Dammit, Jim, I'm A Doctor, Not A... Wait...

I'm thinking about finding a new doctor. My current doctor, a naturopath, is friendly enough, but I've been having some issues with her practice. For example, the last time I saw her (only a month or two ago), we spoke at length about my suicide attempt 15 years ago, and it being a reason why I have an aversion to taking pills. At yesterday's appointment, I had to explain the whole thing again after she recommended a list of supplements I should take, all pills. She had my file right there in front of her.

The kicker, though, was that after she suggested the pills, and then switched over to some liquid supplements and stepped out to ask her boss whether one of the things that only came in pills was okay to be crushed, she came back in, clued in to the fact that budget is also a concern, and finally, after almost an hour, started talking about ways to get those particular nutrients from food.

A naturopath who suggests pills and supplements before suggesting dietary changes doesn't seem like a terribly good naturopath, if you ask me. Added to some other red flags (like ordering labwork but not telling the phlebotomist I was coming or how much blood to draw), I'm thinking I might be switching practices soonish.

On the plus side, the labwork revealed why I've been perpetually exhausted and depressed lately: underactive thyroid! I like having answers to nagging questions, and this one ought to be easy to fix... even if it does mean taking a (tiny) pill every day.

Sox vs Yanks

BossMan is slightly wicked. He put a Boston Red Sox sticker on one of the company vans and then had the temp employee from New York drive it around town running errands. Luckily, the New Yorker has a sense of humor.

Hearing Protection

I told y'all a while back about the shed my bosses have on the property that got damaged by the garbage truck. Well, they've got their handyman/carpenter friend on the job, and not only did he straighten (with the clever use of comealongs and trees) and reinforce the frame, he's turning the building into quite the cozy studio for Boss Lady.

The other day, he was using a benchtop planer to dimension some lumber, and I noticed that he wasn't wearing hearing protection. I had to go out to ask him to move his truck anyway, so while I was there I asked him if the screaming noise of the planer bothered him. "Aw, nah," he said, "I just turn off my hearing aids and I can't hear a thing."

Proof that deafness can be a blessing, I suppose.

Pumpkin

Grandparent Update: Just as I was about to call her, my grandmother sent me an email saying they're fine and had no damage. *whew*

In other news...

The bosses' son injured his back a few days ago, so he's not doing any of the heavy lifting he usually does. He's also suddenly become concerned about everybody else's backs, so when he saw me lifting two soup bins (combined about 45 lbs.) and carrying them from one end of the building to the other, he said something about hoping I didn't hurt my back, too. I came back with, "I'm a former Teamster, pumpkin, my back doesn't break!"

Once everyone within earshot recovered from their laughter, I got a high-five from his girlfriend. She then decided that she needs to start calling him "pumpkin." I'm not sure if this makes me a bad influence or a good one.

Why I Am Worried Tonight

This...

They're far enough inland that I'm not worried about flooding (also, their development has decent flood mitigation in place), but the wind... that's another story. My grandparents live in this:

...and that picture is ten years old, meaning those trees are a lot bigger now. One of them comes down the wrong way, and half the house is gone.

I can do nothing but wait and hope.

Creepy-Crawlies

So I'm doing my shipping thing at work today, and a coworker is in the next room washing buckets, and suddenly I hear, "ohhHHH GOD!!!," and the sound of her taking some sort of evasive action. I go investigate, and she tells me there's a "huge" spider, "the size of an orange," in the sink.

Having just returned from the land of banana spiders, whose wingspan is the size of a small orange, I'm looking for something pretty impressive, and what do I find?

Remember Spot, my temporary shop assistant with anger management issues? This was Spot's cousin. Barely an inch long, utterly terrified, and completely harmless. I found a jar, nudged the spider into it, and relocated the wee beastie outdoors.

A few minutes later, another coworker comes up to the first one and asks her to kill a wasp in Production, which doesn't phase her one bit, even when she only stuns it and it manages to sting her on the boob before she thoroughly smushes it.

I don't understand people. But we all had something to chuckle about for the rest of the day.

Earworms

My sister and I both tend to listen to music almost constantly when we're at home, but our tastes don't overlap enough for us to be able to agree on a radio station when we travel, so we end up getting a few catchy songs stuck in our heads and then "torture" the other with whatever earworm is in play. On our Florida trip (which was lovely, and I'll tell y'all more about it soon), we had snippets of things like The Hustle, "America" from West Side Story, and the song from an old flash animation called Little Red Monkey stuck in our heads. We were both getting sick of those after a while, so I shoved my brain onto another track... and started humming the waltz from Die Fledermaus. My sister's brain was right there with me, so for the last two days of the trip, we'd find ourselves driving down some highway or other in Florida, loudly "singing" Strauss to keep ourselves amused.

We're weird, and it's wonderful.