...Why I always get called by idiots with the wrong number who don't understand when I tell them they've got the wrong number!
*Sigh*
Some quick, random catch-up points:
Embarrassing event of the week:
Had to take my car back to the panel beaters on Friday. Since it had been worked on it was taking in air by the windscreen (which is an annoying sound, according to TSC) and also had a weird rattle or two. I like my cars quiet. This is genetic. Rattles drive my father mental and I have inherited the low tolerance for cars that make noises they shouldn't.
They fixed the air problem in about 30min. I got in my car, drove off and drove back in 5 minutes. The rattle was worse than ever. I made the mechanic get in the car with me and drove him up the street so he could hear it rattle.
After about 2min, he took hold of the little air freshener strung around my rearview mirror. The rattling stopped.
Such a blonde I am.
They'd obviously adjusted the string of the air freshener when they worked on the car and the bottle of scent was now vibrating on the mirror as I drove, causing the rattle.
I sheepishly dropped him back at the panelbeaters and left in disgrace.
To be fair, I did figure out the other rattle on my own - the Honda service team fiddled with my door when my car was in for a service and they didin't fully clip the plastic inner back into place, so the loose plastic was vibrating against door. I've sorted that out now.
The most awesome part of the week:
Just booked and paid for a weekend away at the end of April. Seeing we're off to visit the outlaws for Easter, it's necessary to have a break scheduled when we get back for yours truly to recover. Can't wait. Bushveld, camera, good food and just the two of us... recipe for awesome.
Stressful bits:
I have so much work at the moment it's insane.
TSC is working ridiculous hours because a) he LOVES his new job and b) he has to make up the hours he's spending at class, plus the two days leave he's taking to visit my outlaws for Easter.
The challenge is that he's a morning person; I'm a night person.
Basically, he gets up before the sparrows have even considered farting and comes home in the evenings. We have a little time together after gym, supper, small group or whatever else and then it's time for bed. We go to bed at the same time; I wait for him to fall asleep and then I come back to the study and work into the early hours of the morning.
I crawl back into bed and we sleep for three or four hours, then he gets up to go to work again. I wish him a bleary-eyed goodbye and go back to sleep for a bit longer.
Neither of us is getting enough sleep and we're both running on empty. My love language is quality time, so I'm really missing having enough "us time".
It's not a permanent situation - it's learning to adapt to a new routine and getting through a particularly busy period of tests and learning the ropes at work for him and loads of projects with insane deadlines for me.
We'll be just fine. But it's tough at the moment to engage with each other and other people because we're both walking around wearing permanent yawns and headaches.
The silver linings:
As I said, he's loving his job. So aside from being dead tired, he's happier and more secure. And although I have no idea how I'm going to fit all this work in, at least I'm getting new clients (and mainly by referral, which is great) and managing to pay the bills.
Also, we're looking at hiring our once-a-week cleaner on a twice-a-week basis from April, so that will mean less time spent on the un-fun stuff like ironing (*shudder*) and cleaning cat pawprints off of every imaginable surface.
Showing posts with label embarrassing moments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label embarrassing moments. Show all posts
Monday, 28 March 2011
Friday, 13 March 2009
The doctor(s) and me
*Overshare warning on this post*
I am not a fan of doctors. I know that a lot of people say that, but my reason is not a bizarre paranoia (I reserve that for ants), but the fact that I am not used to them.
My mom is a GP and as children she saw to most of my brother and my medical needs, apart from times where it went beyond her expertise (like the time I helped my brother to swallow a 50c coin and it got stuck in his stomach and had to be suctioned out). Now it is said that the shoemaker's son is never shod, and in my experience, the doctor's child is usually considered a hypochondriac by its medical parent.
I guess it's because doctors have seen so much worse than your scraped knee or bruised arm that they have a hard time taking little childish oopsies seriously. I remember clearly on one occasion having speared my finger with a knife when I was about nine. I ran into the house crying as only kids can do - big heavy sobs with huge tears running down red cheeks - shouting, "Mommmeeeeeee.... I'm bleeeeeeding." And, calm as anything, her voice called down the stairs, "You know where the band-aids are."
