Per Diem Nursing Rocks – Carpe Diem

I love my wife, I really do. Lisa has been a wonderful partner. She has put up with so much of my bullshit drama for a very long time.

I know, that is hard to believe. Me? Hard to live with?!

Come on, I’m sure even Santa Claus has his challenging moments.

But, as you all know if you have been reading these blogs, Lisa retired last Thanksgiving from her profession as a full-time nurse and the daytime hermetic life I had been enjoying for 4 decades came to an abrupt end.

You see, when Lisa was killing herself everyday as a devoted nurse, a real Florence Nightingale, she was too exhausted to care about anything else when she got home.

Plus, over time, undiagnosed cataracts had lessened her already challenged vision, so if I stood still, she couldn’t see me. And she rarely ventured down to the dungeon, my realm, because her eyesight impacted her depth perception, so she avoided the stairs whenever possible.

I could also hide by going outside. If I was far enough away from the house I was just another blur out there with the mules. And there is always a good excuse to fix something on Casa Claire.

Life was good.

Then Lisa went and had her expensive bionic lenses inserted as a replacement to those cloudy cataracts.

Fuck me. She can spot a fly on the furthest fencepost on our property. And she’s up and down the stairs like a teenager.

Now she’s always underfoot. She constantly shows up unannounced, like some ninja, in the doorway of my office, asking unexpected questions and seeking opinions on her continuous stream of new projects while refocusing diverted energy in my direction that used to be spent everyday on caring for the sick and infirm. It’s exhausting.

And, on top of it all, she now has the audacity to move shit that I have placed in various spots in the dungeon. I used to be the Lord of the Underworld at Casa Claire. Today, I learned of a favorite photograph of Venice that had suddenly disappeared from one of my ledges. I went to look at it this morning and it was gone. Poof. Not even a “Hey, do you mind if I . . . . “

She better not touch my altar. I don’t want to start hexing. . . .

But now that she is back on stride, every once in a while, she feels guilty over abandoning her overworked co-workers who are constantly texting her about their troubles, and accepts an offer to do a per diem shift at work.

Today is one of those per diem days.

And now that she has her bionic eyesight back, she drives her own car to work. That’s an extra solitary hour out of my life that I get back as a bonus. No more Driving Miss Lisa.

It feels like I just got an unwarranted school sick day from my childhood.

If I didn’t have legal work, I would completely play hooky today.

Binge watch a foreign subtitled detective series on Netflix or Amazon while I stuff myself with cheese and crackers washed down with copious amounts of lemonade. Crumbs all over the place. Openly tossing cheese chunks to an elated Blue instead of sneaking it via furtive eye signals and quick slight of hand before Lisa catches us. When she had those cataracts, it was game on.

A man can dream, can’t he?

But since I have other professional responsibilities, this daytime reprieve just provides a psychological lift.

And I’ll take it.

But now I need to go cuddle some kitties.

Then do my rounds.

And then do some legal work.

But it is Thursday, and that means I can hear Friday breathing in the shadows.

You fine, five readers take a moment to appreciate your hard working spouses, and all of the unrealized freedom that it provides you.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder.

One more reason to never retire.

But, no matter what we do today, let us, one and all, make it a great one.