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2009-03-25 - 6:16 p.m.
Over the last few months I have developed a new habit of calling Eric incessantly from the moment I get off work until the moment he arrives home. That is how the stress of this unknowing time manifested itself in me. I would call, with nothing in particular to say or ask, just to see how the day was progressing, whether or not people (him) had been laid off that day, if there was any news on that front, etcetera. I couldn�t bear those in between hours because in my mind I had created the scenario that he would arrive home from work, as usual, and announce that he had been laid off. (at which point panic would ensue) So those hours between 3 and 6, when I am home alone sweeping floors and blah blah blah, became intolerable for me unless I had some sort of response from him. Even a, �I heard a rumor today that something was going to happen next week,� was good enough for me. It gave me license to have one more normal day, gave me a chance to have one more day of work to hoard money from. Thankfully, for the moment, that anxiety is over. Yesterday Eric�s company laid off more people from his department and he wasn�t one of them. BIG SIGH OF RELIEF (and a lot of sadness about those who did get laid off). Lesson? We need to get ourselves way better prepared for something like this. That whole deal about having enough money to live on for six months without jobs? Yes. That is pretty important. That is going to be my goal. After we get the huge and ridiculous income tax bill we owe paid off. As a show of my relief that my spouse is still employed�I gave away a shift this week. A Friday shift. Mostly because I don�t think I can handle my schedule this week. In addition to this being my three night week at the winebar, I am also opening the restaurant at my day job for the usual girl who is on vacation. And I am also cat sitting for her. So I have a lot going on and I am already exhausted and it�s only Wednesday. So the idea of working from 6:30am until midnight tomorrow and then going to work Friday morning and working until midnight that night too is probably not a good idea. So I gave away from Friday morning shift. I�m losing $80+ but I figure I�d probably lose more than that on Friday night if I am a zombie. I am really looking forward to next week when my normal schedule resumes. Except, I�ll be missing the cats I am cat sitting. I have a lot of cats right now who I need to find homes for. If I ever did become rich enough to have a huge house and lots of land, I am afraid I would acquire too many cats. I mean, I guess it�s not too many if you can take care of them all�.but, how could you ever give enough attention to too many cats? My six cats sometimes don�t get enough attention and I spend about 90% of my free time/home time tending to them and their needs. Anyway! These two cats I am cat sitting are very very very very nice cats. And they are desperate for attention. The girl who �owns� them is 23 years old and got them when she got her first apartment two and a half years ago. She lavished them with attention and they show it. But then she got a boyfriend who is allergic (or whatever) to cats and she moved in with him but he wouldn�t allow the cats. So now they live at her house, totally and utterly alone. She stops by once a day for about five seconds to feed them and clean the litter box. And that�s it. That is the only human interaction they get. This might be all right for some cats. But not these two. They climb up my leg purring and bury themselves into my lap when I am there. She is trying to find a new home for them�but that�s kind of impossible right now when all the shelters are full and no one can really afford to take on a pet. I keep trying to talk her into either moving back into her house (she�s only 23! She has no need to live with someone yet!) or into being her own person and bringing the cats to her new house. I know people suffer from allergies, but shit�it�s not like she decided to get cats while she was living with him. He should take some fucking pills until a decent home can be found for them. (or, more likely, until she breaks up with him and moves back into her house again anyway) I wish I could take them�but that just would never work. So if anyone hears of a person who wants to adopt two very healthy, very friendly, very funny 2 � year old cats�let me know. In other news. I�ve been feeling crappy about myself lately. A lot of this comes from the fact that since June I have not been comfortable with my schedule. And when I am not comfortable with my schedule the first thing that gets pushed aside is fitness. I just feel gross, sloppy. My skin is bad. My teeth are yellow. I have some love handle-ish type things growing off my hips. My hair looks like hell. I also appear to be growing a pretty noticeable mustache. In addition to the disgusting chin whisker I have. I have not had a massage in over a year and my toenails are embarrassingly disgusting looking. I need to change some things. It�s time to take care of myself again. There is no reason I shouldn�t be living like I used to. I used to get up at 4am and do laundry, dishes, get ready for work AND relax a little while reading internet stuff (mostly diaryland in those dayss). Then I would work from 5:45 until 1�go to the gym (or run errands), home by 4 and I would unwind a little then go for a walk or work on my gardens or the stairclimber while listening to my French language tapes and then I would make dinner and eat while watching Seinfeld and if I was still awake and not at all tired I would do yoga or paint my nails or rub my feet. Something. I was always doing something for myself. And, somehow, even though I was working six days a week, I still managed to write a whole lot. A whole lot. I wrote more in a week then than I write now in a year. SOMETHING MUST CHANGE!!! Fortunately I think my two jobs are going to be keepers. So I should be able to settle into some balance very soon. My day is awesome. I still hate Wednesdays (today was awful) but for the most part that job is great. It�s still very very busy there all the time and I love that I am working non stop from the moment I walk in the door until I leave. My night job is far from consistent. And if it wasn�t for the fact that we are completely free to do pretty much whatever we want whenever we want as long as our customers are happy, I would not stay there. But I like to have a job where I am not treated like a child. I can actually bring my purse into work with me. !!!! And my phone. !!!! And if I have no tables I can read a magazine or book at the hostess stand. And if I have no tables and someone else is working with me I can say, �hey, I�m gonna run over to the (wherever) to get (whatever).� There are also other freedoms that I enjoy there. Such as, being able to pour a taste of wine for someone who isn�t sure they want to order a glass (at my last winebar job a taste cost $3.00 which was just annoying), or being able to eat when I am hungry instead of starving myself through my entire shift. I also enjoy that I can drink water whenever I want! At my day job we have to keep our drinks in a spot far far far away from the actual restaurant part. So if I want a drink of water I either have to slam a surreptitious glass of water while no one is looking up front or I have to ask someone to watch my section so I can go in the back to get a drink. At my night job we keep our drinks right next to the computer so I can drink water whenever I want! Also, I can wear my hair down at my night job. Bonus. Nothing makes me feel more like shit than wearing my hair in a pony tail every day. Also. I get to wear pretty much whatever I want as long as it is black. There are many downsides to my night job and some of them far outweigh the benefits (2:30 am on weekends is way too late for me to still be working) but because I need a night job right now (see first paragraph above where I mention that I need to save some fucking money) I am just going to stick with this one. This summer should be very profitable for me once the patio opens. So that is that. In a nutshell. Need money and vibrancy and homes for cats (no, not mine!).
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