At Least I Tried?

Sooo my paycheck was not as pleasing as I had hoped. Yes, it had all my hours from my last week in Indiana and my first week in Connecticut...but they were all charged at the Indiana pay rate, which is over a dollar less than my current, Connecticut pay rate. I probably wouldn't let it slip anyway, but then they charged me both state's taxes without paying both rates? That ain't coo'.

I called the payroll number, she was very helpful, all that has to happen is my boss has to file some kind of action tomorrow and I should have retroactive pay in my next paycheck this Friday.

(On a side note--getting paid every week as opposed to every other week? I think I can do that!)

Work is still going well in the areas of the actual work and the people I work with. The only problem, currently, is the physical demand. I can't remember if I mentioned it in da blog, but my back was killing me during the week, and I decided it was from barring for hours on end; bending at the waist to lift gallons of milk from knee-or shin-height. There's also the sauce pumps and the spray-washer-thingie in the sink, but those are mostly working on my neck and shoulders. My back is definitely from the gallons of milk.

So on Friday I tried a different method: Instead of bending, I would squat down, grab a gallon, then stand up. It worked beautifully for my back! No problem at all! My thighs, on the other hand, still hurt two days later. I spent yesterday whining walking like I was on stilts, I was wobbly despite all efforts to exert control over my limbs. Fortunately, I didn't bar my entire shift...just part of it!

Of course, then I went to Catsy's house. She has stairs. I whined a lot.

I went to Catsy's to follow through on my promise: there was a bar in Plainville having a Batman-themed Halloween party, and she convinced me to go with her.

I should mention that Catsy and Batman...I don't even know the correct word. Addiction...obsession...fixation...to say she has a thing for Batman (and everything related to him) is just an understatement. There is no apt way of putting it without doing it injustice. She also loves to dress up (although not as much as she loves Batman...she doesn't love anything that much...), so a Halloween party with a Batman theme? MUST GO! MUST DANCE!

We got all gussied in bellydancer and gypsy gear and set out for the bar. It ended up being...pretty lame. Most of the crowd were the regular bar-going type, in jeans and leather and regular clothing. The band wasn't really bad, just LOUD. There were a few other costumes, some of them even Batman-related (Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, etc)...but we still stuck out a bit. So we left.

Then I felt crappy...then I threw up on the side of the road...then we went home.

I AM SO MUCH FUN.

Honestly, even with the failbar and the nausea, we had fun and laughed a lot. And fortunately, I have today and Monday off, so I can recuperate...between the other plans I/we've made. But they're good plans, fun plans, recuperation-of-the-soul kind of plans, so it's all good! :)

This Past Week.

Saturday, I was supposed to work 12 to 6. I got a call at 8 that morning asking if I could come in at 10 and work until 6:30 for a full eight-hour shift, so someone could go home early. I did.

Sunday, I was supposed to work 12 to 6. I got a call, as I was driving to work, asking if I could come in at 2 instead. "Two until when?" "Close." Someone had called out. I covered.

Monday was a normal eight-hour shift.

Tuesday, BJ, Sam and I left the house at 7 in the morning, picked up our friend Raequan at 7:30, grabbed some breakfast, and headed to Chicago.

Oh my goodness, Chicago.

We went to the Brookfield Zoo first, and were there for four or five hours. We saw almost everything, and I took a million pictures of almost everything. The three best things, that had HUGE impacts on me, were the three things we paid extra for: the dolphin show, petting (de-barbed) stingrays, and the butterfly house. I was exhausted and in pain by the time we left, but I was also excited the entire time, like little-kid excited, it was AWESOME. The dolphin show almost made me cry from pure kid joy, the stingrays were so adorable and wonderful and calming, the butterfly house was a photographic dream, MAN...it was fantastic.

Next was The Chicago Diner, a vegan/vegetarian restaurant recommended to Rae by a co-worker. I want to make this co-worker cookies for suggesting it, because OH. MY. GOD. Some of the best food I have ever had. The milkshake was to die for. The atmosphere was fun and cozy. The waitress was amazing--she helped explain the menu without being pretentious or condescending, answered our questions about the food and Chicago, and even drew us a map of cool places to go within walking distance. The whole experience was...awesome.

Next was Navy Pier, which was basically just shops and restaurants that we enjoyed toodling around in. After that was Mitsuwa Marketplace, a Japanese store BJ and Sam are fond of visiting, and Woodfield Mall.

