A post of numbered items...

Happy news:

#1. My car is fixed, the problems being not-so-serious. I know this because the car mechanic paged me at work and when I called him back, he told me what the problems were:
"[amidst car mechanic language]-blah-blah new gas cap blah-blah new plugs blah-blah new wires..." and then he stopped.

So I responded, "All that doesn't sound too serious to me--or am I just very naive?" To which he replied, "No, it's really not serious."

So I said, "Please proceed and fix my car."

Then I paid with my debit card, which was a happy moment, because there is money in my bank account :) :) :)

#2. Because of my set of four wheels, I can now travel the 6 miles to Colin's house, where my computer resides, and update my blog--without having to leave right after dinner in order to bike the 6 miles back to my house before I am completely exhausted!
(Actually, Colin has been making that trek since my car has been out of commission: he's been riding his bike to my place for dinner, then biking the 6 miles home--because he's always going to be in better shape than me, and also because he's just wonderful like that! Either way, my computer has not been accessible to me.)

So now I may give an update of the very recent West Coast Wedding experience I had.
Hereafter, I shall more easily give updates of life as a physical therapist in acute care--there are already, and will always be, stories in that vein!!

But now, for the wedding....

The ceremony took place in a beautiful spot, on a bluff overlooking a bay north of San Francisco within Point Reyes National Seashore. And the reception was fun--it was at a nearby Inn, where they had yummy food and swing-dancing :). I mingled with the best (worst?) of the Harvard / Yale / Berkley / Stanford crunchy people. Please be proud of me, for mingling is not my thing. But I was alone and decided to force myself to be a little more extroverted!

The nice thing about those peeps is that they're always so friendly and sincere. (It's the things that they're sincere about that make them a little wacky; things that are not-so-fundamentally-important to the good of society). It's funny to me how they intellectualize everything and take it all so seriously.... But anyway, I had fun. The best part was the swing dance that I had with Brian. And Portia's in-laws out there, with whom I stayed for the weekend, were exceptionally wonderful to me.

Otherwise, the entire affair might have been called a disaster...

1. The trip began Friday night, flying out of Raleigh, NC. I missed my connecting flight in Atlanta and spent the night in the airport. I can sleep anywhere, but with the airconditioning on and no one around, it was SO COLD! Every once in a while I would wake up shivering, so I'd walk around the airport a while and then find a bench (sometimes the same bench as before) that I thought might be far away from both the vents and the loud overhead televisions. At about 5:30am, when the airport started coming alive again, I got up and treated myself to a cup of Starbucks, partially just so that I could cradle it in my cold hands and press it to my chest!

2. So I got into San Francisco on Saturday morning. (At least I made it in time for the wedding, which was at 2pm!) But by the time I got my baggage and was driven to Portia's in-law's house, I had about 10 minutes before I had to leave to get to the site of the ceremony. (The baggage alone took about 30minutes to collect after I got off the airplane.) So ... no shower, after a full day of work on Friday and an night spend in Atlanta's airport!

***Here, insert Portia's brother-in-law and father-in-law kindly retrieving me from the airport, then her mother-in-law feeding me a sandwich and graciously driving me 40minutes to the wedding, because I "must be so tired," and so that I would be sure not to get lost along the way.

***Also here, insert beautiful wedding afternoon and evening, where I finally met the woman that Brian has been raving about for the past 10 years***
(despite the fact that their wedding website and invitation said "casual" since it was in the park, and I was almost the only woman there who was not in a cute dress... Oh, well. Brian didn't seem to care!)

3. The morning after the wedding, beginning at about 4:30am, I felt sick to my stomach. "Crazy," I thought. "I had 3 glasses of wine all night. Maybe I'm just super-dehydrated because of the airplane trip and everything." But after emptying said stomach's contents into the toilet bowl several times, my body continued to try to empty that-which-was-not-there until about 7:30am.

***Here, insert Portia's compassionate mother-in-law giving me a homeopathic remedy for my sickness, then going out early that Sunday morning to buy cans of gingerale and a box of saltines.***

***Also here, insert that I recovered, for the most part, by about 8:45am, so Portia's mother-in-law said that it was probably food poisoning. So much for "yummy food."...I hope more of the wedding party didn't get sick!

4. My already late-night connecting flight back to Raleigh from Atlanta was delayed, so that Colin had to come to the airport to pick me up at 1am instead of at midnight, late between Sunday and Monday!

5. Half of the delayed flight's passengers' baggage was not there when we arrived in Raleigh; the line into the Delta customer service closet was so long, it wound around the baggage claim belt. When I got to the front of the line, all they needed was my address, phone number, and bag tag number so that they could gie me a "file reference number." They said my bag would be delievered the next day. ...I arrived home around 3am.

6. It's now Wednesday, and I still do not have my bag. Mom is praying to St. Anthony (and so am I!) but it might be gone for a while... meaning, "forever"...

7. May I add that my bag is really small, and the only reason I didn't carry it on the plane was because I didn't have any plastic baggies to accommodate the "liquids" policy they have now. --I almost carried it on anyway, especially after waiting 30minutes in San Francisco for said bag to appear on the baggage belt on Saturday morning!!
But guess what I told Portia Sunday morning over the phone? "I don't want to risk carrying it on without any plastic baggies, and sending it through security, hoping they don't open my bag (something she suggested) because I don't want to risk having all of my make-up confiscated." Looks like a lot more than that is "confiscated" now!

Believe it or not, despite all of these mini-"adventures," it was worth the trip!

So that's my most recent story of what's happening here. The only other thing that I'm excited about these days is that I've been picking up evening shifts... Where I don't do anything except remain in the hospital building so that there's a therapist "supervisor" here while our techs do some evening treatments! I get comp time for this--which is time accrued for later use, ...meaning that I can take eventually take time from that bank to have some days off.

I literally sit at work, writing emails and taking care of business. (Last night I signed up for dental and vision benefits, then I ordered a thank-you gift for Portia's in-laws...). And I get comp time for doing this. I will never understand why my colleagues think I'm burning myself out, volunteering to fill the evening shift holes! They look at me with concern--"are you okay?"
I suppose I'd feel different if Colin didn't work until 9pm anyway. I certainly wouldn't like to do it if I had a family waiting at home for me. But for now, ...this is leisure compared to PT school!!

...Too bad Blogger is not one of the hospital-approved internet sites!