Aw, bonny, I'm sorry about your bff's brother.

Seriously, who says to someone who is handicapped, "The best blessing in the world is to have a normal child"?

"Huh. I would have said it's having more sense than a box of rocks but the sad thing is that not everyone gets that, either."

I've questioned both my parents in great detal about post-mortem wishes. I started it as an email....sort of an "I think we both explect that I'll outlive you, and I know that i'll be so overwhelmed with grief that the more practical things we can plan out in advance the less i'll have to freak about while I'm crippled with grief. Next time we get together, can we talk about what you want re: medical decisions, dispostion of physical remains, funeral decisions, etc? Especially funeral or memorial services...so many choices to be made....what music would you want played? Who should I invite who I might not know? Anyone who should NOT be invited for fear of bad reactions? For a wake, are there specific food or drink items that are significant to you and would be respresentative? How about flowers?

I got SO MUCH good info (and I know that it spurred both parents to update their wills and give me contact info for their attourneys as well as home locations of will copies.) My mom knows certain songs she wants played at her funeral and gave me contact info for some of her church friends who know the ins and outs of her church. I found out that she does not want to donate any organs or body parts (which pisses me off, but those are her wishes) because for some reason she thinks she needs her body intact in the afterlife. Wierd, but ok, I can abide by that decision tho I can't promise I won't asl her to change her mind later on. My Dad, OTOH, is all for donating anything usefull, or his whole body to science, or anthing else that could be construed as at all helpful to others, and then to cremete anything remaining and scatter it wherever. Ideally in a certain spot if possible, but per him my backyard would also be just gine. I could have guessed at Dad's wishes cuz that's how I feel, but without knowing Mom's it would never occur to me to not donate or cremate.

Death is such a loaded topic that you can't really just spring if on most people, but giving them some time to ponder (and not just launching the discussion over dinner...even morbid/rational me knows that most people whould find that off-putting) specific questions and topics to think about did result in very usefull information that i suspect will save me a LOT of wishful thinking later on. Heck, they both emailed me responses that I was able to just save as documents. Speaking of which, I really ought to update my own advance medical care directive since mine is still technically for California and I'm in Oregon now.

My water smells horrible. Like, makes you want to recoil, horrible. And, not like chlorine.

No one else on my block is having this problem. They'd notice if they were.

What has my landlord done...again.

I've called the water department. They say they are sending someone out to check it.

I have a houseguest coming tonight.

I took a bath in it last night.

Please...'it's nothing but a bad smell that can be easily fixed' ~ma. As much as you've got.

UGH. Can I bitch a sec?

So, last night had my annual review. It was generally great--I am good at my job, and since I work from home, no one is like "OMG you left early and seemed to be on the internet a lot" as long as I get the work done and done well. Which is so much better than when I worked in an office. And I was told I'm good and my work is good, and people like to work with me. YAY. BUT, at one point I was talking about how they basically took away half my job (granted, most of that half was the stuff I dislike!) and so I've felt like it's hard to be challenged, blah blah, and she started talking about how that's true and part of her job and what she'll be trying to do next year is challenge me, and it's hard for her to find things, especially for people who don't want to become managers, blah blah blah, and I was like "Um..what? I am not anti-being-a-manager?" I think she got in her head that I don't want to be a manager. Which...not true. Granted, my IDEAL job would still have some travel (managers don't), but...I also don't want to be in this job for the next umpty-years.

And then today found out that TWO MORE of my current team have been or are being promoted. Including one girl who I have found fairly useless, and I am SO IRKED. I had a talk set up with my project manager today, who was fairly nice and did have some good things to discusss..but part of it was saying "OK, so [other person] is going to take over some management things since we're losing [personX] to be a manager on another team, so I would like you to take over some of her [ourjob] duties". ...WTF? ARGH.

Were you able to make it clear (to the people who can make it happen) that you're interested in becoming a manager? Because, regardless of how they got the impression you aren't interested, if they think you don't want to be one, then they'll promote useless people instead of you. Wave that management flag!

Were you able to make it clear (to the people who can make it happen)

I think so? I think I need to more forcefully remind her a few times soon, though. And we did eventually talk about having her nominate me for this manager training program (which is not required to become a manager, nor is it promised that if you take it you will become one, but...). But I'm still just UGH over the people who HAVE been promoted.

Ick, bonny. I hope it's nothing serious.

meara, I'm sorry. That must be really frustrating. I hope you get the promotion that I'm sure you deserve very soon.

Thanks for the outrage on my behalf last night. Sometimes I just need to make sure that I'm not overreacting to people because I do tend to do that.

and it's hard for her to find things, especially for people who don't want to become managers, blah blah blah, and I was like "Um..what? I am not anti-being-a-manager?"

I've gotten this more than once and it's a real problem. I don't know if it stems from being more independent and not all up in everyone's business?

I've learned (the hard way, after an incident very similar) that at my current company anyway you are better off - expected, really - to be very open about your goals, and to be an advocate for yourself. It was a real adjustment for me to get comfortable approaching someone higher up and say outright things like "I want to be promoted to X and I need your support/advice etc."

Also a problem: I want to go to Mexico again this year, but we don't know when our crunch time is coming, exactly (it depends on when we hit a certain number of patients). They had been saying we'd hit that point end of Jan/begin of Feb, and I thought "great, we'll be done being busy by mid March and I can plan vacation"....but now they're saying end of Feb/begin of March, and I don't know if/when I can go, because it would have to be like, early February? Which might be too soon?

I hate the fact that the no-management ceiling is so damned low. Bless Countrywide for that--they had clear career pathing, and every pay/prestige level up to (and including) VP was open to people who didn't want to manage people. I have no idea if this place has a "next" for me, and I certainly don't want to go back to management, especially not how it works here (although the bare minimum I'd have to do wouldn't be much, they wouldn't be tasks I would want to add).

Getting your wishes across must be harder when when you travel a lot too--remote there's not so much ability to get the subtext across, I'd think. But coming back to someone and telling them what they want when they haven't told you flat out? Not slick management.