and I have to decide how worried to be that she offers "Christian counseling" upon request.

My customers are all doctors and I have one practice that includes a "spiritual agreement" with their intake package. The group prays with the patients and even holds weekly healing prayer meetings. If you don't want that part of their services that is fine; he is still a great cancer surgeon and will treat you with awesome medical skills. The waiting room at the practice is filled with Jesus pictures and bibles and prayer books instead of People magazines. It is really super freaky. BUT, they are my favorite customers. The book shelves have the anatomy books right next to the spiritual books and divinity degrees next to the medical ones on the walls.

Early on they relieved my concerns. Doing the initial installation we were running behind, of course, and I expected they were going to be nasty and pushy like most of my doctors. I received the sweetest email ever, and the first of now hundreds of sweet emails. They said they understood that we must be encountering some type of obstacles in the installation and they wanted to be able to help. They didn't understand tech, but if I could give them a few key words or phrases related to the holdup they would be able to pray for our wisdom and resolution to the problems. No pressure ever from this group, only kind words and gratitude in every encounter I have with them. Trust me, that is not the case with all my doctors!

Anyway, they made me get past my natural skepticism of openly religious people. They have plenty of non-Christian patients, although they must be freaked out by the decor. Still one of my highest rated doctors as far as outcomes and patient grades. And if I had the kind of cancer he treats I would be on his doorstep for sure.

Yeah, like I said, it is Texas. If I automatically excluded vocal Christians from things, I wouldn't have a lot of options. I'm just not sure about mental health.

I would be *very* put off by someone offering "Christian" services, Dana. On the other hand, hard yes on having a dog for therapy!

Anytime my customers hear my dog barking in the background they always respond with jealousy that I get to work with him. When I had the store the dog was there too, but kept her in the back so people with issues didn't get the sniff treatment.

Lovely story, Laura!

I received the sweetest email ever, and the first of now hundreds of sweet emails. They said they understood that we must be encountering some type of obstacles in the installation and they wanted to be able to help. They didn't understand tech, but if I could give them a few key words or phrases related to the holdup they would be able to pray for our wisdom and resolution to the problems.

We're switching to a new library information system tomorrow (the dread!). I'm the technical person of my department (for wrangling all things data, not for actual programming and such). Half of my department is religious people, so I've been asking them to pray because I don't and at this point I would like to.

I'm not into praying myself either, but hey, not going to turn it down if anyone wants to pray for me!

I always feel mildly uncomfortable with public displays of religion ... probably from having been raised non-religious (I used to describe myself as a lapsed Unitarian).

I feel like that too. I was raised "lapsed Catholic". There is a whole lot of baggage about religion in my family because my grandfather's psychosis and breakdown when my mom was little was a sort of religious one, where he heard the voice of God telling him what to do. And it let him to take my uncle, and drive to Long Island Sound to baptize him in the ocean. My mom had a brief religious time when she was a teen and converted to Catholicism from nothing. My grandma was Catholic, but not religious, but she kept a lot of the paraphernalia like her rosary and Missel with the Latin Mass, and wait figurines, which I have. But religion was just not something we touched.

I do in fact LOVE Mass and would probably convert for the ritual, if I didn't feel like I would be lying to say I actually believe in God. I have considered going to Unitarian services, but what I like is actually the theatre of it, and I feel Unitarians are lacking in pageantry. I also think saying the rosary would be a good anti-anxiety meditation, with the beads and the physical holding of something while repeating words.

Also, and I know I have said this before, but my grandpa was mostly fine when I knew him, and I really don't understand how you stop hearing voices without medication. He did have ECT back when it was called "shock treatment". My mom once said that he did here them, but he stopped listening except in times of utmost stress. That just seems so weird.

And I just figured out that I managed to stop taking my nortriptyline at some point during the ten days I was gone, which possibly explains the drastic vertigo, increased anxiety, problems sleeping, and so forth. Fucking genius move on my part.

Oh Dana. I'm sorry.

And in other note, a funny story. After three nights in a row where I got glorious 4.5-5 hours of sleep every night (I need at least 6 to function, more not to be gronky all day, and these days were super busy y'all), I arrived at 7.30 am to the office upon special request for sanity checks to the new system before everyone else arrive (that's legit. Gronky but legit). Long story short, you wouldn't believe who was was left out of the sanity checks list and didn't have a user to do said sanity checks with.

After waiting an hour I socially hacked my boss' email to get his login details to do the checks, and same for his whatsapp to get information related to the checks because I was also left out of all communication channels re: said checks (no scripts, no known issues warnings, no "don't even try to do X for now").

You stole an hour of my precious sleep and made me jump through hoops to get the vital and urgent work that needed to be done, work people. Revenge will come.