Waiting as the VA drains away my soul

It's a beautiful December Saturday in southern California. We've had some funny weather lately (for instance...I've had to use my defrost to get the ice off of my car's windshield more than once this week). It's been raining, cold and nasty for the better part of the week, but somehow the sun managed to poke out from the clouds and life warmed up into the 60's today. It's actually the kind of day that makes you feel like going out and doing things -like errands-because an umbrella is not a necessity and dirty pant-hems are not a foregone conclusion. Which is, friends, EXACTLY why I am spending my entire day sitting in the VA hospital doing not much of anything at all except taking inane quizzes on the internet that tell me "What Breed of Cat" I am, or "What Kind of Wine" I should try. (By the way, quiz guru - I am most certainly NOT as nasty as most Siamese kitties, nor do I think that chardonnay is the way to go. Rethink your advice.) It's the last day of my ICU rotation, and had it not been for one unfortunate fact, I would have been skipping merrily out of the hospital doors at 11:00am this morning, ready to enjoy my two solid weeks of Christmas vacation. The unfortunate fact: my ICU team senior resident is the on-call resident today. This means that while he will be here all night...the rest of the team will be here all day to help him should he get barraged with admissions from the ER. I am hesitant to type these next few words, lest I jinx myself...but...my pager has not gone off. Not a peep, not a beep, not a chirp. Not that I really have much to look forward to if I went home: while my Christmas shopping is done, my house could be declared a national disaster area. {Come to think of it, maybe I SHOULD have it declared as such...then maybe FEMA would help me out, too.} There are dishes to do, floors that are crying out to be vaccuumed, a pile of laundry that smells rather badly, and a million other things to do before Chris and I set out for Phoenix on Tuesday. So the unfortunate reality is that even if I were not tied to a chair in the VA doing not much of anything, I'd probably just be glued to the sofa at home doing not much of anything there, either. *Sigh* But still, I wish, I wish, I wish...that I were skipping happily through the doors on the way to Christmas vacation, instead of rambling aimlessly on the inter web in a feeble attempt to bide my time.