Friday food and health

This will be a shorter blog entry to record my health update. And my food diary. I hope to follow it up with a real essay. On being prepared for the unexpected side of advocating for yourself when it comes to your needs and your disability.

I woke up even more lightheaded today and by 9 a.m. I felt like I might either fall over or faint, so I took my intermittent medical leave and clocked out at 9:14 a.m. When I got home, I took a one hour nap, after which I could at least hold my head up without swaying. My heart rate was experiencing some highs and lows– highs of 130, lows of 44, within a short range. My blood pressure was111/67.

Food “today”:

  • 7:30 p.m. yesterday: after not having dinner last night, I watched an old episode from season 2 of Rescue 9-1-1 and ate about 2.5 servings of Sahale Asian Sesame Edamame Bean & Nut Mix– with around 15% of your RDA in sodium and 6 grams of protein per serving.
  • 4:30 a.m. Don’t judge me, but this morning I had about 10 ounces of water and a Coke Zero for breakfast. Despite having almost 8 hours sleep, I could still barely get myself out the door.
  • 8:30 a.m. I was hoping food would help me feel better. I had grabbed the Brekki oats again as I ran out the door, but today they didn’t have my Greek yogurt in the breakroom so I grabbed a serving of JIF peanut butter to fatten up my dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan and goodness knows what other trend oats.
  • 12:30 p.m. After my nap, I reheated my leftover pasta with jarred red sauce, a tad of mozzarella, and some tiny pieces of meatloaf for meatballs. My water level for the day, besides the 10 ounces this morning, is an additional 24 ounces.
  • 1 p.m. peppermint coffee with half and half.

Done.

It’s hard to watch the work ethic of some people fall apart as we face the closing of our warehouse. I only got six hours sleep last night, despite going to bed at a decent hour, and my heart rate rarely got below 90 today. And I keep facing less equilibrium. I can’t spell anymore. I can’t think.

And I have one more ten-hour shift tomorrow and a four-hour overtime shift on Saturday.

This post will be riddled with errors and I’m not going to tell you the details of how much yuckier my day went once I got home. But I will tell you I forgot to take my evening medication and I’m not going downstairs to get it.

I sent a message to my doctor yesterday asking if I could go through the medical nutrition program– and he referred me. I’ll be going Monday.

I really wanted Hungryroot’s pork snitzel(sp) for dinner but the teenager used up all the Ziploc bags and it’s a shake-and-bake type recipe and I need a bag.

And as soon as I write down my food intake for the day, I’m going to cry myself to sleep.

What I ate today:

  • 4 a.m.: Supercoffee brewed with organic cacao and served with half and half. I took some to work but only drank about 16 ounces total and forgot it in the breakroom when I left for the day.
  • 5:15 a.m.: water and homemade cheesecake.
  • 8:30 a.m.: about 24 ounces in on water intake for the day. Brekki overnight oats, which were sweet, syrupy and wet so I added plain Greek yogurt.
  • 11:30 a.m.: about 16 ounces more of water. One slice rye bread, creamy miso (about one teaspoon) and my mother-in-law’s meatloaf. Some Wallaby candies. But only about 1/2 a serving or so.
  • 1:30 p.m.: golden kiwi. By the end of the shift, I had another 8 ounces water.
  • 4 p.m.: about 12 ounces electrolyte water with a hint of cucumber and honey roasted pistachios.

This was supposed to be dinner, but I put it back in the fridge.

Still lightheaded (and goodies from the Stitch Fix Hizzies)

I spent all day lightheaded, with it getting progressively worse all day. I altered my food today to include more sodium. I even brought my electrolyte powder to work, but no improvement. And yes– I did email my doctor. I had tried to schedule an appointment but with his current vacation schedule and his tendency to be heavily booked, I might be best served by my late August wellness visit.

When the lightheadedness threatens to become full dizziness, my heartrate is in the 110-115 beats per minute range, which scares me. But still no signs of Afib.

