My Weblog

When modern technology fails..........

you have to go back to the "old" ways. I left for work the other day at 2:30 in the afternoon. It was SO HOT, my a/c couldn't manage to cool the van even though I was traveling for 15 minutes. I arrived at work with a racing heart, sweaty scalp and face. It took a LONG time for me to cool down and my heart rate to get back to normal. I can't go through that again, but I'm scheduled the same today as I was then. I have made a couple of adjustments to try to get me to work in better shape. One, I have pinned my hair up off my neck. And, two, I have a small towel I am going to soak in cold water and wrap around my neck while I'm driving. Chances are, by the time I get to work, the upper back of my shirt will be wet. People may stare--let 'em. I will regard that as additional cooling once I get inside the store where the ventilation system is blowing.  I hope with these two changes to arrive at work in better shape............

I should note that I'm quite sure my a/c is functioning properly. Coming home, after dark, I had to cut back on the a/c because I was getting chilled. So, it's not the a/c--it's the dadblasted desert sun.

After work:

Work was shocking tonight. Do you remember that I was praying for a co-worker who had been told he was riddled with cancer? Then they did surgery and found no cancer at any of the diagnosed sites? Well, today he was let go, no warning, just "you're outta here as of today". His recently hired assistant was also let go as was the guy who assembles items for display in the store as well as items purchased by customers. Their positions were eliminated--corporate has decided to contract the work out nationwide. No warning for any of them. Just text messages at 6am to call the store manager and when they got in touch with her, they were told to come in and clean out their lockers..........Everyone loved the healed-from-cancer dude and he's been with the company for 15 years. They are giving him 2 weeks severance...........

Needless to say this did not have a good effect on the mood/motivation of the rest of us. They like to tell us we're all part "of the family". My thinking is if this is how they treat "family", please consider me a stranger. Seems to me you'd offer members of your "family" different positions within the company if their jobs had been eliminated.............. The assistant has hardly any English. She's a hard worker, but being able to communicate, well, that's important in retail. So, perhaps letting her go was the only alternative. But, there is no such impediment with the other two. I was speaking with the head cashier about it. She said when she came in, she went into the breakroom. It was full to capacity and no one was speaking. I'm not surprised. What does one say in this circumstance?

When I was a kid............

we lived in Florida and were treated to all the "fun" of hurricane season. I remember one time one was headed right for us. As long as we had power, we were glued to the radio, trying to stay informed about how close it had come, etc. In search of another weather update, my father was dialing in whatever stations he could find. He happened onto a rock station. The song playing was "Please Mr. Custer". The lyrics went on from there: "I don't want to go." I remember looking at my father and he was looking at me and we were both half smiling. We didn't want to go through that hurricane either.

Well, I had to go to work yesterday. And I had the late shift, going in at 3, staying til 9. It was unbearably hot out there (111 degrees) and I just didn't want to face it. And what popped into my head? "Please Mr. Custer, I don't want to go."

One of the many oddities about this earth suit in which I live is that I don't sweat like most folks. My scalp perspires a lot as does my face. I do perspire under my arms and in the groin area, but that's it. Most people would have arrived at work with the back of their shirts sweat soaked. Not me. I arrive with wet, limp hair and makeup dripping off my face. And because I don't perspire like everyone else, I also don't cool down like everyone else. I didn't stop blotting sweat off my face for about 40 minutes after arriving at work. Yes, I have an air conditioned van. Yes, the a/c works well in the van. But, considering the van sits out in the hot sun until it's time to go to work, it's a big job to cool it down. I find it becomes barely tolerable about the time I pull into the parking lot. Just another of the reasons I don't want to go anywhere in July and August!

I started off on my "usual" register. I admit it, it's really stressful there. It's the register most likely to have a line and no matter how hard you try, you can't work your way through that line to the end. Customers just keep piling up at the back of the line. After an hour of that, the head cashier finagled a way to get me to lumber where I got to stay for 3 hours. At the end of 3 hours, i got a phone call from the head cashier. I could tell by her voice that she was really stressed, upset. She asked could I possibly come back up and go back to the "usual" register for my last hour.

