Fun+Sun+Potluck(with-people-who-cook-well)=Big Belly and more exercise (whip crack!)

The good news: slept well last night and did the 1/2 hour 2 mile WATP routine first thing this morning.

The bad news: between my very low-cal early day and the very-high cal swim party/bbq in honor of a member's birthday, I consumed ~3900 calories (more than two days' worth--oy).

Well, it was a lot of fun with neat people I don't get to see very often. Shana's been made an honorary part of the group, so she'll probably join me when we have activities. Not all of them are as rich-food driven as this one was. For instance, these were the "Saucy Wenches" who entered and performed in the Salsa Challenge to raise money for the Hemophilia Association. There was a lot of physical work involved, and we forgot to eat because it got so busy. Boy! Last night sure evened THAT out.

GrandDaughter said farewell to GL last evening and is in the car returning to Albuquerque as I type. I have just a bit of laundry to bring to the nursing home with me. Don't know what her frame of mind will be. Certainly she'll be sad that GrandDaughter and the kids are gone, but how she'll feel about me, since I made her go back to the same nursing home and she was so mad about it before. Her memory being what it is, she may have forgotten that little set-to already.

Also don't know how she'll take the news that I won't be doing her laundry anymore. Everything depends on her mood at any given time. I'll have to choose the moment to tell her wisely. Once it's over, I'll feel better, even if she gets pissy with me.

Anyway, OS has a lot of his clothes in the dryer which were partially dry when I checked. They're running another cycle, and I'll put them in his hamper (if he isn't already up) so I can run GL's.

I'm pretty sweaty from my "workout" (It's pathetic how out of shape I've become), so will have to shower after the clothes are ready to go. It will be afternoon before I get over there. Since GL seems to have forgotten how to dial my phone number, I will call to let her know I'm coming.

The Daily Whine

It was 90F when I left the house to walk to the store at 8:30 this morning. Welcome to Phoenix in the summertime.

Aside from other unhappy side effects, depression + anxiety = cravings. I'm trying to fight them, or at least substitute healthier choices, but it seems a massive task when piled on top of the other issues at hand.

How is it possible that EVERYTHING is top priority? Everyone says, "Take care of you first." Well, those people don't have an old lady to look after, a grown son living in their home, and a crazy work environment. Well, what do I not do?

OS is in a difficult situation and trying to get a handle on it and move ahead. I have to leave him alone to work out his business and financial plans, but find it difficult to butt out when we share the same house.

Grandma Lee is going bonkers, and once her granddaughter goes home tomorrow, will have no one to make sure she's taken care of properly, visit her, and so on if I'm not there.

I guess I can hand back doing her laundry to the nursing home, although I know they won't be as careful with it as I am. Stuff gets lost all the time, and she finds that disconcerting, to say the least. Still, I'm responsible to make sure her finances are handled properly, sign papers for various reasons.

Yes, I'll talk to her about that on Sunday...maybe she still has enough marbles left that I can tell her it's all too much for me.

Work--I have little control over that except to go in and do my tasks every day, and try to shut out all the other stuff going on around me. I wish I had a little room to work in, or they'd let me telecommute. Every time I think about going back, my throat closes up and my hands start to shake again.

It isn't entirely about the current political environment in the company. I'm doing the work of three people, have told my boss I can't keep it up, and been told it needs to be done and to hold on until he can find a way to get the program(s) I'm handling assigned to the appropriate departments.

That's just dandy, but everything has to hold fire until executive management reveals (or decides) what the company structure will be and who will be in charge of what. So we all hang in limbo, pounding away, trying to get things done and hoping something will be done sometime to solidify roles and responsibilities to some extent.

I understand that the business world is fluid, and the company is adjusting to it, but we drones in the workforce are the ones at the end of the line in Crack The Whip. I feel like I'm about to be snapped off the end and into space. The guys at the top of the ladder make their million or so, and have golden parachutes to make it easier for them to make decisions that affect the lives of thousands of workers.

If I thought they cared, it might be easier to take, but the new bunch on the 20th floor are strictly bottom-line. We are not people to them--we are "workforce". While they whack away at staffing and budgets to make Wall Street happy, here I am worried about whether I'll be able to hold on for the next year, at minimum, and until retirement age, optimally.

