Playing Doctor

"Spread your legs, please" - she said, and i nervously complied.

My first visit to the gynecologist was quite the experience.

Having never been to one in India...the entire time i existed there, you can imagine the stress and tension that gripped my body , mind and soul!

As i waited nervously , in the little examination room, sitting in my blue paper gown, with nothing left to the imagination, my feet on the stirrups , legs wide apart, feeling extremely weird, the door suddenly opened and a slim, grinning person bounced in.

" Hey!! Im Dr. J and im here to do some MINING!!!"

Stunned, i found myself grinning back and then she whipped out her miner's hat and plonked another one on my head.

A nurse popped her head in the door and rolled her eyes " J" she said... Stop frightening our little Indian honey!" I told you to bring the pick-axe didnt I?!!?"

" Well hurry on and bring it will ya!" Dr. J gestured with her hat " I dont have all day you know..."

"Err.. will this hurt?" i timidly squeaked out my question.

"Not ay thang girl!!, Not ay single thang!" she twanged right back. "You just lay back and listen to us old biddies squawk on and on about our nefarious activities underground . We're just messin' wicha"

So i laid back and tried not to think about the probing fingers and the little tune being hummed somewhere between my knees.

Dr.J's head popped out over the paper gown and showed me a contraption she was going to use next.
" Ok this thingamajig here, is something i need to see your cervix with. This part's going to go in and this is going to be screwed open to stay." At my horrified look she quickly continued ." Oh no no!! Its not going to screw you!!"

I laid back, grinning while she tinkered on, talking to me or my cervix, i didnt know exactly.
Thankful that i had such a jovial and slightly insane doctor, i tried to relax.

The nurse came in, with a miner's hat on her head as well. I began to think this was a common occurrence in the clinic.

"How're we doing sugar" she crowed.

" We are doing just fine. I hope im full of gold" i said with my eyes closed.

" Oh youre full of gold alright" A voice boomed from between my knees. " Top notch best quality there is! I havent seen such a pretty cervix in ages!"

"err.. thankyou?" i offered.

After 10 more minutes, The Dr. emerged from my cervix and with a big grin she told me to get dressed.
3 minutes later, dressed and composed, I listened to the report. I seemed to be in mint condition.

Dr. J was a sweetheart, and after telling her i was so glad to have met someone on the insane side, to which she bellowed with mirth, i walked over to the nurse's counter for some blood samples.

The nurse extracting , was a slim, wisp of a person, greedily staring at the vials as they filled up. After 4 vials, i looked at her a bit alarmed. " So many?"
" Yeah... we need to run up quite a few tests to check for different things... you'll get the list"

"Vampire" i muttered , under my breath.

Thoroughly inspected, i waved goodbye at the doctor and her assistant, still wearing their hats and went to where Ed was waiting...rather anxiously.

"Everything's great" i said " Im full of the best quality gold"

" Huh?" he said... and i just grinned.

Wash your hands!!!

It must have been the funniest day ever , at work.

I went to the bathroom. There were 2 other stalls already occupied, I got into the third . All three flushed at the same time. All three opened the doors at the same time and stepped out and formed a Charlie's Angel stance each.

We laughed SO hard.

Still laughing we had just gotten out of the main bathroom door and came to a standstill when the opposite door, belonging to the Men's bathroom swung open and 4 men came out.

Two had their flys unzipped and seemed completely unaware until the other two men noticed and then all of us at the same time burst out into wild raucous laughter until some had tears in their eyes...

Then we all walked away dead serious.

And its only 10:30 am.

No!!! No!!! Not me!!! NOoooOOOoOOOoooooOOOO!!!!

Ed is going to drag me kicking and screaming to Thursday. He says he has surprises in store for me, that should be incentive enough right? Nope.

I turn 30 on Thursday. 30!!!!! *shakes her head in disbelief*


Never in all my life did i ever imagine i would come to this day!!!
I always thought i would stay 20. The day i turned 21 , i developed a permanent phobia about birthdays.

Birthdaphobia. B'daphobia. Thats what i have.

BUT!!! We are going to Atlanta to help birth me into the new year a bit more easily. I hear they have great doctors! Dr. Food seems to be the best there, along with Dr. Mall and Dr.Giftenstein.

And we will be staying with a sweet OLDER couple ( i feel better already) who will pamper us for the entire weekend. Bless my parents for making such good life-long friends for my benefit!!


sigh. well.....here i go...entering into a new phase. Hope its not as painful as it looks!!!!!

"Fidelity to a worthy Purpose"

"Are you happy at your current work place?"

That's a question, someone asked me today.

"Define "happy" i said. Is it the same definition you would use to say you were happy with your boyfriend/husband or when you say you were happy FOR someone?

i dont think so.