I never argue. I go where they send me. I may not like it, but I go. I simply answer "Yes, ma'am" or "Yes, sir" and grab a cart to help get me from wherever I am to wherever I need to be. The legs are still a problem as are the feet. i'm also noticing some balance issues. The cart, if I lean on it, will carry some of my weight and relieve some of the pain as well as steady me. Next thing I know, Mrs. Stinky II appears to take my place in Lumber. And then i understood. She regards Lumber as her personal domain. Not a doubt in my mind that she whined and carried on with the head cashier just to get me kicked out of her kingdom. There are two of us cashiers with observable physical problems. One of those two is not the sharpest tack in the pack and not in the least ambitious. She is not welcome in Lumber. Besides the other problems, she has a way of speaking to people that comes off offensive. The other one with physical problems is me. When I go down there, everyone greets me and the guys want to know if they can bring me a chair. It seems I am welcome down there. Note that Mrs. Stinky II is not one of the two cashiers with physical problems............just a narcissitic personality disorder!

So, anyway, I'm on my one day on one day off schedule with today being a day off. I work another late shift tomorrow...........

Someday is here...........

There are freshly baked bran muffins in my kitchen! I opened the freezer day before yesterday and was mightily surprised to see a bag of wheat bran in there. At first, I laughed at myself and wondered at my momentary lapse in putting it in there. Whatever could have possessed me? It only took a moment to figure it out. It was a wheat product. Wheat tends to travel with the larvae of flour weevils. But if you freeze wheat, it kills 'em. So, I musta reasoned the freezer was a good place to put the wheat bran for a few days..........

I made the bran muffins this evening. I used a new-to-me recipe and the thought of that scared me a bit. But, they turned out really good. Now, if wheat bran can substitute for saltines, I'm in business!

I have a later shift tomorrow at work. Plenty of time to eat a bran muffin for breakfast. I may even scramble a couple of eggs into some spinach and have that for an early lunch. So, for at least 2 meals tomorrow, I'll have something nutritious. Combine that with grape tomatoes, grapes, and blueberries as snacks at work and my body might go into shock with all those nutrients floating around in my bloodstream.

Bedtime now. See ya on the flipside.

 

Saltines

I don't know if this is still true, but years ago, canteens on government property were run by folks who were blind. And so, at the time I was pregnant, the canteen was where I took my breaks and most of my lunches. As I mentioned yesterday, I was nauseated all day long. I think I only upchucked once and that was at night, but all day long, my stomach rolled. I didn't want to tell the doctor about it because I'd heard some bad things about some of the anti-nausea drugs. So, for months, I lived on saltines. Sometimes the guy who ran the canteen would just hand me a bunch of those little 2-cracker packages and sometimes I had to buy them. The funny thing was that I was over there at the canteen lookin' for saltines so often that the fellow who ran the place knew I was coming by the sound of my footsteps. Like as not, he'd be holding a bunch of Saltines for me the moment I came in the door. Later, he told me he was kinda sad when he heard the baby had arrived because he figured I'd be visiting him a lot less often, LOL. To this day I look for crackers to control nausea and they usually work.

Not shenanigans after all?

So, I worked yesterday. There is an "explanation" on the $2000 thing. I'm not sure it's official. I was told this by someone who was not "there" and I don't know how this person came by the story. Apparently, there was no payment on a customer's credit account. Rather, it was a purchase of a Mastercard/Visa type gift card. The customer wanted to give someone a gift card with a limit of $20.00. Apparently the cashier did not type in the decimal, or, if she did, it didn't register. So the customer got a gift card with a $2000 limit for $20. I don't know if there is a way to recover that money or not. One would put just another $20 bill in with the other 20's in the cash drawer, not where the likes of $2000 would go. This sort of an error would cause reports to show $2000 should be there for a card paid for in cash.

