Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Closer Every Day

Every morning now I wake up and think "Another day closer." In many ways it makes me happy, in just as many makes me sad. Tim would freak out if he knew how behind I am on packing...good thing he's in Orlando and doesn't. It's hard to work a forty (plus) hour work week which actually consumes fifty (plus) hours of your time, take care of a house, big yard and three pups and have time left for throwing all your crap in boxes.

I had yesterday off but Massey's friend was flying back to England with her family and wanted to see them one last time. That's the good thing about working in the Crazy House, I have a badge which gets me through security anytime I want.  It's not like I wanted to pack anyway so met them at the restaurant where I work for one last visit.


Massey and Zach had flown out the night before heading to Orlando and I was all alone anyway...who'd know what I was or was not doing? Maybe our three dogs, but they're pretty good at keeping secrets


We enjoyed a tapas style snack  Lamb Manti (huge hit) Piquillo peppers stuffed with braised beef in a red wine reduction and one of the managers even sent us out a Papardelle (our signature pasta) with braised pork, peppadew peppers , garlic, basil and san marzano tomatoes. Our pastry chef who had met them all at Massey's birthday party sent out her delicious latest creation, shortbread cake with a layer of dark chocolate, house made whipped cream and fresh strawberries. I work for a fabulous restaurant and they did a fabulous job of "Wowing" our new British friends.

Our pastry chef even took a picture with them!


I walked them back out of the restaurant and left them to shop at Duty Free before take off for Manchester.

I came back home and jumped on my Johnny Dear to cut the back yard. It took me until dusk thirty but got it cut. Even weed eated and swept up all the trimmings. Hadn't packed a thing once again but the yard sure looked lush and green with all the recent rain. Ziggy seemed impressed though.



Did some laundry, blogged and diddled on FB a while then tumbled into bed with a bowl of ice cream.

My boss called this morning before ten asking if I could come in early, before my scheduled 1:30 shift because they were totally understaffed.

Sure!

The dogs all looked at me but held a finger up to my lips telling them it was a secret I wasn't packing...once again. I had to screech by the store for some dog food, threw it in bowls and changed their water.

On the way to work I felt it start...lower back pain. I popped on the seat heater and felt good...until I got to work.

After one hour I felt the pain gnawing at me, relentlessly. By four o'clock I felt queasy with pain. I was hoping (after looking at the flight list) we would slow down early and could leave by seven or so.

Not in the cards. I had a huge section of tables and all were full. When I saw them slide together tables for a ten top wanted to shoot myself in the head. Another server even said "If your back wasn't hurting we'd be a ghost town".

I powered through getting anyone I could to rub my shoulders and back when in the kitchen. I did stretching and simply made myself keep on keeping on. My ten top, which turned out to be an eleven top had a $64 grat added and left me ten extra bucks.

Here's the thing... my back was gonna hurt anyway so may as well make some money. Better than hurting like a Mo Fo Ho and make nothing.

Then around nine o'clock my back suddenly stopped hurting just as suddenly as it had started. It was a miracle.

I walked out right at ten almost four hundred dollars less poor and my back felt somehow incredibly fine.

I'm starting to think my bank account controls my back account.

So I'm now down to seventeen days left, sixteen when I wake up on Thursday.

I stopped by the store on the way home from work for some icy/hot patches for my back just in case. I still have two shifts left before another day off.




I have so got this now, it ain't even funny.

I never thought it would take me over fifty six years to come into my own and am obviously a slow learner.

At least I learned...and that's a lot more than I can say about a lot of people.

Never stop, never give up, always know it could be worse and be extremely grateful when it isn't.

Til next time...

Comfortably COTTON


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