Ah, Employment...

Yesterday I survived a harrowing journey to have my fingerprints taken for work. I won't bore you with the details of my adventure, not when there's so much more to talk about. I've been doing several months worth of training and driving all over the city running silly little errands for my place of employment. Hopefully fingerprinting was the last of these lovely trips, but knowing the Phunny Pharm that probably isn't terribly likely.

Yes the Phunny Pharm. It's a pharmacy in a large chain but I think my nickname better suits it. This pharmacy is on the shady side of town. The side of town where you try not to go very often. The side of town where if you work there your dad warns you every day that if someone asks you for the cash drawer you open it up and hand it to them wether or not you think they have a gun. (Which is probably why all the cash registers have little safes for all the bills bigger than a 10.)

I like working in the pharmacy much more than I thought I would. I like seeing things getting done and at the pharmacy we constantly get things done! If not the customers would be irate. But it's not like having their prescriptions ready on time always does the trick. Here are a few of my favorite “blessings” as one of the other technicians dubbed them.

My 'favorite' customers are the ones who come up and tell me “I want to pick up a prescription.” Well that's just dandy! “I would like to pick up a prescription for John Doe,” is far, far more helpful. Also, I seem to be terrible at being able to spell names. I surely should have known that Shanequa is spelled Shaqenita, how silly of me. One customer came to the pick up counter with her hand embedded within her mouth, or I assume it was embedded because it never seemed to leave her mouth. I deciphered that she wanted a prescription but her name seemed to be Mruph Huruph.

“Can you spell that?”
“K-A-T-R-I-N-A S-M-I-T-H!”

Ah, silly me again, I should have taken that extra semester of grunt and point in college.

An obviously pregnant young girl comes in with her boyfriend and her attitude. Her prescription is found and rung up, and her copay is $2.00. All has gone well except that this particular customer is on medicare. Medicare means that money comes out from my paycheck every week, is handed to the government who then lets customers come into the Phunny Pharm and demand to have everything handed to them for free. If everything isn't free (like if they want an over the counter drug (OTC) which medicare stopped paying for) they get whiny. And when I say whiny I mean think of an adult acting like the last bratty two year old you saw in the super market who has just been told that he can't have candy today.

“I ain't never paid no copay in my whole life!”

“Well this is a brand name drug so there's a copay.”

“Why ain't you givin me the generic?”

“There is no generic, that's the price.”

“But I ain't never paid no copay before! I have medicare!”

I stand there with no pity waiting for her and her attitude to go away. She waddles off in a huff with boyfriend in tow. I feel some pity for the boyfriend.

A customer comes to the drive thru window and hands me a script (the piece of paper the doctor gives you when you leave that you eat your food over and fold and squash into the dark recesses of pockets and purses before finding and handing to me.) I see that the script was written for a narcotic. To check if we have the drug in stock I ask the pharmacist. The pharmacist looks at the script.

“Yeah we have that but we can't fill it.”

“Really? Why?”

She points to a scribble in the top left corner.

“They scratched something out, no one is allowed to scribble anything out on a narcotic prescription because it means it's been tampered with. They probably took it to another pharmacy who wrote that it was too soon to be refilled.”

I return to the customer.

“I'm sorry we can't accept this.”

“Why not!”

“Something has been marked out and it looks like it was tampered with.”

The paper is snatched out of my hand and the customer speeds away.

A prescription comes in for a narcotic pain killer, one of the popular ones. The name on file for the customer has no insurance to bill it to and the price is over one hundred dollars. Since nearly everyone who comes into the Phunny Pharm is on medicare and refuses to pay anything at all for their drugs I assumed that they would not pay for it, but we fill it just in case.

A few hours later a man comes in wearing a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, and a low brimmed hat. He gives the name on the prescription. I tell him the price, I decide that if he pays for it he must be a drug dealer. He responds with,

“Yup.”

I panic.

“... Can I see your ID?”

The name and birthdate match and it doesn't appear to be a fake ID, but then I'm not exactly an expert on these things. I skeptically hand back the ID. I ring up the prescription. 

Drug dealer...

The customer whips out a stack of large bills held together with a rubber band and hands me several.

DRUG DEALER

I hold it to the light and check to see if it's real. It passes my test. I spend a few moments figuring out change and give it to the man with his prescription. He smiles, thanks me, and leaves the store. I tell the other tech and vow to catch him next time. Somehow, I will catch him. The crafty devil hasn't come back yet...

The phone rings.

“Hi this is the Phunny Pharm, how can I help you?”

