a.w.o.l.

Has it really been a week since I posted last? My, my, my, how time travels fast when you are having so much fun....

Actually it's been a hell of a week for me... hence the lack of posts on my part. It started with a bang of caterings that kept us so busy, I could barely keep them all apart for all the equipment that needed to be stored and packed. I am glad to be an organized person for the most part, as I make lists of everything. This becomes most helpful when it comes to knowing what I have, what need and, what I need to get. It has saved me many times ..... as long as I can remember where I leave the lists.

We were supposed to be fairly quiet, then it seemed that everyone remembered that they needed food, or their previous caterer was a.w.o.l. A few moments of letting their fingers do the walking, they arrived on the page of our ad, and decided to give us a try. What started as three caterings for the weekend turned into eight. Yup, it looked like I was going to be able to pay my bills early with the potential dough that was going to roll in; although much work had to go into all the planning in a very short amount of time, and I had to be up to the task. I was, and everything went off as well planned as it could possibly go.... with only a few snags here and there, nothing that anyone else knew about but myself.

Luckily it happened while I was on the last catering of the weekend, and had a staff of ten people helping serve 160 people table-side service.... rather than buffet-style service. It was upon their request that a buffet wasn't present, as they wanted their people to stay in their chairs, and have us wait on them. It did go off beautifully as it was supposed to, but by the end of the night I heard the familiar barking of my feet, and was overly anxious to get home after mopping their kitchen floor. Too tired to do that final walk-thru to see if we left anything behind, I hung the mop up and proceeded out the door to my vehicle. I was only 10 minutes away from home, and still in enough time to catch the season finale of Desperate Housewives. I put my truck into auto-drive ( a feature I highly recommend for every vehicle), and took a mind wandering jog over the nights events. Happy that I could pat myself on the back over such a fruitful job with lots of praise from the participants, I pulled into my driveway, ran into the house and threw off the shoes, pants and shirt to climb into shorts and a T-shirt. I immediately felt better, and the cool night air gave me a feeling of relief that the weekend was officially over; I could relax until 6 AM Monday morning where I started all over again with boxed lunches for 60 people.

It wasn't until 7 AM Monday morning when I was headed out of my house to the kitchen that I remembered I hadn't carried my "repair-kit" bag out of the event facility from the night before. In here I store all the little stuff I might need during the event, but don't want to walk out to my vehicle to get. This usually includes a comb, hair spray (for those loose strands that always seem to fall down in front of my eyes), toothpaste and brush, my keys and my cell phone. I tried calling my cell phone, hoping that it might have fallen out of my purse in the truck, but no, I had left it in the bag this time. I purposely leave my keys in the bag, because it is one way for me to remember my bag, but this time I had taken the keys out to go back to the truck to get something, and instead of returning them to the bag, I slipped them into my apron pocket. Big boo-boo on my part! Now the cell phone was a.w.o.l. Geez..... my bad, huh? Calling the facility the next day, I was able to get back in to find the bag. The only problem was that it wasn't where I had left it. A check to the lost and found revealed nothing, and a return trip to their kitchen to look in every corner finally met with success. I felt 20 pounds lighter in relief alone. I could have forfeited the bag and it contents, if it were not for the cell phone.

All this time, I was feeling funny.... and not the "ha-ha" kind, but funny in a weird way. I literally could feel my skin crawl with itching, my lips had taken on a new fullness, and I was lightheaded . Not prone to fainting or any of that silliness, I felt that perhaps I was a bit overtired, so I took a few hours in the afternoon off to take a much needed "real" nap. Yup, that's what it had to be.... I was overtired, and just needed some uniterrupted sleep to put me back on top of my game. I woke up many hours later (and thank goodness the phone was quiet all that time) only to feel that I wasn't in any better of shape. I was actually even more tired and itchier than before. The backs of my legs were rubbed raw, my right knee-cap and arm had welts, my lips had grown and were the size of being hit by a 99-mile an hour baseball, and my muscles were very sore. I still had no reason to base this affliction on, and being a trooper, I had a lot of laundry to do as well as work to catch up on. So on I plodded, not working very fast, but effectively getting done the mental list I had put together to end the day at 11:00 PM.

And then came this morning..... the itching was worse, the welts worse, but my lips had receded a bit. Oh well, nothing like a hot shower to wash it all away, huh? Well, sort of.
I felt like I had a bad sunburn and the shower did nothing to alleviate the itching, but actually made it worse. By the time I made it to my kitchen this morning, the welts were worse, the itching uncontrollable, and my lips were beginning to grow again. My partner noticed it right away. He went to his car and pulled out a bottle of benedryl and told me to take some, at least the itching would come under control. I asked him to read the back of the bottle as I was sure that this was going to make me drowsy (and I was too lazy to walk to my truck to get my glasses to read it myself). I could only imagine it would say something to the effect that once taking this product, one should never handle machinery, drive, or even attempt to think. "Oh no", he said, "Take it.... what's more important is that you stop itching." Remind me to not be so lazy next time and get those glasses, as I started to get drowsy.... real drowsy. I found reasons to do something, just to keep my mind going, because I could not think a coherent thought in my brain otherwise. Simple tasks proved to be stressful, and I was giddy as well. On the plus side, the itching did cease. I couldn't wait to get home again, as I really needed to lay down; that was the first order of business once I crossed the threshold of my home. All housework, yardwork and thinking would have to wait till I was in a better frame of mind.

So here I am at the end of a much needed nap, again, and not really feeling any better. The itching has receded a bit, the rawness to my legs is not as bad, but I am still lightheaded. Just writing this post has been a challenge in spelling and skill. I can't believe I've made as many errors as I have (you should have seen this before I re-read every part twice); even simple words were hard to spell in my head..... and since my spell-check is on permanent a.w.o.l. status, this has been quite an exercise in patience for me. Hmmmm..... good thing I'm still on those pills that Dr. Teddy prescribed. At least I don't feel like I need to take anybodys head off while I'm scratching away..... I'm actually in a good frame of mind for someone who is suffering a series of unfortunate events.