Ah, here it is a new month! I thought I would take a moment to talk about my new little friend, Prince Edward. I simply call him Ed. No, he's not really royalty, just the name of a little English sparrow that had been flying around the store since last Saturday. Amazingly enough the little guy survived inside the Shop N Save all that time by eating whatever he could find and it being such a big store he was able to evade being captured. I nearly caught him twice as he had a habit of landing next to the mirror by the eggs, and by sneaking up on him I was nearly able to net him with my hat, but he is a clever little one and quick too!
So anyway, last night he ended up getting stuck in a glue trap that the managers doused with bird seed and bread. Before I went home I looked for him and found him stuck there above the meat shelves. Such a cruel thing to do I thought so I took the poor little fellow and vowed to free him. It took a while just to get him off the glue tray and of course his little feathers were coated with the sticky gum. I took him home and tried using warm soapy water which didn't work. Poor little guy looked horrible completely drenched and my hopes were sinking for his survival as I was concerned he would go into complete shock and end up dying. But, he seemed to be doing well so I tried to figure how I could get the glue off of him without causing permanent damage or hinder his flight abilities.
I thought about it and knew I could not try gasoline or some similar solvent but considered that cooking oil might do the trick. So I tested it on my hands (which were quite sticky from handling the little fellow) and it seemed to work well. I coated the little guy with the oil and gently removed most of the gum. It took nearly two hours which included a soap bath afterwards to remove the oil and hoped there was no serious damage to his little feathers. I lined the bathtub with towels and put a small dish of water and another of birdseed in with him as he shivered and slowly dried.
I have to hand it to the little fellow, he truly is resilient, and quite clever too! He readily ate much of the seed and seems to prefer the sunflower the most. He hops around and chirps when I get too close. Problem is that only half of his feathers seem to be drying well and he still can't fly. It is already a day later and though I see increased improvement as more time passes I am still concerned. Perhaps he just needs a bit of time for his body to produce the natural oils to sleek his feathers out. I hope that's all it is. I hate to see him confined for long. But I guess I am doing the best I can. He is quite alert and seems determined to live no matter what. I only hope his strong little spirit continues to shine and that he will be able to fly soon so I can set him free.
Tuesday August 5th, 2003: He Flew the Coop!
Well, it took three days, but little Ed finally built up his natural oils and after several test flights around the bathroom his flight capacity was good enough to set him free. I watched each day and the brave and strong spirited little fellow�s determination never faltered. He was quite happy to be free. His flight was only slightly hindered, but he managed quite well and flew from tree to tree looking down at me flitting and twittering the whole time. In his little mind he had escaped the big mean human that held him captive for so long. Well, at least that�s what my interpretation of his behavior indicates. I am just glad that the little fellow is back in the wild where he belongs. I will always remember his incredible strong will and indomitable spirit. I found it amusing when I took him outside and he flew up to the one Locust tree and perched on a branch and began chirping back at me as if cussing me out. :-) No gratitude I tell you! You have to admire his spunkiness though. He happily ate whatever food I left for him while cooped up and is now back as a part of the natural world where he belongs. Such is the compassion I have for animals. I daresay much more than with humans. Perhaps that sounds a bit harsh but I suppose that is a facet of my extreme sense of personal independence. But that is an explanation I don't feel like writing all out as I just wanted to record little Ed's status.
Wednesday August 13th, 2003: Fine Tuning the Routine
Well, I had to quit jogging for a while as the high impact of it adversely affected my ankles and knees. I had tried a few times between my last mention of it here in my journal and now, but it had the same effect as before. Too bad, I was thinking tonight. I really enjoyed the progress I was making. I began thinking of what the problem could be and as usual my mind came up instantly with postulations and possibilities. I started thinking how jogging on a treadmill never affected me like that. I also thought how jogging in place never seemed to bother me either. Odd I thought. What was the difference? So I looked at my method and determined that I had been pushing for distance, more like between a run and a jog. I thought how a treadmill�s motion eased the push off of regular running and also how there was no push off with jogging in place. So I decided to try what I now call �short step� jogging. Instead of jogging in stride I rather mixed a jogging in place motion with about a half speed forward thrust. It looks rather silly I think, all the same arm and leg movement as regular jogging but not moving forward much. Oh, what the cars passing me and any bystanders must think! :-)
I must say that I was very pleased with the results! Not only was there very little strain on my knees and ankles, but I found that I did not go anaerobic. Meaning I did not have to stop to catch my breath! I was amazed that even though it took much longer to get to the street corner where I normally stopped to rest and catch my breath, I was still ready to go. So I decided to continue on and see how far I could go doing this. Now the distance from my house to the Mountain/Main street corner is right around six tenths of a mile. I continued on toward town and by the time I got to Sheldon road (1 mile from my house) I was still going strong. I found that my body was warming up and I was beginning to sweat more heavily, but my endurance was holding fine and my breathing and heart rates were both in optimal range. I figured, �What the heck!� and just kept going. I passed the Shop N Save. The hill up to the borough building increased my rates a bit, but once I topped it my body adjusted back to optimal by the time I got to the Catholic Church. I passed Tom�s house, the Goalpost, Sweet Pea�s and finally turned back onto Elm, never once having stopped due to fatigue or shortness of breath. That whole loop is right around 2.6 miles.
