pretty good day

Not a bad day yesterday. We filled three small planter boxes with garden soil and replanted the surviving parsley and thyme from last year's garden. MonsterMustDie planted salad greens and watermelon radishes. We need to plant the  tomato & kale seedlings we have before they're too big but he is dragging his feet on building simple fences to fit over the boxes to protect them from cats, squirrels and rabbits. Something got in under the screen I laid on top of the boxes and dug around in the newly planted bed and dug up the parsley plants. I smoothed the soil back over the seeded bed, hoping for the best on what we already stuck in the soil.


I also made what I consider to be a meal of real food - fresh chicken medallions wrapped in bacon and roasted, roasted brussels sprouts, and fingerling potatoes tossed in butter and parsley.



I need to put something together for headers, etc. on a new web page and portfolio for myself.

another UTI

Woke up at 2:30 a.m. with another horrible UTI, probably from the infection I had last month that was never completely cleared, no thanks to my regular doctor's office. MonsterMustDie drove me to the local emergency room for a positive test and thankfully, my insurance was still active so it only cost me $500.00 (I dread to think what something like this will cost with no insurance). Thanks to the kind staff and young Dr. Patel for helping me accurately and quickly. My Walgreens helped with the cost of the antibiotics and now I'm once again on the road to recovery.

This has been a strange sad week. Lost my full-time job last week. 

Planned a trip to Chicago this week with friend to visit her mom. 

Then my sister-in-law's father, who has been ill for a very long time, passed away early Sunday morning. I cancelled the plans for the Chicago trip and started making new plans to drive down to Atlanta for the funeral and MonsterMustDie took his suit to the drycleaners (which he should have done last time he wore it). 

My sister-in-law asked us not to come to the funeral. She just repeated several times how the long drive wasn't worth it and it was going to be a small brief memorial - about 30 minutes.

On the upside, maybe everything does happen for a reason. 

My friend decided to postpone her trip to Chicago to next week so we can go together and she doesn't have to make such a long drive alone. 

It probably would have been much worse if I had come down with this infection while I was away from home. The money I would have spent on travel and flowers and cat-sitter, etc. for the funeral trip was used for medical bills. Looks like the universe has taken care of me again.

such a joyful life

I hate it here. I don't fit in. My hands are tied. I get shut down at everything I try to do.

Once again, I'm unemployed.

The company I've been working at full-time since July 2018 decided to eliminate their entire digital imaging department, outsourcing more and concentrating on marketing instead. They called all of us into a meeting on Friday morning and let us know our jobs were terminated. Effective immediately. They handed us our final paychecks as we left the conference room and all of us were escorted out of the building. The only people I didn't see leaving were Captain Cod and Mr. Drinky. 

Boom. 

I've got no plans or prospects for another job here in High Point. Meanwhile, I'll try to put in more hours at my weekend job at the shop. This leaves my schedule and life even more unpredictable and since I'll have to be available to show up at any time to keep a retail job. I still work every weekend but I will try to get more weekday hours now. 

John is retired now and has no interest in working for someone else again. He'll be 65 on April 28. 

All retail work is part time. I am now immediately uninsured again, probably permanently. 

in memoriam

There are some people I think of every day: 

Those who are gone:
Janet Leigh Parks
J. Paul Harrison
Barry Feltz
Clark Vreeland
My mother, Loretta Perry
My father, James Ray Perry


Those who are still here with me: 
My newly-found biological sisters, Jennifer and Patricia
Jennifer's daughters, whom I've met, Gabrielle and Myka
Sandra Ross
Cindi Sokol

Those I wonder about often: 
Stuart Pennington
Stephanie Kaskel
Gillian Canty

UTI

Two weeks ago,  I woke up in the middle of the night with a horrific UTI. 

On Wednesday,  I was nearly finished with the prescription antibiotics but I still didn't feel right. There was still some burning pain in my bladder.  I decided to try to schedule a recheck. I felt better but there was still some pain. Is that just healing that still needs to happen or is it lingering infection? I don't know. 

I phoned th he doctor's office for a recheck. Told them I had my last med that morning. Oddly enough, they told me to come in that same morning so I went in at 10:30 a.m. Of course,  my urine test was negative. Now, they want to test me for a yeast infection,  like I don't know the difference in symptoms. 

I wish they would recommend a good urologist for me. They won't. They said they'd rather wait until my labs come in. 

The test proved that I don't have to a yeast infection.  Now they want me to try Primarin cream. So they say,  at my age, vaginal dryness can be irritating.  Like that would feel anything like a  UTI.  

I would say an Urgent Care clinic would be easier but I don't know if they have labs on site and they would take a lot longer. The Urgent Care Clinic near me has doctors who are too eager to prescribe painkillers and sedatives but that's the market they're used to here. 

