Phillip and I spent a few hours with Pet today. Because of George's condition, we couldn't go anywhere, so we stayed in and had nachos and an early Christmas gift exchange.

With the long drive down, and the long drive back (which included a massive traffic jam in Tacoma), we came home exhausted. Phillip went to bed, and I watched the first of the three videotapes Pet gave me for Christmas. The tapes are all wonderful old cartoons dubbed into Español.

The tape I watched today was Los Tres Ositos and included La Primavera, La Historia Histerica, and El Gato de Dick Whittington. Very delightful!

After the cartoons, I watched The Fifth Element (in English) from my DVD collection, while I ran a full virus scan on the computer, followed by three adware scans. So far, so good.

Man, am I tired.

I got Phillip to work, and then got to my desk with twenty minutes to spare.

After work, I drove to Phillip's office, where his party was still going on. I had just enough time to say hello to a few people, and then Phillip drove me to yoga class. I got there with just five minutes, or so, before class began. There were only three mat-sized spaces open on the floor: two up front and my favorite space next to the altar. I took my favorite spot. I rode the 8 bus home.

I'm glad I don't have to drive to work every day.

This is the second morning that I've had a dream that featured the song "Arms Wide Open" (by Creed). This is rather creepy. I don't remember the details of the dream, only that it had something to do with that song.

Today is our work group's Christmas party. We're going out for Indian food. I volunteered to be one of the drivers. This is going to be the first time in nearly five years that I'll drive my car to work. (I don't count the times I took a Flexcar, or the times I've driven Phillip to work and walked to my office.) This is turning out to be a logistics headache. Phillip's group is having their Christmas potluck, and he's bringing a crock pot. So I'm taking him north to work first, then driving south to work, then picking him up after work, and I'm going to try to make it to the final yoga class this evening. It's so much easier to take the bus.

My dad continues to recover. George continues to get worse.

My job has turned into something very different than what I accepted, and I don't get excited about going there anymore.

The "diciembre" issue of ¡Piensa en Español! Think Spanish! magazine arrived in yesterday's mail. There was no correction to last month's odd translation of that quote.

Either the publishers got a better printer or a better budget, because the newest issue is glossier, with better graphics, and sharper photographs. It retains its small publication charm, though, and still has interesting, challenging, and educational articles.

I've started reading the first article. It's called Gaspar, Melchor y Baltasar. The first sentence is: "Eran los tiempos en que mi abuelo me llevaba a recoger pasto para los camellos."

It took me a long time to figure out the meaning of "eran." I couldn't find it, or anything close to it, in my dictionary. Then, on a hunch, I looked into the verb ser (one of the two forms of "to be"). It's the imperfect indicative form, actually.

So, I'm translating that first sentence as something like: "They were the times in which my grandfather would take me to gather grass for the camels."

A woman called to schedule an new appointment for her husband. I answered the phone.

I started to set up the appointment, then she stopped me and said, "Is this the Paul who used to work at ******* ********?"

"Yes, it is."

"Paul! It's Kymm!"

Kymm used to be the scheduler for a research project at The University. She would call our clinic often to schedule patients. Kymm and I developed a work friendship. She'd stop by our clinic and we'd exchange the latest photographs of cats and sugar gliders. Phillip and I ran into Kymm and her husband in a shop on Broadway one evening. Then the research project ended, and Kymm disappeared.

The physician who was the head of that research project now refers patients to this clinic. Every time his name appears, I think about Kymm, and wonder what she's up to.

Hearing from Kymm again, so unexpectedly, brightened this day. I really did make a lot of work friends back at The U.

A nightmare woke me up this morning. I almost never have nightmares. When I do remember my dreams, they're almost always pleasant.

Gladden started a barking session this morning that he (couldn't? wouldn't?) stop. It went on for nearly a half hour - that constant, rhythmic bark that sugar gliders do for reasons unknown. Nothing Phillip or I did would stop the barking - almond feeding, talking, back rubs.

I must have seen those two events as omens, because I rode into work this morning with a feeling that something bad was about to happen. (This was despite the fact that the barrista at Extaz Espresso gave me a free biscotti with my latte.)

I was the first one into the office. The lights were on, and I was 98% sure that I'd turned them off when I left yesterday. My computer was off - and I never turn my computer off at work. My computer wouldn't boot up - it's frozen at the splash screen. I'm working from another desk today, while waiting for an IT person.

It turned out that there was a power outage last night, and someone had the foresight to switch off all the computers in the area.

There is a circular flow of information at my place of work which is, at times, amusing. At other times, it's annoying. Today, it was somewhere in-between.

Last week, I scheduled a patient for an overnight study next week. Since the patient is a minor, it was the patient's mother who made the appointment. The patient's mother asked me if it was would be possible for her to spend the night in the room with her daughter. I told her that she was welcome to do that - there are several large chairs that she could sleep in. (I happen to know that because the question had come up in the past. My boss told me that our department prefers that a parent or caregiver of minor patients stay with the patient.)

Today (I learned this after the fact), the patient's mother called again and another scheduler answered. Somehow the question of staying in the room came up, and the other scheduler told her no - she couldn't stay in the room. The patient's mother got angry - after all, "someone" had told her she could stay in the room overnight. Since my boss was out today, the other scheduler transferred the call to my other boss.

A little while later, my other boss called me to inform me that minor patients' parents are always welcome to stay in the room with the patients, and that I shouldn't be telling them otherwise.

Oh, well.