A Frustrating, Rewarding Day

Tuesday night was another strange night of helicopters and police cars in our neighborhood. It went on for hours, but there was nothing on the news about it Wednesday morning. Our neighborhood is all Blade Runner all of a sudden. Makes me wonder if we have some new neighbors. Weird.

I only got a couple of hours of sleep Tuesday night before waking up. This pattern has been going on for too long and it's starting to wear on me. Unfortunately, instead of getting a long nap in the morning, I had to get up and be productive. The old car had to go to the mechanics and then I had an appointment later.

But all that was ahead of me when I got up a little before 1:00 a.m. I watched a few videos on youtube, took my meds, had a middle of the night breakfast of egg whites on toast, the last of the beet slaw from last night, and some berries with yogurt.  I didn't start on the coffee until it was clear that I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep.

At 6:00, I got up, packed Dave's lunch and got dressed. We left the house a bit before 7:00--Dave drove the old car, I drove the new--to have the car at the mechanics by 7:30. I dropped Dave off at his office after that and came home. I thought I'd take a short nap, but that didn't happen. I was having trouble falling asleep. I got up, had half a cheese sandwich and took a shower, did my hair and makeup, all that fun stuff. I had another cup of coffee, I guess because I enjoy that jittery but exhausted feeling.

I went to my appointment, which was with a new therapist.

Here's a couple of things that annoyed me:

One is that she has a PhD--which, great--but she bills herself as a doctor--which, no. You're a therapist, not a psychiatrist. Second, she was four minutes late. Doesn't seem so important, but any amount of late infuriates me and four minutes late is late. Period. And when I'm paying $200 an hour--yes, you read that correctly, the initial visit was $200--I am not happy to sit and wait. Four minutes worth of her being late cost me $13. That's for a sixty minute hour. But since her "hours" are 45 minutes, her being four minutes late actually cost me almost $18. That's more than twice as much as people making minimum wage make in two hours.

Then there was the inept receptionist in the front. She's not specific to my therapist but works for all the people in the building, many of whom are therapists. I don't know what it is, but I can almost guarantee you that when a therapist has a receptionist, that receptionist is going to be the most inept person you could possibly hire to do anything. It's some kind of rule, I think. I've even heard therapists complain about it. They complain about their own receptionists! It's always struck me as darkly humorous, that therapists can't even manage their relationships with their employees such that they don't get stepped on by them at every turn. And I'm supposed to take advice from a therapist who can't meet an interpersonal problem head on and set boundaries?

Anyway, annoying.

The visit was fine. We went over some initial paperwork that I filled out and talked about why I had come to see her. I liked her in the end, and we got on well otherwise. She said she felt like we would be a good fit and she gave me her card and said that if I decided to come back, to give her a call.

I haven't decided yet about going back.

I came home and sent Dave a text that I was going to try to get a nap. I had to pick him up at 4:45 so I set my alarm for 3:45 and, after a time, managed to fall asleep.

Of course I overslept. When I looked at clock, it was 4:23. I sent Dave a text to let him know that I might be late and then threw on some clothes, grabbed an apple (I hadn't eaten anything since I had my half cheese sandwich six hours earlier) and I ran out the door. I made it to his office only a few minutes late which was surprising considering the traffic during rush hour.

Despite the apple, I was still pretty hungry. I hadn't had the energy or time to stop at the grocery store, which meant that our dinner choices at home were pretty limited. We decided to have dinner at Thai Vegan. We shared an order of salad rolls (they call them "freshy rolls" there) to start. I put tons of chile on mine instead of the sweet sauce they serve with the rolls. We followed up with shared orders of Chinese broccoli (kai-lan) and pad woon sen (mung bean noodles stir fried with tofu, zucchini, onion, bean sprouts, and a few other things, I'm sure). It was all very yummy and best of all, we didn't have to cook.

Over dinner, I told Dave about my therapy appointment, asked him his opinion of the matter. I told him that I was undecided about whether or not to go back. While we were talking, I suddenly remembered that one of Dave's co-workers (and a guy who goes to the old studio) had perhaps mentioned that he used to see this therapist. I wonder if I'm remembering correctly. I'm curious, but I don't know if I should have Dave ask him or not. That might be a tricky subject to bring up at work, so I'd probably better not.

We were home a little before six, which gave us an hour to putz around before our third pilates class this week. (Yes, we did two days in a row. No, that was not a good idea.) Dave got in a little practice time on his clarinet. I spent some time on the internet. Then we changed clothes and left the house.

