Adventures in editing

We have 3 newsletters at my job, which I manage. I write two of them myself, and the third is our employee newsletter - we have an editorial board who do most of the writing, and I'm the executive editor.

We have a new board member who was to write about our new defibrillators, since she's also on the Health & Safety committee. She submitted her article to me on Monday with this email:

this kinda sucks but i've just been insanely busy-promise better results
next time
your the best !!!!!

Shudder. This is a punctuation nightmare. And, I'm the best WHAT? Oh, I see, you mean "you're the best." Shudder.

So I open the attachment entititled "Defribrilators" - great. You left out one L and added a superfluous R. Perfect. This is going to be good, I can tell. The 'article' she submitted is below. I say 'article' because everything but the first paragraph was copied and pasted verbatum from an announcement that was sent out two weeks ago. Sorry, that's not fair. She did change it somewhat. She copied and pasted it, then messed with the font, and screwed with punctuation and spacing for no apparent reason. Oh, and she changed "fool-proof" to "idiot proof" - nice. What I love most is that she starts the article off by reminding our readers of a fellow employee who died of a heart attack at a work conference 10 years ago. Way to get their attention by hitting them in the face.

Without further ado, here's what she submitted. I think I'll highlight a few glaring issues, just for fun.

__________________________________________

AUTOMATED EXTERNAL DEFRIBRILLATORS (ya, that's not spelled correctly.
That's why there's a wavy red line under it.)


Had debrillators (What?!) been available at the conference years ago Mike Lenucci might still be with us .But they were not and he is not.

An AED is used to treat the most common causes of sudden cardiac arrest where the heart stops pumping. When used correctly, the AED automatically analyzes the heart rhythm to determine if a shock is required. If it is, the AED sends a shock
across the heart to reactivate the heart. The use of this device in conjunction with CPR can be repeated until emergency medical services arrive.

A few weeks ago Our Company made the investment of several defribillator (this was spelled correctly in the announcement she took it from) units to be made available on each floor. Training was provided to select employees as to how to employ these units.But training was not essential since these 1 use only units are virtually idiot proof.They will not generate a charge if a heartbeat is detected or if the unit is not placed on the torso properly .Each are easily accessible on all OurCompany (there should be a space between those words) floors The following first Aiders have completed AED training and are your primary resource for using these
devices:

***********
***********
***********
***********
Training for the remaining First Aiders will be completed over the next few months.

AED's have been installed at the following locations: ***********, ***********,
*********** .


Please feel free to contact anyone on the Joint Health and Safety committee for any further information.

__________________________________________

Awesome. Just awesome. I'm so glad she joined our editorial board. Now I can look forward to rewriting her articles every month. Yay!

I could rip my face off!

I haven't posted in ages... sorry. It's been a busy couple of weeks. Last Tuesday I started getting some sort of allergic reaction to something unknown (I have no allergies... that I know of) and spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights hopped up on Benadryl, which knocks me out. I had to work still, but my face and neck were so itchy I could rip my skin off. To make matters worse, my left cheek swelled up like crazy and was so red it looked like I got punched in the face. Awesome. Itchy *and* abused.


So now I'm down to just a few itchy welts on my neck, which Reactine helps a lot. Bloody hell. I really don't know what the problem is, but it sucks. My in-laws stayed with us Saturday night, so they had the Sunday morning Indian show on the TV. The horoscope guy (who, according to my mother-in-law, is "always right!") said that Sagittarians should watch out for allergic reactions, especially to seafood. Creepy, right? Now, I've never had an allergy to seafood before, and in fact, me and seafood are close friends (if by 'friends' I mean that I love them and eat them and that's good for me but bad for them).

I had shrimp twice last week. I swear to god, If I've developed an allergy to shrimp, I might as well just die now. It would be that horrible.

A friend of mine developed an allergy to chocolate sometime in her teen years - previously, she had been a chocaholic. The allergy got so bad that she didn't just get itchy welts, her throat started to swell up. So she had to stop eating the most perfect of all foods, or she could die. It was terrible. Then, miraculously, the universe righted itself nearly 15 years later. She had allergy testing done before she went on her honeymoon, and found that her allergy was gone! Needless to say, she called up the bakery making her wedding cake and promptly changed her order from boring ol' white to chocolate truffle. MMmm. it was gooood.