They get to screw around with the company and our lives for their five years or so, and leave us in our mess as they leave with millions in stock options. Hired guns. How can you respect that?  The answer is, they don't care whether or not we respect them, because we are expendable. So long as we fear losing our jobs enough, they can make us dance to their tune. If we don't there are always 100 people waiting in line to step in. Well, in my case, they'd need three of the 100. If the economy was better, I'd be gone at the end of February. Twenty years in, and gone somewhere I might be treated as a person.

I'd like to see one of them do my job for a week.

So, who cares, Sue?

---

Did WATP Muscle Mile first thing this morning. There wasn't as much perspiration this time, so maybe I'm ready to move up to the next level. Figured get it out of the way before the couch potato syndrome kicked in.

A man from the City of Glendale pounded on the front door at 7:30 this morning to inform me that the water will be shut off from 8 to 10 am. Good that 1) I was already awake, and 2) all my water pitchers and ice cube trays were full, and, um, most personal activities were already completed.

OS, however, had not been awake, and came stumbling out of his room to find out what the heck was going on. I explained, and he went back to bed. Now, someone is using a jackhammer on the pavement right outside his bedroom window. Can't imagine that is very pleasant for him. What's the matter with those people? Don't they know he didn't fall asleep until 3 am? The nerve!

Still no noise from the GL front, so I'm going on the assumption that everything is okay. Actually, I've decided my only concern is that they will try to get GL to revoke my POA and change her will back. I'm the executor of the will, but GrandDaughter and her kids get everything after final expenses are paid. The only change made was that her son is no longer the executor.

Good luck to them if they try to do that...dementia has clearly set in with a vengeance, and nothing she signs now will carry any legal weight.

After a week with her, they aren't going to want to take on what I've been doing for the last year, anyway. Whatever...they have a good deal and ought to be grateful for it.

Calorie intake for yesterday was higher than I wanted, but an overwhelming desire for sweets took over about 8:30. At least I was able to direct it toward fruit and something relatively low-cal with calcium in it. After the last DEXA scan, I'm taking every opportunity to have calcium-rich foods in addition to the horse-pill-size supplements twice a day with my multi-vitamin and glucosamine chondroitin (did I spell that right?). Even though I take everything with food, combined with my other meds, I sound like a maraca if I move too quickly right afterward.

From yesterday...gotta keep up

It's after 9 am and there haven't been any calls or texts, yet. I'm overwhelmingly curious about how things went, but also grateful that someone else is carrying the load this week. It's a little like parents going out for the evening for the first time after their baby is born..."should we call the babysitter just to make sure everything is all right?" No. I'm not going to call. This week is theirs. If someone needs me, the phone will ring, believe me.

Oops

Forgot to post yesterday...
Friday evening, I went to see GL in the hospital and then came home and went on a major eating binge. The list is ridiculous, so it won't be posted here. Suffice it to say, at least 1000 calories were consumed between 9:30 pm and 2 am.

She is still in the hospital, and likely won't be released until tomorrow. Today I've been to see her, gone to the to nursing home to put away her clean clothes (and pick up another load), and make sure no one has "stolen her stuffed animals". Oh, went to Sprouts to buy healthy stuff to eat, too. That's put away, and the dishwasher is running, so my work is done for the day unless I feel like doing more.

So, here's the good news: her granddaughter is driving here from Albuquerque with the great-grandkids to spend a week. She will also get her father to go talk to his mother. The daughter-in-law is to be left at home, as GL hates her with a passion. Seeing her would only set off unnecessary and unfortunate fireworks.

Nothing could make me happier than seeing her make peace with her son. Granddaughter is taking an active hand in that. As she put it, "If he doesn't do this now, he'll regret it the rest of his life." That girl gets smarter all the time. At the rate GL's mind is deteriorating, who knows how much longer she'll be able to recognize and understand them and enjoy their company. If they're going to have quality time together, this may be their last chance.

My short-term disability approval came through. After two nights of minimal sleep, I believe I will finally rest tonight.

It's easy to see why I need the time and medical attention. As I opened the envelopes, my hands started to shake to the point where I almost couldn't hold on to them. Seeing the approval caused tears (gee, the first today...wonder if I'll match the tally for yesterday), and some confusion about paperwork. I'll have to call them tomorrow to ask specifically what I'm supposed to do with each page.