A few years ago, I realised that it's probably a good idea for me to find a GP of my own who will see me more objectively than my mom (although my poor mother still gets calls from me wanting a diagnosis over the phone. This hacks her off royally. And understandably). I also have not yet learnt to trust my GP and feel compelled to check her diagnosis with mom, who inevitably argues with it ;-)
This long-winded introduction is all to explain why I am a bit nervous of visiting doctors. I just feel like they're going to sense my inexperience. Or something. I dunno. Maybe it is an irrational paranoia after all.
But I went to the doctor on Wednesday. Not my usual doctor, mind you. I've been suffering from a cyclical, very specific pain for more than a year now, and my other GP seems to be my mom's (older and definitely not as friendly) twin. In other words, while she scares the living daylights out of me (to the point that she is always convinced that I have a really high resting heartrate because my heart is galloping by the time I sit down in her office), she tends to think I'm overreacting. I've spoken to her about this pain three times, and she keeps telling me that I must stick with the meds she's given me, exercise and eat healthily and it should go away. But it hasn't.
I've been meaning to find me a new doctor for awhile. But I am full of it and will only see female medical practitioners (whether they're gynaes, psychologists or GPs, I can't seem to trust men). And there are not many in the area where I live. And I wanted to try a new one when I had something non-embarrassing problem. Like a head cold or something.
BUT... After the last Bloggirls, where everyone was discussing all their friends who'd accidentally fallen pregnant while using strict contraceptive methods, and after ANOTHER person in my life found out she was expecting, when my cycle was a week late, I became uber-paranoid that I was pregnant. My recurring pain was also in full swing, I still had a sore throat after two weeks, and I decided that I needed to get my butt into gear and see a doctor and sort everything out at once.
I called our local medical centre and asked if there was a female GP on duty. Yes, Dr M. Fine. Off I went to see Dr M.
I began our appointment with the same sort of prefaace I used for this post, trying to explain that I don't really know the protocol for how to behave in a doctor's appointment. Dr M was very funny. She told me her daughter is a doctor and she refuses to treat her because her daughter always argues the diagnosis and won't comply with her recommendations. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when she said, "I told her very simply... I have one piece of advice for you: I have 20 years experienc, now f*** off!"
After I'd finished giggling, I launched into an in-depth personal medical history. Dr M listened and nodded and scribbled illegible doctor's notes before examining me, which always freaks me out, even though in this instance I didn't even have to undress.
She then told me right off that my previous doctor's diagnosis sounded a bit dodgy, prescribed me some new meds and gave me the number of a specialist. She stood up to show me out, and I managed to squeak (blushing furiously), "But what about a pregnancy test?"
She handed me one of those pee cup things and sent me to the bathroom, telling me that a nurse would assist me with the test once I was done. Now here's the embarrassing bit. I really cannot pee on command. Seriously. Every time I have to do a urine sample, I end up hanging around for hours waiting for my bladder to oblige.
Which is exactly what happened. I spent my first 15 minutes in the loo, which is a single stall in the middle of the passage of procedure rooms. You can hear everyone walking up and down and talking, and I just couldn't make myself pee - what if someone could hear me?
Eventually, someone knocked on the door and I sheepishly exited - it was the nurse. A MALE nurse, wanting my sample. I explained that I couldn't pee and asked if I could have 15 minutes to go and get something to drink and wait awhile.
I joined poor TSC in the foyer, who was waiting for me after having been for an eye test in a different section of the centre. 15 minutes later, with a bottle of water in me, I went to try again.
I sat in that cubicle for 45 minutes. I can tell you exactly where the cracks in the lino floor are, what colour the ceiling is, and every other detail. I ran the water, tried to relax and thought of waterfalls, but nothing helped. Eventually, my bladder felt like it would burst, but I still couldn't fill my sample cup.
I ducked out and explained my situation to the Russian receptionist and asked if there was a loo somewhere a bit more private. She laughed loudly and said so that everyone could hear, "Zey should have given you beer to help you vee-vee in ze cup."
