Working eight consecutive shifts was not fun, especially when most of those days were worked with really bad abdominal pain.

The pain today wasn’t quite as bad. I think the worry over what the colonoscopy will find increased my stress. Now that the CT scan revealed a, “perfect,” abdomen-no masses-I’m a little less worried.

I got off at 8:30 pm. I thought I was scheduled till 8:00. Dern. My roommate ordered Chili’s fajitas for us and the twits did not send us our guacamole. That’s harsh. We could make a meal out of guacamole.🥑 We don’t even need chips. We ate the fajitas with sour cream. It’s good but, not quite the same. Oh well, we took a break from cooking. I’m still in pain so, was in no mood to stand next to a stove.

I was on the phone with Dr. Lauridsen’s (my primary) office for 23 minutes waiting for someone to answer. I want to get a OBGYN referral. I also tried twice to reach the lady in my gastroenterologist’s office who makes the procedure appointments. I left her two messages. She did not call back. Yay! Two more chores on top of getting and paying rent. After working for over a week, I just want to be a bum tomorrow.

Work tonight was pretty good. I thought a lot about how much I want to write for my paychecks instead of ringing groceries. I am so happy to be out of Walmart but, I’ve learned that even that big improvement isn’t bringing me closer to what I want.

Writers don’t get paid before the product is finished, unless you are Stephen King, James Patterson, Elizabeth George or Carl Hiaasen. Then you get a check to tide you over while you crank out your book. This is why I fantasize about winning some living expenses.

For now, I work at Sprouts. I keep seeing food I’ve never seen before: golden beets, Chinese eggplant, snap dragon apples (heard of them but, never saw them), golden dragon fruit, canned Jack fruit, stripped bell peppers, baby bok choy, purple sweet potatoes, orange cauliflower and way more.

It all makes me hungry. I love food. I love trying new food unless it involves monkey brains or bugs of any kind. Or cute critters like the guinea pigs they eat in Peru.

I’m planning on making myself a tool for work because they are so rigid about scanning produce stickers rather than keying in the numerical codes. I’ve saved a bunch of stickers and am going to put them on index cards and put the cards on a ring so I can flip through them. I’m not doing that tomorrow, though.

We had bunches of roses 🌹 by the dozen on sale for ten bucks. They are really beautiful bunches too. All the plants at Sprouts are healthy looking. I rang up quite a few rose bunches. This one guy was getting a dozen roses and a petal fell off onto my scanner. He got goofy and said, “You can have that petal, if you want.” I could tell that under that mask he had a silly grin. I replied, “Aww, you’re so sweet. That’s the closest I’ve been to getting a dozen roses sent to me in years.” Then I told him about my poet then-husband who never got me flowers and I complained and he said, “They are just gonna die.” I snapped back at him, “We live in Oregon. They grow them here just to give away.“ It went in one ear and out the other. Note that I wrote, “…then-husband…” If there is ever a next guy he’s going to have to WANT to give me flowers occasionally. I’m starting to think there isn’t going to be a next guy, though.

Maybe I will just get another cat. At least their shit is obvious able to be accurately located.