Flavor strip

I woke up yesterday at 4 AM to get ready for work.  I hit the snooze button a few times, I had a cuddly cat in the bed. 

I do feel a little bad pushing off my God Time to snuggle with a cat, but I figure He made them, He understands. 

I did get up eventually and did all my usual preparation work.  I also took a salt tablet as the weather is getting warmer, and I'll sweat more. 

Low sodium (Hypoanatremia) is a risk for me due to the lithium I take, and it is miserable.  I got it once when I was working in the garden, years ago, and I only felt better after I drank a glass of salt water. 

I'm one to treat things at home if I can.  If I'm in the doctor's office, it is serious. 

So, we went to the warehouse.  We were early but we didn't have to wait too long.  I think they let us in a little before "opening bell" to be honest. 

I grabbed a flatbed cart and went off to get our bounty.  Ron wanted 20 cases of drinks, he got them.  I got several larger cases of chips, a lot of cookies, and some candy because that's what's been selling. 

I paid up and we waited on Jack.  I'm a little worried about Jack.  He is a wonderful driver and a fantastic human being, but he has a side business selling food on the weekends, and his partners were blowing up his phone, yelling at him to hurry.  I worry a little he will dump us to favor them. 

I sure hope not.  Ron told Jack we can meet him earlier, so that may work better for everyone.  Assuming, of course, Jack wants to get up earlier on his day off. 

Jack arrived, we loaded the truck, off to work.  We loaded the carts and got them into the building.  We stocked.  Things were pretty depleted so we needed to stock. 

Depression nonwithstanding, an empty vending machine is "good" when we walk in the building.  Sold out means we made some money.  A full vending machine, when we walk in, is "bad" because we didn't make any money. 

So, that was "good" but it made for more work. 

I have been helping Ron with the bottled vendor.  I should probably tell you about the canned sodas, first. 

Each soda machine has, I think, 8 slots.  Each slot runs from top to bottom, down to the dispenser mechanism.  Each slot corresponds to a "flavor strip" on the front of the machine.  Although the flavor strip has morphed more into the "flavor button".  You get the idea. 

Ron's memorized all of that, times 3 machines.  24 sodas.  He will open the machine and feel the level of the soda in the machine.  Since he is in a wheelchair he fills it about halfway.  When I filled it, I filled it more to 3/4 to all the way full. 

He determines which sodas he needs and then goes and fetches them, putting the 12-packs in his lap as he sits in the wheelchair.  He rolls back to the machine and fills it.  Basically, we just slide the soda into the slot, top end first.  He does that again and again.  Let me tell you, he has a really ripped left deltoid that would be the envy of any bodybuilder.  When I tell him about it, he gets shy and then embarrassed. 

Hey, good to find something I can drool over, right? 

He's the only man, and will be until one of us dies. 

So.  He can do canned sodas pretty much on his own.  Bottled sodas are trickier. 

We have five rows in the bottled vendor (I think), times 9 slots per row.  Each slot can take 8 bottles of soda.  Ron checks it the same way, then (now) he tells me what he needs. 

"A green tea, a black tea, two Cokes, and a water" 

I get my cart.  I load the green tea, etc. onto the cart.  These are room temperature drinks.  I take them to the fridge.  I take out the cold green tea, etc.  Then I replace them. 

I take the cart full of cold drinks to Ron, who stocks them.  That way we protect his back.  He pulled it a while back and was miserable for about a week. 

I would rather get the drinks myself, then see him go through all that.  Besides, he is "giving" me more time at work now so I can help him more. 

In the meantime, I did snacks.  I put pretzels in two machines instead of one, because I am low on chili cheese Fritos.  I am debating buying a 50-count case of them next time. 

We finished up and we went home. 

I was happy to see #6 was gone.  I laid down for a nap.  They came home and the kids went out to play by my bedroom wall, making bloodcurdling screams and basically sounding like they were being murdered. 

I still managed to get some rest, but not as much as I would have liked.  I think I got ANY rest because I was so tired from earlier.

I got up and did my God Time.  I never even turned on my computer yesterday. 

I watched a little TV and Ron got up.  We were going out to dinner at the BBQ place. 

Our ride was late (they always are, on Saturday evenings), but the driver was a very nice man. 

We got there and had about 50 minutes, a good amount of time.  That's one thing about using paratransit, you literally have to plan your life out to the minute.  The day before the activity, at that. 

I got pancakes.  Ron got ribs, but got them to go because "I got into that burrito".  We had a good time, and Ron ate a fair amount of my pancakes.  I thought it was cute. 

It is good to see he can eat sweet things again.  For a long time he couldn't eat anything sweet, after he had that allergic reaction to the Bactrim.  I think it's called "flavor perversion". 

The ride home came right on time.  He was also a really nice guy.  We took the Beltway and paid the toll (we did, not the driver) to come home faster. 

When we got home #6 had a strange car parked in front of their house, but they were quiet at least.  I was pretty exhausted so I just went to bed. 

I woke up this morning at about 9 AM.  I was pretty depressed.  I had a headache. 

Biscuit and Baby Girl were demanding their breakfast, which I usually feed somewhere around 6 AM. 

I got up and fed the cats, then I took some aspirin and drank a Diet Mountain Dew.  I tried to go back to bed but I couldn't. 

So, I just gave up and got up.  I watched some Law & Order first, then did my God Time and then I took my shower.  Somewhere in there, I ate and took my pills. 

After my shower, I decided to do some laundry.  Last night, I had a nightmare I broke my washer by washing some kind of paper in it.  You can bet I inspected everything before I washed it. 

I found a $20 in Ron's shirt pocket, so I'm glad I looked.  I didn't have enough room to do everything.  I will have to do a smaller, secondary load for Ron later. 

Before I wash his clothes, I go over them with a lint brush (he wears a lot of black and we do have 3 cats).  Then I pretreat any stains with Shout Gel, which I love, because it seems to eliminate everything. 

I don't want ads in my blog, but that's a good product, well worth the $3, and you get tons of uses out of it.  It comes in a blue cylinder with an orange bristled tip. 

Then I load the washer, being careful to balance everything so the washer doesn't break.  I add my detergent pacs, push the button, and walk away. 

It takes about an hour to do a "heavy" "bulky" load. 

My new dryer is not as efficient as the old one, I think it is due to environmental energy use regulations.  It takes about an hour and a half to dry a load now on "medium".  But it does a decent job of drying the clothes if I don't mind putting in the extra time. 

Then I hang everything up (even t-shirts) and give Ron's to him, and put mine in my closet. 

My eye is still bothering me a little, I got some shampoo in it this morning.  It is my "good" eye.  My right eye is about legally blind without glasses, but corrected to 20/60 or so.  My left eye is my "better" eye and the one I use for everything.  That's what got the shampoo today.  Ouch. 

The water company puts "chloramines" in the water so rinsing it didn't help much.  Too bad I didn't have some sterile eyewash on hand.  But I can't have everything for what I might possibly need, my home would be overrun. 

I plan to eat something, take my medication, and maybe go to the gym and see about getting a membership. 

I don't want to, I'm depressed, all I want to do is sleep, but 1.  The kids will be out today, again, I'm sure and 2.  It's a really lovely day, upper 70's, sunny, a little bit of a breeze.  It's going to rain the next couple days so I had better do this today if I'm going to do it. 

There's the spin cycle on my washer.  Time to put things in the dryer.