Two Pleasant Things . . .

. . . at the end of a hard week.

Before I get into that, though, I want to update you once more on little Feisty. She had a recheck at the doctor's office yesterday afternoon. Her urine is clear, her temp is normal. She had ecoli bacteria in her blood. The doctor wants to send her Children's Hospital in Denver for two major tests. I asked many questions, but stilll do not quite understand why he thinks this is necessary. I would like for Kristen and Mike to get a second opinion before doing something so drastic. But maybe it's necessary. At least they need to call him and get it first hand. But for now, she's doing great and is doing what she needs to do in the potty, because she doesn't want any more shots!

The first really pleasant thing happened right there at the check-in desk of the clinic. I was talking to the receptionist, checking Feisty in, telling her about the emergency room trip that had happened since she was there two days earlier. Suddenly she pulled out a piece of paper and asked me to give it to Kristen to fill out - it was permission for me, or anyone else they wanted to give permission, to be able to officially bring the kids in for treatment. It seems as though she thought I was their MOM until one of the kids hollered "Grandma." She suddenly realized I needed to have this permission. The nice thing was when she said that she never dreamed I was there grandma, because I looked so young. Well, thanks!! So much! Now do you think maybe you should go get your glasses checked??

The other one was equally nice. I've been in my job for almost 14 years. For the first 9 of those years I was assistant to the department head, as well as what I do now, MSW Program Coordinator. When I went to half time to take care of the kids, I kept the grad student piece and gave up job of assistant to the new department head.

My boss for those 9 years was a wonderful, easygoing, kind man named Ben. He was almost retirement age when we began our adventure together. He retired about 5 years ago, but he still is in and out of the office because of his work with Human Animal Bond in Colorado, which was begun by him and his wife.

Ben was so great to work for. He would ask me to do something, give me the space and time to do it, and then be very grateful and appreciative when it was completed - he knew he could trust me to do it well without a lot of micromanagement. (You can read between the lines that this is one of the reasons I kept the part of my job that I did and gave up the other part two years after he retired).

When Ben left his position, he asked me, "Now who in the world is going to make my grant proposals look good?" I assured him that I would still be glad to help him.

Ben had impossible-to-read handwriting. Everybody came to me to ask what he said when he wrote a note to them. I could actually read it after awhile - and still can.

Well, I said all that to say this. Day before yesterday I got an e-mail from him asking me if I knew what dates we had accomplished two particular tasks while he was there. It so happens that I kept the Word folder with a lot of his documents, just in case. I sent him several documents that I thought would cover the questions. Last night when I checked my messages from home, here is what he wrote back to me:

Dawn: First, thanks much! You have been, and are, my very best administrative staff member; and I've had quite a few between California Youth Authority, San Diego Children's Home, San Diego State University, University of Kentucky, University of Tennessee, and (where I worked with him). . .

Wow! It just made me miss him all the more!

What a nice way to end the week.