Welcome home, Stephanie.
Work was full of screaming today. One of the clients, who had a one-to-one outing yesterday, decided to pitch a fit over not being invited along on someone else's trip to Great Clips. I tried to redirect his anger by letting him know if he stayed calm, after I got done helping everyone else run their errands, he and I could go somewhere (by which he means, to the store for a pop, anything else is just tangential). With all the screaming and stomping and pounding he was doing, he not only excluded himself from an outing (his parents do not want him to go in public when he is acting like this), he also got excluded from a nice group coffee break (he made his own tea, but no one would sit near him). He kept following me around, yelling. If we were all in the living room watching tv, he would come in pitching his fit. If we turned off the tv and continued our pleasant conversation in the dining area, a few minutes later he would follow. It's hard to say how much reinforcement he would get from us leaving the room, as he has autism. Previously that tactic tended to help, somewhat. He would often calm himself so he could come back into the group, or at least stay where he was, yelling by himself.
So my nerves are frazzled.
I stopped at the grocery store on the way home, bought a roast, some veggies, and some bread. Harvey (who behaved like a hero when I brought over a couple of well-behaved clients this afternoon, and let them pet him and generally make a fuss over him) managed to eat his way into the bread while I opened up the roast and shoved it into the crockpot (small roast and Daniel will be home five hours after it went in).
Yes, I lost my cool. No, I didn't hurt Harvey. I kicked the freezer he was eating the bread on, which sent him scurrying. Then after he was out of the room, I screamed for about 15 seconds. If he wasn't allergic to wheat, instead of throwing those slices to the birds, I'd put them in his dish and that would be his supper tonight. And now he comes up to me, paws my leg for attention then walks over to the other side to paw that leg when I turn away. I don't think I have enough booze in the house.
Speaking of cats, Sammie started shedding on Friday. Now, I'm not mentioning this because it's the straw that broke my brain or anything, but because the way I see it, if shedding season has started, can spring be far behind?