We didn't get home until past one in the morning, although that was mostly the fault of the GPS on my phone, which is, in a word, moronic. Honestly, the best parts of the trip were outside the car, because being in the car meant following directions from a phone who didn't understand the real world we were currently driving in.

But yeah. That was Tuesday, in Chicago.

Wednesday was Aurelie's birthday. The original plan had been to go to Lake Michigan, chill for most of the day, then go back to Goshen for dinner and drinking. I met up with Aurelie and Allie at Quincy's, gave her her presents, had breakfast, hung out for a bit. She changed her mind about the lake--as was her birthday girl prerogative--and decided on a movie instead.

I was fading quickly at this point, having only gotten about five hours of sleep after 14 hours in Chicago after five hours of sleep, and realized that it was either go to the movies and hang out, or go to dinner and the bar later. I chose the latter, Aurelie said it was fine, and I went home and crashed for a few hours. Sadly, crashing didn't mean sleep so much as not-moving-or-thinking, so it was only half as restful as hoped, but still.

I picked Aurelie up and took her to Buffalo Wild Wings, where a bunch of people came out for her birthday dinner. After that was The Constant Spring, which was full of a different birthday party, all of which were drunk and doing karaoke. Beatles's karaoke. While drunk. I was displeased.

Still, it was good people, good time, Aurelie had a blast. Mission accomplished. :)

Still didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night, either.

Yesterday, Thursday, was an eight-hour pre-closing shift. I started out fairly upbeat and able, went downhill to exhausted and hungry, ate, and became just plain exhausted. I was basically pathetic and whiny from four o'clock on to the end of the night.

Today, I don't go in until 4:30, and I close. I got a text from the Morning Shift asking if I could come in at 2. I might fall have if I didn't have a To Do list that literally can't be done the rest of the weekend.

And then it's four more days of my six-day work week after that. Then three days off. Whee!

There, now we're all caught up. Now if I could just get a couple of hours of time where I'm awake and don't have shit to do so I can call all my parents and not be a terrible daughter...

Still Walking Those Coals.

First and foremost, a birthday shout out to my stepmother, Dorita. HI DORITA! *waves frantically and sillilililily*

I gave her a call tonight on the way home from work, and...it made me realize how much I miss them. I mean, I always miss them, and my parents and my friends in Connecticut and other parts of the world. Still, there are times when it smacks me on the nose, how long it's been since I've seen these people that I love so much.

Talking with her also reminded me of the firewalk I did back in April, and how much that's still with me. Though time has faded it a little--as time is wont to do--I can still think back to the moment before I walked, standing before the hot coals and knowing that I was too scared and couldn't do it. Knowing it with complete certainty...and doing it anyway.

That was also around the same time that Ryan and I decided to move to Indiana with only the promise of jobs and an apartment with people we had never met in person.

Anyway, the phone call, combined with a morning text revealing that someone thought I was coming back to visit for Christmas, has me feeling a little guilty for the length of time since I've seen...everyone.

To family and friends in Connecticut, New York, Maryland, California, etc etc...do know that we miss and love you very much. It kills us to miss the Christmas parties and weekly get-togethers, the dinners and breakfasts and weekends and...everything.

Okay. Time to go eat dinner and watch something silly on Netflix and get my mind back to positive things.

Well.

First off: Everyone is fine.

This was my plan for my day off:
[o] Sleep in
[o] Go to the bank
[o] Do laundry
[o] Do some grocery shopping
[o] Hang out with Simon on his last full day in Indiana

