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February 7, 2006
The Madness Begins
Or: "Pennsylvania Hospital Administrators Conspire To Make Sure April Will Not Be Home During MR's First Week Back in Country."
It's amazing. I wait for years for the nurses in PA to be ready to organize the union... running contract campaigns, starting campaigns but having to shut them down when nurses get bought off by big raises, etc. Then finally, it seems like the whole thing is about to blow. As PDiddy so memorably said, "This is the moment they all been waiting for, playboy." Finally, we're getting tons of calls, nurses all over are getting pensions slashed, wages frozen, and staffing cut. So now they want to organize (no one ever thinks to protect themselves in advance from this sort of thing... that would be too much trouble for the American worker.) I've had plenty of spells of twelve to sixteen hour days, early mornings, late nights and weekend work... in fact, my entire first two years at this union were just like that. Every day, working till 9 at night, leaving the house at 5:45 am most mornings for an entire summer of a contract campaign, months of shift change meetings when I leave for the Denny's by 6:30 am and argue with the staff over the exact ingredients of the eggwhite omlette, walking the picket line in sub-0 cold in the Poconos in February... it's all par for the course as an organizer, and even though I'm the Director of Organizing now and have a staff of people whom I supervise, I still to an incredible amount of the work myself. I love my work, and I love it when it's busy... it's good when there's activity, it means the day when a more just world is a reality is closer than I think. But it does mean long long hours.
Just in time for: my Orange One's return home!
It's not as bad as it sounds... I will be home to cook a nice dinner on Valentine's Day, and I can pick him up from the airport on the evening he arrives home and feed him a fantastic dinner immediately thereafter. Then I'm out Wednesday until about 10 pm, out Thursday over night (meeting 2.5 hours away that doesn't end until 9 pm, and I always try to stay over when I have meetings that go late since I've taken my chances way too many times with driving when exhausted. I used to work for a union that was too cheap to pay for us to stay somewhere over night, so for months on end I'd drive two hours home at night, four nights a week, after a twelve to sixteen hour day. danger!)
Luckily, MR is super-supportive of my work, and is so used to keeping his own company and making his own tatta that he'll be fine when I'm away. And the charming cats will be so happy to have him home, they'll no doubt follow him from room to room excitedly meowing... something I know he is looking forward to.
All of this travel and crazy scheduling and work obligation requires a certain degree of flexibility from the CR girl. For example, on Wednesdsay night, I'm taking a professor who is presenting at one of our events out to dinner at the restaurant in the hotel where we are having a big meeting. Luckily, this restaurant has an excellent salad bar, with lowfat cottage cheese, so I'll do okay there.
Thursday night we have a meeting several hours away at a location that is near a Ruby Tuesday's! They have both a calorie-counted menu and a fabulous salad bar, so I should be set for dinner. And the place where my staff and I are staying overnight has a free breakfast with an omlette bar where they have real eggwhites, not Eggbeaters, and will make you an omlette with same! VLC and I used to love those eggwhite omlettes, just the thing to fortify you for the long drive back to the office early in the morning. It will probably be cold enough that I can even pack a small jar of flax oil and leave it in the car to pick up in the morning and add to my eggwhites... just like home!
Let's not forget the beauty and convenience of Subway, the ultimate CR road food. It was looking like I'd have to grab Subway tonight, as it suddenly became clear at midday that I would need to leaflet another hospital tonight from 6:30 pm to 8 pm, but I figured out a way to juggle my schedule so that I can stop home to feed the kitties, give Philo her antibiotics, and eat a quick brewers yeast soup on my way to the leaflet. I even figured out how to fit in a trip to the gym! Taking care of myself in spite of big work demands on my time... imagine that. Shocking, I know.
I have considered as of late that I could make my brewers yeast soup on the road by bringing a cube of no salt organic veggie broth along with a baggie of measured Lewis Labs. Then all I'd have to do would be heat some water in a mircowave and bam: more nutrients that you can shake a DWIDP at in minutes! I have also made use of the all-powerful megamuffin and brownie to satisfy my nutritional needs on the run.
Being busy is no reason not to do CR. In fact, it's even more reason to do CR. If you don't have enough time now, how can you afford to lose one day to aging, disability and death?
Posted by april at February 7, 2006 12:54 PM
Comments
After all that... sudden change of plans. Overnight meeting moved to the 21st, leaflet got cancelled... life of an organizer! There is no such thing as a typical day!
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Posted by: April at February 7, 2006 1:22 PM