I have had today off and, miracle of miracles, I also have tomorrow off. Two days off in a row--an occurrence to be prized.

I have been arriving at work feeling nauseated for a couple of weeks. If I weren't a) too old, b) 30+ years past a hysterectomy and c)interested in only one male--the Lord Jesus Christ, I might think it's morning sickness. Except, it acts exactly like pregnancy did for me--sick all day long. I haven't been able to figure it out. I've been thinking it has to do with meds and vitamins I take in the AM before work--thinking perhaps taking them on an empty stomach is the culprit. Then I remembered that nausea is another symptom of a UTI. Add this to frequency, urgency, "flank" pain, and more, and I'm pretty sure I've pegged the cause. The UTI is back, apparently never having been adequately killed off back in April. So, I guess I'm going to have to do the doctor thing again...........ugh!

Well, that's about all I know for now. Bedtime..........

 

Shenanigans

I'll start with Sunday evening. I got a beef roast for a super sale price. I trusted her to the Instant Pot. Instant Pot turned out a really good slab of beef roast. I remembered my mother making beef roast. it didn't happen all that often, probably budgetary limitations. Anyway, my mother was a good cook, but not so much when it came to beef roast. I remember her roasts as being dry, really dry. I used to bathe the meat in ketchup so it didn't feel like sawdust in my mouth. My beef roast turned out great. However, I have to acknowledge that my mother didn't have an Instant Pot all those years ago. I figure if she did, she'd have turned out a great piece of meat as well.

I worked yesterday. Let the Shenanigans begin...........I was sent to Lumber to relieve the cashier there for lunch. I signed into the system on that machine at 10:11. Not long after, the head cashier, with another employee in tow (it's called internal control--no one should be alone with the money. That way the money can only be stolen if the two employees collude.) They came to do a cash dump. They have a report that shows how much cash is in a machine and the report showed a LOT of cash. Anyway, there was no cash in the usual place--only a check for $148.68. There was supposed to be $2000 there..........They went away mystified. The head cashier and a different employee came back again not much later and searched again. No additional money was found. The cashier who had been on that machine was due back from lunch no later than 11:11. She returned at 1:08. I found out later that, according to the system, she had accepted a payment on someone's credit account in the amount of $2000 cash. It's really not my business so I haven't said anything or asked any questions. But the cashier was back at work today. I was told she met with the Store Manager this AM but I don't know if that's true--I didn't witness it.

Next thing I knew I was back at my usual register. Customers came through with some lampshades clearance priced at $3.74. Heckuva deal....... Later, some customers came through with some artwork from the Home Decor area--originally priced at $30, clearance priced at $6. Finally, one of the store's advertised specials this week was a 27-gallon tote like you might use for storage in a garage. Regular price around $11, marked down to $10. They're really heavy duty totes. Before I left the store, I herded 2 lampshades, 2 pieces of wall art, and 2 totes into my cart. I got my employee discount off those clearance/sale prices. A year and a half ago, I caught 2 lamps on sale for an incredibly low price. They are no longer waiting for lamp shades! The art work will end up either in my hall bath or in the living room. I'll have to play around with them before I know for sure. And I hope to put the totes on the patio and use them to plant some veggies in. I've decided to increase the amount I allow for garden/yard in my budget. I was getting nowhere fast with my previous allocation. If I can start to see some progress, it will be motivating.

Sorry to leave you hanging on the shenanigans, but now you know everything I know, which is more than most people know, but not enough to draw any conclusions. It's getting close to bedtime and I need to clean up the kitchen.

Someday...........

there WILL be bran muffins in this house. Sadly, that's not today. I am so disgusted. I cannot find the @#$% wheat bran. I paid for it. I even think I might remember seeing it. However, if it's in this house, it can't be in the kitchen. I've even checked the cupboard where the pasta is stored. I checked the pantry. I checked the rolling pantry. i checked the tea cupboard. i checked the coffee cupboard. I checked the counter where the Kitchenaid and the InstantPot live. I simply cannot find it. Yup, I'm disgusted. I just don't know with whom to be disgusted. Do I get angry with myself for mindlessly putting that wheat bran somewhere I can't even imagine? Or, do I get angry with the store for charging me for wheat bran that never made it into my van, much less into my kitchen. And for those of you who are wondering, yes, I checked the van. Is this a sign of encroaching senility? Or a sign of ephemeral hallucinations? Geez.............

