Second Norway vacation this year

As you may know, I have worked at the same agency for 16 (!!) years.  The one benefit to this job is that I have always had lots of vacation, starting out with 5 weeks and earning a few days each year of employment.  This year, the agency has gone through some weird changes.  For one thing, they have renamed our main building "Corporate" and/or "Headquarters" instead of what it used to be called, which was 590 (the address).  They also changed some peoples' titles, like my director who was called the Director of Mental Health and is now called Vice President, Mental Health.  Or something.  Basically, I can't imagine WHY anyone would bother to make these changes, and knowing what I know about the corporate world, they probably hired some consultants who charge my entire annual salary for a days' work, just to make title changes that no one gives a sh** about or remembers. 

The other thing they did is that they changed how we all get vacation time.  Instead of having vacation days and personal days, as we used to, we now get PTO and it's all in one lump.  Vacation time used to be accumulated by fiscal year and personal days by the calendar year, so I always had days to take, which was really nice.  Now that it's PTO, it's all by calendar year, and that means for this year, I had one and a half years' worth of PTO to take by December 31, or in other words, I had about TEN weeks of vacation this year.  That is why I went to Norway for three weeks in the spring and three weeks in the summer. 

Now you know....

When I lived in Norway as a 20-something year old, I always wanted to go to a place called Preikestolen.

 

It is high above the fjords near a city called Stavanger and we were forbidden to go there, but I never lived in Stavanger, so I wouldn't have had the chance, anyway.  When I went back to Norway with Esther in 2001, we tried to go but it was still off season so the busses weren't running.  When I went back this spring, there was still snow on the ground.  So this time... WE WERE GOING!!  It involved a 5 hour drive from Bergen, including two ferries, then a 4 mile hike up the mountain, but it was worth it.  People that know me said, "YOU are going hiking??"  And likely people that know Kevin were thinking the same thing.  But the thing is that it was so beautiful and Kevin had me laughing the whole time, so it was a good time.  Here I am at the very beginning.

And here's Kevin at the bottom of the trail. 

The weather that day was foggy, but it didn't rain.  Here you can see that as we progress, there is fog waiting for us.

The fog was so thick at the top that we lost the main trail and ended up over Preikestolen, so this is a picture of us looking down on the people that were on the right trail. 

We made the whole trek up there and then couldn't see a freakin' thing. 

 I am not sure if it was because I was afraid I might just walk off the edge, since I could barely see it, but I surprised myself and got totally freaked out once I was up there.  Kevin might have been freaked out, but didn't show it.  

This is a woman who was not freaked out and sat right on the edge.

Kevy Kev and me, pretty much as close to the edge as I got. 

 

 

 

Heading back down....

 



Once we started back down, the fog started lifting right away.  We thought about going back up to the top, but since it was already around 6 pm and we had two hours of walking ahead of us, we didn't. 

Many, many times along the way, we joked about pushing each other off.  This would have been the PERFECT chance for me to push him.  But he had the keys to the car, so...

We had a completely different experience on the way down than we did on the way up and discovered how beautiful the trail was.  You can't tell from these pictures, but behind us, we could see all the way to the fjord. 

On the way up, we couldn't even see that there was this body of water, which you are allowed to swim in. 



Although on the way up, Kevin said, "I must really love you to do this," once we were up there, he said, "This is so cool.  I want to come back with my kids."  So maybe I'll get to go again, and maybe it won't take 20 years, and maybe it will be better weather... and maybe I'll push him off! 

 



 

Molly's cupcakes

It is my 15th anniversary at NYF and here is the cake to prove it. It. Was. Delicious.

They got chocolate /chocolate because that's what Mary would want, and they also got a few vanilla /vanilla for good measure.  A new bakery to drool over, called Molly's Cupcakes.

This is a slight exaggeration, but just picture me as Bob, and you will have a vague idea what my job has been like for the past two years. The difference is that Reagan and Chris take this guy's advice and no one ever takes mine.



I wish they really did offer PhDs in Peekaboo or Masters in "where's your nose" because I would totally rock that!

in the eye of the beholder

One of my job responsibilities is to do mental health screenings on many of the 300+ children in foster care in the Queens region of the agency. This means that all the kids are seen by me, our psychologist or one of the interns, and we ask the children or their foster parents, depending on their age, a bunch of questions from a questionnaire to see how things are going in the foster home. If we are even one day late doing the screening, we don't get credit when audit time comes around, so I have to keep track of who is seen and when and make sure they are all seen within the year.

One of our kids was scheduled to be in for a medical appointment and was also supposed to see me afterwards. But I didn't see him for what ever reason. Our secretary kept telling me that I did see him on July 20, and although I am a total slacker, I do keep track of who I do and do not see. I have a very complicated system which involves a list of names on a Post-it. Once I see the kid, I write his/her name on a Post-it. It may stay on that Post-it for a day, a week, or whatever, until I get around to writing up the report. While it's waiting to be written, the questionnaire and all my notes on the child sit in a pile. Once I write up my report, I save it on my computer, and then cross the name off the Post-it list, and then put my notes in a different pile. It's very technical, don't try to understand it.