Cringe! Thankfully, she pointed out a loo far away from all the hustle and bustle. I set TSC outside as a sentry, and within 5 minutes, I was able to relieve my bladder. I then had to carry my cup through the reception and waiting areas, through the doctors section and to the male nurse in the procedure rooms area.
"Finally!" he said. He then ran a test on my sample, printed out a little slip of paper and handed to me. "Here you go". There were a bunch of chemicals and numbers listed.
"Ummm... what does this mean?" I asked.
"Clear." he said. "Normal."
"But am I pregnant?" I asked.
He hadn't realised I'd wanted a pregancy test, so he took out a little test stick. I asked if those were the same as the store-bought home pregnancy tests. "Pretty much," was the reply. I told him I'd done two of those, both of which were negative, but that my friend, AF, had done three that came out negative before discovering she was actually six weeks pregnant through a blood test. He told me that happens quite often (way to reassure me, guy), but that the one he was using was quite accurate. I let myself believe it, and let out a huge sigh of relief when it turned out negative.
I fetched TSC, paid my account, and more than two and a half hours after we'd arrived, left the medical centre. The Russian receptionist waved at us as we fled. "Ah! I see you vere able to vee-vee in ze cup!" she called. Thanks, chick, for making sure the world knows.
I am not a fan of doctors. I know that a lot of people say that, but my reason is not a bizarre paranoia (I reserve that for ants), but the fact that I am not used to them.
My mom is a GP and as children she saw to most of my brother and my medical needs, apart from times where it went beyond her expertise (like the time I helped my brother to swallow a 50c coin and it got stuck in his stomach and had to be suctioned out). Now it is said that the shoemaker's son is never shod, and in my experience, the doctor's child is usually considered a hypochondriac by its medical parent.
I guess it's because doctors have seen so much worse than your scraped knee or bruised arm that they have a hard time taking little childish oopsies seriously. I remember clearly on one occasion having speared my finger with a knife when I was about nine. I ran into the house crying as only kids can do - big heavy sobs with huge tears running down red cheeks - shouting, "Mommmeeeeeee.... I'm bleeeeeeding." And, calm as anything, her voice called down the stairs, "You know where the band-aids are."
A few years ago, I realised that it's probably a good idea for me to find a GP of my own who will see me more objectively than my mom (although my poor mother still gets calls from me wanting a diagnosis over the phone. This hacks her off royally. And understandably). I also have not yet learnt to trust my GP and feel compelled to check her diagnosis with mom, who inevitably argues with it ;-)
This long-winded introduction is all to explain why I am a bit nervous of visiting doctors. I just feel like they're going to sense my inexperience. Or something. I dunno. Maybe it is an irrational paranoia after all.
But I went to the doctor on Wednesday. Not my usual doctor, mind you. I've been suffering from a cyclical, very specific pain for more than a year now, and my other GP seems to be my mom's (older and definitely not as friendly) twin. In other words, while she scares the living daylights out of me (to the point that she is always convinced that I have a really high resting heartrate because my heart is galloping by the time I sit down in her office), she tends to think I'm overreacting. I've spoken to her about this pain three times, and she keeps telling me that I must stick with the meds she's given me, exercise and eat healthily and it should go away. But it hasn't.
I've been meaning to find me a new doctor for awhile. But I am full of it and will only see female medical practitioners (whether they're gynaes, psychologists or GPs, I can't seem to trust men). And there are not many in the area where I live. And I wanted to try a new one when I had something non-embarrassing problem. Like a head cold or something.
BUT... After the last Bloggirls, where everyone was discussing all their friends who'd accidentally fallen pregnant while using strict contraceptive methods, and after ANOTHER person in my life found out she was expecting, when my cycle was a week late, I became uber-paranoid that I was pregnant. My recurring pain was also in full swing, I still had a sore throat after two weeks, and I decided that I needed to get my butt into gear and see a doctor and sort everything out at once.
I called our local medical centre and asked if there was a female GP on duty. Yes, Dr M. Fine. Off I went to see Dr M.
