Why, Oh Why...

...do the irritating people of the world always get in the way of the people who actually get things done?

I work in a hospital run by New York State. The bureaucracy in this institution (and every pun is intended in this case) is enough to make me stark-raving mad most of the time.

Today was a perfect example. Someone called in sick so I had to scramble to get patients on the phone before they came for their appointments and The Apocalypse hit the unit in which I work. OK, maybe it wasn't the Apocalypse...a doorknob broke off...but in the name of all things holy, it certainly seemed like the sky was falling there for a while. It's a fuckin' doorknob, people, if the door is closed, you simply turn the knob, ask someone else to hold the door open and wheel the patient into the procedure room. What is so hard about this? I swear, this one co-worker obsessed about this dilemma for the better part of the morning while I, the senior level executive assistant performed mind-numbingly aggravating data entry.

If the GD door was supposed to be open all the time, they wouldn't have put the GD door there in the first GD place!!

OK, moving on. A very sweet man I've been chatting with on what is becoming an increasingly regular basis tells me to "Keep On Smiling!" I can't do that and complain about GD doorknobs, so I'm letting The Great GD Doorknob Disaster of 2008 go.


Now for an FRU update:
FRU spent the week with Ex last week while she was on winter break from school. Boy, that sent all three of us into a tailspin. FRU came back not nearly as filthy as I thought, but seemed to have developed an acute fear of teeth brushing and hair brushing. My daughter was a complete diva on February 17th when I dropped her off at her father's and she came back with her jeans hanging off her butt so her crack was showing like a plumber.

But she was happy, laughing like a loon and gave him the biggest, tightest hug when I picked her up to bring her home. This warmed my heart.

I've had a hard time getting it through Ex's rather thick head that he needs to be the one to cultivate a relationship with his daughter. I can't orchestrate that relationship. I am a firm believer that you can't make someone love someone else. The love (regardless if it's parental, friendly, romantic) has to been earned, nurtured and cherished. Since Ex's childhood was so tumultuous, I think he has a hard time simply allowing the love for his child flow through him. I think he's terrified of what it feels like. He's never really been on the receiving end of parental love. I can't relate to his experiences at all. I never doubted for one minute that I was loved, that I was cherished and that I belonged to several family units.

I'm hoping last week will act as the catalyst for them to form a family unit, just the two of them. Since we no longer form a unit of 3, FRU will belong to an alternate type of family unit. She'll thrive, she'll falter and she'll come back to center, just as I have done, and dare I say, like her father has finally done as well.

Navigating your way through this life and this world can be disheartening at times, but when you really think about it, what's the alternative? You cannot simply get over what happens in life, you must go through it. That's what makes things like The Great GD Doorknob Disaster of 2008 so GD ridiculous!!