There and Back Again

We've been in Brasil this week with a medical/construction team, and as much as I've been lazy over the past 6 months or so (I don't like to listen), God has been gracious with me, as always. I am reminded that He always wants to show us Himself, and He is always willing to talk if we are quiet long enough to listen. With the stresses of everyday life (work, keeping a home, paying bills, being married), I have a very hard time getting away long enough to be still. I could come up with a laundry list of other issues, but I won't.

I have spent the last year and a half in a city that is totally different than any culture I've ever experienced, in a job that is, frankly, hard many more days than not, and in a season of providing for the family. And I've complained. Oh, how I've complained. I have worried. I am Israel. I have seen God part the Red Sea, and I've made it to....the wilderness. My memory is shorter than it's ever been, and I have a husband who sees my complaining spirit and still doesn't complain himself. Part of me thinks that this season is to teach me how to be in the wilderness, that I need to know how to be in the wilderness without complaining, for God has brought me here and He has plans for later. For now, this is His plan. He is asking for my obedience, and my flesh keeps objecting.

Being in Brasil has been a totally surreal experience, because I've lived here, but I'm going home. I speak the language, but I'm on a team of people who don't. I realized this evening that I really did leave a life down here -- friends, a routine, an entire ministry. I walked into a life that had been established for me. Now I'm establishing a life for myself (or, rather, we're establishing a life for ourselves). We're going back to reality from a place of rest.

We're headed to Brasil this week for a mission trip. Needless to say, I'm really excited, because it's the first time the D-man and I have been back since we got hitched. He's going to be the construction foreman and I'm going to be the pharmacist. We're working at the leper hospital, in a prison, and in a church.

I have a normal week of work, and I leave Friday night. D-man leaves tomorrow night. I am so excited to see what God has in store for us.

Wow. Just, wow.

Would you do this at your pharmacy?

D-man and I are back from a long weekend in Utah. Mike & A got married this weekend, and family weddings are always fun. We stayed at the Snowbird Resort, and there's tons to do there in the summer. Alpine slide, zipline, mechanical bull, hiking, biking, heading up to the top of the mountain (where there was still snow). I would love to return in the winter, to ski and snowmobile.
The wedding was at La Caille, where a few scenes in Dumb and Dumber were filmed. It's such a beautiful place, and it houses a winery and restaurant. Peacocks, geese, swans, and ducks all grace the grounds, along with flowers, a couple of ponds, grapevines, and a golfing green. They provided canned champagne for us bridesmaids (one for each of us and the bride), complete with straws. I felt like I was drinking Capri Sun for adults.
Now that we're back, I'll post pictures soon. I'm ready for another vacation. One not involving family.

It's been awhile....

I've been completely remiss in my blogging habits lately, because I've been (gasp!) busy. Busy with work, busy with trying to hold a home and a marriage together (before you worry, D-man and I are fine), busy trying to figure out what the Lord has to teach me. And man, let me tell you, it's glorious.

Dear Mr. Man:

If you come in and expect me to wait on you when you're talking on your cell phone in a foreign language (for the record, I have no problem with the foreign language part, just the cell phone part), you can expect slower (and somewhat annoyed) service. If you pay no attention to me when I'm standing in front of you, patiently waiting on you to finish your phone call so I can ask you a question, you can expect that I'm going to be annoyed. If, after all that, you ask me about taking a competitor coupon that's expired, you're going to get a no. Do we take competitor coupons? Yes. Do we take them when they're expired? Nope. Not a chance. It doesn't matter that you ask me 3 times to ask the manager. It's against company policy. Period. No matter how many times you ask me if I'll take it, no matter how many excuses you give me for not coming yesterday before it expired, the answer is no. The other company wouldn't take their own expired coupon; why do you expect me to?

Disorganized....

A Letter

Dear Houston,
Last I heard, you were 4th on the list of most ozone-polluted cities in the United States. My lungs don't like it (you've given me bronchitis!), so please stop.
Love (with a little hate mixed in),
FairLady

Sick.

I have been, um, a little under the weather the past couple of days. I had a slight fever (99.5) on Tuesday night, and had to work a 14 yesterday. About 8:00 last night, I suddenly felt really hot all over. When I got home, my temp was 100.5. It's been as high as 100.8 today. And I worked this morning. I have a pesky cough, a little post-nasal drip, and a sore throat from the cough. I'm extremely hoarse, to the point that D-man is calling me Kermit. Yup, I sound like a frog. I think I sound like a barking tree frog, because my cough definitely has a bark to it.

Great, right? I, who am a health care professional, make a great patient. NOT. I am probably one of the worst. Should I go see a doctor? Probably. I don't have time. I rested all afternoon, made myself some chicken noodle soup (boy, was it tasty!), and am having tea with honey & lemon (no whiskey in the house) before bed. I'll be pushing the OTC meds and fluids over the next few days. Hopefully I'll get back to normal soon.

We've been super busy over the last few weeks, and my posting has suffered (as has my reading and writing) of late. I feel like life is boring, just because we have semi-regular schedules. Not much new happens. We have, however, learned several exciting things.

1. We have a Cheeburger Cheeburger in Houston. D-man doesn't yet know why this is exciting, but he will....
2. We have a Krystal in Houston. D-man gets this one, though he's only been to Krystal once.
3. I finally feel like I'm establishing a life here -- for so long it was very frustrating, but I'm settling in. A real life takes time, and I must keep remembering that.
4. God is good, and faithful, and He is sweet to remind me of that daily.
5. D-man still has a huge hole in his brain, but no new growth (he gets yearly MRIs to check that he's still in remission from his brain tumor).

