate they're great.
Between the 1 pm meeting and the 4 pm meeting we had a going away luncheon for a co-worker who is leaving us now that she's graduated from law school, and we went to one of those excellent local Italian places. I negotiated with the waitress and got an amazingly delicious dish. They offered a seafood pasta dish with steamed clams, scallops and shrimp in a marinara sauce over pasta, so I asked if I could have all the seafood but instead of putting it over pasta, if they could just throw it over a big plate of raw broccoli. My co-workers expressed doubt when I claimed that the heat of the seafood would steam the broccoli, yielding freshly steamed but not overcooked broccoli without exposing me to overly heated oils (it's like totally oxidized, dude!). When the dish came everyone was jealous... it just looked so good. And it was! Not sure how many calories, of course as it was "out" food, but tons of zinc and protein. It came with a house salad of just lettuce, tomato and green pepper with red onion, to which I added only red wine vinegar.
Between the 4 pm and the 7:30 pm meetings VLC and I decided to remove ourselves from the meeting room for a few moments of quiet girl time, and wandered over to a place called the Gumbo Shoppe, specializing in cajun food. I ordered a tiny cup of crawfish soup, which was amazing, and we sat there long enough to catch our collective breath before the final meeting.
Over all, the day was a victory, both in terms of the union and CR. It's not easy to eat right on those days when you're going from 6 am till 9 pm non-stop, and it's hard in social situations to strike the right balance between fitting in (which is to some extent essential for my work) and sticking to what you know is good for you. As always, I probably could have done better, but I think I did pretty well.
Posted by april at May 31, 2005 10:01 PM
Comments
Hey! Congratulations on the contract! That's fabulous news, well done.
-Liz
Posted by: Elizabeth at June 1, 2005 6:39 AM
April,
you did really well! I'm so impressed and motivated by willpower and grace under pressure. I like The Skinny Bitch too. I order it with Vanilla Stoli and diet coke.
We tried MR's Supper Stew (I divvied it into 8 portions instead of 6), and it is quite tasty. I love the kaffir lime flavor. I'm thinking of adding a little Thai red curry paste to the rest and substituting lime juice for the lemon.
Enjoy that lovely feeling of accomplishment and relief.
Laura
Posted by: Laura at June 1, 2005 7:50 AM