April Showers Bring May Flowers

Happy May Day! Time flies, indeed.

Blake and I are moving to Texas on July 6th. As of now, we are inhabiting Cambridge. It's a long story, I'll get to it some other time.

Among the many surprises in the last twelve months, I have found myself as a kitchen employee at the local nursing home. No, I do not cook. Yes, I wash dishes. My other responsibilities include: setting up the dining rooms, clearing the dining rooms, pouring drinks, serving meals, serving desserts and salads, and various small tasks. The job is fairly easy but it requires immense patience, empathy, intense multi-tasking, and a quick pace. You also have to suppress your stress and frustrations for the sake of the residents. Enter immense patience. Residents frequently die. They are here one day and then gone the next. Sometimes you cannot understand what they are saying. Funnily, about 60% of them cannot hear you.

"Edna, would you like some eggs today?"

"EHAAAH?"

"EGGS"

"AGATES?!"

"NO, NO, EGGGGGGS!"

And so on. Sometimes they forget their teeth in their rooms. And sometimes, they forget their teeth in a cup or on their plates. To make things just that much worse, it is hot as a sauna in the upper level dining rooms (the elderly are always cold, it seems) and about five or six different requests come at me every twenty seconds or so. My caffeine tolerance is so high that it takes approximately 20-30 oz of black coffee every morning. It keeps the headaches away. On the bright side, at least I am not doing meth.