I think happiness is something that you create within yourself. You could have someone try their best to "make" you happy, but if you're discontented inside and a miserable person...its a gloomy day for everyone. Its not something that you do ONLY for yourself, depending on where your priorities are. It also goes hand in hand with Contentment... for that matter.. with Joy too.

There's materialistic happiness-for some, when retail therapy takes you to giddy heights...also when you do it for someone ELSE... there's physical happiness when you need a 5 minute hug, or maybe a little more than that ( or a LOT more! whew! )... then there's spiritual happiness, where you wish you could just explain how happy you are , to someone and have them understand.

But what about work-place happiness.

For the past year, working at my job, has given me extreme satisfaction. I wouldn't call it happiness per se, since my definitions don't necessarily include being "happy" at work, unless i have a deliriously challenging week where i drive home each day, my head swimming with ideas and creative morphing or if i laughed my head off at a co-worker's crazy antics. I would call that wonderful, or great, but not happiness.

Why?, because at the end of the day , that's not who i am. Yes i create stuff, stuff for OTHER people, and i bring home part of the bacon, but when im home, im where i WANT to be, where i can be ME. I leave work behind...and THAT makes me happy.

Im happy designing stuff for myself, or for friends, but i would rate that after several other more important happiness factors. Like seeing my husband walk through the door in the evening and being enveloped in a bear hug, or falling asleep while reading and waking up several hours later to find that all the dishes had been washed.

Just the non-overloaded things in life that don't pressure you to perform.

Realizing that life is fleeting and that people need more love now than ever before...or appreciating the little things in life, realizing that you have SO MUCH MORE than most of the world.

Some may say, that you can do all of this and more AND enjoy your work, but the way people are built, one side eventually weighs a little more than the other...the balance is off and then one side suffers.

For me, work equals getting paid, and if youre fortunate, you get to enjoy doing the stuff for which you are getting paid. Most people i know , have a 'meh' attitude towards the question...quickly coming up with all thats wrong with their workplace...but people often forget that , just because they spend 8 hours or more at said workplace, that its NOT their life... nor is it their identity. If it becomes so, then you have a problem. Eventually.

Work isnt easy. And if it is, you arent being challenged enough. So it isnt expected of you to sail through things without any glitches.... and especially when you are around people who arent related to you ( there goes the understanding) or arent your buddy-pals( there goes the kindred spirit treatment) and who you have to answer to ( there goes the comfort level). Not to mention the competition, if you have more on your team. There are so many temperaments in one concentrated space, that so called happiness is merely fleeting, and at the most, during lunch hour.

If you have close friends who are co-workers, life is a little easier, but its still not without its guardedness, because, what if you disagreed about something at work? The grumpiness carries. I can say this from experience.

Happiness at work is so overrated. Its unfortunate that a job takes up so much of the day, which is why, im guessing most people start relating their happiness with it and expecting happiness from it...which skews things and stretches things out of proportion.

Stay-at-home-mothers are often equated to, in certain societies as "people who dont work", but even if they go nuts over the child crawling everywhere, or get muddled with how many nappies they have changed in a day and sometimes just sit in a corner and bawl their own eyes out at the stress of taking care of a child, i dont think that is the same kind of "work" as an office job. SAHMs dont get paid. But the effect of what they do, lasts for eternity. A career cant do that. Which drives home the point, that OFFICE work is overrated.

Career-driven folks, on the other hand,( if they are married to their jobs) who go home and think about work the next day, might love their job and what it entails, but is that happiness? I have met so many career-driven people who are wonderful folks, but because of their demanding jobs, have had to make the difficult choice of leaving their loved ones hanging, or end up fighting about money all the time, with egos and sometimes... very lonely. Its hard to not be independent ...once you're on that roller coaster, you never want it to stop. Its fun, its challenging, its exciting. And it makes you feel good about yourself. But what about someone else who needs you. What about when you cant work anymore. Work might please you for the moment. But its not going to hold you up when you're down.

Withdrawal symptoms, when a person changes gears from work to staying at home can be excruciating. Its hard to change direction on any level, but its only when your life changes and the work situation is taken away, when you realize how much of a limpet it was on your back when you had it. Dependency on having a career can be deceptively enticing, yet flimsy. Life can change in a second. Its realizing that, that helps to broaden the horizon and lighten the load.

Money in the bank can make you feel safe, for the time being, but like the adage goes. It REALLY cannot buy you happiness.

Its hard to draw the line between whats enough and whats not enough.

what do you think? Is slaving over a job, to the point where you get paid big bucks - happiness? or where is it that you draw the line, at what makes you happy?