Life is real interesting right now. Work is in flux, management changes, the end of my crafting for kids night (not all that upset about that, frankly I'm tired of it all) and an all around sketchy feeling for the future. Nothing sucks the life out of you like working in the service industry. You learn to hate people (in general, not as much specifically although some people make me crazy). Every day is an exercise in patience and a feeling or futility. I am punished for each and every mistake and if I am not on my game my pocketbook suffers directly. No other career is so unforgiving. I am probably 95% competent but the 5% of less than stellar service results in really poor treatment from people who would suffer themselves if anyone scrutinized them at work in little blocks of time. Wouldn't it suck if your boss was looking over your shoulder and punished you for making mistakes on a project even if you corrected them and kissed his ass after. consider his deducting from your paycheck for the time you took fixing your mistake "I'm not paying you to make mistakes, why should I pay you to fix them". Every year they add to our workload. No more bussers, the waitresses can clean their own tables. No cleaning staff the waitresses can clean the restaurant. No profit sharing, no performance based rewards, no benefits, no sick time, and the ludicrous idea that raising their prices is the same as giving us a raise. You are not treated as an asset and they behave as though we can be replaced at the drop of a hat. We are held accountable for everything that goes wrong and treated poorly by cooks, managers and unhappy customers whether it is our fault or not. it is exhausting to work under those conditions day after day but they know they have the advantage in this job market so they just pile it on.

On the home front, the kid goes off to school soon, all day kindergarten which opens the door for me to take on more hours (although who knows in the current work situation) or get another job, possibly close to my field but frankly I'd take just about anything now. My Darling works hard and still heads off at the crack of stupid every morning. He suffers me my late hours staying awake past reasonable for his rising and hating me just a little for my responsibility for that. I know he would like me to head off to bed early with him but that would require me to bed right as I walk in the door some nights and if you note above you will understand why I can not wind down fast enough for that. I try and head up with him even if I don't stay just so he can have some company as he drifts off. I suck at the whole wife thing, probably part of the reason I am on number two.

My kid has begun to voice the "boys do this" and "girls do that" with the added obligatory "can't do" flip side. Despite all examples to the opposite (Mommy works on cars and does plumbing, Daddy cooks, cleans and put him to bed when Mommy works) he still managed to glom on to the "traditional" gender roles and restrictions. We went to a party a couple of weeks ago and he wanted to play soccer until he found that the ball was pink "I don't want to play with a pink ball Mommy, pink is for girls". We explained, it's a ball, it doesn't matter the color. It's not like Dad, Marine/man's man doesn't wear pink. Hell my Marine danced when he was a kid. We just don't roll with gender stereotypes. The kid has had both dolls and trucks, forts and a kitchen, hell we were willing to let him be a princess for Halloween although, once he saw the dinosaur costume, princess was out the window. till he comes from a stereotype free (mostly) home and yet we are still fighting the fight.

Oh, and lets talk about elder parents for a moment. My folks are fast approaching (may have already passed) the time when they need to change their living arrangements. Dad is on oxygen and has already fallen flat on his face (literally) once. Mom is still getting about but has also fallen a couple of times. They live in a huge home climbing stairs to bed and descending stairs to fetch groceries from the "fruit cellar". They recently canceled a visit because "your father wasn't up to it" and this made me nervous enough to high over to them to suss out the situation. It wasn't as bad as it could have been and I insisted on and facilitated the movement of grocery items from said fruit cellar to the kitchen cupboards and old pantry cupboards. It will save them some trips down to the basement but there is still the issue of the upstairs bedroom. Quite simply they need to be in an apartment all on one level, preferably in a retirement community home. There is a nice one near me I would like to see them in but they have been resisting for years now. The good news from my trip? They are at least talking about it. Of course talk is cheap. If my Darling had his way we would pack them up in suitcases and move them at Thanksgiving but they won't go for that and it leaves us to worry our way through another winter.

AND then there is the niece. She who shares my mental illness, now experiencing the same struggle I waged when I was younger. Her drug of choice, both illegal and unforgiving. Alcohol, while it can be deadly, is at least legal and, if one avoids operating a vehicle or walking on train tracks, survivable for many years before cirrhosis sets in. I am lucky, so many people with mental illness don't make it to where I am. I have to remind myself when I am feeling frustrated and tired that I am so very lucky to have anything let alone My Darling, my son and the loving home we have made. My niece reaches out to me but I have to keep her at arms length, for one, because it is too much stress for me to handle and two because there is nothing you can do for a drug addict. They must do for themselves, sometimes with the help of strangers better suited to help the addict she is. Drug addicts will do anything for their drug. Anything. And no matter how they may feel about you and the people they love they will lie, steal and cheat to get their drug. If it were up to me I would make all drugs legal, regulate them and provide them free of charge to anyone that wanted them. Drug addicts would have to sign in and out of facilities in order to do their drug, keeping them under supervision and safe as well as giving us the opportunity to counsel and/or assist in moving them off drugs and back into society. The savings from reduction in crimes, less need for police services and less people going to prison would more than cover the cost of the facilities. We just need to get over our puritanical selves and realize that addiction is a disease, not a choice. Those people who have not tried, or tried and didn't get caught are not addicts. Addiction isn't just for drug addicts by the way. People get addicted to food and to starving themselves. They get addicted to adrenaline, sex, pornography and gambling. Some are more acceptable or at least less unacceptable than others. Maybe you can drop a few coins in a slot machine and walk away but Grandma will gamble away her retirement because she can't walk away. All of these are physical addictions, no matter what moral higher ground you wish to stake out. They should be treated like any other physical malady.

Mental illness is one of the number one reasons for homelessness and incarceration. It can be controlled but first we have to stop treating the mentally ill as though they are demons, weak or morally unsound.

So there...and that isn't all, it's just all I can manage right now.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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