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So this happened..........

yesterday was a goofy day, courtesy of work. They scheduled a "mandatory" all-store meeting for 5:30AM. I cannot tell you how difficult it was to crawl out of bed, sleep deprived, with THAT to look forward to.

It was somewhat improved over past performances. For one thing, there was a better PA system. That was a mixed blessing. Our store manager does not have the most pleasant voice. It's raspy but high pitched and a bit nasal. Amplified isn't necessarily good, particularly as she kept laughing. However, it was good to be able to figure out what was being talked about--my lip reading skills need a lot of improvement. They also got a much larger screen and it was set up with no blind spots. Sadly, some of the graphics would have still benefited from enlargement and/or closer viewing. But, all in all, better than previous meetings. It seems we are now going to have these "celebrations" (that's what we're calling them now) quarterly. As you know, I rarely get much sleep when I have to report at an early hour, so the prospect of increased frequency doesn't thrill me.

I was back home by 7:30 and headed straight back to bed for a couple more hours of sleep which surely made my late shift go better.

So, there I was at my register and it was kind of noisy. One of the managers and one of the cashiers were laughing and conversing rather loudly, right up in the front of the store. They attracted a lot of attention, including mine. I saw a customer approach my counter and turned immediately to take care of his order. He says to me "If you can tear yourself away from your socializing, I'd like to check out." I was totally taken aback. I wasn't socializing. I merely turned to see what was going on. Not a sound came out of my mouth. Yet, I was the one the customer busted. Some days that's just the way my life goes. Later, I told the manager what had happened. She just blew it off, reiterating that I wasn't even involved. I would have hoped maybe she'd consider whether such loud shenanigans were "professional"..........Nope, not for a moment.

Today didn't go any better. I was kind of nauseated when I left home. i didn't think a lot of that--it happens sometimes when I take all my meds and vitamins. I went to work anyway. At about the 2 hour mark, I started having stomach cramps. I was relieved for break. I was back inside, in the bathroom, within 5 minutes. I got hit with a dandy case of diarrhea. Worse still, I thought I just might have to upchuck. I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything more disgusting than having to throw up in a public toilet. I was in the bathroom for almost half an hour and decided I'd better try to get home. It doesn't seem to me to be right to get paid for spending large portions of my shift in the bathroom and being too sick to see straight if I venture back out to the register. I thought I'd have to pull off the road and "decorate" the roadside a couple of times on the way home but managed to avoid that. Fun trip--NOT. Anyway, I'm off tomorrow so I hope to be back in shape by the time my next shift rolls around.

 

Crazy good pork chops

Made some pork chops in the Instant Pot. They were SO good. I cut up a couple of strips of bacon into smallish pieces. I began cooking them in the IP in about 1Tbsp of butter. I only let them cook for a few seconds. Then I added a some minced garlic, 2-3 tsps. I quickly added the pork chops and seared them on both sides. I added 1/2 cup of honey and 1/4 cup of soy sauce. I stirred that all around a bit and put the lid on the IP. I set it to cook under pressure for 7 minutes (my pork chops were kinda thin. "Normal" pork chops would probably cook for more like 10 minutes.) I did a quick release on the pork chops and pulled them out to check. They were fully cooked. I added about 2 tsp of cornstarch to some water, made a slurry, set the IP on saute' and stirred in the cornstarch slurry. I continued cooking it until the sauce was thickened. Nuked some broccoli and drizzled the sauce over the broccoli and the chops. Crazy good! Made me want to go back and lick the pot.............

I have a cooked chop left as well as some sauce. I'll make some rice tomorrow night and serve it with the remaining sauce and chop and whatever veggie I fancy. Should be plenty good. The next time I make this, I may cut the honey just a bit.

I'm thinking this would also be a good way to cook chicken. Perhaps sprinkle with some sesame seeds before serving.......

Worked today

I was blessed to spend my whole shift in Lumber. It is such a relief to be able to sit. Generally, I arrive home in much better shape than when I have to stand. This is true even though working in Lumber requires a LOT of walking.

Not in super good shape tonight though. Went to work with a significant headache. While I was there I realized that both sides of my nose are infected. No wonder my head hurts. It's that whole bloody, sore thing again. It'll get better--just a matter of time.

