Life as a Spectator Sport

A little more than a week ago, my cell phone rang. The prime contractor, Mike, said in my ear, "Liz, that inspection you uploaded yesterday is a mess! Half the thumbnails don't match the big images." I apologized, and told him laughingly that he was lucky he'd gotten that much, as I had done the work at 3 in the morning, more than half asleep.

"I'm only twenty minutes from home," I said. "Soon as I get there, I'll get online and fix the images."

"No problem," he assured me. "Just sometime before tomorrow night."

As I was pulling into the driveway, the phone rang again. It was Anne, the rector of the church Kate attends, telling me that Kate had gone to the emergency room with severe shortness of breath and had been admitted to the hospital with an irregular heartbeat. At least, that's what I thought she was telling me, because I kept losing the signal. "Hold on, Anne," I said urgently, "I'm home--I'll call you from the regular phone."

The phone on my desk wasn't working, so I ran back to use the one in Clarence's bedroom. I didn't see him and assumed he was in the bathroom. "I'm home," I hollered. "Kate's in the hospital."

There was no response, and just as the phone rang in Alexandria, I became aware of an odd panting sound. There was Clarence on the floor on the other side of the bed, wedged between the bed and the wall, semi-concious and barely breathing. He wasn't visible from the door, and I was so focused on getting to the phone that I hadn't seen him even when I got closer. Anne answered, and all I could say was, "I've got an emergency here, I'll call you back as soon as I can."

That was over a week ago and I'm still dealing with all the reverberations. Kate is home and on two new medications. Clarence was transferred to a larger hospital capable of treating diabetic ketoacidosis, and then transferred again to have a heart catheterization done. I was supposed to pick him up this morning, but he says now that his doctor wants him in a nursing home for a week for intensive physical therapy, because he can't get out of bed by himself any more. They didn't know whether Blue Cross was going to pay for that or not. Clarence sure as heck can't pay for a week in residential care, nor can I, so I have no idea where we stand.

I've managed to see Clarence only once since all this began, and Kate not at all, and I'm still not finished with the overwhelming pile of work that was dumped on me in the middle of June. The Daewoo, once the most fuel efficient car I'd ever driven, has deteriorated to the point where it's cheaper for me to rent a car than to put gas in my own, and my camera is failing. When I began to process the images I had taken on Thursday, I discovered that pictures from two of the stores had been saved in a lovely shade of green, and nothing else, so today I have to go back to those stores and retake those pictures. I'm not sure why I'm wasting time on the blog, but I feel the need to just do something different for a few minutes. When all this if over, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.

I think the hardest part is having to deal with it all by telephone. I had always promised Kate that even if we couldn't live together right now, I would be there if she needed me. And I couldn't. Even if not for Clarence's problems, I could not walk away from the deadlines on my work. I did ask Mike to find someone to do a couple of the stores at the greatest distance from home, but it wouldn't have been possible for them to reassign all the work--this is the busy time of the year for everyone. And of course, if I don't do the work, I don't get paid for it. Saying "Family comes first" is fine, except that sometimes you have to make a decision between putting family first by being physically present, and putting family first by not abandoning one's only source of income.

So here I sit in a motel room, trying to be-stir myself to get back on the road, go re-take those pictures, pick Clarence up from his current hospital and possibly take him to a fourth facility, and somehow get all this work turned in by tonight's deadline. And in a kind of morbid, fatalistic way, waiting to see what happens next.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Whine, bitch, moan . . .

I think I'm finally getting burned out in this job. I'm tired of hearing, "Are you inspecting all the stores in town, or just mine?" I'm really tired of being screeched at by store owners who don't think I should be taking pictures of certain things. I used to provide all kinds of explanation about the inspection interval, or why I had to take pictures of the gas pumps, the alcohol and the hot food, as well as the grocery items. No more. I just say, "No, I'm not going to all the stores, and I don't know why I was sent to yours." Or, "I'm sorry, but I do have to take pictures of these items." I'm not rude, but I'm not as extensively helpful as I used to be. I'm just tired.

And every time I think I've seen it all, something new crops up. The latest is the customer who demands to know why I'm there. My personal opinion is that customers ought to keep their noses out of the store owners' business, especially when it comes to conversations with representatives of the government. But lately, I've had several encounters with customers who either demanded to know what I was doing there, or ordered the store owner not to sign the consent form until the customer had read it. Excuse me? You want to make decisions in this store? You buy it and run it then. Leave the store owner alone--he or she has enough hassle as it is without you butting in. But of course I can't say that.

The heat and the hours away from home while weeds and critters overtake my garden probably has something to do with my feeling, but I do have some sense that things are about to change. I enjoy the work itself. It's easy, it has allowed me to see parts of Virginia and West Virginia that I would never have visited otherwise, and I've met some wonderful people. But the peripheral hassles are beginning to get to me, and my profit margin has gone down drastically. Gas, of course, has always been my largest expense, but now there is the domestic help I have to provide for Clarence when I'm gone. She is extremely reasonable, but seven days away from home starts to add up.

And as anyone who travels for a living knows, there are all those problems that ordinary people take care of on a daily basis that have to be handled on the one or two days one manages to be home. I have a long and growing list: deposit my contract check, run to the vet's office for flea stuff for the dog and cat, do the grocery shopping for the coming week so Patricia, my helper, will have something to cook for Clarence, check to make sure he has enough insulin and make a note to call the drug store and have them deliver more. Pick all the ripe cherry tomatoes and spray "Liquid Fence" on the beans before the deer eat them all. Buy a new toner cartridge for the printer. Wash all my dirty clothes and pray the weather stays nice so they will dry by tonight. The satellite internet has gotten extremely slow during the morning, which tells me there is a storm brewing somewhere. Speaking of the satellite internet, I have to call the provider and demand to know why the bloody hell they charged my credit card twice this month. Etc.

On the other hand, I've sure done a lot less housework lately, and a lot less personal care of Clarence. Patricia doesn't seem to mind anything he asks her to do, and has taken it on herself to vacuum, do his laundry and mop the kitchen--things I never asked her to do. I can't describe how wonderful it is to come home and find the house clean, Clarence in a good mood, food and water in the pets' dishes and no ants on the counters eating the crumbs that Clarence leaves when he fixes things.

So maybe I'll hold out a while longer.

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