I really don't feel like going to work today. Yesterday my hips hurt, and I was stiff and limping for several hours, even after taking painkillers. They must have helped a little though...after that the stiffness went away and the pain dimmed down some. Then it flared back up to the point where I just wanted to go up in the break room and cry for a while, but no: we were swamped with customers. It's all the pivoting, stopping, starting, twisting, squatting, lifting, that does it. The faster it all has to be done, the more it hurts. There were only two of us, Sierra and I; we needed a third person desperately, especially since I was slower due to my hips, and her to her pregnancy. Then some fool needed to feed 50 people but called with less than an hour to spare, at the rushed hour, and wanted 20 breasts and 10 thighs!!!! Egads! They wouldn't all fit in one fryer load, the hot case was empty from cooking chicken (when we cook chicken, we have only one fryer, so we can't cook anything else. A batch of chicken -8 each breasts, thighs, legs, and wings- takes 15 minutes to cook) and there were *also* two orders for 12 pieces. So: 20 breasts, 10 thighs, plus 6 each breasts, thighs, legs, and wings. 54 pieces in all, and all within about an hour's time. The case just got emptier and emptier....meanwhile, other people saw the chicken cooking and wanted some, and we had to tell them it was all pre-ordered. Then they got pissy. One man all but yelled at us. There was so much chicken ordered that we had to bread more (we bread it ourselves) to fill the orders. Breading a box of chicken takes at least 15-20 minutes, and she had to do that while I waited on the ranting customers and reduced the doughnuts. A checker came back and helped us. At any rate, it was sort of hellish. I don't want it again tonight.

Today: Birthday shopping. Make a cake for my oldest son. It will be an ice cream cake, chocolate with mint chip ice cream. And, the library book sale, before work.

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Is it this hard for everyone? For normal people, do the bills and chores and deadlines and pressure of daily life lay this heavy on them? Do they constantly feel as I do, that they're at the very ends of their ropes? One problem solved only gives rise to another, it seems. One bill paid off gives birth to a different one. Every hour seems claimed and possessed by a task or some urgent matter. There is no time to think without the world intruding on me, I hate it.