I'm really sorry, Steph. I hope your uncle can get through this stage of grieving soon.

Thanks for the good words, y'all. I'm doing okay so far.

WTF (why the fuck) do I have cramps? What is this bullshit where bodies just get random as you age? Aging is bullshit.

Aging is bullshit.

TRUTH.

I'm wearing jeans for the first time since late April/early May, and there's always that moment of truth, after 6 months of wearing flowy skirts and comfy dresses and gym shorts -- will the jeans still fit? But they fit fine, so I'm going to take that win.

My aunt's funeral is tomorrow, and one good thing is that my brother was able to fly in for it, so I'm about to go get him from the airport. Shitty reason for him to have to be here, but I'll be so glad to see him.

I'm glad you will have each other to bring comfort tomorrow.

I've started pulling out my colder weather clothes and I'm wondering what will fit. I also culled through some things and I may have over culled as I am not seeing ad many work clothes as I thought I had.

I have been so tired lately. Tomorrow is my day off and I have a ton of things to do (check on mom, grocery shop, get a hair cut, put away summer clothes, etc). I am on day 8 in a row working. Which sucks in retail.

I upped my dose of Vyvanse. I haven't been sleeping well because my brain will not shut off and while I've made improvement/progress the past few months I've been struggling to maintain where I was. I've been getting by but only just. I'm on a lower dose so the shrink was ok with the increase.

Although I've been working a lot it hasn't been too bad. We have lots of seasonal people and I've been training most of the ones in my dept and a few in adjacent areas. The managers feel I'm good at training so they keep pairing me with people. Which was cool to find out. Especially since I was worried I over load them with info.

I try to expose them to as much information as possible , not expecting them to remember everything but hoping that later on they might have a situation where at least something looks familiar. I also go over a lot of customer service things. Let the customer know about special sales, or if there is a coupon they can use. Offer to special order things. And if it's a difficult customer about calling a manager. How to tell a customer you aren't sure of something (not "I don't know." Better is just to say "I'm new so I'm going to double check about that" or "let me check with someone so I know I'm giving you the right information")

There isn't any formal customer service training at Belk. The managers and supervisors are always over worked so they can't do it. No one uses down time to work on customer service skills with employees. I don't know if it's always been like that but it really should change. We are told to help customers and given general info but it's not really reinforced.

Tep, I'm so sorry for your loss. Lots of love to you and your family.

The funeral was so rough. My uncle is kind of physically frail, and every time during Mass we had to stand, he was swaying big time (although that was partly because he was full of Valium; he wouldn't have survived the services without it). He had a really rough moment at the cemetery when it was time to leave. I mean, they were married for 55 years. That's a lot to grieve.

I am so, so goddamn tired.

I am so, so goddamn tired.

Grief is so physically exhausting.

Hil, the community sounds amazing. I've never heard of a community that offers snacks and water during Yom Kippur (but I live in Jerusalem, so that doesn't say much). That's very thoughtful.

The snacks and water were upstairs, so not so helpful for me, but they're really working on finding a more accessible location to have services. I ended up leaving during the afternoon break -- I was thinking about eating something at home and then going back for the evening services, but I needed some rest instead. They've got a bunch of things scheduled for Sukkot this week, and nearly all of them are at times when I can't go.

I remember, when I was a kid, our synagogue would build a Sukkah in the parking lot, and all the Jewish kids would go there for lunch each day. As far as I can remember, lunch was always tuna sandwiches. (I'm sure they must have served something else. They couldn't have actually given us tuna sandwiches every day for a week? But that's all that I can remember. Tuna sandwiches and cookies.)