Anyway, this child's name was not on my Post-it, no notes were in either pile and no report was saved on my computer, which means this child was NOT seen by me in 2011.

But the secretary kept telling me I did it, and I am telling her I did not do it, so she tries to get to the bottom of it by calling the foster mother. The foster mother said that the screening was done by a "young woman with long brown hair." Everyone immediately says, "OH, that means Mary did it." Mary is a young woman who was an intern with us this year, and she indeed has brown hair. But my immediate reaction was to make a silly joke and say, "What?? I have brown hair too. Are you saying I'm not young?" They all laugh, and of course, now that they have a description, realize that I was right all along and that I did not do the screening because young Mary did it. So they start to figure out how they are going to get the information from Mary, whose internship ended a month ago.

I figure out it can't be Mary because Mary only worked on Fridays and this screening was supposedly done on a Wednesday. So the next thought was, "It must have been Melanie." Melanie is a young woman with brown hair who used to work in our office, quit last year, moved to London, didn't like it and moved back and then started working at my agency on a volunteer basis on Wednesdays. When this discussion happened, she was on vacation in Greece. My supervisor tells me to email Melanie because she will surely read her email while in Greece and we can finally put this mystery to rest. However, I'm 99.99% positive that Melanie did not do this screening and I'm not even going to bother emailing her because I have already figured out who did the screening and that was NO ONE and the foster mother does not remember that I did the screening, not on July 20, but in February on a different child.

So even though she does not believe me, the medical secretary reschedules the screening for today. And even though the foster mother believes it was done already, she agrees to come back with the boy.

When they arrive, she takes a look at me, says, "Didn't we already do this? I know I was just here and we sat in this office." I said, "Yes, you did, but that was six months ago and that was for the older sister." She thinks for a minute and finally agrees that I am right.

The moral of this story is I AM THE YOUNG WOMAN!!

About a month ago I had an operation, so I've been on medical leave. Three things are awesome about this.
1) I still get a paycheck every two weeks, but haven't done any work for over a month.
2) After all of this time off, I still have over 600 sick hours accrued.
3) I get to stay home every day and not feel guilty about anything.


My life is a little bit like this old episode of 'Friends.' The only thing missing is my recliner chair.

Which is another thing I love about being home. I used to watch 'Friends' every day at 7 and 11. Now they have re-runs of stupid shows like 'Two and a Half Men' at those times, but I discovered that I can watch 'Friends' from 5-7 now. I realized that the show feels pretty dated... but I couldn't put my finger on why. Their hairstyles and clothes are actually very similar to what people still wear today. Then I realized... it's the stupid laugh track! None of the comedies I watch now have laugh tracks (i.e. 'The Office,' '30 Rock,' or 'Modern Family.' ) It makes such a difference.

This is the exciting stuff to blog about after a month of medical leave!

New Orleans

This week, I attended a conference that was sponsored by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. Kind of a weird name, right? I feel like it is saying that we are "pro" child abuse. When I wasn't in the conference, I was trying to see as much of New Orleans as possible.

I stuck my head into the St. Louis cathedral.

Had beignets at Cafe Dumont.

Went to the New Orleans Museum of Art. which was closed due to some kind of power failure, so I just wandered around the sculpture garden.

Took a river boat cruise... here's the moon over the Mighty Mississippi

Took the street car "uptown."

Yes, I did also go to Bourbon St, but did not stay long and did not take any pictures!

Today I was working with one of my clients, who is three years old. He found my little Yoda figure and started to play with it. When he wasn't looking, I stuck Yoda in my pocket.

It brought to mind a similar incident from a few years ago. One of my clients, with whom I had worked for several years, was moving to Staten Island, so I closed his case. During our last session, I told him he could choose anything from my cabinet to take home. For some reason, he chose a little figure of Greedo. I tried super hard to talk him out of taking it because I knew he probably didn't even know who Greedo was and that it would be lost within the week. As with any 11 year old boy, the more I tried to talk him out of it, the more he wanted it and I gave in. I decided that this was the nicest thing I've done for one of my foster children. However, I won't be that nice again, and therefore, Yoda is safely in my pants pocket.

p.s. Han shot first.

Moving day

Yesterday was moving day. I took the opportunity to take some last photos of my beloved window after my office was completely empty. It has a nice arch, which is partially covered because of duct work in the ceiling. Not only do we have a great view, but we get great light all day long and we can open these windows when it's nice out or when the heating/cooling system is not quite right. We were told we'd have to move at the end of March, but we were able to finagle it so that we could stay until after this tree bloomed. The blossoms are all gone by now, so we got the best part of spring. (See how positive I'm being about this whole thing?)

