Friday was a Sick Day

Meaning I called in sick.

I wasn't exactly sick.  Not in the contagious sense.  Or in the awesome sense: "Dude, Inception was sick," as my students would say.

But I was freaking sick and tired.  Of running in circles.  And driving in circles.  And grading and grading and grading without ever finishing.  I returned 28 assignments to campus today for my students to pick up and I have 18 essays still in my bag waiting to be graded over the weekend.  Why over the weekend?  Because 40 more essays are coming in to me on Monday.  Yes, it is ridiculous.

Also ridiculous is grading all of these essays while wearing a wrist brace.  Even though I try to pretend they make me look badass like a superhero:

Watch my Wolverine claws sprout from my carpal tunnel wrist guards!  No, seriously, guys.  I'm so cool.

Really they just make my handwriting illegible.


My students reacted rather hysterically to me canceling class.  All I said in the e-mail was that I was not feeling well.  In return, I got lots of concerned e-mails about the well-being of me and my bebe.  (No one ever cared if I got sick when I was not pregnant.)  One of my students is from Korea and he told me that he has Korean grape and pear juice that is full of nutrients.  He would like to drop it off in my office because it would be good for me and my baby.  So now I have packets of Korean fruit juice.  Which is totally adorable, actually.  And the grape juice is actually quite delicious.  It's very concentrated, which makes me wonder if I was supposed to mix it with water.  But I can't read the packet, so who's to say?

Also unclear why the pear juice appears to feature the picture of a peach.  Haven't tried it yet.

Less adorable are the students who want to know how to cite images they find online and include in Power Point presentations and whether or not their approach to the next assignment is correct/appropriate/will get than an A.  The real answer is:  I have no idea leave me alone.  Instead I have to offer somewhat reasonable advice that doesn't sound like I'm spitting it through clenched teeth.  Sigh.

And while I did spend much of the day grading papers with my feet elevated above my heart, which totally kept my feet their normal size, I ended up spending the afternoon shuttling my two oldest children around to various appointments.

That's right.  I'm essentially pregnant with my third child.  Allow me to (re)introduce the elder Duckworth children:

Cooper and Little Mac.  Ages 4 1/2 and 10 1/2, respectively.

Little Mac had a hair cut appointment.  She bit the groomer.  Drew blood.

Cooper had to go to the vet because he has an infected nail bed on one of his rear paws.  So now he's on antibiotics and Little Mac is on the groomer's shitlist.

I drove them in circles from one appointment to the next, and ended up taking Mac with me to campus to drop off student papers when I finished grading.  She did not bite any one there, but got lots of compliments on how cute she is and seemed to really enjoy herself, so there were no consequences for being a vampire dog.

Also, the vet's office was crazy.  I have never been to a vet's office that was so busy.  So many dogs, so many people.  Cooper lunged all over the place and my carpal tunnel plagued hands could barely hold him, so I had his leash wrapped around my thighs while I sat in a chair.  Because it's not like pregnant women need to have circulation in their legs or anything.

Two boys ran around, getting all the dogs riled up, an old woman came in shouting for one of the receptionists to bring her ticket outside to her because she was parked illegally, a sick dog oozed a few drops of liquid poop onto the floor, and another massively overweight dog panted so loudly and so hard that the entire waiting room smelled like hot dog breath and I had a moment when I thought I might pass out. 

This vet is not our usual vet--we usually go to a vet in my hometown who charges next to nothing compared to the St. Louis vets.  But we go to this clinic in emergencies and since we don't request a specific vet (there are four in this practice) we always end up seeing this one guy who always seems to be stoned.  He appeared to be totally stoned again on Friday, but I really think that's just how he is naturally.  Very mellow and kind of crazy looking.  At any rate, he gave Coop antibiotics and didn't charge us for the exam, so I don't care if he was high or not.  Nice guy, that vet.

David and I had plans to go see friends that night after dinner, but he got home late because of a "work emergency."  Some kid fell and busted open his head and was bleeding everywhere and David was the only administrator there and the nurse had left already, so he ended up calling 911 and then cleaning up and describing the wound to the operator himself.  Then he had to call the kid's mom and wait for her to drive out from her job in the city.  So we had to reschedule our plans, which is probably for the best because my sick-day off was completely exhausting.

And now it's Monday again.

But even as my to-do list keeps getting longer, the end of the semester is creeping nearer!  Eventually these things are going to even themselves out!