The New Normal

Things are insane in the new normal; they are bipolar at times, delusional at others, and downright psychotic just a smidgen here and there. It certainly is busier than the old normal.

I'm looking over the calendar for the last week here, and I've got an appointment for me with the oral surgeon, a meeting with the dog rescue group, a meeting with a cleaning service, a meeting with the Neptune Society, a board meeting for the dog group, half-day house cleaning, and appointments with primary care, pulmonary clinic and the nutrition clinic. What's not on the calendar is the bizarre response from the doggie group and more tracking down insurance company mistakes.

Ted, the guy I've been working with, is a board member in this rescue group that specializes in golden retrievers. We've both been on the same page as far as the redesign for the group: they are doing their first major upscale fundraiser and a facelift in their graphic design—group logo as well as fundraiser logo—to raise their graphics and branding to a professional level of sophistication. (They are currently printing out their own business cards on their inkjet printers).

So I spend several hours working on a logo concept that seemed really flexible and workable to me. I went out to Somis to the board meeting on Sunday with Ted and gave my presentation. Dead. The meeting went on for another three and a half hours, and we stopped at the fancy restaurant which was partnering with the group on the fundraiser and providing all the food.

To make a long story short, e-mails between myself and the president of the group went back and forth, and by10 a.m. the next morning, she was giving me the big brush-off: We don't need your services. Of course, by then I was in total concurrence in not wanting to work with her in particular, as she had been quite venomous in her objections to the concept of any redesign (even though their current logo has no viable image file from which to work: There's the jpg for the web that is also used to print out the business cards. Haven't talked to Ted about all this yet, but I think he's just as floored as I am.

Anyway, enough wasting energy on the negative. I'm now working with Ray and Anthony at Cable International, launching a website for them in the next few weeks. I also have a site redesign for Joy on deck and a couple of other folks in the organizing phase right now, so I'm hoping to see stuff happening down the line.

Wednesday, I got a call from the oral surgeon saying they can't schedule my surgery because Delta Dental has my birthdate year as 1954 and the surgeon has it as 1953, which is correct. This surfaced back in October with my current dentist when she tried to submit a claim. It took several days to get things right, but obviously the old date is still floating around in their system. I called them and, after going back and forth a coupla times, got everything right as rain. I really want to get this dental work over and the partial in my head so I don't look like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel from The Simpsons.

As for Steve, his biggest challenge right now is being a healthy sick person, which is not an easy construct to fabricate. On his last chest draining (which was today), we actually tapped him out and under 800 milliliters, so that's slowly clearing up. His toe is improving, dead skin peeling off, healthy tissue growing back. The "little stuff" is beginning to resolve itself.

The second round of chemotherapy last week was a little stronger than the first, and Steve was wiped out for a couple days afterward. And the side effects are fairly minimal at this point. We'll be seeing the oncologist next Thursday to get an update on how treatment so far, then the third infusion is scheduled the week after that.

So I'm finding it realistic to plan just about seven days in advance and no further. One nice thing I'm finding out about the new normal, dizzy and disruptive as it is: there seems to be time for everything that needs getting done. That's a special kind of blessing.