Susan has concluded an entire week of work during which time she has:

• Developed a cold with green mucous
• Set off a very loud alarm almost every day 
• Reacted calmly during a phone call in which she was informed by her son that there was water pouring from the ceiling in the basement
• Removed the slip she was wearing to lend to a coworker
• Saw a BIG bug in the stairwell 
• Went out for weeknight cocktails

Susan had a good first day of work.
She packed enough food to get her through eight hours including a green smoothie made from odds & ends in her fridge and some home made snacks. She was given a brand new, never used desk, hipped to the secret back door parking spots and only set off the alarm outside the office once. Susan got put right to work, no wasting time standing around the water cooler, she is expected to produce results.

Susan liked being back in the familiar embrace of employment.

Susan's unemployed sabbatical is about to end.
Monday she will wake up with the alarm, put on nice clothes, fill her To-Go cup with coffee and drive to her NEW JOB!

Susan has a NEW JOB!

Susan is going to work for Acme Heaven Sent (working title only) because her NEW JOB was sent to her directly from Heaven.

The owner of the company for which Susan previously worked approached her about a new position, one so new no one has ever worked it before. Susan's NEW JOB will be to give people new jobs!

The first thing Susan has to do is re-establish a normal schedule by going to bed on time, something she has not done in seven months.

Wish her luck.

Susan's little corner of the universe is currently covered in snow & encased in ice. She chipped it all off her car and drove very slowly on slippery roads to her doctor appointment. Susan's not had a regular neighborhood doctor in years, eons even, and went to establish herself as a new patient.

She sat in the waiting room and completed some forms filled with questions. Early on she was asked to provide her primary language for which she wrote proper English. When she got to Marital Status she looked at the short list of possibilities which ended with WIDOWED. This was the first time Susan had to answer that question since her status changed. She checked WIDOWED and moved to the next question.

Everything was good up until Emergency Contact.
The husband had been her emergency guy from practically the beginning of her adult life. Big problems, little problems, no problems, he watched out for her the entire time.

Her lifelong Emergency Contact was dead.

The weight of that absence hit her with surprising swiftness and she began to cry. Quietly. She didn't want to attract any attention. She sat in her seat and thought about who the new emergency contact in her life would be, and cried some more. The answer ended up being pretty simple, she didn't want her son to assume that responsibility right now so she named her little sister. Susan's little sister was the most capable person she knew and would make a fine emergency contact. It's a function she performed without incident fourteen years earlier when Susan got a government job in NYC at the same time the husband landed in the hospital.

Susan dried her widow's tears & turned the completed forms in at the reception window. Shortly thereafter while sitting alone in the examination room waiting for the nurse to take her blood pressure she cried. The nurse left and Susan started up again. The new doctor came in and the two had a nice chat, when she left Susan cried. This was the situation every time Susan had some privacy. It finally stopped when she was sent to the toilet to provide a urine sample, the waterworks had run dry.

And, Susan had a urinary tract infection.