The Best Boss You Could Have

See this picture? It’s a picture of me and my sister Boss. Looks like we’re having a good time, doesn’t it? Bet you wish you knew what we were doing. Oh look!
There’s another picture of me and Boss (and Carolioness), again, clearly having a good time. That’s just the way it is with Boss. Her laugh and her smile are contagious, and you can’t help but have fun with her.

There are so many fun things we could have been doing—like thrift store shopping, going for a W with Malcom, driving across the country, cooking with Julia, or just having sister time. One year when I was in graduate school I visited Carolioness and Boss for Spring Break. Our list of things to do during that week included: manicures, eating at the Mayan, hiking to Donut Falls, IHOP, 50 ¢ Tuesday, Krispy Kreme donuts, sitcom night, Pizza Pipeline, and Richard III. Clearly we had no intention of starving while I was there. While we didn’t actually do everything that we had on our list, the list didn’t include things that we did get done--like kidnapping Coach’s pillow or being “Charlie’s Snow Angels.”

Another time I needed a break from Rochester and I had some time to kill, I called Boss and we came up with a brilliant plan—a last minute trip to Utah. Boss thought it would be fun to keep my arrival a secret. But that was a hard secret to keep. She told me that she had a hard time not saying, “When Peanut gets here…” And Carolioness was really beginning to wonder about Boss’s strange and secretive behavior. But Boss was right—it was fun to be a surprise.

Even when she’s not there in person, she’ll package up her fun and send it in a box. For my graduation from BYU I got a package featuring “FUNNY STUFF to wear on your head…(and other black toga accessories).” It’s hard to describe just how great this package was. Here’s what it had in it (among other things): a patriotic BYU umbrella hat, a yellow duck, sidewalk chalk, and assorted candy jewelry. I know, it might not sound that great, but believe you me, it was AWESOME. Another care package came from Boss when B, Carolioness, and I moved into a new apartment together. This package contained Long Hair Diana and her Hip Girl friend, Shelly (she’s super cool!) (And she had feet too!) and a scary votive candle holder with three witches (which I still have), but NOT seventeen hairy monkeys. She’d make millions if she marketed her “fun in a box"!

Not only is Boss fun, she’s also incredibly loving and caring. Once when I was having a rough time in Rochester, she drove 200 miles with Sam, who was only a few months old, to pick me up and take me to Iowa City to get away for the weekend. Oh yeah, and she had to drive me back at the end of the weekend too! And again, just this past year, when I needed her to take care of me, she dropped everything (except Sam, he came too, again). She came and made food. She walked Razor. She entertained herself (and Sam) while I went to work. It didn’t matter that she was about to move and had any number of things to take care of at home. She was there for me. She always is.

Boss has also been a great source of advice for me throughout the years. Back in the summer of ’99, when I was so confused about whether to go to vet school and scared to admit what I was feeling to anyone, I called Boss. She listened. She didn’t tell me what to do, but she helped me figure it out. Pretty much any time I’ve had any kind of dilemma—no matter how major or miniscule—Boss has been my go-to woman. Quite simply, she rocks!

Twice I’ve had the opportunity to help Boss move. Once as she was moving from Knoxville to Utah and again when she moved to Iowa City. I really enjoyed these trips with her. I liked the one-on-one time together. On the drive to Iowa City Boss drove the truck while I managed the radio and navigating. Occasionally I needed a gentle reminder to attend to my duties, “Um, do you like this song?”

In short, Boss is one of my favorite people. She’s funny, smart, loving, beautiful, and the epitome of everything I’d like to be. Did you notice the sparkle in her eye in that first picture? That’s not just a trick of the camera. She’s wonderful and she sparkles—inside and out!

Mom once said that I had a “difficult” adolescence. And in retrospect, yep, I did. Perhaps the clearest evidence of this was my rocky relationship with Boss. Fortunately adolescence doesn’t last forever—cuz I would have really blown it. I’m so grateful to have Boss as my sister and friend.

I love you Boss! Happy Birthday!

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P.S. I've been fighting with Blogger for awhile now about getting pictures into this post. Finally I've at least got these ones in. There are a couple more I was hoping to include. But rather than letting that hold up this post any longer, I'll try to add them later or put them in a new post.

Stress Anyone?

I'm the kind of girl who writes notes to herself on post-its. Or any other random little piece of paper. Sometimes the notes are phone numbers. Or recipes. Or books to read. Or ward events. Anything really. Marty is always trying to get rid of my little notes--to get rid of the clutter. In fact, when we got married, my "address book/phone directory" was a lot of such little notes stuck in a little plastic container. He pushed me to go digital and save them as outlook contacts. These days, I'll go to outlook, look up the information I want, write it on a little piece of paper, keep the piece of paper around awhile (until I'm sure I'm done with the information), and then dispose of it.

Anyway. I was going through things and trying to get rid of little pieces of paper. I found some notes from a seminar I attended on stress and dealing with the unexpected in life. I thought I'd share the few thoughts I'd written down:

Life has no guarantees. But we do have choices. Anything can happen--how do we deal with that? The best option that we all have been given is living.

Two weapons to get through the uncertainties of life: 1) Love; 2) Forgiveness.

Yes, life is stressful, but don't let that rob you of the beauty of life. Stress is part of life--neither good nor bad. You need it.

