Yesterday

Well, I didn't sleep well, as I feared.  I had a hard time dropping off. 

I woke up late, got ready, went with Ron to Sam's.  We didn't buy much, we were limited by paratransit and they said they were sending us a cab.  I got a case of water, a case of Dr Pepper, and a case of Sprite.  I also got some chocolate donuts and sour skittles for "Big Daddy" who is a faithful customer and always buys them out. 

We had about an hour after I finished.  Ron was hungry.  I found him a chicken salad sandwich with a salad in the container.  He said he wanted that over the spicy garlic shrimp. 

I would have gone for the shrimp, but instead I got a bunless hot dog.  They used to have hot dogs by Nathans.  They were good, but I always got very queasy after eating them.  Sometimes the lithium says NO YOU'RE NOT EATING THAT.  Like steak.  Same thing. 

Anyway, last week I tried one of the "All Beef" - they don't say Nathan's anymore - hot dogs and it settled nicely.  So I had another one today.  It was very cheap, delicious, and filling.  I had her leave the bread off (they actually have to put the dog in the bread before they serve it), she gave me a slightly puzzled look but then I said "I'm on a diet" and she understood. 

Ron ate half his sandwich, and all the vegetables, while I ate my dog.  We were both happy. 

No headache. 

Our ride came and we went to work, I did all the lifting putting things away and taking them out.  We had to pass live security at work, they certainly knew Ron but they checked our badges anyway. 

I am seeing more people with overt physical disabilities, at work, lately.  That makes me happy.  People with disabilities tend to have abysmal unemployment rates, and when they do work it is often a menial job - certainly nothing you could term a "career". 

Like the people with intellectual disabilities (slow) who go to "work" but in actuality it is just an adult daycare.  It's not "work", it's daycare.  It makes their parents feel better, is all. 

We got inside and I started doing my work.  It is safe to say I do a lot of lifting, pulling, pushing, reaching, etc. in my job.  Happily I am reasonably fit and able to work without pain. 

BUT I noticed a spreading headache at the base of my skull when I walked into the stockroom.  It was pretty present, but didn't incapacitate me.  I helped Ron first, he gets very agitated if I don't help him with "his" work first, and then he tries to do it himself, hurting his back. 

So I helped him first.  We had a lot to do.  I got the cart, and put warm drinks on it.  I took cold drinks out of the fridge and put them on the cart.  Then I put the warm drinks into the fridge to cool. 

People always ask us if the drinks are cold.  Of course they are.  Is the other vendor putting out hot drinks?  I don't know but people can be very leery of the machine.  I guess they don't read the temperature on the front display.  It says, I think "Welcome!  38 degrees!"  or something like that.  So they know it's cold. 

At any rate, it's gotten so bad I just hand them a drink so see for themselves.  Then they always buy it. 

We got that done, now time for canned sodas.  I loaded them all on the cart and helped Ron remember which, was where, as I stocked. 

Everyone was bitching I ran out of Pop-tarts.  Pop Tarts are a very slow mover and I had plenty, the other day.  It's not my fault 10 people all decided they needed some pop-tarts.  But there was a lot of very bitter complaining because I ran out.  One guy told me I "had" to put two rows in the machine.  I sell about $5 worth of the things a week, and it takes the full week to sell the whole row.  I only have double rows for very high turnover products, that's not one of them. 

No, I told him. 

No one cared about the other stuff I ran out of, and I was picked pretty clean.  I started with candy bars.  Oh, so many candy bars.  Stocking candy bars is not fun, especially when you are on a Keto diet.  One guy I call "Big Daddy" - that's what he calls Ron - loves sour skittles.  So I bought some for him, told him, and stocked them in all 3 machines.  I had a mountain of cardboard after I finished.  I put it on a table. 

Then I moved onto crackers.  They were pretty much OK.  Next, chips.  More cardboard added to the mountain. 

Sometimes Ron implies I am "lazy" and what I do doesn't matter.  When he saw the mountain of cardboard he almost fell out of his wheelchair.  I asked him to crush it up and put the recycling things on either side of him.  He got to work.  It took him a while, and he was slower than I would have been, but it's a job I hate, and, more importantly, something he can do. 

I ran out of time before I finished, but I felt a lot better about the machines when I left. 

I got to put all the carts up, find homes for the inventory, etc.  Help Ron get in the home wheelchair, etc. 

I got him outside, the ride was already there.  It was a nice man from Nigeria.  He was impressed when I thanked him in one of the dialects.  We had a straight trip home. 

I went to bed, hoping to beat my headache.  It got worse.  When I woke up, I took a hot shower and took some Excedrin.  That helped some. 

We went out to dinner.  I had a bunless bacon cheeseburger.  Ron had a salad but had some digestive excitement after eating it.  Sometimes I wonder if he has IBS in addition to everything else.  He had a lot of cramping on the way home. 

When we got home, I had the fun of an emergency push to the bathroom, but we made it in time.  Then we did accounting stuff for a while.  It was almost 8.  On a good day, I go to bed at 7 (crazy pills = "fatigue" - they aren't kidding).  I stayed up for quite a while helping him. 

Then, when I finished, he was critical and unappreciative of what I had done.  I was disappointed.  I had had a very long day and a kind word, or nothing, would have been better than that. 

Ron just tried to talk to me from the other room, and got upset when I yelled back at him.  If I don't yell back he doesn't hear me.  What does he want, a very loud whisper on a megaphone? 

Anyway, I was disappointed, tired, and angry.  I don't bust my butt helping him just so he can slap me down for something I didn't even do.  He was furious about something that HE did, when he finally processed that he stopped "biting" me but he didn't apologize for doing it. 

I went to bed.  I was tired enough I fell asleep pretty fast.  I slept OK, woke up, no headache. 

We have to run some errands and then home.  That's it for today. 

Hopefully Ron will be in a better mood.