At work today I did 162 fixes, which was our goal when we were still on 10-hour shifts. Now it’s 164. But I spent 40 minutes at the safety team. We discussed resumes.

Speaking of Stitch Fix… my Freestyle order from last week came, or at least 75% of it came. It’s ridiculous how long it took to get here.

Now, I have to be up at 3:45 a.m. to start my ten-hour shift at 5:30 a.m. so let’s get on to the food diary…

  • 4:15 a.m.: I made 26 ounces of Supercoffee with half and half. I put it in my thermal mug and it took me three-quarters of the day to drink half of it. Then I put ice in the other half and put it in the fridge.
  • 8:30 a.m.: probably drank 24 ounces of water so far at work. First break was Cabot cottage cheese, sipping my coffee and enjoying a golden kiwi. The cottage cheese had 18% of my RDA in sodium.
  • 11:30 a.m.: Wendy’s chicken sandwich, the super basic one and I asked them to remove the mayo and add ranch and pickles, but they didn’t listen and merely removed the mayo. Added my own ranch and pickles. Had some sliced packaged apples and plaintain chips. The plaintain chips have minimal sodium and some vitamins. The chicken sandwich was processed so it had to be salty, but none of it made me feel better.
  • 1:30 p.m.: probably drank about 24 more ounces of water and drank 1/2 my mason jar of water with my electrolyte powder. I finished it after work. Also had a bag of cashews.
  • 6 p.m.: the teenager made dinner. Caesar salad with fried chicken, red peppers and cucumbers. I had two big bowls. And a glass of unsweetened iced tea, Earl Grey.

Then I packed a meatloaf sandwich on rye with creamy miso and nutritional yeast, another kiwi and licorice bites for lunch tomorrow. I also set the coffee pot to brew more Supercoffee at 4 a.m. and added some organic cacao into the coffee grounds.

Food Day 2 and 174 Fixes

My blood pressure was great all day— I only took my regular half dose of beta blocker. My heart rate had a few episodes of elevation, and I was dizzy all day every time I walked.

It was humid and hot in the warehouse. I worked a ten hour shift and folded 174 fixes. Despite the sadness and frustration filling the warehouse, the conversations happening between colleagues keep the family spirit going. And it’s a great reminder that we’re all still a team.

But with each subsequent Stitch Fix commercial on Hulu, I fight tears.

And for the record, 174 fixes is 106%.

My food diary for the day:

  • 4:30 a.m.: Water, coffee with half and half, Kind almond butter oatmeal bars. I didn’t have a chance to eat my pineapple jerky.
  • 8:30 a.m.: about more 30 ounces of water, one small banana, packages apple slices, about 3/4 of a serving of peanut butter. I didn’t have a chance to eat my pistachios.
  • 11:30 a.m.: water count is up another 20 ounces, a raspberry watermelon polar seltzer, and a packed solid salad of pesto, kale, red pepper, cucumber, pumpkin seeds, roasted chick peas, black beans, couscous, and hummus.
  • 1:30 p.m.: about 16 more ounces water, finished the seltzer, and ate three mini molasses cookies from Archway, one serving.
  • 4:30 p.m.: unsweetened Earl Grey iced tea with fresh lemon
  • 5:30 p.m.: diet caffeine free Coke, 2 everything tortillas each with avocado, nutritional yeast, and Alpha plant-based Chikn nuggets dipped in blue cheese dressing.

I gotta do it

Nan came over today so we could work on her writing stuff and she asked if we could stop for some bottled water, Excedrin and cash. We ended up at one of our favorite spots– Grocery Outlet– so I could buy some supplies for work lunches and some produce.

And they had her Excedrin, 200 caplets for $10. We also bought some mini soft iced molasses cookies from Archway and a bag of dehydrated kale with vegan cheese, and we made a video about them.