Getting used to it

When I first got married I wasn't used to wearing rings. It took me awhile to get used to sleeping with my ring on. I'd wake up ringless and have vague recollections of hurling my ring across the room in the middle of the night. Eventually I stopped throwing it in the night and began putting it under my pillow, or even better, putting it in the windowsill.

I guess I've finally gotten used to sleeping with my ring on. Last night I went to bed with it on a chain around my neck (I'd put it there to work out and just left it). This morning at work I noticed that I was wearing my ring--on my finger. I was not wearing my necklace. My necklace is still MIA. It's not in the windowsill or under my pillow. I'm hoping I find it somewhere around my bed in the next couple days.

Oh, Canada!

This past weekend I went to a conference in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Fortunately I wasn't stuck in an auditorium all day, every day--I had some time to enjoy the scenery. The first two photos are in Banff, and the last ones are at Lake Louise.

The Scientific Method

I sat today and watched from afar as a group of scientists attempted to open a sliding glass door out to a patio. Scientist #1 approached the door and tugged on the handle. It didn't open. Scientist #1 tugged harder on the door handle. This time the door moved, but it still didn't open. Scientist #1 recruited a collaborator--Scientist #2. Scientist #2 suggested a change in approach--try a different sliding door. More tugging. The door sort of jumped, but wasn't going to open. Scientist #3 volunteered her help and discovered the bar in the track of the door. At last, success! The glass door was open. If only they could have figured out the screen door as well. In the end, they changed their minds about how badly they wanted to go out onto the patio.

At one of the talks I attended this weekend, an experiment was discussed in which mice are placed on a plexiglass wall that is about 4mm wide. Their ability to traverse the wall is assessed (sort of like a mouse balance beam). One mouse was so good on this wall it could support itself on the wall with just its hind legs while at the same time grooming itself. The speaker noted that this experiment doesn't work for mice under 3 months old. I guess the young mice aren't into parlor tricks. When placed on the wall, they simply jump off.

I shouldn't complain...

For the most part, my health insurance has been wonderful. And I sort of feel bad about getting so irritated at the hiccups that have happened. But I'm frustrated.

The very first bill I received related to Marty's accident was the ambulance bill. I quickly filled in the information they would need to submit it to the insurance company and sent it back. That was over three months ago. About three weeks ago, I again received that bill. And another the next week too. It had been denied by the insurance company. Sort of. My insurance is out of Maryland. But I don't live in Maryland, so all claims first go through their counterpart in North Carolina before going on to my insurance company (this is important later too). It got denied by North Carolina, so it never made it on the radar of Maryland. And the reason it got denied...they said Marty wasn't covered on my policy. (Tricky of me to get him covered by the time he got to the hospital). Turns out the ambulance company had mis-entered Marty's birthdate in their database. Fortunately, this has mostly been taken care of and I can go on ignoring the bills they may continue to send.

Next issue. We have good medical benefits, but we actually don't have dental coverage--except if it's as a result of an accident. Which all of Marty's dental visits have been. Except one time I guess someone filing the claim forgot to explicitly say this, so that claim got denied too. Again, fortunately this is being resolved between the provider and insurance company.

But here's the thing that's really bothering me today. Nearly 2 months ago Marty got new glasses. Again, not something that would normally be covered on our policy, except in the case of accidents. We didn't realize it would be covered until after we'd already paid for them, I filed a claim. That was over a month ago. Yesterday I called to check on the status of that claim. No record of it. Oh yeah, and I was supposed to submit it to North Carolina, not Maryland. I was told that maybe I should go back to where we got the glasses and see if they would go ahead and submit it for me since he'd looked up and found that they are a "participating provider"--it might go through faster that way. So I went back. No doing. Apparently the doctor is a particpating provider, but the actual glasses-selling people are not. Today I worked on figuring out where I need to send this claim if I'm supposed to submit it to North Carolina (because of course no one I spoke to yesterday could tell me that). I managed to get hung up on about 3 times by their automated system, and then when I got a real person, I had to be transfered 3 times and explain the situation that many times before anyone could even tell me where I need to send the darn claim. (Fortunately I had copies of the original claim and receipt that vanished). And now I suppose I'll wait another 6-8 weeks before it can actually get processed by North Carolina and sent on to Maryland for them to send me a check--unless of course it gets lost again. Or denied.

The Science Fair

When I was in 9th grade I was in a class in which we had to do a science fair project. It was something that most of the other students were familiar with because they'd done them throughout the years. But I was new to the school and to science fair projects. I understood the the scientific method, but I didn't understand the need to decorate a backboard to mount my experimental design and results on. And then there was something that I needed called an abstract--I'd never heard of that.

In 10th grade, for extra credit, I did another science fair project. Dad and I made rubies. It was cool--actually, hot. We put our mix of green and white powders into a furnace at 1700 degrees (Dad, was it F or C?) and got out reddish/pink disks. I was more familiar with how the whole thing worked, but I still thought it was a little hokey.

Little did I know that I'd be doing science fair projects for years to come. Yep. This weekend I'm going to a conference. And I'm presenting a poster, which is very much like a science fair project, except that they give me a bulletin board instead of needing to provide my own backboard. Strangely enough, the whole poster-making process is now something I really enjoy doing. Maybe it's because the places I get to present my posters are cooler than the science fair ever was. I never went to Long Island, or Chicago, or Canada for the science fair.

Two in the bed