I guess today is just the day to catch up on all of the shit I have been meaning to do for quite some time. Twice a year I have to get my blood drawn and then visit my doctor so that she can tell me to eat right an quit smoking and then renew my prescriptions for Vytorin (Cholesterol) and Protonix (either an ulcer or some other gastric nastiness). I ran out of medicine about two weeks ago and have not had the free time to go get it done. The only morning I have been off up until now I was so damned tired from the previous 10 days of work that I slept in.
I would have loved to sleep in today but the wife and girls made sure that I got up and took care of business. I arrived a couple of minutes after eight and the nurse tried to get it out of one arm and then the other, sticking me four or five times in the process. No go. I guess I must be dehydrated or something. Possibly my diet of garbage and coffee combined with 18 hour days has something to do with it.
After sitting for an hour and drinking so much water I wanted to puke, the other nurse tried to get it out of my arm with no success. She finally got a bit of blood drawn from my hand. I breathed a sigh of relief when it finally started flowing, although a bit slow) because I thought I had woke up dead and somebody forgot to tell me. Now I will have to wait a few more days for the doctor to call and set up an appointment for after the first of the year. I am going to have to deal with heartburn and this crappy prevacid until that point.
Prior to coming home I stopped at one of our stores (the one in my little town) for a much needed cup of coffee and breakfast. I actually had a point in stopping there. The manager is fairly new and she is a pretty nice lady, a single mom. It is hard enough to run our restaurants but being a single mom is pretty damned tough. She gave her two week notice a couple of days ago, and I know that several of the big cheese dudes have been down to talk with her, but they won’t do anything but lie and promise her the moon anyway, so I thought it might do a bit of good to go give her a bit of honesty and try to keep her from leaving in the process. As a store manager it can be hard at times, but certainly not impossible, and she would be making a mistake leaving. Hell, I bitch about holidays and weekends, but for the most part I worked a 40 hour week as a store manager and was home by 3PM most days. Not a bad fucking job to have. That’s one of the reasons it took me so long to decide that I wanted to take this promotion. I knew that I would literally be doubling my money but only taking about a $20-30k pay increase.
I think that maybe she is going to stay but hopefully my bosses will continue to visit and reassure her daily for awhile.
Once I got home a little while ago I did what you always do on Friday afternoon four days before your birthday, renewed my car tags and driver’s license. Nothing like waiting until the last fucking minute! I did renew my license for ten years though, which is cool because it means that the picture that’s on my license from 2000 will still be on there when I turn 52. Sweet. Hell, I even have a moustache and goatee in the picture. Sooner or later someone is going to say ‘that’s not you’ and call the law on my ass.
I had originally planned on doing a bit of Christmas and grocery shopping today but my damn head is pounding from lack of caffeine and I am pretty beat. Maybe tomorrow after the Christmas parade I can get it done. I have managed to get a bunch of Christmas lights and stuff like lighted deer and trees on clearance recently so I will most likely decorate the yard as well tomorrow afternoon and then post photos. We did get the tree set up and the girls and I decorated it Wednesday evening, so it’s starting to feel a bit like Christmas even if I do live with the Grinch.