Pole Dancing In The Dark

Word Vomit

There are many reasons for my total lack of interest in blogging lately not the least of which was total lack of … well … interest. I have been at this for five years (and 2 months and 18 days – but who’s counting) and the material and desire had sort of dried up. Granted, if I had maintained a more political blog there would have always been grist for the mill, but been there, done that, bored myself silly. I can’t even imagine what my readers (all four of them) had to endure. For that, I apologize.

But since I just got off the phone (about an hour ago) with a good friend whom I have never met in real life (Thanks Girlfriend!)– well, I feel downright chatty again. At least for the next five minutes.

For those who were wondering or even cared – this has been my life since September: I have been excessively stressed about losing my job. The project I was working on was supposedly being transferred to California. Our Organization was once again being reorganized and the way development worked was being completely changed in such a way that I had to learn Java stat, because I was supposedly was now required to program. Program? What? With my lack of BS degree? And complete lack of compensation? I would still be deemed a tech on the pay scale, but now do a development type job. Needless to say, I was concerned. The other half of the concern stemmed from the fact that we kept getting dates when the layoffs were going to happen only to find on the predetermined date, that it was being pushed out. That went on for two months. I got to the point that I didn’t even care if they were going to let me go, just as long as they let me know about it right then, so I could plan for my future. Especially since we needed my insurance benefits at least until the end of the year.

The layoffs happened the second last day of October. I dodged the swinging axe yet again. Three people on my team weren’t so lucky. Oddly enough, I am not having the same survivor’s guilt I felt four years ago. Firstly, I work in a completely different building than the rest of my team so I didn’t see the frog march. Second, two of them, I kind of understood. Third, I was too busy hiding in the lab so I wouldn’t be found. Can’t lay me off if you can’t find me. I was so willing to play the Milton part until they “fixed the glitch.” Let’s see how many get that particular reference. Hee!

Another thing that I have been dealing with is the whole IVF thing. I briefly mentioned that the first round didn’t do me any good. The second round of injections was much easier to deal with. Mr. Personality (the doc) took me off the Lupron (and choirs of Angels looked down from above and sang) and put me on a much easier regimen of drugs. One shot in the morning (300 mgs of Follistim) and one shot at night (300 of Menopur). That went on for a week and a half before adding Ganarylx (or however you spell it). This time – 21 eggs. My ovaries can crank out the production when sufficiently motivated. Of course, they were kind of sore for a few days after the retrieval. I was the chicken of infertility treatment. Actually, I was told that the record was around 40. That woman has my admiration and sympathy. (And probably triplets…) Anyway, with that type of estrogen influx, is it any wonder I didn’t axe murder someone while worrying about the layoffs?

Out of the 21, 12 fertilized, but only 4 matured to the blastocyst stage. Two were implanted last Wednesday. We’ve named them Beaker and Petri. The other two, Bunsen and Pipette were put on ice. Hubster is so excited. He will make such a great father – especially if I have anything to say about it (hee!). The actual test is this Saturday. I am excited, nervous, anxious and yet oddly at peace right now.

On top of all that, my computer decided to turn all evil on me. Suddenly, it couldn’t find the executables for game files, I couldn’t get windows to open a new word doc, it couldn’t find the program… and trying to get my email was like shoving red hot needles into my eyes. I was angry, upset, confused… why had my dearest non-human friend giving me such grief? Was I not playing enough games on it? Was it jealous of the quality time I was spending with the cats? No, apparently it didn’t like my USB card reader that I bought for my camera cards. It screwed up the registry. We managed to do a temporary fix until I had time to do a clean install (which I wanted to do anyway). I just needed to bite the bullet and make the time. Did it two weeks ago while recovering from the retrieval.

About the political situation. I am not suffering from P.E.S.T. all though I am sort of concerned. I think that unceremoniously yanking our troops from Iraq is a mistake. I feel that it would dishonor the memory of all those who died to make it a better place. I feel that it will embolden Al-Queda and finally I think it will most likely have the same repercussions as yanking the troops out of Vietnam. I am also fairly angry about the lack of good press coming from there. Schools being built, water supplies being provided, all the great work done by Chief Wiggles and the like – why don’t we ever hear about that?

But the people made their choice, so all I have to really say is hang on kids, we may be in for some chop. Or, it could just be SSDD.

Ok, I am worded out for now.
Take care.

Posted by Ethne at November 14, 2006 06:42 PM