Anyway, her chocoate miracle aside, I CAN NOT BE ALLERGIC TO SHRIMP. I'm hoping it was a new moisturizer that I had been using for a few days before the flare up. Or a short-lived bout of the plague or something. Once my neck is entirely back to normal, I'll have to throw some more shrimps on the barbie (well, on the George Foreman, since I live in a condo) and test it out again. With a big box of Benalyn nearby, just in case.

Hump Day.

A couple of quick things:

I had another baby dream last night. At least this time I wasn't actually 'me' in my dream - I was someone else who had adopted a Chinese baby.
This dream didn't freak me out as much - first, because it wasn't actually me. Second, because I know why I had the dream - I was watching America's Got Talent (actually, my husband was watching it, but I watched about 5 minutes worth. I don't know why he loves 'reality' TV so much) and there was a segment on this adopted Chinese girl who is a contortionist.

Anyway, I'm really REALLY counting down until I know I'm not pregnant. Good lord - this has been the longest month ever!

On a different topic, I wonder why it is that working with the IT department to get something done is always such a bloody ordeal. It doesn't seem to matter what company you're at, the IT team is always the same. I've been asking for a folder on a public server since March to complete a re-vamp of our communications here. All I need is a folder where I can house documents so I can link to them within communications to staff. That's it. A folder on a server. And here I am, FOUR MONTHS LATER still chasing them down, and now they're trying to set me up with a SharePoint site instead of getting me a simple folder - which is much more complicated than it needs to be.

All I need is a folder!!! With write-privileges!

Why is this so difficult?
UGh.
I'm going to lunch.

The affliction of the smug married couple

We're officially that couple. The one that can't just be content with their own happiness - they have to try to make everyone around them as happy as they are by trying to forge couples out of their single friends.

We just can't help it. We're smug marrieds. This is what we do... apparently.

On Saturday, we had our friend Jules over for dinner. She was in our wedding party (technically as a groomsmaid, as she's really my husband's friend, though I've known her since highschool too). The whole purpose of her trip to Toronto (she's back living in London, after a few years spent living here post-university) was to meet our other friend, Sam. Sam is part family, part friend, actually - he's my husband's sister's husband's brother. Right, that sounds more convoluted than it really is. My brother-in-law's brother. He's a good guy, though a bit of a pain in the ass when it comes to stirring up family controversy, but that's beside the point. Anyway, he has told us on more than one occasion that he just wants to meet "a good person." She doesn't have to be gorgeous or a genius, or anything - just as long as she's a good person and in the same stage of life as him. Even his parents have appealed to us, saying "she doesn't even have to be Indian" (this used to be a really big deal for them) "she just has to be nice." Sam's about 8 months shy of hitting the big 4-0, and the family is getting a little panicked. He's getting old, he's pretty overweight, and he needs to find a girl, get married, and have babies before his parents explode. He's made it quite clear that he just wants to meet someone nice and get married already.

So, we thought and thought about who we could introduce Sam to, and the only person we could come up with was Jules - who is also pretty overweight, not a pretty girl, but sweet, thoughtful, and a very good person, and who, at 30, has never been on a date before. At 30. Never.

We thought about this nearly 2 years ago at our engagement party, but never did anything with it. Sam's parents are pretty much the devil incarnate and spend their days trying to make my sister-in-law feel inadequate in some way or other (yes, the doctor. The one who married their other son 6 years ago, has given them 2 beautiful granddaughters and has another baby on the way. The one who pays for them to come on their family vacations. The perpetually inadequate daughter-in-law...?). They're really negative people, and once told my other sister-in-law that she could do better than her Italian fiance - she could marry a nice Indian boy. She never said anything like that to us - but mostly they just don't talk to me. I prefer that, actually.