After my office visit,  I stopped into Walgreen's to pick up the Primarin that my doctor was wanted me to try and the pharmacist said nothing had been called in for me. I gave up and went back into work. 

I still don't feel well today. I am very much afraid I will come back down with the same infection this week. 

 

pain and fear

I woke up at 1:00AM Wednesday with a blazing UTI. I kept waking up the rest of the night from the pain. I could not get a new prescription for antibiotics until I had an office visit with a doctor. I was able to get in to see the doctor on call at my OBGYN at 10:30AM that morning. Then after an hour to get my prescription filled, I returned  to work the rest of the day. I went straight to bed after work that day. By Thursday, I stayed up long enough to do some laundry before going to bed and sleeping well.
The idea of getting a UTI on a weekend, when there are no doctors around to prescribe anything, horrifies me. I know I could not possibly work my weekend job on my feet in that much pain. There are emergency clinics but even they have to send tests to labs outside and none of them have late hours. I don't know if they're open on weekends.
This infection came out of the blue. I try to drink a lot of water. I guess I'm still not drinking enough water for this to happen.

nightmares

Yesterday was not good

 I woke up from a dream with a recurring theme of me trying to protect  someone and failing. 

Work was okay. This is a time of long hours.

Got home to Monstermustdie having a very bad day for his functioning memory.  He couldn't remember watching the latest episode of Watchmen with me the night before and insisted on watching it again. He didn't remember one moment of the show as it played.  Then we watched His Dark Materials and he struggled with the actor's name who originally played the cowboy,  calling him Sam Walton, the Sam Neal, and me finally correcting him with Sam Elliott. Monstermustdie always remembers actor's names but not last night. 

Halloween 2019

Horrible weather this year essentially shut down all of our Halloween activities.  There were severe thunderstorms all night. We only had six trick-or-treaters at Casa WereMonster this year. Two people we invited over came by to hang out for a little while. I'm still giving away leftover candy to co-workers. I'll save the party for next year and hope the rubber whoopie cushions survive the time in storage.

We had plenty of treats.

New skeleton in my grandmother's old dress

Charcuterie spread 

Bar cart 

smack in the nose

Yesterday Monstermustdie,  for reasons unknown to me, had the attic door in front of the bathroom open with the ladder up just hanging down. I came out of the bathroom and, looking down like I usually do, walked straight into it. I hit my nose really hard, which resulted in a nose bleed and some swelling. I stayed mad at him the rest of the day for that.

Today, I worked at the dress shop. I was originally scheduled for 10AM to 3:15PM but they asked me to work until closing tonight and, work slut that I am, I said yes.

feels like Autumn tonight

Yesterday was rainy, which is good. We have been in a deficit here for a while. It was incredibly foggy in the morning and stayed overcast with a spotty drizzle coming down all day. At the end of the work day, I actually had a bit to do with finishing and collating a large print job - another improvement of my week. Once I got home, I made dinner of some vegetables that were lingering in the fridge along with some fresh rotisserie chicken that happened to be on sale. MonsterMustDie and I finished the evening watching Nightmare Before Christmas.

That was just enough distraction for me to forget to phone Jen about our weekend plans and let Mad know I got the print she sent me. I sent a text message this morning on the print and I'll have to remember to call to firm up the weekend tonight.

inertia & atrophy

I can tell it's Market time in High Point because my commute to work was fully twice as long as normal this morning.  Looking back to who was still behind me coming in, I recognized coworkers who also live in High Point.  Market takes place here on two weeks a year - one in fall and one in spring.  The rest of the year,  this place is a ghost town. You would think that would mean my life is very busy this week but the opposite is true.

They've been sending me home early every day for lack of anything to work on. Yesterday,  by the time I got home, I realized I have a serious case of brain fog from it. My life is at a standstill this week in my little cage.
MonsterMustDie is still refusing to file for unemployment. I am continuing to try to talk him into taking advantage of the benefit he's paid into all his working life and that we need now.

Labor Day Weekend

I managed to work all weekend, including Monday when my full time job was on holiday. Monday night was the most peaceful I've seen the shop in a long time. We even had time to tidy up a bit and the racks and floor were mostly clear by the time we got the last customer out. Seems like Monday national holidays are the best time to be working. We weren't empty but everything was very manageable and efficient. I only wish someone had concentrated more on visual merchandising while there was time but it was still well-spent putting a ton of new fall merchandise out and marking down and eliminating more final clearance items. Best part of Monday night was that no one misbehaved enough to be noteworthy or threatening. I need to remember this next year at this time.

Contagious diseases

Someone brought a kid with measles into the store. I can't believe there are so many anti-vaxxers here and that they intentionally take sick children out in public.