I did call my doctor today to see if I am a candidate for the medical nutrition program. But he doesn’t have any appointments before my already scheduled physical. I have to believe the extra thirty pounds plus on my frame isn’t helping my various symptoms, which range from tachycardia to orthostatic hypotension and my vitals seem out of whack.

And last week my doctor himself called me (when I have no tests or appointments that should even be on the radar) to tell me to stop taking my SSRI because with my ecg pattern there is a small risk of fatal arrhythmia. I had already started weaning myself off because I was on it for stress-induced high blood pressure and now that I have a beta blocker it seems redundant.

But now my blood pressure is high from life in general: losing my job soon, medical issues, mothering, pet parenting, business. It just keeps coming.

So Nan and I went to Grocery Outlet and I bought things I don’t even remember but I made this amazing salad for today and another for lunch tomorrow at work (with a flavored seltzer and a dr pepper zero strawberries and cream).

  • Kale
  • Pesto sauce
  • couscous
  • hummus
  • roasted chick peas
  • black beans
  • pumpkin seeds
  • red pepper
  • cucumber

Knowing dinner wouldn’t be until 7 p.m. I made myself a 4 p.m. snack.

  • Popcorn
  • Raisins
  • A bit of asian/Tokyo-inspired Sehale nut mix
  • crystalized ginger
  • peanuts

Festivities of Fashion: a trip to the 60’s fashion exhibit at Allentown Art Museum and the Threads of Fashion Exhibit at the Banana Factory

Even before the month went off the rails, Gayle and I made plans to visit the fashion exhibits at two of our local Lehigh Valley art centers: the Allentown Art Museum and the Banana Factory. The teenager’s work schedule allowed her to join us, and she had been to neither spot in probably a dozen or more years.

Her father and I once held memberships at both the Lehigh Valley Zoo and the art museum– as both are great places to entertain a preschooler.

Gayle wanted to see the art museum exhibit because she had some of those clothes from the Sixties, and I wanted to see it because I love post-World War II history and I have a minor obsession of fashion in the artistic sense. If you’ve read my Fashion and Fiends novels, this makes sense.

I took sooooooo many photos and honestly– hey, Joan, take note: I’d like to go back and bring a sketch book and some implements. And if I had a camera…

Our first stop had to be the Frank Lloyd Wright library. The Teenager has always loved it, and today proved no exception. She had a magnificent time pointing out how all the details fit together and complemented each other in clean, minimal design.

I am always drawn to certain items: the Tiffany glass, the writing set, the painting of the tall man with many eyes that hangs in the stairs, the man with the pipe that makes me think of Pablo Picasso, and the woman with cigar.

But then came the fashion…

So much to explore. Colors and patterns vibrating through the room.

And since the museum no longer charges admission, I bought a very bold umbrella at the gift shop.

Next, we headed to South Bethlehem’s Banana Factory. At their exhibit, featuring the work of local designer Barbara Kavchok. The work blew my mind, and the paintings and fashion illustrations that accompanied the dresses… well, if I wasn’t losing my job I would have inquired how to obtain one or two. The flowers. The ruffles. The lines. All just flabbergasting.

I had to stop in the bathroom, where I paused to take photos of the paint stains in the sink.

I had been trying to eat healthy all day, and all day my blood pressure was low and my body wobbly (to use the teen’s words) and hands shaky. So I got a chicken sandwich at Wendy’s.

Every day I find myself more ashamed of my weight and my food choices– and every day I make more excuses. It has to stop. It just has to change. My body can’t take the extra pounds.

The synopsis of a long week

I’ve been meaning to write for days now and a week as gone by with minimal use of my own words. I’ve kept up with my editing responsibilities, but the idea of sharing my thoughts with the outside world has felt positively daunting.

Maybe it’s because I don’t know what to feel.