Our class was at 7:15. We don't really have a set time each week; the teacher just lets us know at the end what time the next class is going to be. We have had a couple of mix ups, unfortunately, like tonight. We started at 7:15, but Judi wasn't there at 7:15. I figured she thought class was at 7:30, which she did. She showed up late and then got pissed off at me! She came in and saw we had started and said in a really pissy, accusatory way that I had told her the class was at 7:30. I got pissed right back and told her that I wasn't her personal assistant so if she didn't know the time that class started then that was on her, not on me. The instructor was a little freaked out by the exchange. She apologized to Judi and said she would text her the time from now on. I said sarcastically, well, I'm sad to lose my job as Judi's personal assistant, but I didn't think I'd shed any tears over it. At the end of class, Judi was still pissed off and she drove away without saying anything to me.

That whole thing really burned me. I was still fuming about it later as we came home, so I talked to Dave about it. I have become the de facto point of contact for everyone in the class when we need to communicate with the instructor about class time and so on. By that, I mean that I had become the person who arranged classes via text and then made sure that everyone knew the right times and so on. I don't know how it happened that I got that job, considering it was Judi's idea to take the class in the first place! So to be blamed for being responsible for Judi being late to class under those circumstances really chapped my ass.  I know she was embarrassed to be late, but that's not my fault and not my responsibility and I'm not going to play nice and pretend it is. So, whatever.

Another strange thing happened during the class: Something I did or said made the instructor ask Dave if I was always happy. Dave said something like, she's always angry actually. That's true. I agree with that statement one hundred percent. The instructor said to me, but you're always laughing. I think I even laughed when she said that. I laughed because the one secret that most people don't know about funny people, about people who are always joking and laughing, is that much of that is motivated by a tremendous anger. The joking and laughing is an attempt to circumvent the anger. The funnier a person is, the angrier she or he is. Most people either don't know that or don't want to believe that. But it's true.

After pilates, we came home via the co-op where we picked up some things for Dave's lunch and our dinner. Thursday I get to have lunch with my mother. When we were texting back and forth, trying to figure out where to go, she said she didn't want to ruin my diet so we should go someplace "nutritious." But, man, I can eat salad at home anytime, so we decided to go out for burgers! Yum. I haven't had a burger in awhile, so I'll call that my cheat meal for this week.

Speaking of The Diet

I had decided to weigh myself once a week and I set an initial goal of a loss of two pounds per week. This week when I stepped on the scale, I was down five pounds from last week's weigh in. I'm happy to see a loss of course, (though I had decided already to reward myself for just doing the weigh in, whether I had gained or lost!), but that is definitely too much, too fast. I'm going to start eating a bit more on a daily basis.

Eating more means adding in a few more points to my daily allotment. I'm in the 24-33 range, more depending on whether I decide to add in all my activity points. I've probably been sticking to the lower end of that range too often. In fact, I know I have. I don't feel like my diet is lacking in any given area. I still eat bread daily, at least one and sometimes up to five slices. I eat lots of fruit (this week mainly bananas, berries, and apples) and vegetables (too many to list). I use milk in my coffee and eat a bit of 2% Greek yogurt everyday. For protein, I've been having egg whites, beans, Quorn, and cheese. (Yay, cheese!) I've been having some dark chocolate from time to time. Honestly, I haven't really changed what I usually eat when I'm not dieting, I've just started watching portion sizes on everything. So what can I add in? I'm guess it would be easiest to add a bit more fat. I've been using some canola and olive oil (in homemade salad dressings, for example, and to cook my eggs and saute vegetables in), but I should probably have a bit more from time to time. I might throw in another weekly cheat meal, too. We'll see.

I mentioned rewards. Trust me, I'm usually a big "virtue is its own reward" person. That is, I don't think people deserve rewards or praise for doing the right thing. But when it comes to dieting, I'm a big fan of non-food rewards for even the littlest triumph. So this week, I get two rewards! I get one for sticking to my diet for a week--yay, me!--and I get another one for doing my weekly weigh in. My first reward is--drum roll please--some new skin care cream. I'm going to look for it here first and, if I can't find it, I'll order it online. My second reward, I don't know about yet. I'm thinking I might either go and pick up one of those calavera pieces from Masks y Mas or I might get a steam mop. Or a pair of earrings that I saw at Whole Foods last week.