God blessed me............

the day I learned to pressure can meat! I got a wild craving for chicken salad. Guess what? I have jars of cooked chicken meat on my shelves! I even tried an internet tip (I'm pretty skeptical about those) and it worked. I shredded the chicken with my Kitchenaid. Spent a few minutes quartering grapes (already washed and pulled off the vine thanks to my "meal prep" work) and chopping some celery. Threw in some Tarragon (my favorite herb/spice for chicken salad) and some mayo, mixed it up and ate two servings of chicken salad! Delish!

Now, my silicone cupcake thingies are on the front porch so bran muffins are coming soon.

Whatsoever things..........

I went to lie down and try to take a nap. I found myself thinking with renewed wonder of how much my mother didn't trust me. I will never understand why and I really wish my mind would stop shifting and sifting the pieces to make them fit into some sort of pattern. There is no pattern. I am convinced there will never BE a pattern. I need to just accept it and move on, but that has been difficult. Here's a question for you: Can you like or love someone you don't trust? I think not because the moment you realize they can't be trusted, you begin to guard your heart and pull back from the relationship. So, did she like me? I don't think so. I don't think she ever accepted that I was a separate person, able to live a separate life, and not do it by all of her rules and standards and still be a happy, Christian woman. I did not measure up to her standards which were the ONLY standards, dontcha know............

Yes, I am a senior citizen, a grandmother, and still I am hurting that I could never manage to establish a proper relationship with my own mother. All my life, I have seemed to do pretty well with other people's mothers. They seem to take me for who I am, not who I was, not what they wanted me to be. They don't dish up a steady diet of condemnation and disappointment which rips me to the core.

I hope someday this torturous stream of thought will dissipate. Maybe it won't even haunt my sleep. I'd love for that to happen before I get to heaven.

At home

Three day stint finished. Home today! Yippee!

I'm awaiting an Amazon order. I have been craving bran muffins. I also think they'd be a good solution to eating something worthwhile for breakfast. Don't have a favorite bakery. Only know where to find one and it's off the beaten trail. Will bake some myself. This has been a series of roadblocks.

1) No wheat bran. Got some Sunday.

2) Decided to make some blueberry corn muffins. Ran out of cupcake/muffin liners. Made some blueberry corn muffins instead, used the 5 remaining liners & just greased the other 7 muffin cups. They tasted great but they were way too crumbly to eat on the go.

3) I got disgusted when I ran out of cupcake liners and finally ordered some silicone ones that have been on my Amazon wish list for, literally, years. Now I think i have all the ingredients, but the Amazon delivery is keeping me waiting.

I think I am going to go ahead and get the dry ingredients ready. I WILL have bran muffins before bedtime.

I need to get back to canning. There are many foods I don't have on hand. If I'm going to can fruits and veggies (mostly veggies) I need to do it now while they're lower in price at the stores. I have plenty of jars on hand and I think there's something in the Canner's Creed about it being a sin to have lots of empty jars in the summer time. So, I'm going to go through the Sprouts weekly ad and see what's on special and then go to the National Center for Home Food Preservation website to learn the basics of how to can whatever is on special. Next, I will need more than a single day off to do the actual prep and canning. The nice thing about Sprouts markets is that they are smaller than, say, a Kroger-affiliate store so I can most likely do what needs done without my legs kicking a fit. Also, i know that the one to the north of me just a couple of miles has a parking lot I can manage as well.

Must do some vacuuming today. I'd also like to do the kitchen floor. Might also use some of my canned chicken to make some chicken salad. We'll see what else I can manage. I'm sure filing and budget stuff SHOULD be a priority..............