Driving Miss Lazy

I do a lot of driving for my new job. Please, for the moment, let us not discuss non-renewable resources and air pollution (I can not take the guilt). I mostly get to drive to "beautiful" and peculiarly fragrant places like Stockton and Fresno. The other day, however, I was lucky enough to schedule a drive to Mariposa, visit a small hospital in that quaint town, then continue on through Yosemite, over Tiago Pass and on down to Mammoth Lakes. It was really beautiful (without sarcastic quotes). The landscape was breathtaking as I wound up, through, and under rocks (seriously under rocks. If anyone has ever entered Yosemite on that side of the Park, you know what I mean), mountains, trees -- and bears. As I was driving away from the sunset at the top of the pass I saw a small, puffy, brown mass step out on to the road. A bear cub! I started to slow down when I saw an impressively large Momma bear rise up and snatch her youngling off the side of the road. I am sure I saw her scold the brown fur ball; and as I passed the two in their familial moment, I said to Momma bear: "I know what you mean. Those darn kids playing near the road. . ." I think she nodded back in a bonding moment of agreement -- at least in my imagination.

I stayed in a lodge-like hotel called Mammoth Inn, taking my dinner in the dining room while pouring over call schedules and utilization reports. The next morning I woke to the mountains, ate breakfast in a coffee shop in the village and then had a very satisfying meeting with two laboratory department heads of the Mammoth Hospital. I drove home 395 then over to 50. I stopped and waived to the pristine Echo Lake, which I hadn't seen in years, and it started to rain, leaving lovely dimples in the water. I came home to a warm house and kids who had just made hot chocolate. Some days at work can be really great.

Whirl-winds

Wow. My brain is spinning with this new job. One minute I am listening to a PhD. give a presentation on molecular biology and in turn the diagnostic testing that we are supposed to inform our hospital clients about -- and the next minute I am listening to a conference call dealing with a 6 million dollar project -- and it sounds like these are people playing Monopoly as grown-up kids. Sometimes this all very surreal, and very different from where I had ever imagined myself to be (like, when I was ten years old, I thought I would work on a ranch by the ocean and climb and hike and play forever).

But since I have grown-up, responsibility calls. Sometimes I say to myself, self: "this is not my busy sales job. . . this is not my blue company car. . . this is not my 401K plan." Then the days go by, same as it ever was. . .