Today

Pizza and I have a love hate affair: I love it, it hates me. Or, more specifically, it hates my system. I have not been able to eat more than one or 2 slices of pizza since in my early 20's. If I do, I'm toast. Eating that before bed - any amount - I won't be sleeping that night. It will just sit there, in my stomach, churning around and making me naseous.

Yesterday, my manager comes over - I was going to help him get some furniture from a house that a lady was selling out - and I do mean selling out - everything. She wasn't home yet to meet up and get the stuff, so he wanted to order pizza. I didn't want pizza because pizza and a diet have no correlation with each other. He insisted, so - we get the pizza. I eat 2 small slices and one larger one. We leave. In about an hour, I am feeling very - sick. My stomach is going crazy. I feel the urgent need to go to the bathroom. Here I am, carrying both light and heavy furniture items and this has to happen.

I spent an extended period of time in the bathroom. Didn't get home until 1111:30, didn't sleep - hardly at all.

Get up today, sit out here in my kitchen musing the day's doings: going to move even MORE stuff. In extreme heat. Well, by the time I got to the manager's new apartment to move all that stuff we had packed onto the trailer the night before, I was feeling okay. It was HOT and somewhat humid. I had no desire to drag this out - I have been moving people and families for decades now, I don't want to take breaks, I don't care how hot it is, get it OVER with as fast as possible.

I will keep a pace that guys 20 years younger than me will not be able to keep up with. I am like that. I have always been like that. Not trying to outdo everyone, just trying to get the job DONE. Today was no different. I have no idea how many times I climbed those stairs - up and down, up and down - carrying that stuff. I do know that it was about 10 minutes into it I was sweating and breathing heavily. Good, a good workout, my diet will love it, especially considering the extreme calories consumed the day before in that pizza. Pizza is one of the most fat calorie filled foods around.

The boss? He basically told me he couldn't keep up with me, had to take a few breaks. No problem, I kept carrying stuff. He came back around, we got it done. THEN, back to the lady's house for MORE. 5-1/2 hours of it yesterday, 6 hours today. I haven't had a workout like that in quite a long time. I mean, I work and it's a decent workout, but this was extended aerobic type stuff where the heart rate is up and the breathing to go along with it.

I'm now going to honestly admit that I am totally exhausted. If I don't sleep well tonight, there is nothing on earth that is going to cause it to happen.

Tomorrow? Yes, more of it. I wanted to get all of this done today, but there simply wasn't enough time unless we wanted to be out til' midnight, a thing I most certainly wasn't prepared to do, thank you very much. It's going to be about 3 or 4 hours of it tomorrow and it is done. Strange way to start a staycation, but - it's good to help people and it's good to keep the body moving. Prove to yourself that you are still around, still kicking and can still hang with whoever, wherever. I even got what I considered a compliment from my manager. He told me that a salesman - a guy that works out daily, in great shape - but - I know this guy - can't hold a candle to a working, blue collar guy that has been busting @$$ for his entire life - pushed him, my manager, a while back in moving stuff and sisaid I basically blew that guy away.

Not to be arrogant or cocky, but I did state that I know I can blow him away in work. He might be able to outlift me on the weight bench, there is no way he has near as much stamina as I do in the work field. Being able to lift a lot and being able to press yourself at a constant, heavy rate are 2 completely different things.

Regardless, I am probably going to be sore tomorrow and getting there for one more day of it may not actually be too fun, but he needs the help so I committed to doing it.

Well, I'm done. I have no energy to think about things and write out things. I'm just done. I did score: the lady selling out gave my manager - who gave me a 36 inch Sony Triniton TV that, in 2003, cost her $2,000.00. So she says, I have no context to know one way or the other, but everything else in her house was pricey stuff, no reason to disbelieve her. That TV weighs at LEAST 200 pounds. AT LEAST. It is sitting in my living room, on a specially made TV stand also sold by Sony that I also got for it. It is a VERY good quality TV with GREAT sound. Love it. Free? Well, not exactly, but I will say if that is all I got today, it would have been worth it.

It is not all I got. The lady gave me a ton of NICE Christmas stuff. A lot of canned food. 5 bottles of extremely fine wine. A $50 extension cord. Hey, I got hundreds of dollars worth of stuff today plus a very good lunch, what have I to complain about? Nothing. I was glad to help. My Staycation starts a little later than I thought - working like this is like working a job, but I have no complaints. The heat, the stairs, the lifting and carrying? Great stuff.

G'nite.

ben