Here's my supervisor's windows (she has a corner office and thus gets two). This is the western view, of beautiful, tree-lined Christopher St.

Here's the southern view, which is of an apartment building and another tree in front of the building.

My new office is actually not so bad. It's probably 3x as big as my old office and I still have a huge window. Here's my new view. I probably wouldn't mind the move so much, except I know there's another one to come, probably two, and possibly three. (long story.)

And here's the wallpaper in my office. It used to be a bedroom (which is part of that long story about why I'll be moving again in the future).

All of this aside, I'm grateful to have a job. We just got the results of our RFP, so we'll see if that's true come June 30 (the end of the fiscal year).

Top three questions I've been asked this month

...at work, anyway.

1. You're moving again?
2. Why are you moving again?
3. How many times have they moved you?

My answers:
1. Yep.
2. I don't know.
3. I lost count.

In the news

A New York Times article about the new charter school that's part of my agency.

140th anniversary

This past weekend was the 140th Anniversary of my agency. It sounds like it was a great reunion!

What I'm doing this weekend...

Here's what I'm up to on Sunday and my agency is one of the benefactors for this race.

Back to work

My work schedule is a little weird. Since I work with kids, mostly I have to see them after school. A lot of times my "work" day starts at 4 pm, which means that I am at work until 8 or 9 most nights and I get super excited on the nights I can actually leave by 7:00. In the summer, I don't run groups and some of my kids can come earlier in the day, as long as they are not in summer school. So when I came back to work on Monday, I decided I was going to do five 8-hour days, with the goal of taking advantage of the extra daylight hours and good weather. My first day back, I had this conversation with my supervisor.

Me: I was determined to leave work by 6:00 every day this week.
Mary: That's a great idea! You should do that.
Me: Well.... it's quarter to eight.
Mary: (Disappointed) ...Oh....

National Social Work Month

Just a few more days to celebrate!

But April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, so there's still lots of fun to be had!

NYF in the news

Here's a piece about one of the Sisters that I work with. She is a really wonderful person that I have known for the 12 years I have worked at the Foundling. Of course, I didn't always feel that way about her. She really gave me a hard time for the first few years that I worked there. I don't think she trusted that I knew what I was doing (and I kind of didn't at first). But we have become close over the years, and in the last few weeks, as she was preparing for the closing of Blaine hall, we really bonded as we cried over this wonderful program dying. Some people feel sorry for the kids that lived in the group home, but honestly, I think it was a great program and those kids were so well cared for. The saddest thing was that the home closed about one month before Christmas and Sr. Teresa didn't know what she would do for Christmas because she had spent every holiday with those kids for 34 years. She got choked up every time she talked about it.

If you have seen the movie Doubt, you have basically seen a movie with Meryl Streep channeling Sister Teresa Kelly, right down to the accent. I'm not kidding. It was eerie for me to watch.

If you haven't seen it, you should. It is a great movie... one of my top 5 of the year. (I still plan to make my list of the best of 2008...)

the outcome....

This case is over now, but I'm sure there are many more to come. Proof that our work is not done! Even so, one of our programs is closing and who knows how many more are coming.

NYF in the news

"Today in New York History" is one of my favorite features on local Time Warner channel NY1. On October 11, they featured my agency. You can watch here.

Sonya, LCSW

This happened to be posted on my birthday. I'm taking it as a sign. Of what, I don't know.

Pistachio Cupcakes: Believe the hype

I started my birthday celebration on Friday night after work with a cupcake. I have heard about the pistachio cupcakes at Sugar Sweet Sunshine a lot over the past few months. Although I had been to this beloved bakery a few times over the years, I had never indulged because I always want what I want, which is usually the yellow/buttercream cupcake. Since I rarely go to the LES, I just haven't had the chance to branch out much, until now. So I'm here to say: I can bear testimony that the pistachio cupcake (pictured here on the right) is delicious and worth all the praise. The one on the left is the pumpkin spice and is also quite delicious. And Sugar Sweet Sunshine cupcakes are still only $1.50, compared to Magnolia, which are up to $2.50.

Another reason I love Sugar Sweet Sunshine is that a few months ago, when my agency was doing our annual Celebration for the kids, they really came through for us. For as long as I have been involved (11 years) and probably many more than that, we have gotten our cake from a very well-known Italian bakery in the east Village. This year, they called the morning of the Celebration and said that they had been shut down by the health department and would not be able to deliver the cake. My co-workers scrambled and called SSS to see if they could help us out. They were able to make cupcakes for 100 people with just a few hours notice. They are heroes!!

It's about time

If you are interested in foster care in NYC, this is an interesting policy change.

The last quote is from our Executive Director. This is SO him!