Something happened at work this past Wednesday. I have grounds for a dandy lawsuit against both the corporation and an individual. I am trying to decide what the Lord wants me to do. I have the feeling what he wants me to do is the opposite of what I want to do. Please pray for me that I will 1) know the best course of action, and 2) if it is not what I want to do, that I will choose to do things His way instead of my own.

 

Deja vu all over again

to quote the inimitable Yogi Berra. No one could twist a phrase quite like he could.

When my kid was about 6 years old, her father "gave" her "a computer". Really, what he gave her was a Commodore 64. If you remember, that consisted of some sort of operating system embedded in a keyboard. It turned out to be a very expensive Christmas for me, her single mom who was not receiving child support. As I recall, I ended up putting close to a thousand bucks into this "computer" she had been "given". One needed software, a screen, an external drive to run the software, etc. Otherwise, the "gift" was pretty much useless.

The store that sold this sort of stuff was on Desert Inn Road. Desert Inn was one of 4 main east-west thoroughfares. I don't remember the details. I just remember there was some sort of construction project ongoing that had "DI" torn up for eons. Of course, I had to go there to round out ex's Christmas present. Numerous trips. Every trip was like another adventure going into the belly of the whale.

Now, remember, I moved here from St. Louis, Missouri. Quite a large city. State government which met yearly (as opposed to every other year, like Nevada). In other words, a place where if you needed to fix a road or build a road, there were established procedures that made sense and worked. Imagine my surprise when the city of Las Vegas announced it would begin work on a new interstate. That sounded mildly irritating but, ultimately, of value. Little did I know...............

In Missouri, when constructing a freeway, they laid the road, they put in the exit/entrance system, they opened what they'd done to public use, they then proceeded to lay the road surface to the next exit/entrance area, and open it. And, so they proceeded.

Not Nevada. They opened construction on the overpasses for Sahara Avenue, Flamingo, and Tropicana--the other 3 main east-west thoroughfares. The excuse was that the funds for the overpasses were allocated first. So, they had EVERY east-west thoroughfare torn up simultaneously. The result was that you could go nowhere on the east side of town with any kind of efficiency or speed. And remained a truly awful situation for many months.

Right now, the west side of town is just about as messed up. It started with work on the water system. Now they are closing off additional streets totally to re-pave them. Between here and work I hit a solid 4-5 construction zones where traffic patterns are disrupted and moved around and roads are narrowed to two lanes. And these center around major intersections! It's quite the challenge. There's no forecasting how long the commute will take.

We have been notified that the street on which I live will be repaved. I have to tell you, I really don't know why. There's no problem with the street as is. This means that I could go off to work some morning and when I try to come home, I won't be able to drive into the subdivision. OR, I may be all up and ready to go to work, only to find that I am not allowed to move my van out of the driveway. I can hardly wait to see how this plays out.

To add to my great joy, after 7 days of having to turn the water on and off at the curb, and 3 additional days of having running COLD water but no hot water, they shut down the water at the main from 9-3 on the 12th and are planning the same trick on the 16th. Kind of a royal pain in the butt when you report to work at noon...........

So there!

When I was first married to my daughter's dad, I tried to make fried rice for dinner one night. It was a dismal failure. Her father, ever the considerate man, called his ex-wife,  and the two of them joked about me making a batch of "driveway patch". I was humiliated and more than a little pissed off. Hey, I'd spent my early housekeeping years learning to cook Italian and I was darned good at that. There were no Asian restaurants within 60 miles of where I grew up and I don't think I'd ever even tasted Asian food til I was well into my 20's. His ex, on the other hand, had spent several years in Okinawa while he was stationed there. She had a bit of an advantage, dontcha think?

I made fried rice for dinner the other night. It was excellent. There's a Chinese place on the corner a coupla blocks from my house. What I made was at least as good as theirs. Yup, I'm pretty proud of myself. I guess I've learned a thing or two along the way. So there!

Oh Lord help me...........

Sick, freaky sick. I was sitting here at the desk. It was time to gather my things and head for the van so I could get to work a few minutes early. I stood up and my stomach exploded. No warning. I needed a shower and a new set of everything below the waist.

I have diarrhea every now and then. Usually it's preceded by stomach cramps, but not this time. Within the first hour, I was greeted with two similar episodes, minus the new clothes. I thought about going to work once I got myself cleaned up. That seemed unwise. It was that whole "no warning" thing. If I'm on a register in the front end, I have to call and wait for someone to relieve me before I can be excused. Yesterday I spent the day in Lumber. God forbid I'm all the way down there when something like this hits. I'd be forced to leave the store, deeply embarrassed, and to drive home with the windows down. It IS half a store away from backup and from the restroom. So, I'm home.

