The rest of the week

I really did mean to get an update in before this but somehow it just didn’t happen.

I did have the corporate training thing on Wednesday morning and it lasted until exactly the scheduled time so I ended up working a sixteen-hour shift. I hate that. Of course of all the overnight managers in the district (and there should be between twenty-two and thirty of us) only three had to work the night before the training. The rest of the overnighters that were there had their days changed by their general managers so they didn’t have to work the night before. And the other overnighters that worked Tuesday night just weren’t there at all. It was a “mandatory one-time training everyone has to be there” thing (there were three sessions so we didn’t have to close stores) and yet the facilitator said there would be another day of this class later in the month for those that missed it. Whatever. He also went on about how sorry he was about the overnighters having to stay after their shift but there really was no other way to do these things, blah blah blah. Hey! I’ve thought of another way! YOU stay up for twenty hours and do this during our normal shift, wouldn’t that work?

So my entire Wednesday was wiped out by that training since I didn’t get home until 1400 and fell right to sleep. When I woke up around 2200 or so I had a snack, checked out a few shows on the TiVo and went back to bed around 0100. At 0600 I was up and off again.

“Carrier”, which just finished airing on PBS, was really good, but I think ten hours was a bit much. I really think it could have been edited down to eight, maybe even seven hours and still not lost the message. I’m glad I recorded it. If PBS is offering it on Blu-ray I might even buy it, but somehow I’m thinking that even though it was broadcast in HD (where available) it was never transferred to HD-DVD or Blu-ray anywhere along the way.

Thursday I bought some kitchen items I needed at the local Wal-Mart as well as pillowcases to match the new sheets I bought a few weeks ago. I also bought rather a lot of groceries, even though I didn’t intend to. And to make it even stranger, I made sure I ate a little something before I went in so I wasn’t hungry and wouldn’t by any groceries at all. Go figure.

Critter and I had lunch on Thursday as well at what is rapidly becoming our favorite restaurant. We both kind of wanted sushi but she wasn’t sure how much money she had (her bank’s IVR was on the fritz) and I couldn’t afford to do sushi for both of us so we went Mexican instead. So instead of twenty bucks a pop I managed to feed Critter, K, and myself for just over twenty bucks total, yay me! We hung out some more until the kids came home from school, then I went home to take a nap. I thought Ember might be coming over after school but she had a relative that’s been living in Asia for a while come into town unexpectedly and she was going to visit with him instead, but she was really tired so I’m not sure she made it over there either.

I talked to Critter some today and while we were on the phone K woke up and locked her out of the house. I found it highly amusing but Critter wasn’t nearly as amused as I was since she didn’t have shoes on and had to walk around to the other door over rather rough ground. She normally takes her keys with her just in case but since K was asleep when she went outside (and that’s actually the reason she went outside) she didn’t think about it.

My sleep schedule is all screwed up and I don’t know what kind of shape I’m going to be in Saturday night when I go back to work, but I’ll probably survive. I’ll have to, actually: we’re in between training cycles for managers and it would take at least fifteen and possibly as long as twenty weeks to replace me if I croaked.

We discussed “us” a little bit at lunch Thursday. I told her that if it came down to a choice between nothing at all and what we have now I’d choose what we have now, but I really do want more. I told her I was ready when she was, but I knew she had some things she had to work out for herself before she could decide what she wanted. I’m good with that, and with me working overnights we have a built-in speed brake on the relationship since I can really only see her two or three days a week. Wherever we’re headed this time it’ll unfold at a natural pace and we’ll both be sure of what we’re doing when we do it.

I saw Rah-Rah when Critter and I were out on Thursday but since I was with Critter there was no talking, only a quick wave. Ember’s supposed to work tonight but she sounded really bad when I talked to her this morning, so I don’t know if she’ll be able to go in or not.

My ADHD medication seems to be making me a little light headed at times, which is a known side effect, but so far it hasn’t impaired me at all. We rarely use the ride-on forklift at work anymore (day shift is starting to clean up after themselves better now) and the walk-behind forklift moves so slowly that if I have a problem I can either gently drop the load or leave it parked with the forks under the pallet I was trying to pull down from the racks until it passes.

I still haven’t gotten my truck looked at, but the engine is running smoothly so I’m not all that concerned. I want to buy a stand alone freezer and an outdoor fireplace with my stimulus check, and possibly even a Wii if there’s money left over, but I may end up spending it on the truck.

That’s all I’ve got for now, hopefully my schedule will be calm enough for me to at least get a short entry in every day for the highlights.