I began our appointment with the same sort of prefaace I used for this post, trying to explain that I don't really know the protocol for how to behave in a doctor's appointment. Dr M was very funny. She told me her daughter is a doctor and she refuses to treat her because her daughter always argues the diagnosis and won't comply with her recommendations. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when she said, "I told her very simply... I have one piece of advice for you: I have 20 years experienc, now f*** off!"
After I'd finished giggling, I launched into an in-depth personal medical history. Dr M listened and nodded and scribbled illegible doctor's notes before examining me, which always freaks me out, even though in this instance I didn't even have to undress.
She then told me right off that my previous doctor's diagnosis sounded a bit dodgy, prescribed me some new meds and gave me the number of a specialist. She stood up to show me out, and I managed to squeak (blushing furiously), "But what about a pregnancy test?"
She handed me one of those pee cup things and sent me to the bathroom, telling me that a nurse would assist me with the test once I was done. Now here's the embarrassing bit. I really cannot pee on command. Seriously. Every time I have to do a urine sample, I end up hanging around for hours waiting for my bladder to oblige.
Which is exactly what happened. I spent my first 15 minutes in the loo, which is a single stall in the middle of the passage of procedure rooms. You can hear everyone walking up and down and talking, and I just couldn't make myself pee - what if someone could hear me?
Eventually, someone knocked on the door and I sheepishly exited - it was the nurse. A MALE nurse, wanting my sample. I explained that I couldn't pee and asked if I could have 15 minutes to go and get something to drink and wait awhile.
I joined poor TSC in the foyer, who was waiting for me after having been for an eye test in a different section of the centre. 15 minutes later, with a bottle of water in me, I went to try again.
I sat in that cubicle for 45 minutes. I can tell you exactly where the cracks in the lino floor are, what colour the ceiling is, and every other detail. I ran the water, tried to relax and thought of waterfalls, but nothing helped. Eventually, my bladder felt like it would burst, but I still couldn't fill my sample cup.
I ducked out and explained my situation to the Russian receptionist and asked if there was a loo somewhere a bit more private. She laughed loudly and said so that everyone could hear, "Zey should have given you beer to help you vee-vee in ze cup."
Cringe! Thankfully, she pointed out a loo far away from all the hustle and bustle. I set TSC outside as a sentry, and within 5 minutes, I was able to relieve my bladder. I then had to carry my cup through the reception and waiting areas, through the doctors section and to the male nurse in the procedure rooms area.
"Finally!" he said. He then ran a test on my sample, printed out a little slip of paper and handed to me. "Here you go". There were a bunch of chemicals and numbers listed.
"Ummm... what does this mean?" I asked.
"Clear." he said. "Normal."
"But am I pregnant?" I asked.
He hadn't realised I'd wanted a pregancy test, so he took out a little test stick. I asked if those were the same as the store-bought home pregnancy tests. "Pretty much," was the reply. I told him I'd done two of those, both of which were negative, but that my friend, AF, had done three that came out negative before discovering she was actually six weeks pregnant through a blood test. He told me that happens quite often (way to reassure me, guy), but that the one he was using was quite accurate. I let myself believe it, and let out a huge sigh of relief when it turned out negative.
I fetched TSC, paid my account, and more than two and a half hours after we'd arrived, left the medical centre. The Russian receptionist waved at us as we fled. "Ah! I see you vere able to vee-vee in ze cup!" she called. Thanks, chick, for making sure the world knows.
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Tamara embarrasses herself...
No, I'm not talking about my shameless plea for votes yesterday. This is worse.
We have some difficult clients. And we often joke about how difficult they are becuase it makes us laugh instead of cry. Yesterday, I received a press release I'd written back from client with changes marked. But the person who made them was obviously not English-speaking. But he or she reckoned that they had to change (I kid you not) EVERY single sentence in the release. And 90 % of the changes made no sense. Of course, I was irritated because it would take me more time to try to fix the release than it had to write it. So, assuming that it was my colleague, the account executive, who had forwarded the changes to me, I replied:
"These people would make Mother Theresa consider mass homicide."
Of course, you've guessed by now that it wasn't my colleague I'd sent it to, but the client.
Cringe!