It's difficult to follow written or verbal instructions unless I go over every detail slowly. Otherwise, it all gets muddled and goes out of my head. There are sticky notes all over the house, including on my purse so I don't forget to take things with me when I go, and make stops where something has to be done. My mind just doesn't work this way, usually. I know what it feels like to go senile now. Not good.

There are times when I think it wouldn't be good for me to drive, so I don't. Other times I'm clearer, and do just fine.

Later:

Before heading over there, GrandDaughter texted me to say the nurses at PDR said GL wouldn't drink, eat, or pick up the phone. She asked me if she ought to bring some food with her. I told her Burger King onion rings and/or cinnamon graham crackers, and diet Mountain Dew. If GL won't eat those, she won't eat anything.

Sheesh! What a weekend!

Shhhhhh! Can you hear anything?

The clothes dryer started squeaking again after the repair man replaced the roller and then left yesterday (of course), so I called him this morning to let him know.

He came over this afternoon and replaced the entire pulley kit (not what he worked on before), and charged nothing. Can you believe that!? I definitely have a new repair guy to suggest to my friends when they ask.

Nice dryer. Nice, quiet dryer.

For anyone in the Phoenix Metro area, the company is A-All Appliance Repair (aka Emergency Appliance Repair Today). They work in all parts of the Valley.

All wet

The clothes dryer has been making a strange squeaky noise this past week. Everything on the Net that pertains says it's most likely a roller bearing which either needs to be oiled or replaced. Considering the age of the dryer (10 years?), replacement of the bearing and the drive belt is the most likely scenario. It works so far, but it would be best to take care of the problem before the machine gives up the ghost.

OS attempted repair yesterday, but when I found him in the laundry room unscrewing things and trying to figure out how to get the back off, I thanked him kindly and told him a repairman was on the way today.

He fumed a little about how much that would cost ($200 or $300, Mom!) but if he accidentally ruined something in his poking around it could cost much more. If it will cost several hundred dollars to repair it, I'll buy a new one instead.

Yoga? What Yoga?

My friend didn't call after work, so we didn't do yoga together at my house this evening. That's okay. I don't think I am up to the poses right now. My body still feels stiff and sore. I'm willing to work through that to a certain extent, but I was told to work to the "soft edge".

While shopping at the used book store (Bookman's -- great place), I found a Leslie Sansone "Walking Away The Pounds" (WATP) DVD with four routines on it.

Since I was dressed in silly workout clothes anyway, it made sense to give it a try in my room while OS worked on his Pro90X-routine-of-death in the living room. My little workout looks lightweight after watching him work so hard, but it did make me sweat and work the kinks out of my butt and legs. There's a tiny bit of upper body in it, too, so my poor rubbery arms woke up, too.

The remote for the bedroom DVD player doesn't work, so I can't go up and down through the menu items. That means the only workout I could get to was the "Muscle Mile". Oh well, I did it twice, so that make two miles in 40 minutes with kicking and squatting and weights, and so on.

Tomorrow, I'll try to get to the living room for my workout (ha! workout, she says!) before he gets going.

A repair man is coming to look at the squeaky dryer sometime between 10 and noon. Should I get sweaty before he shows up, or after? Depends on when I wake up, I guess.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm

Live in the present

Breathe

Live in the present

The future hasn't happened yet

The past is over

Live in the present

Breathe

The Monday After

The yoga here at home wasn't nearly as successful as that at the studio. The poses were far more difficult to assume, if possible at all, and my body felt stiff and weak. Perhaps it was because I did nothing vigorous on Saturday to keep the momentum going.

At any rate, I went through the DVD, which is directed at older people, so it was even more embarrassing when I couldn't keep up. My friend said it was because I was alone. If we'd done it together, we could have helped one another. That might be true.

This morning, I made no attempt at the video, but did stretching and some abdominal strength exercises. My arms are weak, and will require more work. A little at a time, it will have to be.

The appointment with the psych is this afternoon. I told GL I would come visit with her this morning, and bring her clean clothes.

