My Latest Life

I am trying to get used to the new me leading my latest life. As I recently wrote to Jack, I hope it's a short segment. I am surprised that I don't hate it, although I must admit I am having a bit of trouble being submissive (not the word I'm looking for exactly but I am too lazy, I should say, the new me is not resourceful enough to come up with the right term. . .) both at home and now at work. I have two men issuing orders and I am the one that must ask how high when they say jump. I am not sure how this, like many other things these days, happened -- I only know that it has and here I am. It really seems, and I may be inferring that something that is only coincidence is more relevant, but it does seem that since we got married, Brian has become more and more controlling. He has to tell me what to do and when to do it and offer unsolicited advice on everything from how I make my bed to where I keep my shoes to how I sit when I am at the computer. . . But at least I can offer a wide range of retorts to him, though they do nothing other than pacify me. . .

So now, I have this boss who is unable to delegate even the menial tasks to someone new on the scene, even someone who has a college degree and (literally) decades of experience in the working world of an office existence. I mean, I am working my way through the task-list, and generally doing an okay job, but after an entire month on the job (part-time, but even yet. . .) I am still not allowed to answer the phone!! Should I be insulted?? Or should I question my capabilities?? I am going with insulted. He did explain that it is of the utmost importance that a mistake not be made with the appointment calender, and I did make a couple of errors the first few times he handed me some trial appointments to book and breathed down my neck while I tried to make them, but once I figured out where I was messing up, like after the next 2 tries, I had it down, but I'd already sabotaged any chance I had of telephone answering this year. I'll try to be patient and hope the new year brings me a renewed opportunity. After all, if I did make a mistake and the world did come to an end, 2010 is a much more appropriate year to end on -- more dynamic!

So aside from the issues with the telephone answering, there are other aspects to the job. I enjoy interacting with all the animals, just as I thought I would. If only I'd really thought this through and realized that there was a lot more to it than just seeing a variety of animals. I don't know what I was thinking. First, there are the surgeries --quite a number of them, really. It is quite amazing how many animals are out there, and how many new ones are arriving on the scene and need spaying and neutering etc, etc. Not to mention the cases of cats with BB's in their legs and dogs with torn ACL's (or the canine equivilent) and tail amputations and tumor removals and cat enemas. . . None are anything I want to witness, let alone participate in. But I am. Last, but not least, are the euthanasias. Now, this is something that I condone, but again, not something that I want to participate in any more than absolutely necessary. However, as it happens, I am the one that has to hold the animal while the vet injects the potion, which means I am the one holding the animal while it dies. Not what I was envisioning for myself in my mid-life. In any life. I take a little consolation in being that person and at that at least a kind and caring touch is the last thing these animals experience, but that does not make it worth while. I actually can't quite believe that I am really doing this. It is one of the many things these days that cause me to wonder whether or not I'm living parallel lives. . .
Well, having had to go in to work this am, on my day off, to put a cat named Madeleine to sleep, I may be feeling just a little resentful (ya think??) but I am hanging in there, hoping that I can bale sooner than later. Speaking of which, the espresso-mocha that I took out is likely soup by now, so I will write more later about the rest of my latest life, and maybe I'll be in a better frame of mind by then, esp. if I do it directly after the ice-cream break. . .