“Do you sell air conditioners?”

“... No.”

“I have a prescription for an air conditioner.”

“Uh...”

“Do you know where I could get it filled?”

“Um, Lowes?”

“Really?”

“I doubt it, let me transfer you to the pharmacist.”

I put them on hold.

“Do you know where they can get a prescription filled for an air conditioner?”

“An air conditioner?”

“Yeah.”

“.... Lowes?”

That's plenty for today, I'm certain that there will be more phunnies in the pharm the longer I work there. At least they keep my job interesting.

The Trees

Right now I'm sitting on the deck behind my house looking out at our little stand of trees. It isn't very thick and I can see the houses behind us through it even though all the trees are summery green. The view from the Captain's deck is very different. There the trees seem to go on endlessly and are filled with so much wildlife and plant life. There is something so magical about the forest. Every forest is so different from the others, but they all seem so timeless, almost ageless because the trees seem so old but feel so alive. 

I have many fond memories of following Aisling out into the forest. Memories of exploring, of running, discovering, and of sitting on fallen logs for hours just talking.

I live in a suburb, and Aisling and the Captain live out in their woods. There is a small “woods” a few rows of houses behind mine and it seemed reasonable to think that since I enjoyed being in the woods that I should spend some time in one nearby. This thought kept occurring in my head the past few years and every once and awhile I would make my way through the houses, feeling stares on my back from the owners who I knew must be watching me, and hide myself in the trees.

But what I encountered was a very different forest than I was expecting. No one had come into that forest in a very long time. The only signs of other humans were a few rotting boards hanging from rusty nails in a tree and other debris from a tree house on the ground below. The underbrush was dense with thorny branches and sounds from yards nearby startled me. There were no paths or open spaces for walking and the dried old leaves were thick and made harsh sounds as I stepped through them. Then my imagination began to get the better of me. Every bird that moved was at first a coyote in my mind, and every dark space held rabid creatures snarling in their dens as they prepared to leap out at me.

After a few minutes of panic I would turn, fully expecting something to attack me from behind, and hurry back to the road. Once I was on asphalt again and out of the leaves I would run back across the backyards until I reached the shade from the giant oak that shelters my back yard.

The problem, I've decided, isn't that this bunch of trees happens to be more wild (and in actuality it probably has nothing but birds, squirrels, and an occasional raccoon or deer because of it's nearness to the housing development.) The real problem was that I didn't have Aisling or the Captain. The forest is beautiful but not the kind of beautiful I can enjoy on my own the way I enjoy the ocean. What allowed me to enjoy the forest was being with my friends, enjoying the forest because they enjoy the forest so much. And because they enjoy the forest so much I'll never forget moments like dashing through the trees after Aisling, feeling not fear but an adventurous spirit coursing through me, or wading up and down the creek with the Captain shortly after we started courting.

Maybe someday I'll be able to take the Captain or Aisling to the ocean and show them the cliffs, the tide pools with the little snails, the warmness of the sand, and the tugging of the waves. I don't think they'll take it in the same way I do, but I hope that it will still create memories they'll never forget of simply being together surrounded by the awesome creativity and beauty of our God.  

The Captain

I mentioned the Captain in my other blog entry and tonight seemed like the perfect time to write about him.

The Captain is better known as my Sweetheart, but he's such a heroic and romantic figure that I can hardly be expected to stop there. Tall, dark, and handsome only barely begins to describe him. He is indeed tall, but also slim, and quick. He fences. In fact he has awards for fencing, and everyone else I've seen attempt the sport could not come close to his elegance. Even his name, Gabriel, exudes so much romance. He's a writer, a poet, has a wonderful singing voice, and he's all MINE! ^.^

Now that I've introduced the Captain, and asserted my claim on him, I can tell you about our evening. I had gone over to the Captain's family home out in the country. Not long after I arrived a thunderstorm started. While I was enjoying the rain and watching out for flooding, Aisling, my best friend and the Captain's sister, ran out to find her cat who was not in her usual safe haunt. Aisling hastily donned a plastic poncho and dashed out into the storm in search of her pet. The Captain decided to go out after her and reached for an umbrella just as thunder shook the house. I made a vague threat about either of them being struck. The Captain attempted to find out if I would come to the funeral as he went out the door and just as he called back “I love you!” and shut the door an ominously loud crash of thunder tore the air.

A few tense minutes later the Captain returned with Aisling after rescuing the cat from the car she had been trapped under, along with a stream of water that came up to her little kitty ankles.