Brief synopsis of the week:

  • It rained during the “Wheels around Wilson” event.
  • The teenager clogged the toilet and the plumber left her with this sage advice about the new low water flow toilets: when you take a massive shit… shit, flush, paper, flush.
  • Stitch Fix gave us the financial figures and basic terms of our severance but has not announced our separation dates. That will come July 15.
  • I received an email that the selection committee of November’s TedX Conference at Northampton County Community College would like to interview me regarding my application to give a presentation at the event.
  • Coffee in the Morning, the new short story collection by Larry Sceurman, is available but be warned… we need to adjust the photos. Gayle and I aren’t happy with the printed result.
  • Shuffling & Scribbling, the Teenager’s newly released tarot journal and workbook, is available through Amazon, as Ingram will not distribute the book, claiming the book is too “low content.” So this will allow Parisian Phoenix to compare the final printed results from both IngramSpark & KDP.
  • The computer system at work is still recovering from its stroke last week so I’ve been working overtime. Making hay while the sun shines, as a farmer would say.
  • The Teenager turns 19 Friday. That means only one more year before my teenager is no longer The Teenager.

I think my foster cat has gotten closer to living my career dreams than I have

As many of you who read this know, I have had one helluva week. I took my car in for body work on Tuesday, only to arrive at work late to find out that Stitch Fix had made the decision to close our warehouse in October when our lease expires.

Then the Canadian wildfires transformed our daily landscape into an apocalyptic sepia-toned photograph.

My colleagues that drove me to and from work during those days commiserated with me about our hopes and fears about what our future holds.

Every book I’ve tried to finish for Parisian Phoenix Publishing this week has encountered bizarre complications that I am still sorting.

But last night my car came home early, nice and clean.

But then FURR Louise got adopted today so I took these photos to chronicle her last moments with me today.

I met her adopter at our local Petsmart and it turns out she’s a talented and super animal-adoring journalist who recently earned a prestigious metro fellowship at The New York Times. By happenstance, I happened to subscribe to the Times last weekend, so perhaps I will see her work.

Louise is on her way to Hoboken, N.J., to live with an investigative reporter who works in Manhattan. She and her boyfriend are “cat people” who have every intention of spoiling her.

I hope Louise learns to love this young reporter, Erin Nolan of the New York Times.

Meanwhile Opie is adjusting to the loss.

Canada’s on fire and it’s looking like the apocalypse

So, it’s on the major media outlets that Stitch Fix is closing two warehouses– or distribution centers as the press release called them– and we are on the list. About 375 people losing their jobs.

Meanwhile, forests are burning in Canada and our air quality has reached such terrible levels that we can not only smell the fire, but the daylight has turned the world into a sepia photograph of sorts and the particles can theoretically absorb into our bloodstream through our skin.

And I also found out via social media that Big Papa’s Breakfast Bistro had a little incident and will be closing until insurance companies can agree and repairs can happen.

And I didn’t get any good news… Gayle needs not one but two surgeries on her eyes for pseudoexfoliated glaucoma and cataracts. There’s an omission in the book that got stuck for two weeks in prepress at the printer and we need to do it again. And don’t tell The Teenager but the distributor has issue with her Tarot book. But I’m appealing their issues.

In the midst of all this, while knowing we’re in a strange limbo between getting laid off and not knowing when our last days will be or what severance packages they will offer us, we’re faced with an apocalyptic landscape.

Another Day at the Bizzy Hizzy

Today was Rainbow Pride Day at our warehouse, with each department wearing a color to support our LGTBQIA+ peers. Outbound had the color red. I donned a low cut red bodysuit under pants, with a red embroidered bathrobe that everyone assumed was a kimono. I called it my cape. I also put on my red glasses.

I went in a half-hour early as my neighbor works the 6-2:30 shift and my car is at the collision center. I got an email from them today stating my car should be done Tuesday. It needs a new bumper. But then I got a text from the collision center an hour later saying that my car has been moved from the prep department to the paint department.