Happy birthday to D-man! He's *@ today!
And to this cultural icon, who is 50.

Just plain batty

After a LONG 14-hour day yesterday and coming home to an empty house, I worked 6 hours today. All of a sudden this morning I heard a commotion right outside the pharmacy at the door to the break room. We had a bat in the store, and the staff managed to get it trapped in the break room. The corporate help desk laughed at the girl who called it in -- not a stellar day for our help desk. I'm not sure who they called to come get the bat, but the time estimate was 1 to 4 hours. With no bathroom, since the break room is the bathroom hallway. We had technicians going across the street to pee. One of the more, um, unwise staff put on gloves and picked up the bat and carried it out of the store. I mean, hello! Rabies!

Oh. My. Word.

I started at my new store today and all I can say is oh my word. We were extremely busy today, like, busier than I've been in any of the 26 stores in the area that I've worked at so far. When I left at 6:00, we had done 450 prescriptions. We open at 8. Needless to say, my neck and my feet hurt. I don't know what the bathroom in the store looks like yet. As in, I didn't ever get a chance to go. I hope tomorrow will be better. After all, this was the worst day ever to start at a new store, being the Monday after 2 holidays and the first Monday of the year.

Recreational use only?

A couple came into the pharmacy today from another city and the man asked if we could call his pharmacy at home and transfer his "recreational drug" (his words, not mine). Being a product of the 1980's, several recreational (and altogether illegal) drugs crossed my mind -- cocaine, marijuana, meth. He must have registered the confusion on my face, because he soon clarified. "Cialis." The stuff of commercials during male-dominated sporting events.

Please. I will be glad to fill your Cialis (or Viagra, or Levitra), but please don't try to make me think about how you use it. I don't want to know about your sex life. Please.

Random happenings

It's almost Christmas, and it's been quite awhile since I posted. We went out of town for Thanksgiving, and I've been working tons. Here's a run-down of the last month:

• Lunch with a great friend at Cracker Barrel before Thanksgiving -- we stayed for 4 hours! (Since she lived in Europe and we lived in Brasil, this was completely normal for us, but not for the waitress!)
• Thanksgiving with my crazy family
• Georgia beat Georgia Tech
• D-man and I have been decorating for Christmas -- I made stockings, we put up and decorated the tree, and we bought one another's Christmas presents. I'm getting these.
• I am officially full-time at work as of yesterday. That means vacation, holiday pay, and guaranteed hours. A permanent store is coming soon, I hope!
• One of my pharmacy classmates is here in Houston, working for my company, working in my district. Yay for a little bit of home!
• D-man's parents are coming in on Thursday
• D-man graduates from U of H on Friday
• I got my first bottle of corked wine today. I thought it was bad because I have a slight cold, but it was just bland. Ecch.

According to this article, it's apparently a good thing we didn't actually get married in Texas. Now that would be embarrassing.

Cultural differences

Tonight while at work, I had my first Brasilian patient. A mom came to ask me a question about her son's medicine. It was an antibiotic suspension that we mix in the pharmacy before the patient goes home. She brought it back to ask if it was okay that it was open. During this exchange, I could tell that she wasn't from the US because of her accent. She asked me, "Is this antibiótico?" and I immediately asked where she was from, because I recognized the word and the way she said it. Turns out she is from Salvador and her husband is from Rio. I told her I had lived in Brasil, and we continued the rest of the interchange in Portuguese. So fun!

My cultural brain fart for the day: I later realized why she looked at me like I was nuts when I told her we mixed the antibiotic at the pharmacy. In Brasil, the antibiotic comes in a box with 2 bottles: 1 with the powder for reconstitution and the other with the water for reconstitution. The patients mix it at home. Wish I'd remembered that while she was still in the store!

Excitement at the alma mater

This happened at the old Sam U yesterday. I can't believe I missed gunfire (even if it was just at a tire). My days there weren't nearly that exciting. Even with Big Shady around.

30 Years of Big Shady

After working 44 hours in 4 days (Sunday-Wednesday), I'm headed out of town. I've been looking forward to this weekend for a long time. I get to celebrate 30 years of Big Shady -- her birthday is next month! We're converging on her sister's house -- "we" includes me, her mom, her 3 sisters, her, and her roommate.

I am so excited about a girls' weekend that in no way involves work.

Stealth Operations

The scheduler called me yesterday to see if I'd be interested in switching stores for today's shift. Hmmm. I said yes, because I'm a generally agreeable person. They couldn't tell me at first what store I was going to (apparently they'd've had to shoot me). It was totally mafia in nature, complete with me meeting the pharmacy supervisor and district manager in the parking lot of said store this morning and hovering around until they pulled the pharmacist out (I was to oversee bench operations "while they were having their meeting").
Of course, I ended up staying for the full shift, because the pharmacist was terminated. Fired. I haven't yet figured out how pharmacists get fired, because we're so in demand. However, being in demand doesn't mean I can do a crappy job. I still want to do my job and do it well. Apparently I am doing a decent job, because this particular supervisor is impressed with me (for whatever reason) and the store manager told me today that I was a breath of fresh air in their store. I am glad it's not in my district -- it's a hard store to work, since there aren't enough people to work and stay caught up.