Feeling Better

Slept much better last night, guess my night sweats kept all the cold chills away. Four back to back shifts while sick took its toll on me and I slept till 11AM. Felt much better today and sent Massey to the grocery store with  a grocery list and I jumped on Johnny and headed to the front of the subdivision to cut. I specifically told Massey to fill up my gas can when she went to the store but when I went out to crank up Johnny, there sat my gas can on the garage floor. I borrowed some gas from my neighbor, Mr. Slow Lee and told him I would cut his back yard for him when I got through with the front. I didn't notice when Massey came back home but I noticed when she went to pull back out of the subdivision. I held up my arms and mouthed "My gas?" She mouthed back she was going to get it now.

I was finished with one side of the entrance and had moved to the other when she cruised back in. I waved for her to stop and filled up Johnny's tank. She asked me if she could use my car to go fill out job applications and I told her to be back at least an hour before I had to be at work.

I was cutting right beside the road when she left and didn't see her pull out but she honked the horn as she passed me and scared the crap out of me. My car doesn't have a cute little horn but a BIG car horn and is very loud. I looked up terrified, thinking I was about to be hit by a passing car only to see my daughter going down the street in my convertible, top down and arm waving behind her head at me.

I got through cutting and came home to rehydrate and load up my buddy, Mr. Weed Eater. I didn't have time to finish it all but got one side done and the other one started.

Came home and cut Mr. Slow Lee's tiny fenced in back yard for him. It was reverse, forward, reverse, forward. He has three garden boxes built and Johnny seems like a giant in his little back yard.

I had time to lay on the sofa for thirty minutes before I had to get ready for work. Work was busy, extremely busy and I regretted all the yard work I had done by seven thirty.

I feel much better but my stomach is still on the fence. I ate some yogurt before leaving for work and had a salad and a cup of pasta fagioli soup before I started my shift. I was off by 10:30 and at  the grocery store by 10:45. Massey had run all my gas out and I needed to pick up the things she didn't get...also specifically on her list.

On another note..."Pup Date" number three:

That Ziggy is a brat, a cut brat but a brat none the less. He terrorizes the other two and never seems to run out of energy (or poop.)

I was in the back yard yesterday and found a huge turtle by my back door. We have a creek in the woods at the back of our property. I went to pick up the turtle and return him to the creek. Seems the pups found it first and obviously had a grand ole time. There was nothing left but the shell. No bottom, no innards. Nothing but the shell. It was so clean I could use it as a soup bowl.

I hate to think what those last hours were like for poor Mr. Turtle. I have seen first hand how they  torture and play with the huge bull frogs that unknowingly hop into our back yard...it's not pretty. I'm not a big fan of frogs and  can't bring myself to pick one up. The dogs push it around, step on it's legs, wait for it to jump and then start the game all over again.

At least the dogs have a huge yard to romp and play in and plenty of nature to torture to death. When a frog death occurs,  they are banned from the house for at least five hours. Frog guts give them the same kind of stomach problems I have had...maybe I ate a bull frog in my sleep!

They chase every bird that lands in my yard. They try to get the little rabbits too but those little buggers can hop pretty  fast when three dogs are in pursuit. I feel like I am going to pull into my driveway one day and see Mother Nature, Chip and Dale and Peter Rabbit with  picket signs..."Kelly's dogs are killers."

I love my dogs though, they make me happy. They seem to know when I feel bad and never complain when they have to wait to be fed. When I get home they are always the happiest ones to see me. They never ask for money or my car. Not one of them have ever been arrested.

On the flip side, none of my teens have ever taken a dump on my floor, chewed up my flip flops or rooted through my bathroom trash can. (Yet)

Yep! I'm keeping the dogs...the kids will all be gone in less than a year and I'll need somebody  to keep this ole lady company.

Til next time...COTTON

You Gotta Have Thick Skin When You Are A Server

I have been a server so long that this is actually the way we used to send checks to the kitchen. Write it down and walk over and hang it up with a clothes pin on a wire they had strung.

