I'm not apologizing, but...

I certainly was not minimizing the importance of Obama's inauguration in yesterday's post. Anyone who is adept at reading between the lines could see that the point was simply that there are very important events for each and every person, each and every day. Yes, the inauguration of Barack Obama was special, but in the long run, it will be viewed by most as merely the beginning of another American presidential administration...which is really how it ought to be.

The weather up here
Beautiful morning! Clear skies, sunshine and current temperature up to 2 F. I saw a low of about -4 F around 6:30 a.m. The high is forecast to be around 18 F so it should be a great day for an outdoor activity of some sort. My son is going boarding this afternoon. I'm hoping to get out in another hour or so and either do a little back country skiing or snowshoeing before heading off to work at 1 p.m.

Speaking of work
I'm in health care, so I work all these crazy hours - sometimes days, then evenings, then days again, sometimes weekends, a couple of holidays a year. Do you know there are only six holidays a year if you work at a hospital? If you work in health care, you know what this is all about. If you work in a small hospital, you have the added bonus of carrying a beeper around 24 hours a day! Please don't misunderstand me, I do like my job, it's the unpredictability of the work hours I have grown to hate over the last 25+ years. A typical week consists of a mix of day shifts (7a to 5p) and evening shifts (1p to 11p) with overnight or evening "on-call" mixed in. I could potentially be at work from 1 p.m. today until 5 p.m. tomorrow. So you see, there is great potential for not sleeping much through much of the week. I don't believe this is healthy in the long run. It doesn't do any good to worry too much about it; these days, when I hear the unemployment numbers on the radio, I am thankful I have a job at all.

Coffee?, Tea?
I knew there was something else about yesterday that was special: I began cutting back on coffee. It's not that I actually drink that much coffee, or that I have any profound reason to drink less of it. I just go through these spells occasionally where I begin to feel dependent on the caffeine so I either switch to tea or go caffeine-free altogether. I must be entering one of those phases. So yesterday I drank my usual cup brewed at home, and because it was fairly steady at work, never even thought about another cup of coffee until after lunch, even though I was dragging a little from the lower-than-normal caffeine level in my body. I broke out a box of organic Himalayan green tea I had bought for the occasion and made myself a cup of tea. It was wonderful even if it contained considerably less caffeine than my body thought it needed. I can be frugal at times, (I like to think I am always frugal, but I'd be giving myself far too much credit) so when I drink tea made from a tea bag, I typically get two cups of good-enough-for-me tea from the one tea bag. The other thing that I like about tea is that it's so much easier to prepare than coffee, just boil water and add a tea bag. There's one more reason tea is special to me, I guess it's a metaphysical thing because I can't really put my finger on it at the moment, but when I drink tea I feel more connected to the world at large...who knows?