Sore throat time

Although I have a sore throat, I'm still sitting here at Job #2. I took a sick day today from Job #1 as I simply couldn't wake up this a.m. in order to be there by the ungodly hour of 8am (we have holiday hours for the next 2 weeks) and I have plenty of sick time stored up, like 180 hours. But I needed to be here at Job2 tonight, for 2 reasons: 1. If I don't show up, I don't get paid, and #2. I just couldn't imagine Job #2 being that taxing on me, as it usually isn't. The 25-minute drive down here is the worst of it.

My throat didn't start hurting until last night, although on Sunday night I started feeling scratchy inside my chest. I was on patrol with M. who theorized it was the fog that we'd been having for 3 days straight. Well, I guess not. But I don't really feel sick, just a little worn down and my throat is killing me. I don't get sore throats very much anymore, ever since I had that tonsillectomy in '98, so I'm plenty perturbed by this. I hope it either gets better soon or just morphs into a real illness so I can get it over with.

I'm also probably more worn down by the extremely busy past 2 days. On Sunday I picked up M. before noon for a day of patrol. Just getting the damn patrol car and getting started was an ordeal that took over an hour. We keep the patrol car for our district at one of the Sgt.'s house, and I couldn't believe how far out she lived! Technically in district, but still, I never go that far out. Then we had to pick up a radio at the substation, check in with the Sgt., etc. and we finally got going around 1-ish. Then I was hungry, and I get mean when I get hungry, so we had to deal with that, then we had to run all the way back to M.'s house for a radio holster... in short, we went on a grand total of 6 calls in 5 hours--but one of those calls was a looooooong way out, and no one else wanted to take it for that reason, so we did. I figure that's what Reserves are for, we'll do the jobs no one else wants to do if necessary.

M. and I had a few Reno 911 moments, of course. The biggest one was not knowing how to run radar on speeders. But M. made me feel better when he told me that's a separate class on how to learn that. We just couldn't figure it out! Dammit, I wanted to hassle some speeders and hand out some tickets. M. thinks I'm mean, but I had to get tickets back in the day, so now everyone else does, too! Why should I give breaks when no one did it for me???

Then M. and I went up north to Shitsville to pick up the baby. This time the whore showed up. I knew she would since surely by now she's gotten word of her upcoming hearing. I was glad for her to see me get out of the patrol car in uniform, to get my baby. The whore's trashy sister was there and the baby ran up to me, all happy, yelling my name. I couldn't help but say real nastily to the trashy sister as I scooped baby up in my arms, "See how happy she is to see me?" since the whore has lied that the baby is scared of me and S and cries when she has to come with us. The baby had fun riding in the back of the patrol car (we'd put the carseat in the trunk beforehand). She liked closing the window on the cage. M. said, "Man, every car should have one of those!" I agree!

We took the baby down to meet S at the sports bar so we could all settle in to have some food and watch the wrestling PPV. M. and I were in uniform, of course, so we got some strange looks from the entire place as we walked in, but the good news is they let us in for free and waived the $3 cover charge! After the PPV we put the carseat in S's car and M. and I went out for another 2 hours, but this time in his district since we were already there watching the PPV there and all. This time we did something like 8 calls in 2 hours. His district is not as rural as mine is, so there's less travel time generally between calls. We stopped patrolling at midnight, but again it was an ordeal to officially get going home, as we had to gas up the car, clean our trash out, return the radio, etc. etc. I got home about 2:30 am.

So yesterday I prayed the baby would let me sleep in a little, but of course she woke up at 8:20 am, good lord. I got her settled with some cereal and Thundercats, and that bought me another hour of sleep. But then around 9:30 there was no more stalling, and I had to get up. I put her little butt in the tub and just generally moved slow all morning. She helped me wrap our X-mas gift to S, which is a picture drawing made of the 2 of us at Chuck E. Cheese and I put it in a beautiful mother-of-pearl picture frame, which was actually an unused wedding gift. We were planning on meeting Tito J. at the 1st showing of Charlotte's Web. First we went to Bed Bath and Beyond to look at some stuff, and I ended up buying her a little Rudolph that sings the song and his nose lights up (I had a coupon, and she promised to be a good girl, say "Please" and "Thank you" and eat all her food when we told her to and take a bath when we told her to). Then we went to the movie. Tito J. wasn't feeling well, so we were on our own. The movie was ok, but I prefer the original cartoon from when I was a kid. I know, I'm a tough critic.

Then, since we were wearing shorts b/c the weathercaster lied and said it was going to be 78 degrees, we had to head home to change into pants. We ended up hanging out there for awhile. Man, you could tell I was wiped out, b/c usually our days together are jam-packed with activity and no minute is wasted! I let her play upstairs while I made a sandwich, read my book (still Johnnie Cochran, I need to hurry and finish it) and surfed cable. Finally, at 4:30 she said she was ready to go to the zoo. We headed over there, but by the time we reached the Med. Ctr. she was already nodding off in the back. She said something rude to me, not meanly, but still rude and I had to scold her. She gets pissy when she's sleepy. I realized the zoo outing was a futile proposition, and just made a U-turn to head back home--she was totally asleep by then!

Poor S got home last night from work all tired and legs hurting. We just let the baby sleep. By then my throat was starting to hurt and I had raspy voice. Unfortunately, she woke up at 4am, wanting cereal and I let S deal with her. He needed his quality time with her anyway, ha! I slept way in today, not feeling well. Later I let S and the baby come pick me up after their trip to Target so we could eat at La Mad. Chicken friand, yummy.

So yeah, I'm glad I came after all to Job #2, as it has been deadly slow. Easy money, easy money. S called me and told me the baby dropoff was fine this evening; the other M. accompanied him again. I'll pick her up on Friday, and since I have the day off from work, it will be early, say 4-ish. Not sure yet when we'll actually do the X-mas thing with her, since we have to take her back on Sunday and I want her to have plenty of time to play with her toys. S and I got her lots of stuff this weekend. We got her like 10 things and spent no more than $40 total! I did all the wrapping on Sunday morning. I still want to get her this Barbie laptop thing from Target that is educational and only $15, but we'll see.

What's crazy is that of all the toys she has, and now with the new ones she's going to get, today and yesterday she had so much fun playing with the empty tube from the wrapping paper, and also cutting up tiny pieces of leftover wrapping paper! I'm sorry, but parents who buy their kids expensive toys are suckers!!!