The Restaurant

I'm responsible for a group of four gentlemen each weekday morning, for a period of two-and-a-half hours. It doesn't seem like much but it's fairly challenging to keep them going that long. One of the biggest challenges is keeping their cups filled with iced tea. These guys range from purely autistic to severly mentally disabled, and not one of them will take plain old water. So I keep making tea and filling their cups, over and over, throughout the morning. I've started calling my work area "the restaurant" because I mostly serve beverages, snacks, and lunch to my various "customers" while still managing to fit in some artistic instruction. I also have to clean up spills and manage personal hygiene. My favorite job is scrubbing excrement from beneath fingernails so my clients won't poison each other. And all this for under ten dollars and hour!

Reminds me of working at the Blue Willow. Seems I just can't get away from food service, after all.

Shale Ridge Syrah 2004

The other day I was wandering through Sunflower Market with Aiden who is three years old and a very astute shopper. He knows that I like wine and he's always trying to get me to buy things that I don't need. In this case the item was a bottle of 2004 Syrah by Shale Ridge which retails for around $9. I decided to humor him, figuring that the wine couldn't be that bad. I opened the bottle last Friday after a long week with the mentally handicapped, and proceeded to write this review.

The 2004 Syrah by Shale Ridge is a slightly transparent dark ruby color in the glass with no sign of aging and moderate glycerin extraction (legs). The nose consists of the typical Syrah dark fruit aromas with some sage and tar notes. In the mouth the wine is medium dry with good acidity, not flabby, and fairly tannic. The usual dark berry tastes were evident along with white pepper, cumin, thyme, meat, leather and asphalt providing interesting complexity during the rather short and otherwise undistinguished finish. Alcohol and oak were moderate. This wine conveys good varietal distinction and would go well with Middle Eastern food. It is a dry wine that might not appeal to the average American wine drinker, and one that I will not purchase again since I like my Syrah with a bit more extraction and a rounder sugar to acid profile. All in all a worthy effort at a modest price, just not my style.

Finished with Fluoxetine

I have stopped taking Prozac. I've experienced very few withdrawal symptoms. I guess I got it out of my system, so to speak, the night that I got sick. Anyway, I was hoping Prozac would be a good thing but I'm too scared to take it now. I'm rethinking the whole medication question. I'm probably going to try a more natural approach to balancing my psychology, including more exercise.

On an up note, the new job seems to be going fine. Just getting out of the house has already improved my mood. Kariman seems to be doing better, too, although Aiden misses me and wants me to be with him and let Kariman take care of the baby. It's a challenging transition for all of us, but a good one.

I can have wine again, but I'm not going to drink every day like I was. Just weekends and special occasions.

Sigh.

Mystery Illness

Last night I was violently sick. It was unlike anything I've ever experienced. Many people have been sick with stomach flu, so it's possible that I caught a bug from someone. There was, however, one major difference: it felt like a toxic reaction to something. My entire body had this really awful buzz to it and I felt cold and shaky. Vomiting up dinner (with the Prozac I took afterwards) proved to relieve most of the symptoms, although since then I have felt shaky and hot/cold all over. I feel jittery and a little fuzzy headed. This all reminds me of the time I unknowingly consumed too much THC in the form of a pot brownie. I've never been so screwed up, and the reaction was quite similar, with the body buzz, the toxic feelings, the desire to vomit, and the residual fuzziness.

I think it would be wise to give the Prozac a break.

The New Job

My first day at my new job... Tiring... Crazy... I work with about twenty developmentally challenged adults, not one of them alike except for being mentally and emotionally incapacitated. Some don't speak at all, some speak loudly and cannot be understood, some can't walk, some can't see very well, some have accidents in the bathroom. I'm supposed to find ways to stimulate these folks using art media. It's a difficult job, a little like handling a group of toddlers, infants and three-year-olds who are all older than me and who have all the needs and hangups of adulthood.

Reminds me of the drum circle.

Prozac Goals

My goals related to Prozac:

Reduce OCD/ADD tendencies so I can stick with one job and finish tasks.
Reduce angst and irritability (depression).
Reduce dependence on alcohol/caffeine.

I'll need about six months to see if Prozac will help me to find balance in my life. I'm not supposed to drink alcohol since the effects are often doubled by the SSRI. An occasional drink (no driving) shouldn't kill me, but daily drinking would be a bad idea.

Had a headache today, but don't know if it was the Prozac or the fact that I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning to tend to the cats and kids, then didn't really get back to sleep. Or maybe it was Aiden kicking me in the head while I tried to get him to sleep another hour.