She's taken another fall, and injured her left knee--the one that was her "good knee" before. She fell because she didn't have the patience to wait for someone to come get her off the john and into her wheelchair. She took the pressure alarm off the wheelchair and threw it in the trash, called for help to get into the bathroom, but then didn't wait for help to get back into the chair. Down she went.

Now, she's stuck in bed; right knee still swollen and sore, left knee twisted and sprained, and tailbone sore as the dickens since this the third time she's landed on it in two weeks. She's digging herself deeper and deeper into disability.

She tried to call me yesterday and couldn't get through. Finally, her dear weekend nurse, Reena, called for her. She'd forgotten she didn't need to dial an area code for my number, so the calls wouldn't go through

She asked if I knew where she is. I said, "Of course I know where you are!" She said, "Where am I?"
Me: "You're in the same place you were last weekend when I came to see you. Plaza del Rio, room 407B."
Her:"No."
Me: "Yes. Unless they've changed your room this week. Did they do that?"
Her: "I don't know. Here, talk to Reena."
Me: "Hello, Reena, was GL moved to another room this weekend?"
Reena: "Oh no. She's a little confused today. She's still in 407B. I must tell you that her oxygen levels were a little down when I did her vitals today. I put her back on the oxygen, but she keeps pulling the canula off and letting it hang around her neck. Everything else seems to be okay."
Me: "Thank you. May I speak to her now, please?"
Me: "Lee? You're still in the same place. I know how to find you, and I'll be there in the morning."
Her: "Okay, Honey, that's good. Ooooh, everything hurts. I hate being stuck in this bed. I can't get to the bathroom by myself, and I keep wetting the bed, and they say it's okay, but I don't like it."
Me: "I know, but you have special pants on, and there are pads on the bed, so at least you don't have to worry about soiling the linen. When you need to go, push your button, and they can help you get on the commode if they make it in time. Otherwise, don't worry about it."
Her: "This old body's falling apart, and I'm not doing anything to make it better. I know I'm just stubborn, but I don't like feeling like I can't take care of myself anymore."
Me: "I know, and I can put myself in your shoes and understand how bad it must feel. I wish there was another way we could handle all this, but this is the best we can do. Now, the nurse says your oxygen is low, so they probably put the plastic thing on you that goes in your nose, right?"
Her: "Yeah, I hate that damn thing. I wait for them to leave the room and then take it off."
Me: "If you take it off, your brain won't get enough oxygen, and you'll get more and more confused. That's not good, is it?"
Her: "No. I guess I'll try to deal with it as much as I can."
Me: "Thank you. I like to talk to you when I visit, and I like it even more when you make sense."
Her: giggling...

I'd forgotten for a little while this morning that I'd promised to go, and was leaning towards a little lie-down with a book. Guess I'll take a shower and head over there instead. It's getting harder and harder to go and she slides downhill. My own mental state doesn't make getting up the gumption to make the trip any easier, and having to face this all the time contributes to the stress that's breaking my mind. I wish her family would step up and take responsibility for her. In the meantime, I'll just keep going.

Fraud

Yesterday I had to deal with the fallout of my debit card being hijacked. It never left my possession, so someone either hacked a database somewhere or wrote down the card information during a valid transaction I made in person. Also, when I went to my very first yoga class with my therapist, I left my purse in a cubby with my shoes and covered with a clean shirt. It was in there for an hour and a half.As we left, Therapist was late for another session so we were in hurry. I left my purse in the cubby. I called them when I realized what I'd done, and they found it and put it behind the desk up front. That's the only time the card was out of my direct possession; about two and a half hours. I'm not saying someone there did this. Whatever. whoever did was able to make online purchases with the card number, including the "security number" (HA!) on the back..

There was a message on the answering machine from the fraud something-or-other department at my credit union from around 8:30 p.m. that I didn't notice until 10:30. It gave an 800 number for me to call to verify some questionable charges. The lady who answered asked me a couple of code questions to make sure who I was, and then read off the charges to me. One of them was for over $3000 at an electronics vendor site. Whoever it was didn't know me very well if they thought I had that much money in my account. They blocked the card right then, but there was nothing further to be done until morning.

Per her instructions, I called the credit union. It's lucky they are open on Saturday mornings. The lady there went through some code word verifications of my identity and then read of the same charges as the lady the night before. She asked if the card had been blocked, and I told her the lady who called Friday night said she'd done that.

