!Baby sounds & worker power
---
agk's diary
8 January 2022 @ 08:20
---
written on Pinebook Pro with a cup of taiga tea.
Evy's at work; baby watches record spin;
listens to Johnny Cash sing "San Quentin"
---
Break's over. Back in school. Deadlines today. Evy
helped me install software from university to sign
contracts I'm required to "SecureSign" or "eSign"
or whatever. It took three calls to tech support.
Bless her, and them. Heavy snow disrupted other
plans---first snow this winter; more than 8 inches.
It shut down everything except hospitals. Roommate
even came home from Walmart three hours early.
***
Baby learned a new sound. It frazzles my nerves---
guttural, panting, grunt-screaming. Sounds like
she's being eaten by a dog. She coos, cries six
different ways, inhales loud, makes spitting fart
sounds, screeches with joy, groans sleepily, and
babbles. Those sounds are fine.
This morning she started the new sound at 05:15. I
changed her, put her on her potty, and offered the
bottle. She didn't want to cuddle, was warm, didn't
have to burp, wouldn't sleep, and wouldn't calm
herself alone with toys and music or static. I
turned to her in her high chair in the kitchen
where I'd put her to watch me cook and angrily
"SHH'd" her loud enough to make her cry to try and
snap her out of it.
This new sound makes my nervous system want to kill
whatever's eating my baby. I swear the only thing
eating her is boredom. She needs a better "distress
not otherwise specified" sound. Mama's in school.
Baby will by necessity get bored. Hard to study
when homicidal.
***
Evy came home from the hospital last few shifts with
a thousand yard stare. "Covid covid covid" she mused
quietly, sprawled on a chair still in scrubs, N95
still a necklace.
"What happened today?" I asked.
"Don't ask," she said.
I think she had more deaths in Delta days. She did
post-death care for somebody every day in November
and December. Now they're double-rooming patients
in overflow for the first time. The workload seems
tougher than nightshift.
Evy's PRN, so has power over when she's scheduled
(only 38 hours this week). Last night she carefully
composed an email to her supervisor with ideas to
get all patients on her floor daily baths with half
the nursing staff out with covid.
She's helping her union draft legislation to pro-
tect workers during deadly weather. She was forced
on threat of termination to commute through active
tornadoes last month---tornadoes that killed the
Mayfield candle factory workers after they asked to
shelter at home for safety, and management told them
they'd get fired if they did.
I'm proud of Evy's <3 and drive to set things right.