I hated having to call in. At least there was a female manager to whom to tell my tale of woe. But, I just spent $$$ on the water heater mess. And I ended up not going in on Thursday because I needed to be here for that. So, I will be looking at a substantially reduced paycheck......... Not the greatest timing. But well beyond my control so I guess I shall just make up my mind not to worry about it. For me this was a nasty surprise, but God knew about it eons ahead of time. Perhaps this is protection against a car accident--I won't know in this life.

Speaking of the water heater, at one point early this morning, I used the restroom. I flushed and the water box emptied and did not refill. The faucet didn't produce water either. I think it had to be that they have been digging up the roads around here, working on "utilities". So, I guess maybe they interrupted the water service for a while. I was filled with dread there for a minute--I've had it with periods of no running water, LOL.

Not just water, hot water............

For a number of days now, I''ve finding myself with a dandy headache pretty much every afternoon. At first, I thought it might be blood pressure related, but now I've decided it's sinuses. It centers behind the eyes and at the base of the skull. I did not know earlier that the base of the skull actually is part of the sinus drainage system. i'm back to using an old trick to solve the problem--a massager. It's not fun, but I run it over all the pressure spots on my face and on the back of my neck. Then I sneeze my fool head off and things begin to drain.

Yes, I do have hot water, though I just might tiptoe out there and turn it up a little. He ended up having to do a lot of extra work. Somehow the drywall was wet. The wall had to be opened and that area allowed to dry. Then it was sprayed down with bleach and a mold preventive spray. He managed to use the same flex pipe so I didn't have to buy more of that. He repaired the wall and built a new platform for the water heater. And today he picked it up from the store and brought it here & unloaded it. He ended up hiring street corner labor to help with the heavy lifting. And before any of that, he cleared a bunch of crap out of the garage. It would have taken me weeks, if I even could have done any of it. Heavy, bulky items..........The curbline is loaded down with trash where it awaits the next bulk pickup day in about 11 days. I'm sure the neighbors will be impressed in the meantime. Likely the trash guys will be quite impressed as well. It looks to me as though he did a great job. He DID charge me more than originally quoted but that seemed fair. He DID spend extra time dealing with the mess in the garage. Also neither of us was expecting the wall repair or the rotten pedestal.

It has taken a while to work all the air bubbles out of the lines. At first, I thought there was something wrong because the water pressure was so low. But as I've used the water, more of the air has been forced out of the lines and the water pressure is just about back to normal.

It was supposed to be Sunday

Sunday was 5 days with having to run in and out to turn water on at the curb. Five days on which my garage hissed every time I turned the water on at the curb. So, Sunday was supposed to be the day on which the hot water heater would be fixed. However, the deal I got on a water heater was on a 50-gallon and it weighs about 250 pounds--too much for him to lift off the trailer, move into the house, and lift up onto a pedestal. So, Sunday was cancelled.

It was rescheduled for today. He had a guy lined up to help him and the guy got into an accident on the way to my guy's house--ended up in the hospital. The repair guy showed up today and worked like a dog in this heat for about 2 hours. He hauled mucho stuff to the curb and made his way into the space where the water heater lived. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, the water heater has had a slow leak for a while. The wooden pedestal on which it was sitting is all rotted out and will need to be replaced. He still was all alone so, the water heater is still at the store. But at least, he was able to turn off the hot water at the water heater so now I can have running cold water to the house. At least I'll be able to flush toilets, wash clothes (I do a cold water wash anyway), and draw water to make filtered water, etc. Still no sigh of a hot shower or a hot bath. I almost can't stand myself. I doubt I really stink, but my head says I do and that's just about as bad.

The new plan is that he will pick up the water heater Thursday, build a new platform on which it can sit, and get the hot water heater into the garage. He says the actual install is about a 2-hour job, but may not happen til Friday. I'm not amused. I don't think it's his fault, but that doesn't make this any easier..........

So, today, I will try to luxuriate in the fact I can clean the toilets with the expectation they won't look as bad as they do for a little while afterwards. I can heat water on the stove for small jobs like washing dishes. And I can make do with another couple of days of sponge baths though it makes me sad to even think about.