"You have not done enough, you have never done enough, so long as it is still possible that you have something to contribute."
~DAG HAMMERSKJÖLD

I've always felt that once I am at work I can stay there for a long time. What is the difference between 8 hours and 12 hours. Four hours is not much.

Many years ago I worked 3 days a week, 13 hours a day. It was wonderful! Having four days off each week is glorious.

The 5 day work week kills me. By Thursday I'm ready to stay in bed well past my alarm. Especially because my 8 hour days usually turn into 10. By the time I am settled at home, it's late. I eat dinner, prepare for the next day and it's time to sleep.

The summer is decidedly better. At least when I arrive home there is still several hours of daylight. We are fast approaching the summer solstice however, and the days will begin to get shorter. Once we say goodbye to daylight savings time, and the winter is upon us, I arrive home in the dark. It makes me feel like my day is over. By 7pm I'm ready to pack it in.

I'd even be happy to work four ten hour days.

What is this? Ah, just a little whine fest - nothing more, nothing less. I am ready to face another day anyway...that's the way it is.

"The greatest problem of communication is the illusion that it has been achieved." George Bernard Shaw

It was the abscess in my tooth and the subsequent dentist visit that really rounded off my day.

The seminar was surprisingly good. It was much of the same old, same old, that they (the corporate moguls) have been trying to cram down our throats for years, however I have to admit that the gentleman that presented this time, honestly made me feel that I was not being brainwashed.

Of course I was. It's not that I don't agree with much that he said, it's just that I don't agree with the emphasis placed on the particular concept he was trying to present. However, if I'd never heard the B.S. before, I might have thought the concept good, the emphasis righteous, and so I thought that if he could sway my particular stance on it, he was worth listening to.

So, armed with my full to the brim bottle of Advil I made it through the morning. By the afternoon, I came to the realization that my full bottle of Advil looked surprisingly low and the dentist really should know that. He agreed to see me at 4:30p. I arrived at about 4.

Now why he decided, (and why I let him) attempt to treat this abscess sans Novocaine is beyond me. Well, his reasons are beyond me, mine are, I suppose, the martyr syndrome. It wasn't so bad while he was working but when he was finished I really thought that I'd be extremely happy if I could detach my head from my neck. My entire face hurt.

So now, I become the hysterical person and as he leaves the room I'm shouting, hey doc, you're going to leave me like this?? Come back here I NEED Novocaine NOW!!

Pain makes you do terrible things. A few four letter words were just about ready to slide from my lips. They would have been directed at him, personally, bullseye, no questions asked. But he immediately returned and asked the tech for a needle, which meant to me I was going to be pain free in seconds, and cussing him would not have helped the situation. More than likely it would have delayed the administration of my much needed precious pain reliever so I sat back in the chair and waited.

Thusly, the absence of pain is also an amazing thing. Let's face it, Novocaine is not a mind altering substance, but the absolute relief made me very high and very giddy. I wanted to kiss him.

Well let's just say I thought better of that too and left a happy camper with my prescriptions and my painless face. After having the prescriptions filled at my neighborhood Rite Aid I scurried on home.

Now most nurses are awful Hypochondriacs, and I'm no different. We worry about everything and I always worry when I take an antibiotic. Always. So I took it, and silently waited for anaphylaxis to set in. I hoped it wouldn't be a complete anaphylactic reaction, so at least I could call 911.

It should be a sudden and severe reaction but I don't care what the books say, I'm still waiting, but I'm waiting pain free and that's what counts. ;-)