Small Town Girl

I have never considered myself a small town girl.

I was born in Baltimore. That's real city, with millions of people.

We moved to just outside Washington, DC when I was little. That's again, a real city. There are people everywhere--in fact, although DC itself isn't very big, that's the best way to describe where we lived, since nobody's ever heard of Cheverly, MD.

When I was 6, or maybe 7, we moved to a suburb of Boulder, CO. Shortly after that, we moved to a suburb of Denver. There are millions of people in the Denver Metro Area--more than the whole state of New Mexico, I believe.

And then in high school I landed in Podunk. A town of 18,000. The nearest city doesn't even have a million people in it. I think the whole state has under 3 million. And I prided myself on being from a city. I hate the outdoors--I'd rather be inside a mall. I don't find nature relaxing; I find it dirty. I don't get joy at standing on top of a mountain; I get more joy yelling at the stupid drivers in bumper to bumper rush hour traffic (and I have actually driven in Baltimore and Denver and multiple other cities in such traffic, since we know NM will never see the likes of that!).

I always dreamed of returning to a big city to live. Well, I wanted to be in the suburbs, not the city proper. That is, until we went to Albuquerque yesterday for a doctor appointment, and had to experience the joys of parking garages with no parking and parking lots with no empty spaces. I couldn't believe how many people there were in all the spots. We ended up parking against the wall in the parking garage, so close that I got to climb over the center console and out the driver side. We figured since other vehicles were doing the same, perhaps we'd catch the tow truck on one of the other cars and could escape before we got towed.

And now I don't think I want to live in a place where there's no parking. And I'm afraid that maybe I'm destined to be a small town girl, and the city girl part of me has moved on.

I suppose I should be grateful that I don't know of a place here where parking has to be validated, so I guess nowhere in NM can't be THAT big.

PhD. in Frustration

So you wander into work a whopping 2 minutes before your shift begins. I've had one of the longest shifts known to mankind, thanks to a major power outage with temperatures dropping below 9 degrees and a million old folks living in a tiny community. I'm dying to go home--one more call about what am I going to do to fix the temperatures/turn on the power/open an emergency shelter/handle other calls to those who are stupid enough not to know that half the town is without power and therefore all the pipes in the powerless part of town are about to freeze and nobody will make it through the night due to the cold, and I'm going to tell everyone just how much I really DO NOT CARE about their problems unless their lives are in serious immediate danger. I have spent hours holding hands, reassuring the elderly that we love them (and I normally do), trying to interpret weather forecasts, being yelled at by almost every citizen because I'm not the electrician myself, fighting with the utility company about how long this will last, arguing with the Emergency Management Coordinator about what his job entails, and preparing for emergency shelters and door to door evacuations of around 10 streets and up to 100 homes, just to have the night end with you meandering through the door sighing like your life sucks.

You stare at me as I answer another call for service at the exact minute your arse is supposed to be in the seat answering the phone, but since you didn't show up in time for me to log off, I'm the only one who can answer the bleeping phone. You can't believe I won't get out of your way. I finish the call, dispatch an officer, and try to brief you.

You announce that you don't know what I'm talking about, and then ask questions that had you a)shown up in time to be briefed or b)listened as I briefed you (in between phone calls, radio traffic, and trying to get out of your way), you'd know the bleeping answer to without me having to repeat everything twice.

You throw a fit because you and I are scheduled for training 6 weeks from now and may have to share a hotel room--not a bleeping bed, but a freaking ROOM--for 1 night and threaten not to go to the training. I want to say "good, don't go." You then proceed to tell me that I don't know when MY licenses expire or when MY certifications are in danger when you're the moron without a clue. I've been the blasted one in charge with keeping track of everyone's licenses, certificates, schedules, OT, training. I'm not an idiot. We're ranked the same. You are no better than me. I know my crap forwards and backwards and inside out. In fact, the mere fact that you apparently are threatened that I MIGHT know more than you should indicate to you that I'm not an idiot.

And you wonder why I understand when other people get frustrated with you? Holy crap. This isn't rocket science. But if it were, today I'd say I earned my PhD.

Hanging Like Mistletoe That's STILL Out

I realize I left you hanging with the woeful tales that make up my holidays :)

Okay, so Christmas ended up better than I thought. The in-laws were surprisingly...nice? Fairly friendly? Not so egotistical? I'm not quite sure the words to describe it.

"We" got up--and by that I mean I got Hubby out of bed at 0700 like a child, because, let's face it, I'd been up for hours by myself, working myself into a tizzy over the drama I was sure would ensue. So after a hundred rounds of "are you sure I can go with you to your parents at 1000?," I got my rear end in the car, and we went. Sure enough, there was a place set for me at the table--although I had been convinced that they would be shocked to see me there. We had a nice breakfast, opened gifts, and played games. It was very mellow, especially for an in-law gathering. And that was all I saw of them...and possibly all I see of them until next Christmas. No joke. Hubby had all the time off from Christmas through New Year's Day, and he saw them every day while siblings-in-law were here, and that seemed to satisfy him. He's actually going up to in-laws' house today to work on the car, so he's seeing them before Christmas '08 :)

I haven't really had time to digest the holidays, but obviously I'm in a better mood, despite working every stinking day (ok, so I did get a whole 30 hours off last weekend) and being icky-sicky for the past week plus. However, DT-day is approaching this weekend, and that's when I consider the holidays truly over.

DT-day is of course Downing the Tree day. It's when I force myself to locate all the ornament packages and storage containers and strip the tree of it's glory until next Thanksgiving. We have a new tree this year, so we no longer have to take down the lights. And we bought new ornaments and gave away lots of old ones, so there's not supposed to be as many. The tree comes down on the 12th day of Christmas, unless I can come up with a better excuse to be lazy. One year I got lucky and Hubby did it all for me...but to let that happen again--that would be wrong, right?