I'm still blushing at the memory. Thankfully, the robot woman on the other end (she seriously has not demonstrated any sign of personality until now) seems to have developed a sense of humour overnight. She responded:
"Welcome to my world!"
Phew! So I then wrote back saying,"Hehehe… Hope they’re ok with the changes coming through. I’ve tried to tie everyone’s amendments together and make it flow nicely ;-) You’re doing a good job, *name* – at least we get clean copy in the end."
But still...
We have some difficult clients. And we often joke about how difficult they are becuase it makes us laugh instead of cry. Yesterday, I received a press release I'd written back from client with changes marked. But the person who made them was obviously not English-speaking. But he or she reckoned that they had to change (I kid you not) EVERY single sentence in the release. And 90 % of the changes made no sense. Of course, I was irritated because it would take me more time to try to fix the release than it had to write it. So, assuming that it was my colleague, the account executive, who had forwarded the changes to me, I replied:
"These people would make Mother Theresa consider mass homicide."
Of course, you've guessed by now that it wasn't my colleague I'd sent it to, but the client.
Cringe!
I'm still blushing at the memory. Thankfully, the robot woman on the other end (she seriously has not demonstrated any sign of personality until now) seems to have developed a sense of humour overnight. She responded:
"Welcome to my world!"
Phew! So I then wrote back saying,"Hehehe… Hope they’re ok with the changes coming through. I’ve tried to tie everyone’s amendments together and make it flow nicely ;-) You’re doing a good job, *name* – at least we get clean copy in the end."
But still...
Thursday, 13 November 2008
This morning's traffic was an interesting experience. It usually is in the rain, but today all the traffic lights in the major road I take to work were off. Nothing strange about that - they've been off for three weeks now. But this morning there were no OUTsurance pointsmen, so traffic was crawling.
I don't think I realised until today how awesome those pointsmen are. OUTsurance is an insurance company in South Africa, and instead of spending money on another big ad campaign, they trained a whole bunch of people to be pointsmen. Now you see them around Jo'burg at all the out-of-order traffic lights, in their luminous OUTsurance shirts, making our lives a bit easier by directing the flow of traffic. That, my friends, is true brand value-add. Everyone loves them and it's really boosted OUTsurance's image with the SA public.
In other news traffic related, there was a MASSIVE road block on my way home yesterday. There were about 10 cop cars pulling people over on both sides of the road, so the traffic was backed up for miles. All those cops made me think of this one time (not at band camp) in Cape Town...
It was my 20th birthday and I was in 1st year at varsity. I had a big birthday bash at Cool Runnings in Observatory that went on quite late. Eventually, everyone went home, but TSC and I weren't tired. He'd arrived in the Cape only a few days before and I wanted to spend a little time with just him. We were in the very early days of our relationship back then. So off we headed to Rhodes Memorial (pic below), which is one of Cape Town's lesser known tourist attractions, in TSC's bakkie (the South African word for a pick-up truck or light delivery vehicle).
We dragged one of his beanbags out of the back and sat on the memorial steps under the stars and chatted for ages. Then it got really cold, so we went and sat in the back of the bakkie (which had a canopy top). It must've been around 3.30am and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I fell asleep on the one beanbag and TSC on the other. Completely innocent - nothing dodgey going on.
We awoke to the sound of tyres on gravel, voices and a torch being shone through the window. It was the police! "Open up! Step out of the vehicle!"
So we did. Me with my bed-head hair and mascara smudges under my eyes. You can imagine what they were thinking - "Kids today!" They obviously thought we'd come to this lonely spot to do the deed. I was mortified. We got a serious dressing down that went something along the lines of:
"Don't you know this is a hijacking hotspot?"
"No, officer."
"This place is closed after 6pm. You shouldn't be in here."
"Sorry, sir. The gate was open. We didn't know."
"Blah blah blah... get the hell out of here."
"Yes, sir." *blush furiously*
Off we went with our tails between our legs - too embarrassed to even look back. We stopped at a filling station to get something to eat and then TSC took me back to the varsity residence to drop me off. But, as we rounded the corner, we saw there was a roadblock. We got pulled over, so we stopped and wound down the window, only to discover... the cops from Roads Memorial! They each gave us a knowing smile, and one asked if we hadn't had enough trouble for one evening. TSC gave a weak laugh, showed them his driver's licence and got me home as quickly as possible before we could meet up with our new friends again.