This is how my day went:
[o] Slept in until 2
[o] Awoke to find a text message from Ryan, dated an hour earlier, saying he forgot his glasses at home, could I bring them to him?
[o] Started laundry, got in the shower.
[o] Got out of the shower just in time to get a phone call from the Human Resources director at Target: Ryan isn't feeling well, can I pick him up?
[o] Hustled Simon out the door so we can fetch Ryan and bring him home so I can continue with the day.
[o] Got to Target, found an ambulance and firetruck outside.
[o] Walked in and saw Ryan sitting on a stretcher, surrounded by firemen. A manager tells me to not panic, he's fine now. He later tells me that he asked her to tell me that right off the bat.
[o] Talked to Ryan a bit before they loaded him into the ambulance. Told he had one of his "heart episodes," which he's had about a dozen times over his life. While running the register, he bent to pick up a fallen item, stood a little too fast, and his heart started going like a jack rabbit. While in the past these episodes have only lasted about five minutes at most, this one lasted 45 minutes. After asking his HR manager to call me to pick him up, he had asked for an aspirin and a drink, and finally relented to having the paramedics called while I was on the way to get him.
[o] Simon and I drove to the hospital, less than 5 minutes away, and waited for Ryan's ambulance to arrive. We only waited for about 20 minutes, but it felt like forever.
[o] The three of us spent about 3 hours in a hospital room, waiting for blood test and x-ray results and what not, watching Ryan get blood drawn and stuffed with plenty of hydration.
[o] The final diagnosis is Supraventricular Tachycardia. Ryan was given a few potassium supplements as he was a bit low, told to make a follow-up appointment sometime in the next two weeks, given many pages to read over and sign, and sent on his way.
[o] Simon and I took Ryan him home, where he proceeded to nap for about an hour before settling down on couch for the rest of the evening, relaxing and slowly recovering from the stress of the day.

Fortunately, he already had tomorrow off, so he'll have plenty of time to fully recuperate. Even so, when I called the HR manager to let her know how Ryan was (she gave me her card as I was leaving and asked me to call. I love that he works with actual humans!), she said that he should feel free to call out on Wednesday if he doesn't feel up to it. I don't have work until 5:30 tomorrow night, so I have most of the day to take care of him and catch up on today's missed chores.

As I began this post with, Ryan is fine. This diagnosis is a benign one, meaning he doesn't require any medication, surgery, or other procedures, and it has no lasting effects, so all he has to get over is the stress of one day's episode and the consequences thereof. Tomorrow is going to be as stress-free as possible, and we'll go from there.

Just wanted to keep everyone updated. Everything is peachy keen now. Love to you all :)

But I Don't Have A Little Dog...

What'd I do yesterday? Oh, not much. Did some laundry. Took the recycling out. Watched a tornado from my balcony. The usual. For Indiana.

Okay, no, I didn't see a funnel cloud. I did get to watch the sky get unnaturally dark for 8ish. I watched sheets of rain go down the street. I felt the wild, invigorating wind. Ryan and I saw what was either a very long-lasting lightning bolt, or about 5 bolts in a single second. We got multiple Emergency Broadcast System Weather Warnings on TV, including one that said a tornado touched down briefly to the east of South Bend. We even filmed a little bit of the storm from the door on Ryan's camera!

Here's a news story I found this morning about the storm. I feel so bad for the people who just regained power last night, only to have it taken away again. Almost six thousand people in South Bend are without power! That's nuts!

Also, the tree that fell into a house, in the news story? Two miles north of here.

Man, Indiana is exciting!

Slightly Belated

Didn't update yesterday due to rampant busyness. Started off the day with exercise and a shower, followed by laundry (which included jamming one of the two washers with a quarter, >.<), followed by a long shopping trip with BJ and Ryan.

I already knew these two would be tight. They were pretty tight when they just talked online on a regular basis. Then they were able to go clothes shopping together, sharing the same size, relatively same taste, and a VERY heavy slant toward the "metrosexual" side of the scale.

After about 15 hours in the Big & Tall section of JCPenney's, we hit Best Buy, then made a stab at finding a "local" liquor store that sells my beloved framboise. What we thought would be a simple trip turned into a mini-adventure, finding ourselves in a much more rural section of the town (if we were still in South Bend at all, I'm not entirely sure).

We eventually gave up on it for the day and headed home, but I must say, if I have to make a semi-weekly trip all by myself, with the windows down and stereo blasting, down roads with more trees than houses on either side of the road...I'll manage somehow. :D

Ryan and I had decided to make this a stay-in day, with game playing and relaxing and not spending money, but I remembered just this morning that the Beloved Smoothies came in yesterday, and the store will be closed tomorrow. SO! One tiny outing, then a day of relaxing. And laundry. And dish washing.

I'll find something to update about later, I'm sure. Early warning: there's a chance it'll be WoWtastic.

Edit: 11:11 am. Changed up the template and colors! I thought the previous one felt too closed in, and too dark despite it being fairly bright greens. This one, to me, feels more open and bright. Let me know what you think: good, bad, like this color, hate that color, etc etc. I'll go make sure anonymous commenting is allowed so my parents can join in...