Since I live and die by my debit card, I needed to get a replacement right away. The credit union has one branch that can provide a replacement card while you wait. It's eight or ten miles from my house, but it was worth it.

They were very pleasant when I got there, and another lady went through the charges with me, verified all I had told the other ladies, and had me fill in some paperwork. She issued me a new card, and that was that. Took maybe a half hour or forty-five minutes.

My friend was supposed to come over to do yoga with me in the late morning. With all the hubbub, I didn't feel up to anything emotionally or physically. All the worry and activity and focusing with my currently limited mental resources had been draining. I called to ask her if we could postpone it to today, and told her the story.

She works for a different credit union, and told me there was more for me to do to protect myself: call the police to file a fraud report, contact the three credit bureaus to put fraud alerts on my records, set up a code word with the credit union to make sure anyone trying to make a transaction with my debit card would have to know it to do anything. I forgot to do that last part. I'm not really sure how that would work. Would I get a phone call every time one of my automatic payments went through? That's a lot of phone verifications.

She said the concern is not knowing how the person got hold of my card info. If they'd just gotten it off the card at some place it had been used, it's not as big a deal as if they'd hacked into a database somewhere. If the latter had happened, they could have all the information they need to completely steal my identity. The credit union has all my information in their database, as does VISA. Everything anyone would need to become me and turn my life upside down.

At least putting the fraud alerts with the credit bureaus means I would have to get a phone call every time someone tried to open an account in my name or with my information, my friend said. The code word thing--I'm going to call my credit union on Monday and find out how that would work. I'm also going to contact all the vendors who do direct withdrawals on my account automatically, and see if I can arrange direct bill pay from my side, so even if a card is compromised again, they will still get their payments on time from the account itself.

This way, I don't have to give them information about my card, but if they will give me an account number to set up to receive the payment, I can set it up on my end. If not, I'll get the system to cut them a check at the right time of the month on a recurring basis. There are a couple like that now, and it's worked well.

What fun, eh? My head isn't screwed up enough right now--I have to deal with fraud and theft, too. At least I didn't go into a full-blown crying jag. Just kept choking up. Yoga breathing helped. Yoga seems like it may help deal with emotions better. As much as I hate exercise and most strenuous activity for its own sake, this seems worth the sweat.

Scary times

Last Friday, I couldn't go to work. I woke up in a daze, and wasn't able to shake it. This has happened to me before.

After spending the day moping, crying and sleeping, a headache hit that Tylenol wouldn't touch. My son was also having some issues dealing with disappointment (not my job to go into that here), and we wound up just hanging around trying to figure out what would help.

I said we ought to get out of the house; take a drive or something. He said, "I've never been to the Grand Canyon." I'd forgotten that was the case. I said, "Okay, let's go to the Grand Canyon," and got online to make a hotel reservation.

Even though the headache persisted into Saturday, I had obligations to attend two birthday parties. It sounds silly, but I'd promised to bring food to one, and the other was for a friend who was turning 50 and having difficulty dealing with it. So I pulled myself together and went to both. While there, I was okay, if still feeling the pain, but left the second one early. My buddy was surrounded by friends and having a good time. I wasn't needed, so went home.

The next morning, I took care of getting Grandma Lee her clean laundry and spent an hour with her before heading home to make sure the car was packed and ready to go. I was a little tense and shaky, as I am whenever going somewhere (even the grocery store). Don't know what causes that, but would like to get to the bottom of it.

Off we went, and had a wonderful two days. My son loved being able to challenge himself on the the trails, and I walked a few miles along the rim trail and treated myself to lunch.

Tuesday, I went into the office and felt okay until I got to my desk and found the envelope my younger son had used to send the extra keys to the shed (I left mine in there while checking the mail last week, and asked him to mail his). He'd wrapped them in paper, but not sealed the wrapping, nor taped them to the paper. The envelope had torn at the bottom corner and the keys fell out somewhere along the way.

I don't know why, but I started to cry and couldn't stop. It wasn't that the keys were lost; the dissapointment triggered something else inside me that welled up and took over. I was helpless to stop the crying. The realization also hit that I was supposed to talk to a man in the business office where Grandma Lee stays and had forgotten my cell phone with his contact information on it.

