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!

Bed head

I had bed head when I went to visit the kids. My poor hair had been caught, snagged and pulled for over two hours and was a fright.

I had asked my son on our last phone call the day before I left if he wanted anything, and his answer was, no. But I thought of their living room with only two chairs (one a plastic outdoor chair and the other a wooden kitchen chair I'd brought them) and decided that they needed more furniture. They also had talked of inviting my son's "brother" down to visit at some future date. He would drive down with me and be good company, I love that kid. But there only were two beds at the apartment, a futon on the floor and the blow-up bed.

So I decided to take the bottom bunk of the metal bunk beds. I'd bought them used when son was three and have utilized them ever since. In fact I sleep on one of them, in my bedroom now. But the other one was up in the loft and could be used for a couch or a bed at the kids' apartment. I'd used one of the bunk beds for a couch in the living room many times when I was poor, until finally we had a real couch and overstuffed chairs in the living room. It would be a good start for them.

Getting the bunk bed down from the loft was a challenge all by myself. Even getting it apart was a challenge! The first thing my son asked when he saw it was, "I supposed you scratched up the walls of the loft!?" But I didn't, was very careful--with the furniture. Wish I'd been more careful with my back as taking that heavy bed down two flights of stairs, outside and into the jeep all by myself was probably more than I was supposed to do. I wasn't supposed to carry anything heavy nor bend forward. Needless to say, I paid for my stupidity on this...

Getting the bunk bed into the jeep was the worst challenge. At first it didn't seem to fit and I had to keep leaning and shoving on it to be able to get the hatch door closed. When it was finally all inside the jeep, the (open) springs were jutting over the front seats. I had to drive two hours and twenty minutes with my head scrunched down and my hair getting torn at by the springs. Changing lanes on the interstate was exciting too, as I couldn't see in the back of the jeep and lost hair trying to turn my head to see out the sides. It was quite a drive. I have to say that I enjoyed the drive home much more!

The kids were very happy with their new bed/couch. I had to go and lie down on the cool kitchen floor to ease my back. Although I told him what I was going to do, son came into the kitchen, saw me and said with concern, "Should I call an ambulance?" But no, it wasn't that back although one of those Cortisone shots would have felt good at that point! Or those electrode-thingys.

Son's roomie and ex-girlfriend thought I should use one of those scooters when we went to the store they work in for the second time. I've been too proud to use one of those but in a strange city where nobody knows me, why not? And it was a relief to be able to concentrate on the conversation instead of walking and coping with the pain. When my Mom called last night to wish me a Happy Birthday, I told her about the scooter and suggested she should use one to go shopping!

The demons in my leg

I had my first physical therapy session for the sciatica yesterday. I've never had PT before and it was interesting, if not very fun. First, the therapist had to do an evaluation, which was the unfun part of it. I could not help unvoluntarily yelping several times as he pushed on parts of my back and made me do things like bend sideways, touch my toes, etc. The diagnosis from the doctor I went to see last week for X-rays is a herniated spinal disc. Sciatica is merely (if one could call it that!) a symptom of other conditions.

But after the pain came the good part: he put electrodes on parts on my back to deliver a mild shock over a period of ten minutes. While I was getting this done, he showed me some exercises to do. He warned me that the exercises take 20 minutes and must be done every day, but I assured him that it wouldn't be a problem for me to do that since I'm usually awake all night fighting with the pain. He also did a weird pulling-on-my-legs thing that really helped, too.

But the pain is never very bad (in comparison, anyway) during the day as during the night when I would pretty much do anything including selling my soul to make it stop! In fact after wrestling with pain for every night but one for over a month now, I see the pain as a demon torturing my leg! Which is why that astrology reading was so funny to me when it talked about "demons"!

Anyway, I left the PT office pain-free and highly hopeful, even though I had to make appointments for twice a week for quite a few weeks. The initial hope faded somewhat when the therapist's recommended sleeping position didn't work and the pain was so bad I could barely get up out of bed again to make it stop. So I tried sleeping on my stomach and still my leg was getting what I call "the tingles" which proceeds a full-blown pain attack. So I got up and sat on a chair for the rest of the night. It was OK, I got some but not a lot of sleep.

My leg is bothering me right now but I suppose that's why they have you go back so many times. Have you ever gone to a physical therapist? Did you have good results?