After the storm passed and before dinner the Captain, who was very tired from waking up early, fell asleep on the couch. I'll admit to seeing him there and thinking how sweet he looked curled up on his side with one hand dangling off the edge of the couch and his face half hidden in his arm. It's hard to be so romantic all the time, sometimes you have to take a break and just be adorable.

After dinner everyone got in the pool. We paddled around for awhile playing with floaties and chatting. At one point the Captain's older brother somehow got ahold of the Captain and dragged him to the edge of the pool. I'm not entirely certain how but the Captain ended up being pushed out over the edge of the pool head first, much to the distress of myself and the Captain's mother. As I watched the Captain managed to flip himself around with his brother holding on and land on his feet like a cat. Then he just swung one long leg over the edge and stepped back into the waist high water.

After swimming everyone decided to get dressed and go down to the creek to see the bridge the Captain has been building. I ran through the wet grass in my sandals to the trees just as evening was beginning. A slight fog hung over the forest and the creek was flooding, running fast and deep under the cables of the bridge. The Captain has been working on putting together the wooden sections for months, largely on his own, and finally the parts are coming together. The Captain was already standing above the rushing creek when I arrived, swaying ever so slightly to keep his balance with the motion of the bridge. He stepped lightly off the wood and onto one of the cables, causing his mother to gasp, and jumped back down to the ground.

One by one everyone climbed on to see the view. Each person would crawl across to about the middle and then sit and stare with awe at the sky, the trees, and the water. When they could be coaxed off they would crawl back and the Captain would help them down.

After my turn the Captain and his younger brother headed across. I was standing on the bank watching him and watching the water. I stepped closer to the bridge after inspecting the sections that had not yet been placed on the bridge (to see how they fit on the cables.) I stood on the muddy bank with one hand on the cable and very suddenly my wet sandal slid out from under me and down into the water. I caught the edge of the nearest section with my left arm but the bank was too slippery and I didn't have enough of a grip to pull myself up. I could feel myself sliding deeper into the mire and my sandals began to stick in the soft clay.

In an instant after I had slipped the Captain was on the bank again and caught my arm. There was a momentary struggle as my sandals refused to come with me but were too tightly buckled on to let go of my foot. In the end the Captain won over my rebellious sandals and pulled me up and out of the water.

I was wet, caked in mud, scratched on one arm, and bruised on another, but my Captain had rescued me. My wonderful, heroic Captain.

An explanation

I ended up making myself a blog after all. It's probably reasonable to say that I only got one because the Captain got one, it wouldn't be completely true though. I had decided not to get one when the Captain did because no one would read it, and because I didn't think I had enough to say. Once I had decided that though I began thinking about all the things I could say, and then I wanted to. So I thought about it all night and all day at work and came home to make one.

Now that it's set up I can start talking about all the things I wanted to talk about and first on my list is water.

I didn't decide to call my blog At the Waters Edge for nothing. (Actually... I wonder if it should have been at the Water's edge... I might have looked into that before setting it that way...) I love water. It feels fairly redundant to say so since everyone who knows me knows about me and water, but it's hard to talk about it with other people as much as I like talking about it.

I like water in just about any form. Lakes, rivers, streams, brooks, pools, puddles, ponds, creeks, falls, bathtubs, cups, sinks, snow, sleet, hail, rain, ice, drops, everything except stagnant water. The best of all is the ocean. I remember reading somewhere in Revelation about how there will be no ocean in Heaven, and I remember being disappointed. I'm still disappointed but I'm getting over it. (One can't exactly argue with God about what Heaven should be like.)

I love so much about the ocean water. There's the salty smell that no one can ever recreate even though it seems like every bath and body company tries it. The beautiful roaring sound when the waves roll up into breakers, making foam and pushing it up onto the sand. The rocking motion of the waves as they push by you and pull back the other way, and the power in that tug. I love letting go in the ocean. Just swimming out to the breakers or just past them. I take a breath in, then stop fighting and kicking against the power of the waves and simply let myself be carried by them. It will tug you in every direction, an arm one way and a leg another. It will hurtle you upside down and sideways until you can barely remember which way you started, and then it will turn you back to the air and let you find where it has taken you. I find it exhausting to swim in the ocean, and so much more peaceful to let it take you where it will. Then when it does take you back to the shore there are the rocks that warm themselves in the sun all day, and the ones that the waves can reach are full of tide pools and covered in seaweed. Nothing feels quite the same as good, soft, wet seaweed on the bottoms of bare feet.

Sigh.

So now that you understand that you'll understand my one frustration about large bodies of natural water. I am terrified of fish.