Crying all the while, I told the admin assistant I had to go home to get my cell phone, and left. I cried in the car, I cried when I went in the house, I cried and cried and couldn't stop. Finally, I called her and said I couldn't come back because I couldn't stop crying. It went on for a while longer, and then would start again on and off during the day. Crying is exhausting. I've heard that it's good to get it out, but I just felt tired and numb.

Yesterday, I showered, got ready for work, and headed in. Started to work through the papers on my desk, but it was difficult to focus. I was signed up for a conference call about and electronic learning system that has been instituted ineptly at our company, and it didn't make any sense to me. It was like they were speaking a foreign language.

My boss came by my desk and I told him about the  ELM call, and how I couldn't make heads or tails of it, and didn't know how I was going to manage implementation in our group if we couldn't get help. He told me not to worry about it; he'd already spoken to "them" (whoever "them" is) and we were going to get help with it.

I could sense the overwhelmed feeling coming back, so I hung up the conference call and started to go through the invoices on my desk. He said, "How are you?" I started to cry again. He said he wanted me to go talk to the company nurse and the EAP counselor. They had discussed me the day before, and he "strongly encouraged" me to go see her. I didn't see I had much choice.

I went over to the clinic to talk to her (I know her, and felt comfortable), and she put together paperwork that I could (should) take to my doctor (psychiatrist) to fill out to get me set up for FLM (to protect me from discipline should I have to take time off to deal with this problem) and short term disability (in case the doctor thought I would need extensive time off for meds readjustment or something like that). Then I spoke to the EAP counselor about the stress and fear caused by the unsettled atmosphere in my company, added to the responsibilities and obligations of my personal life.

I don't kid myself. This guy works for the company. If push comes to shove, any decisions or opinions he comes up with will be for the company's well-being rather than mine if there's any question of balance.

I love my job, and I love the people I work with. My boss is the best I've ever had, and his job is threatened because the powers that be decided there should be yet ANOTHER layer of management above him. So, we'll get a new director. Will my boss be needed anymore? Who knows...yet another question mark. Who will be directing me as I try to do too much, now?

We are like a family, and the family has lost members over the past couple of years because of layoffs and retirement. We are shrinking, and each of us is being asked to do more. I'm not alone. I suffer the curse of competence. Whenever they don't know who to assign a task to, I wind up with it because I can do it. Well, I can't do any more, and I may not be able to do what I already have on my plate anymore. Apparently, my mind has reached the tipping point.

In a company that has gone from a family and community-oriented business (and has been that way for more than 100 years), new people in the executive suite are turning us into a corporation like any other. We are no longer employees, we are "workforce". Our officers used to be able to greet many of us by name, and asked about our families. Not these new guys. They don't want to know us, because then they'd have to see us as people, not cogs in the wheel. Cogs are easily rearranged or disposed of.

Why do I live in fear of losing my job? I'm workforce. I've watched two of my friends leave--one laid off, and the other jumping ship before the blame for this ELM fiasco was dumped on her. The third was relieved to be able to retire a couple of weeks ago. I wish I was in that position. I'd been gone in a heartbeat.

The reality is that I have to work another 13 years before I can retire. It's a tough job market out there, and I can't find anything in the want ads that remotely matches my skill set and offers much more than half what I make now. I have  no partner who can help carry the load if I'm unemployed for a while. And, if I go off my rocker, who's going to want me anyway?

Why am I afraid? Oh, I don't know...how would you feel?

Dem Bones

The results of the DEXA scan done in May arrived today. Unfortunately, they confirmed the ultrasound from the wellness check at work--I now officially have osteopenia. Last year, no problem. This year my bones are in the yellow zone.

So, gotta kick the caffeine habit, already starting taking supplements, and am building resolve to start exercise. Seriously, exercise: my bete noir. (note to self: find out how to add those marks--what is that one--a circumflex? I'll have to check later)

This just pisses me off. The whole health thing was going well for about two years. Now I'm fighting the return of poundage, and my blood tests aren't as good as a year or so ago. Not as bad as five years ago, but still...

A friend wants to try yoga with me. Yoga looks easy, but it's tough. I hate to sweat.