Now everything is computerized and when a computer goes down  we have to use our brains...that's when the trouble starts.

I've worked too much this week and I know it, but when you are in my line of work every shift is a paycheck.  We are so close I can smell it... It smells like being in the black!

I fell asleep on the sofa in the living room Wednesday night. I keep the ceiling fan on high so it helps keep the house cooler. Woke up the next morning freezing and both my ears ached. My throat hurt and my nose was stopped up . NOT GOOD...

I waited for it to go away instead of simply taking some medicine. By Friday I was miserable. The problem was I was scheduled to work Friday day and night, Saturday day and night and Sunday day and night...added bonus was Sunday was Father's Day or as we like to call it in  the restaurant world "A Mother of a Father's Day."

I started pumping in the meds on Friday during my break between lunch and dinner and felt somewhat better. It doesn't help that I have terrible eating habits unless  you consider coffee a food group. Saturday I was on the fence but feeling a bit better, I found some 800 MG Ibuprofen Zach had left over from when he was sick. They ran out today...and so did I.

I got to work five minutes late today...it wasn't the day to do that. We were already filling up quickly and I got my head bit off when I walked in by  a manager. I knew better than to be late, but almost never am.

Then a computer crashed and we were all fighting to ring our orders in on the two left running.

Here's my beef...

I work like a demon from the time I get there til  the time I clock out and I clock in A LOT! I am fifty two years old and weigh 99 pounds. All the working is of my own choosing and I totally realize that but  keep a good attitude and try to be nice to everyone. I am nice to the dishwashers, the prep team, the hosts out front and even the surly cooks...on top of being nice to customers who sometimes aren't.

I'm not sick a lot, but today I felt terrible. When things went whack with the computer and the kitchen lost one of my checks it got dicey. One of the cooks was yelling at me, Barb was yelling at me because she was trying to make people happy up front waiting to be seated and I was so behind it wasn't funny.

I snapped. And then the worst thing possible happened...The tears started pouring.

I am usually tough skinned (you have to be in my line of work.) I didn't feel good, I'd been working too much and it suddenly BECAME too much. The cooks were screaming at me, the managers were screaming at me and my customers were screaming at me.

Calgon never showed up to "Take me away."

MY point is that YOU don't have to be ugly to get your point across. I get it. I treat every person I work with as an equal. I treat every one the way I want to be treated. It's called the Golden Rule but the memo got lost today. I had a thirty minute breakdown and had absolutely no mascara left, and a snotty nose to boot.

Had I not been sick I could have handled it perfectly and probably even with a joke or two. Feeling like crap though...they better be glad I don't carry a gun.

I think it shocked and  surprised all of them. I am usually the one that can blow off  or defuse any situation and here I am sniveling like a baby.

"I wanted my mommy."

When I got cut from the floor for my break, the owner said "Let me make you some Chicken noodle soup." I told him I just wanted to go home and lay down for a hour and he said "Just take it home with you."

I got home and lapped the soup up, crawled in bed in with my work clothes on and assumed  the position of Lily Munster sleeping...not mussing my hair or what little make up I had left on.

I got back to work and they all seemed to be walking on eggshells around me. I tend to have my seldom breakdowns at home and  think I terrified them all. They let me have an extra hour off, I was due back at five but they let me come back at six.

Six is good...we close at 8:30 on Sunday. The soup was great (everything the owner cooks is) and I felt better having a hour on my back with my girl beside me and two pups wagging those stumps they call tails every time I say their name.

Ya know...sometimes you just gotta flip out, sometimes you just gotta say..."We're all in the same boat and it's not just YOU with an oar... Let's row together."

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love my job. I absolutely love the people I work for. When I'm feeling great I can do it shift after shift after shift.

But when I already feel like crap, don't throw more in my face.

All's well that ends well...and the night ended well.

I usually always work a double shift on Monday but when the owner posted the schedule for the upcoming week before I left...he had me scheduled off for Monday and Tuesday. He said "Go home and get well."

Sleeping til I wake up. Taking a day for myself . Then starting all over again.

Til next time...COTTON