Once I stopped I noticed that my shirt was soaked and I was dripping sweat. I felt how intense my body heat was now that I was not in motion any more so I walked it off a bit. I felt that �runner�s high� and oddly enough felt a lingering phantom motion, tugging me forward. You know, that strange effect that happens after driving or moving forward for a period of time and causes objects to appear to be coming closer even though you are not moving anymore. I usually only get it after I have mowed the lawn since that takes over an hour. My jog took right around forty minutes. So, If I were to determine how fast I was moving I would use simple algebra. If 2.6 miles equates to 40 minutes and X miles would equate to 60 minutes, then 2.6/40=X/60 This breaks down to X=2.6(60)/40 or X=3.9 (mph). This is only slightly faster than my normal walking speed. I have a tendency to walk quicker than most. I have walked that same loop several times and it usually took me between 45 and 55 minutes.
So anyway, even after I cooled down from that I still felt refreshed and after about an hour I decided to jog another 1.2 miles using my new method (to the corner and back). It was great and I feel as though this could really work well as regular exercise for me. It has the effect of raising my metabolism and heart rate to good levels while keeping my breathing moderate and not causing undue stress on my legs. The amount of salt and toxins that I sweated out was incredible too! I could smell the salt just oozing out of my pores and even now (over two hours later) I feel great! Instead of fatiguing me and making me ready for bed, it has energized me. Hopefully I will get some sleep tonight! Who would have thought that after 3.8 miles of jogging I would feel so good? Oh well, it�s already after 4am and I have to work tomorrow (or should I say today) so I better try and get some sleep!
Saturday August 30th, 2003: It Must End
After much thought and time looking at the possibilities I have come to the conclusion that I can not continue working at my job in it's current state. I have told them time and again that they are working me too much and though there was much talk about changing that situation it continues on and on. I can understand that everyone was taking their vacations and such but where is the new person they said they would hire? And why am I given more hours than I want when there are others who want and even need more hours but aren't getting them? Now I know that I am a reliable, dependable, honest and conscientious worker and that may be why they want me to work so much, but couldn't they see how fast it was burning me out? I took the job as part time simply to pay the house bills and kill some of the abundance of time I had. But now it seems that all I do is work and on my days off I spend that time recovering from work or just playing catch up with the common house hold chores. My dissatisfaction with that left me with little patience and I slowly at first began to dread going there. It has now gotten to the point where all I want to do is run out screaming on my first day back from my days off!
And so, I have decided that I must take action to better my situation. I can hardly stand all the stupid little things that bother me, and now that my normal cheery disposition has changed to barely masked contempt I realize that it is too late even if I get the kind of schedule I want. So with this in mind I have decided to submit my two week notice and will hand it to the manager tomorrow (which is actually today now as it is after midnight). I allowed myself to get to a point I promised I would not get to, which is to the point where I am deeply dissatisfied and beginning to take out my frustrations and venting on those around me. I have yet to get really nasty with customers, but I have been getting increasingly more sarcastic and condescending to them and I must end it before it goes any further. I don't think people realize how stressful the deli department really is with the actual workload. Top the usual duties off with having to help people in the meat and bakery departments after 4pm or so along with the conditions of having only 2 people working on some nights with the last few really big sales and it is just far more than I bargained for. And then there is the situation of people who come and visit just to chat. I know they don't mean any harm, and I appreciate that they find me worthy of notice, but being that I have always been work focused I find that it only sets me further behind in my already time challenged duties. If I had wanted that much stress then I most certainly would have went back into management and at least have gotten more pay and a better sense of control of my environment.
And then of course is the subject of my health. For the last two weeks I have been having stress related health problems. I messed my back up by lifting boxes wrong, probably due to my lower ability to focus. No sooner did that heal (4-5 days) when I began getting sick with a loss of appetite and trouble sleeping. The one night it was all I could do to keep from heaving my guts into the sink or garbage can. Perhaps it was a virus or something, but whatever the case it is ultimately linked to my lowered resistance due to the stress of doing something I don't really want to do for an extended period of time. I still am not eating much and my weight is dropping as I have had to tighten my belt two notches already. I normally weigh about 165 and am now down to 155. I don't think I have been at 155# since the mid eighties and who knows how much more weight I would lose unless I do something about it now. I know it's only ten pounds, but on a percentage basis that is a 6% physical mass loss. And if I count that ten pounds against the 172 pounds I weighed earlier this month one day then that would equate to nearly a 10% loss of Body Mass!
And so I have before me my written resignation notice with a copy for my own records. It states that I will be available until the 15th of September which is actually a fifteen day notice. Perhaps they will try to get me to stay, or perhaps simply let me go without any fuss. One thing is for sure, I can't continue on the way it is. At best I would have to take at the very least a few weeks off to get all the things done that have been neglected around the house. But even if that were possible I am not at all certain that I would want to go back to the deli since all the same stress factors would be there, minus perhaps the excess workdays scheduled. Even if I got the three days off a week I want I don't know if all the other things that I have come to resent would still be too much for me to find enjoyment again in that position. But, I guess I will have to figure that out if and only if a leave is indeed an option. Too much to think about in depth right now. I will see what tomorrow brings.
