and so this is Christmas

And this year, Channukka began at sundown on Christmas Eve. Yesterday, I worked from 7AM to 11AM. Looks like I'm back on two 4-hour days a week at my only job now, a little retail gig. Last night, I went with MonsterMustDie to see Rogue One at our local cinema and ended up seated next to a woman who coughed uncontrollably the entire movie. Left my jacket on the back porch and showered as soon as I got home to to rinse the anxiety off of me. 

This morning, we had buttermilk pancakes for breakfast before opening gifts. Lunch was home made brussels sprouts and pickled ginger salad with what little we could pick from the remains of last week's roast duck before I finally threw away the carcass. Tonight, I've got tickets to see the Doctor Who Christmas Special at Geeksboro Coffee. 

Tomorrow, it's back to work for a few hours in the afternoon, followed by grocery shopping and house cleaning. 

Goodbye. Goodbye.

Last night, I severed ties to Murray, a.k.a. Baby Maurice. I had been avoiding speaking to him since my mother's death, because I knew there was nothing good he would say to me and any conversation with him would send me down a negative path. This started when the first words out of his mouth over the phone, while I was grieving with my family the night after she died, was a smart remark. A really nasty remark that he did not think twice about saying.

After all these years, it finally got into my thick head that he is never going to be good for me to be around and has always prevented me from moving on with my life. There were some good times when we were both in our early twenties, but that period was too brief to hold onto. He was always the person who wanted me only when I found someone else and dumped me as soon as I was back around or available. I always wished we could have been friends as well as everything else that we were or were not but he was never a friend. He held onto me and kept me at a distance at the same time. That is neither love nor friendship. It's just possession - and maybe a lot of ego.

I finally hit the OFF switch on everything from him when he started texting nasty things about my mother's death last night just to vent his own anger at my silence. I should have done this on that night in February immediately after that phone call.

In Atlanta this week

I am enjoying a visit to my old neighborhood this week while I have 5 days without work.  When I saw the gap in my schedule,  I decided to make the most of the time. Hopefully,  they will keep me around at job number 2 and give me plenty of holiday hours.  This might be my last  chance before the new year to visit the places & people I love.

I will try to be more enthusiastic

I just need some Adderall and Prozac.

Friday's Rant

Immediately after taking on day off work for my wedding in October, Job #1 had me come into work the next morning at 8:00 a.m. Then, later that week, they let me go because they did not like the scheduling conflicts that always arose from my dance between them and my other very part-time Job #2. So I am trying to concentrate on job 2 as much as possible while still looking for full-time work or at least temp work at better pay and dependable hours. Today, Job 2 called me in for a meeting with my supervisors. They are concerned that I am not working fast enough and want me to be more enthusiastic and energized with customers (i.e. perky, but "we're not asking you to change your personality..."). Also, I need to sell more store credit cards, which are a VERY big deal for any retailer. I plan to work on my assertiveness and be more aggressive on trying to sell the credit cards. I don't know how I'm going to be more perky but I will try to be happy. I wish there was a drug I could take that would make me all of the above.

Meanwhile, I think we are legally married but I have no idea if the papers were filed in time and if that matters or if there are extra legal fees yet to pay or if this whole thing should be annulled. My luck seems worse for getting married. I am feeling frustrated with everyone and everything. And I keep thinking about how MonsterMustDie's close friend was telling everyone, including me, that he was the one to thank for us getting married because MonsterMustDie always thought I was too old for him, saying he told him to settle for someone closer to his own age. Yes, my creepy old Dutchman now seems a lot creepier to me now.

It makes me even sadder when I look at my niece's bridesmaid gift that I never had the opportunity to give her. There was no time. My family came to town for only one day and they stayed in Charlotte, over an hour away, until it was time for the wedding and they left soon after while I was still at the reception. My brother and sister-in-law alone were able to come the night before to attend the rehearsal dinner but they almost missed the rehearsal itself. I feel somehow disowned by my family. The great irony is that it was my family who kept on me to get married. One of the main reasons we made ourselves legally tied was their urging to do so.

I feel I was born to stay orphaned. Yes, I know everyone had to make time in their schedules to make the trip but I would have liked to have seen more or my family while they were here.

Happy Halloween

It's Halloween night and I worked tonight and yesterday so there was no attempt this year to host a pumpkin carving party and I ended up giving all my candy away to a pal who would be home to enjoy trick-or-treaters tonight.  Living in High Point, North Carolina still absolutely sucks but I also still have hopes for a better year in 2017. I wish all of my friends and family a very happy, fun, and safe Halloween. It's my favorite holiday and I hope everyone had a blast.

xox,
Weremonkey

The Wedding

The band is back together again.

With the women at the hotel.

Hair done

Just got home from getting a fresh cut & Color for the wedding.

Today is fired.

Woke  up with a UTI. Then was blocked in by MonsterMustDie's car when I needed to get out to go to work while he was in the shower.  Tried to get around him and accidentally backed into his car. Once I got to work, I started feeling worse and drinking a lot of water and taking Cystex was not helping. Left job#1 for the day to go to the Urgent Care clinic.  Now, I am in a 40-minute wait for my antibiotics at the pharmacy. 
Today is so fired.

The Gift

Another wedding gift arrived today in a beautiful hand-painted box.

The big litter box

We started noticing several large dugouts in the mulch -covered hill at the side of our house.  At first, MonsterMustDie thought someone had stolen a few of the large rocks we have sunk into the hill (people do steal potted plants,  tool, and other landscape materials ).  Today,  I found out that the feral cats are pooping all over it. The mulch and soil are just soft enough to be a perfect litter pile.