One of our leads approached me today to tell me that I write well, and I thanked her, and perhaps babbled too much at her. And plenty of people complimented my kimono.

We had a safety team meeting despite the bad news delivered yesterday, and we ended up eating doughnuts and bagels while discussing how best to move forward. What started as a conversation about resume building ended up in the zone of how to build a lucrative Only Fans.*

*The Only Fans idea was not suggested nor encouraged by our employer. It was merely a humorous discussion about how we might be able to get people to give us money.

Already, this is not an ordinary lay-off scenario. One of my friends, and I forgot if I’ve given her a nickname, has laid claim to the gong. Supervisors don’t know for sure if they can let her take it home, but if they can… Well, I might have to name this person “Queen of the Gong.”

We also debated what to do with all of the break room toasters. Stitch Fix has a lot of break rooms, and probably at least 20 cheap, double toasters that have rarely been cleaned in the last seven years, if ever.

Metrics for the day landed between 103 and 105 percent for me. I had 30 minutes of overtime and 45 meetings of doughnut meeting– which means I needed to do about 127 fixes to reach 100%. I did 131.

This one is hard: the end of the Bizzy Hizzy

I’m a little glad The Teenager drank all the soda in the house, now there’s not even a splash of Fresca left for me to use as a mixer for the tequila or rum.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I slept in today (5 a.m.), finished editing Julian Costa’s upcoming book, and starting writing a new memoir that I’m working on for a new Parisian Phoenix author.

Apparently there are Canadian wildfires causing smoky air quality in our region. Which logistically doesn’t make sense.

I took my car over to the collision center for a new bumper, which I’m told could take up to a week and a half. The Teenager drove me to work after, and I think I arrived at the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy warehouse by 10:10 a.m.

But when I walked in the building– from the moment I arrived– things felt wrong. And when I made it into the door to the main breakroom, I knew there was bad news afoot. Very bad news. The room felt dark. It was crammed with all of us. And I heard the door to “P&C” open (People & Culture, that’s the politically correct term for HR) and one of our outbound managers was there. She’s one of the day people. But I had to have answers, because even she seemed solemn. And she always has a smile.

“Did you just get here?” she asked.

“Yes,” I whispered.

She motioned me into the vestibule. “There’s no easy way to say this, and I’m sorry you didn’t hear it from [our building manager] but the Bizzy is closing in October.”

“So,” I replied, “should I go clock in?”

She nodded.

I crept through the breakroom. Some people were sobbing, associates and leaders alike. Some of the toughest people I’ve known were fighting tears. Some people went home. My direct supervisor had red eyes and am expression that looked like someone had knocked the air out of his lungs.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’ll be okay,” he said, unconvincingly.

“You look so sad,” I said. “I feel like I should hug you.”

“You can hug me,” he said.

I gave him a tight embrace.

We were told that we will get our individual separation plans next week. Those who stay until the end will get severance. The Dallas facility– the Dizzy Hizzy– will close a few months after ours. The Bizzy opened seven years ago, and yesterday it was announced that we won the network competition. This is one hell of a prize. Our warehouse is the smallest in the network, cramming merchandise in a space half the size of the newer buildings. Our lease expires this year, so what we gain for the bottom line in shipping rates, we must not have the flexibility of the newer spaces.

I’ve loved my job at Stitch Fix. I love many of my work colleagues. I appreciate how much the company does to keep our health insurance rates low and our other benefits perky.

But this is a blow.

I think of the supervisor waiting for major surgery. The people close to retirement. The couples where both parties work at Stitch Fix. The pregnant women.

I think of myself, my service dog, my financial worries, my disability, my mental health, my future. I haven’t recouped enough of my losses from my recent health scare and hospital stay to approach this with security.

And Louise is getting adopted this weekend. It may be time to give up Touch of Grey and Canyon to other fosters who can afford them.

I have four months to figure out how to make Parisian Phoenix solvent– or face another transition to another job.