Did we want to throw Jules to the wolves like that? Sweet, naive Jules? Well, in the end, we decided it was worth it. Sam has always been their favourite son and they're very open about that, so whoever he's with will be able to do no wrong. And really, Jules' family is pretty effed up too, and we don't fault her for it. And Jules has finally realized that all of her friends are married, and the "BFF" friendships she's had since highschool are evolving beyond her control because of it. She's just as desperate as he is to just meet someone already.

So, we asked her, she said great. We asked him, he said great. They remembered each other (so theoretically, the physical wasn't really an issue) and added each other to Facebook, and we set up a double dinner date at our house.

They came over, we cooked while they visited, and he stayed until 2 a.m. They talked all night - lots in common, no shortage of conversation, and considering how shy she normally is, they had a great time, we think. We know Jules is interested (she stayed at our place that night, so we chatted) but we have no idea what his headspace is.

And honestly, it's killing us not knowing.

My husband really wants to call him to get the scoop. He HAS to know what Sam thought about Jules. I told him it's just not our place. We did everything we should do, and now we're done. We'll see him on Saturday in London anyway, as my sister-in-law is having us all over for a family birthday barbecue. He may or may not say something then - but we just need to butt out. The ball is in their court - if they want it, that is.

I have a feeling though, that my husband won't be able to leave well enough alone. He won't be able to resist from meddling, I just know it.

Luckily, our foray into the realm of smug married matchmakers was short-lived. Jules is our only single girl friend. All my friends are either married with babies, or in serious relationships at the least. All of his friends are boys... and single. Nothing we can do for them - they'll just have to fend for themselves, I guess.

I hope things work for Sam & Jules - I hope he's interested, since I know she is. They'd probably be good for each other, and on paper at least, they are exactly what the other person is looking for. Two good people, just looking for another good person who will look past his/her flaws. But, as good as we are at throwing a blind-date dinner party, we just can't gauge chemistry between two people.

Here's hoping. But either way, we've done what we set out to do: Jules has had her first date ever... at 30 years old. Sam and his parents will get off our backs.

And we can go back to just being smug marrieds.

Top of mind

I woke up from a really disturbing dream, and I've been feeling a little 'off' all day.

I had a baby, and apparently I had been ignoring the fact that I was pregnant- I just wouldn't admit it. So here I am with this newborn t hinking, oh crap! I have to get a car seat or something, don't I? Maybe I should read a book on this or something! I was completely blindsided by it all - since I had been ignoring the fact for 9 months, it was really like waking up tomorrow and being surprised by parenthood.

I am throroughly freaked out and counting down the days until I find out that I'm definitely not pregnant.

I don't think I've ever blogged about this before, and I don't think I'll really get into it right now, but the kids issue is a big one between my husband and I - especially since we've passed the one year of marriage mark. I've always been up front about the fact that I don't ever see myself with kids - you never know, things may change years and years down the road, but I really haven't ever seen myself as Mom material. I'm a great aunt. That's all. I can't even keep plants alive and I'm incredibly selfish. That's just who I am.

My husband says he'd like kids, but not anytime soon, for sure. But we've agreed to not even think about it now - we say "we'll talk when we're in our 30s" - but for me, that means there is still a very good chance that we'll talk and I'll say, "nope, not gonna happen" and we move on. For him, he's hoping we'll talk about WHEN to have kids, and hopefully not IF. Still though, he knows and respects that in the end it's my decision, so if I say no, that's that.

We don't tell his family that I'm anti-parenthood. That would make me the worst daughter-in-law of all time, telling them that their only son will not procreate so the family name will live on. We just tell them, when asked about kids, "oh, we're way to young for that. We're not even talking about it for years." If we do decide that it's never going to happen, I think it would be best to tell his family either that we just can't have kids (I have not problem being 'barren') or that it just never happened, so it wasn't meant to be.
My family has always known that I don't see it in my cards at all. I've asked my family to just not talk about it with his family.

Anyway, we're on the same page for the time being. No kids now, for damn sure. We're birth-control-aholics. And if I was to get pregnant now, we're united on what we'd do there, and the solution wouldn't be a mini-me or mini-him running around.

Either way, this dream really freaked me out and I've been feeling anxious and weird all morning. I feel like I could throw up - which makes me even more anxious and weird.