Is this the Final Showdown at the Time Clock?

I've been doing the two part-time job dance for a while now, still hoping to find full-time work and unable to get more than two half-days a week from job no. 2 but hoping for more time on a regular basis from them. Job no. 1 still only gives me two days a week, usually, despite the fact that I was hired under the agreement that I would train at part-time hours and immediately go to full-time with full benefits after that brief training period. I don't suppose any business hires anyone for full-time hours anymore unless they are admin jobs. That would be okay if my hours were predictable so I could easily fill in the gaps with another job and avoid any conflicts. Neither job wants to give me that. My hours change on an as-needed basis. I am unspeakably frustrated. I want to work. I need to make money. I need the interaction of other human beings. Admittedly, job no. 1 is very hard on me physically and most of my co-workers, who are half my age and twice my size and did not spend their lives working at a computer, seem to view me as a primadonna.

Here is today's correspondence from from job no.1, who still give me more hours per week than my preferred job - no. 2.

Is this the final showdown? I don't know. This is my correspondence with them today.

I might be down to working 8 hours a week at one job.

This is actually an email I sent LAST WEEK and never got an answer to it. I re-sent it today with the additional reminder about the time off for weddings.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Moi

Subject: Re: My Schedule and Availability

Date: August 17, 2016 at 11:58:33 AM EDT

To: Department Manager

I will be there between 1:30 and 2:00 p.m.

That's the best I can do.

- Moi

 

On Aug 17, 2016, at 10:23 AM, Department Manager wrote:

Moi,

If you don't work your scheduled shift on the 23rd it will be counted as an absence, I already have the closing shift covered.

Thank You,

Dept Manager

---

From: Moi
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2016 10:08:24 AM
Subject: My Schedule and Availability

Here is my schedule at the other place, for now. Set in stone from their end.

Wed, 8/17, 3:00PM - 7:00PM

Tues 8/23, 9:00AM - 1:00PM  (conflict - I could work 2:00PM-10:00PM if necessary)

Fri, 8/26, 3:00PM - 7:00PM

Here is my availability:

Thu, 8/18, FREE ALL DAY  and scheduled at F&D 8:00AM-5:00PM

Fri, 8/19 - 8/21, FREE ALL DAY  available for work

Wed, 8/24, FREE ALL DAY  available for work

Thu, 8/25, FREE ALL DAY and scheduled at F&D 8:00AM-2:00PM

F.I.Y.

I still need to be off work Sept 9 - 11 to attend a wedding on September 10 in Atlanta, Georgia.

I need to be off work for my own wedding, now moved to October 15. Please allow me to be off work October 13- 17.

hot and tired

Worked a surprisingly good day at  retail job #1 and got lots of compliments from co-workers. Found out one of the managers has left the store, which is a huge loss because he had took a lot of product and company knowledge with him. We have a new flock of young employees from nearby colleges, some former employees looking for part-time filler work, and former employees of our competitors.

I think I am not made to drive a forklift so, after agonizing for so long about doing it, I'm okay with staying away from them. Everyone reminds me how much I hate driving cars and how far that is from the culture I was raised in. In retrospect, I think I would not make a good operator and its in the company's best interest that I steer clear of them. My anxiety kicks in just looking at them.

Every time I go in now to job #1, I think it will be my last day and that I'll be fired soon for all the work conflicts I have trying to manage schedules for two part-time jobs.

I see no hope on the horizon for employment in the field I am educated for or for returning to college.

Even if I returned to college, would that even benefit me by the time it would take to finish a new Master's degree in the hopes of finding work? I think not. I think my age - past 50 - still makes me unattractive to employers. Anyway I would never  be able to schedule classes with my current lifestyle and I can't afford online college. I don't qualify for any grants or loans, either.

I need a business plan for something I can start myself, with no money up front, using what I already have, in a place where I know no one. Perhaps online, where location is not a concern.

It has been hot this week with temperatures in the 90s again. Both myself and MonsterMustDie have been feeling insurmountable fatigue from the heat. Sunday, we ran errands in the morning and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening languishing indoors, in the AC, Could not even be motivated to do indoor activities. Yesterday, we both came home exhausted from work and slept deeply last night under the fan. Ceiling fans are a lifesaver, especially when you don't want to kill your AC unit.

It amazes me how long my grandmother lived without air-conditioning. She relied on fans in a duplex built in the 40's with transom windows over all the doorways. For the winter, she had one central heater in the basement that had a huge "baby burner" vent in the hallway floor. No fan necessary for the heater - hot air rises and created its own warm breeze from the center of the house. The garden she had was great. It was a back yard full of large flowers, green grass, and a concrete bird bath in the center. Teal-painted brick patio. There was always a little vegetable garden on the left side of the back yard and climbing rose bushes on the right side of the yard against the fence. A home-made shed and fenced-in compost pile sat at the very back of the lot. Tomatoes. Strawberries. Quince. Hollyhock. Four'O Clocks. Hydrangeas. Roses. Caladiums. Etc, She saved seeds as well for the following year.

Today, I work at part-time retail job #2. This is my preferred workplace but, alas, they give me even less hours than job #1. However, I have hope that they will increase the frequency of my schedule with them. The job pays the same as #1 and is much closer to home and easier on my body. I am always beaten up physically after working at #1. I have bruises and cuts all over me from yesterday. Job #2 has co-worker who are a lot less depressing to be around as well. Better all-around environment. Today will be a good day.