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Feel my pain...
Congrats to Obama. I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.
I had my first-ever migraine yesterday. It was crap. I always thought people were exaggerating. Like, how bad can a headache be? Bad, I tell you. Reeeeeeaalllllly bad. I felt like a bee got inside my head and stung me all over my brain, which then swelled to the size of a lifeboat. I couldn't even see straight. Poor TSC was distraught - he hates it when he can't fix my problems ;-)
Thankfully it seems to have subsided and I just have a dull throbbing left over. Looking at the PC screen probably isn't helping.
At least the migraine wasn't the result of something stupid I did. Usually when I'm in pain it's because I've either tripped over something, stuck my hand on something really hot (like the iron when I was a kid. I wanted to see if it was hot. It was) or fallen down a hole / stairs / hill etc...
Sometimes it's just my pride that gets hurt, like the time I was at a larny dance / ball thing with an ex-boyfriend who was trying to convince me that we should still be together, wearing a beautiful long white lacey skirt with a train. You know what happened, right? Someone pulled his chair out onto my train as I was walking onto the dance floor and I fell flat on my ass with my feet in the air. Very dignified. You can bet I was blushing to my elbows. Well, at least the ex gave up the chase!
Then there was the time... I was at boarding school, in my cubicle. We each had a cubicle with a bed, cupboard and desk in it. The entrance was just covered with a flimsy curtain. So when you walked down the passage between the two rows of cubicles, you could often catch a glimpse of someone through the chink in the curtain. On this occasion, I had just taken a shower and was standing wrapped in my luminous green towel, looking for my hairbrush (which is always, ALWAYS escaping me, even today). I had my radio on and a catchy tune came on just as I found the brush and picked it up. So I did what any girl would do and started singing into my "microphone", shaking my ass and throwing some serious dance moves as I lip-synched along.
Little did I realise that there was an audience of about five girls watching me through the gap in my stupid curtain. If my towel had fallen off at that moment, I'm sure I would have been blushing way past my elbows!
I had my first-ever migraine yesterday. It was crap. I always thought people were exaggerating. Like, how bad can a headache be? Bad, I tell you. Reeeeeeaalllllly bad. I felt like a bee got inside my head and stung me all over my brain, which then swelled to the size of a lifeboat. I couldn't even see straight. Poor TSC was distraught - he hates it when he can't fix my problems ;-)
Thankfully it seems to have subsided and I just have a dull throbbing left over. Looking at the PC screen probably isn't helping.
At least the migraine wasn't the result of something stupid I did. Usually when I'm in pain it's because I've either tripped over something, stuck my hand on something really hot (like the iron when I was a kid. I wanted to see if it was hot. It was) or fallen down a hole / stairs / hill etc...
Sometimes it's just my pride that gets hurt, like the time I was at a larny dance / ball thing with an ex-boyfriend who was trying to convince me that we should still be together, wearing a beautiful long white lacey skirt with a train. You know what happened, right? Someone pulled his chair out onto my train as I was walking onto the dance floor and I fell flat on my ass with my feet in the air. Very dignified. You can bet I was blushing to my elbows. Well, at least the ex gave up the chase!
Then there was the time... I was at boarding school, in my cubicle. We each had a cubicle with a bed, cupboard and desk in it. The entrance was just covered with a flimsy curtain. So when you walked down the passage between the two rows of cubicles, you could often catch a glimpse of someone through the chink in the curtain. On this occasion, I had just taken a shower and was standing wrapped in my luminous green towel, looking for my hairbrush (which is always, ALWAYS escaping me, even today). I had my radio on and a catchy tune came on just as I found the brush and picked it up. So I did what any girl would do and started singing into my "microphone", shaking my ass and throwing some serious dance moves as I lip-synched along.
Little did I realise that there was an audience of about five girls watching me through the gap in my stupid curtain. If my towel had fallen off at that moment, I'm sure I would have been blushing way past my elbows!
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