A chance to catch my breath

After working 8 days straight and 70 some odd hours, I had a day off today.

Wednesday through Sunday were insanely busy.  Saturday was hellish.  Almost every movie in every theater was sold out.  (Pretty much everything but a couple of the seatings of that god-awful Robin Hood movie.)  Three servers called out, along with four runners that called out or no-showed.  No time to smoke.  No time to pee.  No time to catch your breath.  12 hours of this shit.  I was supposed to train in the bar for the second part of my shift.  I was behind the bar for less than 2 hours.  I had 36,500 steps or so.  A new personal record.  I was grumpy and scowly.  It sucked.

To my credit (I think so anyway), I bounced back and was ready to rock and roll on Sunday.  Smiling, hustling, making little jokes with my co-workers.  Monday and Tuesday were normal slow weekdays and gave me a chance to catch my breath (and actually train on bar.)

And then today.  I got paid.  I did laundry.  I took a nice long shower.  And I shaved for the first time in two weeks.  I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but for the last several days, I've been getting up, crushing a cigarette or two while pouring some coffee into me, before jumping into the shower for five minutes, maybe less, and then rushing out the door to work.  I don't really grow a beard beyond the neat trimmed goatee that I have, but the scraggly stray whiskers were making me nuts, even if no one else could see the difference.  A nice long hot shower and good clean shave was almost like a spa treatment for me.

Then this evening, my son and I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody.  Free movie tickets are nice perk from work, it got even nicer when their was a projection issue and the make started 25 minutes late.  They gave all the guests Rain Checks to a future movie to apologize for the inconvenience, including us.  So now I have 2 more free tickets (and these don't have the normal employee restrictions on them.)

The movie was great.  I've seen most of it during the course of doing my job, but it is just not the same is seeing uninterrupted and in order.  We enjoyed it.  I bawled my eyes out during the end when they showed the Live-Aid set.  It was great.

I usually cry at movies.  I have for years.  I think it has something to do with whatever emotions I have bottled up.  It is definitely getting worse.  Hell, there are trailers that I catch in the theater that choke me up.  Mary Poppins Returns definitely gets me.  But that may just be because I'm a big sap.

It may also be because I am still grieving things that I've lost and haven't really processed yet.  But that is a discussion for another day.

For today, I had a day off and it was pretty damn good..