Time flies when you are scanning your ass off.

This morning I finally got to do the CBLs for cashier. It took about 3 hours and then I was back on the registers. It was so busy from 3 to 6:30 that I never got my break. The Customer Service Managers (CSMs) are responsible for making sure everyone is covered for lunches, dinners and breaks and they just forgot me. It was fine because it was so busy I would never have been able to close my register to go anyway. I took my break at 6:30 and then clocked out at 7.

As I stated previously, this job is just not stressful. I guess if I had never handled money before that might be a stress point but I did in my teens and twenties and it's not as if you forget how to add or anything. You can't let the lines get to you, you just keep scanning, bagging and taking payment while smiling and greeting.

I was off the entire weekend and that was nice. My schedule is going to be Saturday through Tuesday from 11-8 (some days are from 12-9). Ed is bummed that I work every weekend but I do have Wednesday through Friday off every week and he gets Friday off every other week so we have that, anyway. I asked for this coming Saturday off for the Air Show! I am so excited to see all the jets. Love my jets!

On a sad note, I have a sister who is an alcoholic and she has started drinking again. She doesn't live in Tucson so I cannot do anything to help her. I can't honestly say that I would help if she were here because my tolerance for alcoholism is pretty much zero. My mother was an alcoholic and I do not react well to drunkenness unless I am drinking as well and I haven't been drinking much in the last year and a half or so.

What's interesting about all this is that I just had a revelation last week about my drinking. I have always considered myself an undiagnosed/undeclared alcoholic. I go years without drinking and then start drinking regularly and then quit again. But if I were to actually give myself the diagnostic test for alcoholism I would not be considered one. And the revelation is that I really am not. Alcohol has never interfered with my work, my personal life, or in any way, really. I don't really crave alcohol but I will say that when I do start drinking in a given night that I don't like to stop. That's what always made me believe that I was an alcoholic. So I guess I may have tendencies? Doesn't matter too much, really. The last time I drank was a couple of weekends ago when we had a friend over. I drank 3 beers.

I was discussing this with my younger sister who doesn't drink at all. What I told her is that on a day to day basis I want to be able to concentrate on reading so prefer not being drunk every day. So maybe I am just a bookaholic. I do still have a really hard time getting to sleep, though, so sometimes I wish I could have a drink just to get myself to sleep. I don't do it because I figure that's a really fast way to build a tolerance. I hate not being able to sleep.

This job is nice for the staying up late because I don't have to be ready to leave the house until 8:45 and I never sleep past 7 so I have all the time at night that I need to get sleepy. Of course, Ed falls asleep by 8 at the latest so we don't see much of each other in the evening...still, we work it out.

Employed? Yes I am.

I start orientation this Friday at 8:00 AM. I will have a uniform (and what does it say about my parochial school childhood and military adulthood that I am pleased as punch to have one?) that I have to buy. I will be wearing a green polo shirt and khaki pants with tennis shoes. The manager was quite apologetic that I have to buy the shirt since they are about to change that policy and will eventually be giving each employee two official green shirts to wear but until then I have to supply my own. I have no problem with that; I haven't been clothes shopping in so long that I am excited to get to buy something new!

The sad thing is that I won't be able to go on a trip to Northern Arizona that Ed and I planned for this weekend. He will go without me so I will be taking the bus to my first day of work. I won't be able to see the snow or the friends we planned to stay with up there but Ed will let them know I wanted to come. I certainly missed a lot of fun trips while working my old job so this isn't even unusual for me.

Ed and I are both thinking of this as an adventure. He agrees that it will be fun to find out what it's like to work in a grocery store and that the physical part of the job will be good for me. I won't stop looking for work more in my area of expertise or wage range but this is definitely better than sitting on the couch getting angry over the latest ridiculous statement made by some fundamentalist in Virginia