Brightknightie's friends

GAH WHAT A WEEK. Two of them. WHAT A FORTNIGHT!!!!

My dad is back in afib, and the cardiologist is pretty sure he won't be ready for a February knee surgery. But they'll shock him at an appointment in January and then we hope that he doesn't need surgery again. It first happened 3 years ago this week, and hasn't happened since he had a valve repaired a few months after that. So we are unhappy that his heart is unhappy again. :(

I went for a crown on Friday. Halfway through, she paused, and tells me that actually I need a root canal first and she wants to send me to a specialist. So they make me an appointment that afternoon for a clinic in the next town over and on my day off, I have two delightful dental procedures. It really wasn't that bad, the dentist was nice and so was everyone else. I put in my earbuds, played Christmas music and basically pretended I was anywhere else for two hours. I stayed ahead of pain with regular Tylenol for a few days, and never had any problems. Just some soreness.

Then this past Tuesday, I had an appointment for a cleaning at my dentist. So I went in 45 minutes early to get back to the crown procedure, was walked over to the cleaning side while the tooth 3D printed, and then was escorted back over to the surgical wing for the crown. It went smoothly, and again, no pain, just some more soreness.

I also did a sleep study this week, so we shall see what comes of it. And I bumped up my adhd meds and am super grateful for the little bump.

Today I had storytime with three preschool classes. Two of the classes asked about my mask, and I explained that it was to keep me safe and healthy because germs make me sicker than most people. And in both classes, kids got brought down to the nurse for a fever and spitting up. Yay! The feverish kid did in fact tell me that she was sick when I explained my mask, which was extra fun, ha.

Then this morning I also had a zoom chat with my exec director friend about everything that went down. I was anxious because she described the meeting as being about "the ick thing" from the convention she needed to talk to me about, and I was like, wtf, is there MORE ICK?! Luckily, no. She just wanted us to talk about how we make sure that this doesn't happen again between us. If she tells me exactly what she is upset about, and I ask what we can do to fix this, rather than her being confident that she is clear and my jumping into fix-it mode without asking, I think we'll be in a good place. This is the only time it's happened in our years of friendship, and I'm sure as hell not doing a convention ever again, so we should be okay.

We affirmed that we value each other and our friendship and that we weren't going to go back over what happened because clearly we had such different viewpoints....and then we kind of went back over it, oops. I think she does more clearly understand at least where I was coming from, although I feel like I still frustrated her a few times. And she also said that she apologized to both another planner and I, and was upset that the other one "ghosted" her for a week. And she didn't email third planner because she seemed fine with it all (and when she saw my face she was like, Not so fine, huh? Nope), and she disregards fourth planner entirely. I told her that second planner was devastated, but she really doesn't understand how her lighthearted reference to us witches fighting over a tiny pot of money was hurtful because she didn't intend it to be at all.

I tried to explain that the image of me trying to take money away from the Society, which I devote more time, money, and effort to than anything but my job, hurt a lot. She said that she highly values my work and that I do more than any other board member, so that's something.

Anyway, in the end, she's mostly mad that she apologized to half of us and none of us apologized to her for lying to her face about reimbursements. Which...we genuinely did not. We just didn't have the same meaning in mind for phrases like, "The Society will get what's left at the end" and "It would be amazing if in the end, we're actually able to reimburse our travel." I just kind of breathed through it, and at the end did tell her I was sorry that she had also had a bad meeting and that she felt gaslit during it. I just couldn't apologize for lying, which we did not do, but I do understand that she felt lied to.

So after all that....I think we're in a better place but not a great one. And I guess that's okay. Her first thought hearing that I'm not going to an early April conference because of Dad was that yay, I could go with her on her late April visit to the houses, so that felt good. Not sure if I will or want to, but I'm glad I was invited. And I'm not super dreading our NYE zoom date with a mutual friend, at least.

So yeah. 7 medical appointments and a sleep study down, two more to go for December, and drama.

On the plus side, I did get Yuletide in on time. I'd like to build out another two or so scenes, because otherwise it's kind of a fluffy sweet ode to the importance of libraries which was not actually the point, but if I don't, it's fine.

I have the weekend off, and my plan is to write holiday cards and work on one or two Christmas fics, and buy any last minute gifts online. I'm very much looking forward to being quietly merry. (And the fey masquerade we're going to in DnD. My character is neither sneaky (group 1) or socially gracefully (group 2), so it should be pretty fun to see how it goes down.)

Then I head up to the fam on Tuesday and stay through Sunday, which I'm very much looking forward to.

Happy holidays, friends!