I am a Tiger.

I worked the weekend. It wasn't a horrible weekend. I finished work and left the hospital at 8:00 PM on Sunday. 

Not bad at all.

Monday morning the dogs let us sleep until 6:15, woohoo! Fat Charlie had some diarrhea during the night, sometime after he asked and we let him go out at 1:30 AM. It wasn't hard to clean. He can't help it. I don't care. Oh I hate cleaning dogshit as much as anyone, but I don't care. He is the World's Best Oldest Dog In Our House.

Pottied dogs, fed dogs, washed dog bowls, fed me, remarked on day's news with Bill. (Mostly I grunted unintelligible 'unh's' while Bill remarked on the day's news stories.) Settled onto the couch in the teal hoodie footie (only have photographic evidence of the Big Pink Thing, so you'll have to imagine it in dark teal) to watch my new favorite morning show, CBS This Morning.

I'm too sexy for my ... to sexy for my ...  No, I'm really not.

I got up to pee. (That's a good thing!) Bill was in his study. I said, "It is purely amazing how my body feels after working the weekend. It feels like in the old days when I had a bad fall from a horse at speed. Even my toes hurt."

"Well," said dear Bill, "All you have to do today is keep the couch in place."

I walked into our guest bathroom. "BILL!" Crap! "There's a bird in the guest bathroom." I promptly walked out of the guest bathroom, closing the door so quickly that I caught part of the ass of my teal hoodie footie in it.

I don't do birds in the house. Bill doesn't do bats in the house, so it all works out. Bill opened the window and out flew the grateful bird. The guest bathroom was, er, bathed in birdshit. Walls, tub, sink, floor, toilet, paintings,  birdshit birdshit birdshit. It's a white tile floor.

I have a confession, or maybe two. Bless His Heart Bill returned to the guest bathroom with inappropriate cleaning equipment. He was going to try to clean up the birdshit birdshit birdshit. He is truly a Good Man. I (ever the ingrate) said, "That won't work. I'll clean it. Thanks anyway." And then I decided it could wait until the next time I had to get up.

The couch, the dogs, and the I were one.

My phone rang. The number was my unit at work. DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE!!!! Oh I had to. What if they had a question about something with one of my patients from the weekend.

"Croak," I said. (Translation: hello.)

"Hi, Patience." It was our unit coordinator. "Is there any way you could come in? Two people are out sick, and they're already up to six patients each, and we're still admitting."

"Croak," I said. (Translation: think, brain, think! Please think of an excuse! Come ON BRAIN, THINK!) The best I could do was to say I would check with Bill and call right back. Six patients is a nightmare. More than six is plain old dangerous. Oh how I wish I had a not my problem brain. All my life, I can't even watch a scary movie, because I can't do the not my problem. Bill would be my salvation.

"They are short at work and want me to come in." I just knew Bill would tell me no, you are way too tired, and I love you, and I'm putting my foot down. You get back on that couch and hold it in place!.

"Well, that's up to you," he said. And then he uttered the unutterable, the bastard traitor. "You do whatever you think is right."

I showered, dressed, grabbed a piece of bread, and went in. It was fine. Eight hours is a piece of cake! A tiny piece of cake. I had wonderful patients and I got to see my patients from the weekend who had stuff going on and I wanted to see them anyway. It's always nice when you can make other people's day better, and because of my your problem is my problem brain, I knew that just my being there made the five other nurses' days instantly better like magic. That's pretty darn potent.

Bill and I have tickets to see West Side Story at the Carson Center tonight. I might nod off, and I can't say I'm looking forward to leaving my dogs and couch, but I'm sure it will be fun once I get there. Now I need to walk the dogszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

And then ... there's some birdshit I need to clean up. Even after magic, life goes on.

hug your hounds