Did you know today is Secretary's Day?

I didn't know that today was Secretary's Day. I think I remember hearing it on the radio, at some point, but it was the farthest thing from my mind.

However, I was blessed by my co-workers at Mayo today.

When I first came to Mayo back in May of 2004, I was simply Dr. K's assistant. He didn't have anyone else working for him. However, in October of that year, he was awarded a huge NIH grant and things have drastically changed. He has since added a slew of new employees. (You can take a look at everyone if you click on the Mayo link on the right.) So technically I am Dr. K's assistant, but in actuality, I work with all the post-docs he now has working for him. I think he currently has seven post-docs and a lab manager. Allison and Sam work in the lab and are both from the midwest. However, the other six post-docs are from all over the world: including China, India, and Iran. None of them speak English as their first language.

I do a variety of work for Dr. K which is why I love this job. I do a good amount of editing and manuscript preparation as well as keeping up with his "electronic library." This is a fairly new technology that enables you to store references and then use them to create a bibliography. Kind of hard to explain but I'll just say this: remember having to make a "works cited" in high school? This program does it for you! I also just do a variety of "secretarial" type of activities. I had always thought that if I wasn't a teacher, I would want to be a secretary. The best part about this job is that I get to still do some editing and writing in addition to secretarial activities.

Today was a very busy at Mayo so when Allison, one of the post-docs, called me around 10 a.m. to "Come down to the lab and help her take care of an emergency!" my first thought was, "What next?" I was honestly, slightly panicked when I reached the lab as this is a lab with very expensive equipment -- my mind was going crazy trying to figure out what could have happened.

Instead I found all the post-docs and Dr. K there with flowers and gifts. I was terribly surprised and actually, very embarrassed. Surprise "parties" are quite overwhelming. You have no idea what to say and no idea what to do because you haven't had any time to prepare. I got beautiful flowers, a gift certificate to a group of restaurants here (all owned by the same parent company). One of these restaurants is BROADSTREET CAFE which is fairly expensive. JB has been there, but I have yet to get to try it. So that is definitely where I will be spending that gift certificate. Dr. K also gave me a gift certificate to the mall. I also got a loaf of great looking bread from Allison (her husband works at a local bread store!) And one of the post-docs who is from Iran, gave me a handmade purse from Iran. Needless to say, I was thoroughly blessed.

I was at Mayo from 7:30-11:30 and then went to RLSF from 11:30-2:30 as they were having a cookout. We have a new employee at RLSF now: Trent. Poor Trent is, obviously, a male, and poor Trent, took a job in a house with 9 other women. Actually, for as much estrogen as that house generates (and even more lately with me in it), it is a fairly drama-free environment and the change of pace (I simply write, edit, and do PowerPoint presentations at RLSF with no administrative assistant like activities) is quite nice and a good break from the hectic pace at Mayo.

I returned to Mayo from 2:30-5:00 and am now at home, waiting for the laundry to finish downstairs. Did you know that we do not have a washer and dryer in our condo? It's the only real thing I am not crazy about at Rochester Towers (and the fact that they decided to close the hot tub) but I put up with it for this great location.

Did you also know that my counter on the bottom of the screen rolled over 2000 this week? Quite exciting. I also went and picked up my STIMS to start my shots on Friday. I always get a kick out of the poor checkout clerks when they see how much I owe. This lady said, "Wow! And that's only 50%". (Mayo pays half of the infertility costs). Anyways, needless to say, my purchase today did not allow for us to celebrate by going out to dinner. This was definitely the beginning of the "real stuff" but the "real stuff" has us very excited. We actually could be doing the "retrieval" as early as next Monday. Wow!