Considering Dal

I have a slow cooker. I don’t use it. But I have it. In case I finally live up to my ideal of cooking up meals for the week ahead.

This week I’m considering making a dal. So easy, so freezable, so yummy.

But I’m not a cook. And my entire yummy dal experience is from a local Indian Restaurant that does something magical to beans that makes me like them.

So I googled, as one does. And it turns out… Dal is not just one thing. Or it sort of is – it’s legumes. But sometimes they are whole, hulled or split. Depends.

India is GINORMOUS, for those of you who flunked geography. And different areas do different versions of dals. Different spices, or beans or what not.

Very few recipes are already for a slow cooker and I’m not an expert so…

I have no idea what kind of dal my favorite is. It’s just the magical stuff you put over the rice and then it’s contentment in my mouth.

I was overwhelmed by the possibilities I see. And I’m fairly sure I’m not going to be making dal tomorrow.

I might buy some on the way home though. 😍

Fred, the Mouse

We have a mouse at work. He’s a very smart and very brave mouse. He tends to show up in the office space after most of the noise and activity dies down, so early evening.

At first his favorite spot was my boss’s office. We heard her scream several times. She told her brother it was either the mouse or her. Not that she needed to threaten him, he was already ready to be rid of the mouse.

So traps were laid out and the mouse ignored all the traps, mechanical, glue and poison.

Now he’s moved in the main office.

He’s been chased but he’s quick and good at squeezing into his hidey holes.

I am a bleeding heart about animals. If he isn’t bothering me, I’m fine with live and let live on the mouse. And the more resilient and smart he proves himself to be, the more sympathy from me he gains.

The HR director has been a mouse fan from the beginning. He named it Fred and has been rooting for the mouse all along. I finally admitted to rooting for the mouse. So we decided to start a campaign to save Fred. I sent out a funny email and the whole office went into a pro Fred vs anti Fred mode.

My boss is decidedly anti Fred and suggested I bring in my cats to deal with Fred. But I’m not bringing in my cats when there is poison on the floor. Although, I do think a cat would be the most effective deterrent of a mouse invasion.

Because while HR guy and I call the mouse Fred, we really have no idea if it’s a Fred or a Felicia. And if it’s Felicia – we are going to have a whole lot more mice.

So. Now I’m considering a new campaign for an office cat. I think we could keep the mice out and improve moral with a nice cat. And as long as we are diligent about keeping it inside, it will be fine. I work at a transportation company, with many giant buses, and more than 50 vans, cars and SUVS. Not a good place for cats to wander.

But if we bring in an adult cat from a shelter, and we keep it inside, it will be FINE. I want an office cat. I wonder if anyone at the office is allergic. I shall check. And if we add it to the interview process – Are you allergic to cats? It will be fine.

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That time I had a stroke and didn’t know it. But at least I don’t have syphilis.

Yesterday morning, at the ungodly hour of 8:20am, I was sitting in the opthamologist chair being tested in various ways. I have iritis. Which is painful occasionally. I was there for follow up tests following an exceptionally painful bout.

During one of the tests, the doctor turned to the assistant and said, I want her to have a field of vision test today. It wasn’t what I was scheduled for. He said to me there is some evidence of narrowing of… (I have lost those words he said.)

So I had a very boring field of vision test and it turns out there is a very pronounced and clear lack of vision in upper right peripheral vision. Both eyes. Which is a result of an apparently small stroke I had in the past. No way to know when.

That is both disturbing and also not really relevant? I mean it’s weird and sort of scary that I had a stroke and was COMPLETELY unaware of it. I’m very lucky that the result of it is that I have a small field of vision problem that I am unaware of in daily life and the doctor says won’t even cause me to lose my license. Indeed I may well have taken the vision peripheral tests at the DMV since the stroke.

It most likely happened when I wasn’t controlling my blood pressure problem when I was in the deepest parts of the abyss.

My primary care doctor wants me to have an MRI. I’m wondering if knowing the extent of the damage is of any fundamental help?

I need to ask that because I’m still paying off the rabies shots and the iritis, separately from this stroke situation, is leading to a bunch of costly tests to see what caused the iritis. One of those tests was to see if I have syphilis. But good news – Nope.

I feel like I’m going to be forever in debt to medical costs. Rabies was going to take me a year to pay off, this round of tests I don’t know yet, but I’m guessing a year again. And now the MRI, which sounds expensive. And all of it with insurance. But because of the deductible…

And all of this is happening when work is kind of a zoo. In fact it’s a major zoo. Zoo Poo is being flung about like it hit a propeller. It’s taking most of my focus and energy just to deal with work. Adding this on top is just not good timing for my brain power. But I’m trying my best to power through. Not with a ton of success, but with moderate adequacy.

It’s been a very busy week. Very stressful. And it was capped today by a mistake by omission that sent me home in near tears.

We are putting in a new software system and I have been given quite a lot of extra responsibility with that. And since it’s implementation was supposed to be Friday, the last week was fraught with various glitches and various things not done. All while my full time job was not done by me with any great focus.

In the end we did not go live on Friday because there were too many roadblocks. I was relieved because a good portion of my responsibilities on it were unfinished.

To add stress and work to this, Friday was the monthly close for billing. On the 1st I am normally putting in at least a 10 hour day. But due to the system it was just impossible to even get done, after my 12th hour. So. I left and came back today.

Needless to say, I have set aside a whole lot of non-urgent tasks during the last month. And one of them was a contract my boss gave me to read. It outlines the new rates etc for our biggest client. I read it today. After I sent the invoices, which were based on a conversation I had with my boss on how much the fares were. I don’t know if I misunderstood him or if the contract was not written to his verbal agreement, but it specifies a whole different rate structure than I billed at. And it doesn’t matter what he or I understood, because what he signed says these things.

When I say it’s our biggest client, I had 1500 line items on one invoice and 600 on the other. And all of it is wrong. I have pull it apart and redo it. Then apologize profusely to their AP folks.

I couldn’t face it and I walked out tonight on the verge of tears. I called my coworker and she talked me off the full on breakdown. She’s good at that. I might go in tomorrow. Because Monday is going to be yet another day of system issues and I won’t have time to do it.

But I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Last time I felt this shitty was when I literally stopped moving, lost my job, and after exhausting my savings became homeless.

On a positive note though, I notice I’m handling it better this time. I have tools to deal with it, I guess. Last time I refused to acknowledge it. Because I had a great life, I couldn’t possibly be depressed or anxious.

But now I see what’s happening and have more tools. I am better prepared and more aware of it. When the feeling of near breakdown was worst was the beginning of this week, I just sat myself down and realized I had to let things go. I had to stop internalizing things I couldn’t control and recognize the limits of what I could do in the space time I was allotted. . And after that, things got a lot easier. Although I’m still prone to snapping at people, and all of my coworkers recognize that I’m a bit overwhelmed, I’m not internally as ready to just curl up into a ball and not participate. Which was how I was at the beginning of the week. And how I was when I fell apart years ago. Back then I did just curl up and stop participating. But I won’t do that this time.

I won’t let this kill me. I’m fighting for my own sanity this time. Maybe the odds don’t look in my favor, but I think I got this.

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