A self-indulgent post

Yes, I was supposed to be gone all this weekend, not back until late on Sunday night. But things didn't go as nicely as I had planned, plus I was feeling extra-sensitive for some reason this weekend. I normally am overly sensitive but it turned practically into a depression. I usually can keep my head up and keep swimming despite feeling down or blue. But this weekend I just couldn't, and so instead of writing privately in my notebook journal, as I really ought, I'm being self-indulgent and writing here in the blog.

Let's start at the beginning, and no, I won't bore you with the intricate details but more of an outline form:

(1) I loaded up the washer and dryer into the jeep all by myself. They're apartment-sized, not the full-sized, but the washer is still quite heavy and both of them were rather awkward to fit into the jeep. I also loaded up a bunch of other things, like chairs, golf clubs, vacuum cleaner, full boxes, etc.

(2) No, I shouldn't have done that by myself. I've already been suffering from sciatica, which sounds like a funny little granny ailment but isn't at all funny. The first time I had it I fainted and every time since then have wanted to scream with pain--it's that bad. If you don't know what sciatica is, try looking it up in Google. I did, even though I unfortunately knew what it was. It was reassuring to know that I wasn't being melodramatic in my description which is: like a butcher knife stuck into my thigh and twisted back and forth! On Google I found a diary sort of thing by a young girl who described it almost exactly that way, the way I've been describing it. And others like that, too.

OK, I've already lost the outline form and have gone into those intricate details-- but I bet you aren't that surprised!

(3) I drove down to see son and his girlfriend, stopping on the way to buy the particular fast food that girlfriend loves which isn't available anywhere near where they live. Nobody was home. But they were expecting me and had left the door unlocked. My little ex-dog was glad to see me!

(4) After 5 hours of waiting and boredom I sort of figured I might not be seeing them until the next day, especially because Friday night was the launching of the new Harry Potter book. I had known that they were going to go there shortly before midnight, but didn't know that they weren't going to be there early in the evening to greet me and help unload the jeep (they live on the second floor). I brought up pretty much everything but the washer and dryer, also took the dog for a short walk.

(5) They did finally come home, apologized for the lack of greeting and brought me the brand new Harry Potter book! We talked for about an hour, then went to bed. I got the very comfortable air bed in the spare bedroom.

(6) I got up shortly after 7:00 a.m. and they didn't get up until well after 12 noon. So guess what? More hours of boredom, another short walk for the dog, getting and reading the paper, etc. They had carried the little lamp into their bedroom, so the light wasn't good enough to start reading the Harry Potter book.

(7) By this time my back was killing me and I was feeling very down. I suggested to them that I just wanted to go back home. They were somewhat upset about this but son's girlfriend had to work so we brought her there and came back home. I insisted that he unload the washer and dryer out of the jeep so I could go home when I wanted to leave. He disappeared upstairs (I think to get the dog) but when he didn't return right away, I took both items out of the jeep myself. He did carry them upstairs, though as I couldn't have done that.

(8) Son moved his computer and table into the living room, with my help. I helped him move the TV and entertainment center over to a wall. Then he sat and played on his computer, put the 4th Harry Potter movie in the DVD for me and ate some of the food I'd brought for girlfriend. He (like his girlfriend, earlier) insisted that he wanted me to stay, yet I wasn't feeling very welcome! I found the home-cooked food that I had brought them last time rotting in their refrigerator, so I dumped it out and then washed my dishes. I didn't do up all the dishes lying around nor clean the apartment like I did the last time I visited them.

(9) I left when the movie was done, son carried down my heavy suitcase. Gee, I sure wouldn't have needed all that stuff for one night! While watching the movie I did eat a small pizza (one of those little frozen ones that you bake) all by myself, which wasn't good, but I was hungry by that time. As I was driving the couple of hours to get back home, I did wonder if I had returned to visit them too soon? Yet they had encouraged me to come down again and we had planned the exact date according to their work schedules.

(10) So now I am home again and glad of it, even though it's a day earlier then planned. The real estate guy had left a message on my answering machine about renewing the listing contract. It made me tired to realize that I will have to explain to him why I want to list with another company (his company barely advertised my house).

So, I'm finally done lamenting over my "lost" weekend and ready to go to bed now. I feel much better after writing all this down even if it was quite the "poor me" self-indulgent post! Thanks for reading (if you managed to get this far...!) But hey, I have the new Harry Potter book.