Work and homework

Yikes I had a wicked first day back to work on Wednesday! BZ wasted no time to let me know my place--at the bottom. At the early morning check in she yelled at me because the storage room had been messy. For one thing, it wasn't my job but the Former Temp's, and for another thing, why do we peons have to clean up the others' messes? BZ and Favorite Co-worker are the sloppiest, messiest people yet they make such a big production about "neatness" hard to figure. I got mad and yelled right back.

This was a bad thing and we glared at each other for several long minutes. I wanted to throw down the little notebook that I'm supposed to write down the assigned tasks right on to her desk and quit. But I didn't. I can't quit, need the money and the benefits. She assigned me some more nasty cleaning stuff to do, like I'm the janitor or something. And some of it was heavy moving stuff. Guess I have to stop and do a Seinfeld here and say, there's nothing wrong with being a janitor. I was one while going to school, but I can't physically do the work now and have experience and training in other areas. BZ is doing it as a demeaning sort of thing to put me in my place. Poor Former Temp didn't even show up today, she called in. BZ has been really mean to her this past week.

Tomorrow will be the Former Temp's last day. BZ is planning a coffee and rolls reception for her at midmorning. I bought a basket and some fun and funny gifts to put in it for Former Temp. Now I'm wondering if it will be an OK gift, if I should bring it up and put it on her desk or just give it to her quietly? I'm an insecure gift-giver, never feel that my gift is good enough or the right thing despite lots of effort.

I made Former Temp some of the cookies she liked so well to put into the basket. I'll also pick her some small baggies of organo, basil and sage early tomorrow morning and put them into the basket, too. She liked those when I brought her some one time. I got her a funny book from Amazon, a little banner with her favorite saying and some other small stuff. I'll really really miss her at work but doubt she'll miss us much. She's just glad at this point to be out of there. Her aunt has a good-paying job for her at the clinic that is almost a sure thing.

I've heard nothing from SLA--which means she's back with Sleazeball and afraid to tell me. Hope her overdraft got paid up! I had a PT appointment after work and now have some homework to do for it. I've got another appointment after work tomorrow. It's getting better even after the weekend bed-carrying setback. I've been able to stay in bed all night for two nights now! Of course I have to change positions, keep waking up, etc. but it's a huge improvement over barely sleeping at all. Off to do the physical therapy homework!

Two truths and a lie--at church

When I went out to get my daily newspaper this morning, I was admiring my front flower/herb garden. It's a small raised bed and everytime I'm out working on it, I get lots of compliments from passerbys, like, "That's a beautiful little garden!" which totally gratify my heart. Of course when those people are walking right by me, they probably feel they have to say something. But I choose to think they really are admiring my little garden. I think it's pretty, too, if I may be permitted to brag! Even the sage is blooming, although I did lose my treasured rosemary plant. I had been bringing it in every winter and planting it again in the spring. Early this spring it was not doing well indoors but the temperature was too cold to put it outside yet. The herbs always do much better outside, when the weather has warmed up. I was saying to it "Hang on there, little plant. Spring is almost here!" But the poor thing didn't make it, nor my hot pepper plant which was about four years old. My cold house isn't a great environment for plants, indoors.

And the lawn needs mowing again. I noticed that my neighbors are paying some high school boys to mow their lawn (and their lawn isn't nearly as large as mine). Wish I could afford to do that, but it's quite expensive. The neighbors pay around $40 per time and my lawn would be even more than that. Oh well. It's good exercise at least and a heat stroke at most. The problem is figuring out how to get it mowed after work. I have another open house coming up and need the lawn all mowed and edged before then. Not to mention the garden weeded and house all cleaned up. Hard to get that stuff done when I am gone all day at work and not home much in the evening, either.

Last night I met with SLA right after work as she desperately wanted to talk with me. She's going on a date with a man she met at her work and wanted to run his "specs" by me to see what I thought. After we talked for about two hours, she went on her date and I went to the "woman's night out" at church.

I was about ten minutes late and they had already started as it was awkward coming in with my covered dish past everyone already there, lined up for food. Most the women already had their food by the time my dish got put out and I was afraid my Rhubarb Cake would go untouched. I'm always anxious about stuff like that, feel domestically challenged compared to most women. Also, there was no room to sit by the people I knew. First I thought, "Well good, I can meet new people!" and everyone was friendly and all but I still much rather would have sat with the couple of women I already know. It would have been lots more fun.

The night out was sort of odd to me in that we didn't pray or do anything churchy. Perhaps the others wanted to get away from all of that and just hang out with each other but I would have welcomed it. We played a pictionary type of game which I was not good at, too slow to guess, someone always beat me. But I did seem to be quite decent at drawing stuff so people could guess it right away. Then we played that old icebreaker, "Two truths and a lie" in which we had to write down two truths and a lie on a small card and the others in our team would try to guess which was the lie. I'm being too critical of a mere game, but I found that a rather odd game to play at church! Maybe it was just me, I always think about things too much.

And my cake got used up, pretty much. But not in the way I would have liked. They had a game in which blindfolded people had to put makeup on another woman, then they switched and the blindfolded one had to feed the other one. Guess what they used to feed the victims? Yes, my rhubarb cake. It made quite the mess and looked very gross. Two of the woman who were force-fed my cake did say that it was good. Oh well. The cake was the perfect consistency for that game and there was still about a fourth of it left before it got stuffed into people's mouths.

Anyway, here are my two truths and a lie:
1. I have driven to Central America.
2. I have worked for the police department.
3. I grew up on a strawberry farm.

Guess which is the lie? Wanna play--and list YOUR two truths and a lie, and see how well your blogger friends know you!?