100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 44

Breakfast:  Lean Cuisine dinner, pecan chicken something, I think
Lunch:  3 natural hot dogs, mustard, canned beets
Dinner:  Cashews, 2 crackers with peanut butter on them

I spent today using as few calories as possible.  Both of my legs hurt from all of the walking this weekend.  Swollen and sore, joints and muscles.  So, it seemed to be a good idea to not eat very much.  I am not counting calories, but I have done so for most of my adult life, and I estimate that there were somewhere around 900 of them in today's foods.  That seems close enough.  I could check, but then I would have to use some of those calories to haul myself out of this chair and go look.  Rats.  I just checked and it was 1150 calories.  Too many to even think about having lost any tonnage.  Even though that, the weight, is not supposed to be my focus, it is disheartening to find that today was most likely, at best (a hopeful best), a draw in the in and out department.  F.  (I am trying to not curse.)

Tomorrow is not going to help any.  It is a day of volunteering for the big city near me.  It is part of their summer employment training program for young people.  We did all of the interviewing weeks ago and their training began today with a week's worth of orientation.  I have not any idea what they did today, but tomorrow is like a job fair, if you know what is.  Each of the tables/stations will not be hosted by potential employers, but with information and help related to finances, how to choose a job category (like that is even possible these days, but bless their hearts for building the concept into the program), and all of the expenses that are part of living.  Housing, health care/insurance, vehicles, clothing, household expenses, families, pets, the whole works.  They will have to set up an actual savings and checking accounts with representatives of a local credit union (like a bank), do the paperwork for a 401k account and a lot more.  It should be interesting, especially since they did not notify the volunteers that they were chosen to participate (that would be me and other hapless souls), and aside from arriving a half hour before the participants, there does not seem to be any training that I can tell. 

They are going to give us a light breakfast, whatever the hell that means.  My guess is that it will be coffee and donuts.  My guess is that I will try to get up extra early and make some eggs, or that I will dilly-dally and have to drive-through for some more of those yummy breakfast sandwiches and a big, steaming cup of fairly decent coffee.  Honestly, tomorrow is laundry day, so it is more important to get a load running before I leave home.  There is a lunch offering, but I am guessing that it is more of the same sub sandwiches, chips, cookies, canned soft drinks and other snack things.  So, I will probably be skipping that as well and getting one of those great salads from Wendy's.  I hate to miss that part, though, because sitting around with the other volunteers is a great resource opportunity for me.  Those people are all professionals and I have much to learn from them that could help me with my clients. 

It really is a surreal experience.  There they all are, HR people, executives, radio personalities, and then there is me.  The same thing used to happen to me when I was part of the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) program in the elementary schools in another big city near me.  Doctors, lawyers, police officers, bank officials, veterinarians, businessmen of all kinds.  Then, me.  I am hoping it means that they keep asking me to do these things because they believe that I have something to offer, but it is very humbling to be in the company of such important people.

I should have enough time to come home, toss in more laundry, maybe heat up another of those frozen diet meals and get going to pick up one of my women, who has a doctor's appointment in the afternoon.  Then home again, to shower, wash hair and do one last load of linens, since I am nearly out of clean towels.

On a more personal note, something sad happened today.  The woman who owns the gallery has been expecting some important mail and was not certain if it would come to her place here or the one in another state, which is where she is now.  Something did come last week, and I called her to let her know that it was there and had to leave a message on her voice mail. 

I hate voice mail.  You never know if someone is going to check or if it actually will be there when they do check or some damn thing.  I do not have it, so I always figure that no news is good news, which in my life is pretty much the case.  But, she does have it and she was concerned and I called and left a message.  She did not call back, even though I left my phone on until after midnight.  She knew that I was out of town, but did not call in to ask for more information, which, frankly, I would not have had because I did not open the mail.

This afternoon I heard my phone beeping and when I checked, there were two messages.  Apparently, my friend was not able to reach anyone who could check on the darn mail (there are four of us) and was frantic worrying about what it was.  So, being the good boyfriend that he is, her boyfriend (I digress, but I love that us older babes can still have boyfriends and actually call them that.) called my cell phone and left a stunning message about how upset she was and then made a couple of mild threats.  Yeah, stunning.  I was guessing that the second message was also from him, adding the few things he might have missed saying in the first message, but it was from my friend, who assured me that I had done the right thing and not to worry.  This was later followed by another call from her, where she raged about all kinds of things and the bottom line is that I was the recipient of a whole bunch of frustration about a whole bunch of things. 

I think I have to be finished there, at the gallery.  I am not looking forward to seeing her boyfriend again, although I will miss seeing her.  I have Thursday off and think that I might take the morning to gather my work and leave my keys there.  She is in another state and I am the only person who keeps the gallery open during the week, so I will not risk running into anyone.  This is all too complicated and today was kind of scary.  No, it was a lot scary and I have enough to deal with in my own life, without taking on the pathology of another relationship. 

I am really going to miss going there.  I like welcoming people and talking about the art there and just art in general.  I like having my stuff there and having people like it and sometimes buy some of it.  Yeah, that extra money is nice.  It paid for most of my traveling.  I will miss the other artists and the, gosh, so wonderful discussions we have, and the musicians that drop by to play and I will even miss the street people who stop in to chat a while.  I am going to miss all of it so much.  Even on slow days, there is hardly a more lovely place to sit and knit or read or just sit.  I can still do art stuff, and I still exhibit other places, but this place, this gallery, was special.  It still is special, it is just that I will no longer be a part of it.

Well, you cannot have everything, but it was a little piece of heaven in contrast to much of the rest of my life.  Everything comes to an end of some sort and I have to allow myself to experience this break and be patient for the next thing that might come along.  You know, if I were still busy with the gallery, I might miss that next thing or things.  So, in the end, big picture and all, it is a good thing.  Sad, but ultimately good.  I hope.

So, aside from the food issue, not a bad day.  Well, I guess it sort of was, but I am not going to dwell on it.

What's left?  Ah, GP.  I have a bunch of hearts in the guilty pleasure realm and after the happenings of the past couple of weeks, I need all the hearts I can get, so that is what it will be for the next week or so.  Hearts.  Some of them are on the dark side, but I guess that is appropriate, as well.

What the hell happened to being all light and happy about this?  You know, my intent was to stop complaining all the damn time, but I seem to be stuck on the pain and not able to concentrate on the gain, gaining of better health and a more healthy attitude and outlook.  That is/was my goal, if I actually had goals, I mean.  I kind of suck, yes?  Yes, I do.  I am sorry, I do not mean to be so sucky.