Spicy Smiles

The last two days I have been more of a supervisor at work. That’s not to say I haven’t built my share of boxes or that I’ve been avoiding the line. It’s just that in the past two days I have done more telephoning and arranging of things. I’ve walked the length of the factory countless times stopping often in the Production Manager’s office and hiking all the way to shipping and receiving. (Have I mentioned that I’ve lost 15lbs!!!)

Today I was waiting on a shipment of boxes. I ordered them on Friday morning. I needed them—no, I REALLY needed them. I was running out of parts to package on one line and had lots of parts but no boxes on the other. So after weeks of trying to get them to speed up their production, I was now telling them to take it easy. I thought I was going to have to either send them home early or give them a very long lunch break. When what to my wondering (and waiting) eyes should appear but a very full semi pulling onto the dock! I was so happy! We were able to keep working and put out over 2400 parts today!

I was sitting here typing my first paragraph when the phone rang. I figured it was probably going to be Annie with a report of the latest achievement for baby Nel. I was wrong. It was Nel…Nelson. He was calling me from the backyard on his cell asking me to come out and help him start the mower. I shook my head and laughed. How did we ever survive before cell phones?

We weren’t able to get our mower running. It’s been temperamental for a couple of seasons. I remembered that the landlord had left a mower in the garage. Nelson gave it a few tugs and he was off to the races. He’s mowing the lawn. Anyone care to identify what’s wrong with this picture? Here’s a clue for those who are new to my life: lawn mowing is one of my favorite things to do. He didn’t even ask. I guess it’s okay though. We could have lost a small child in the backyard and never known it, it was so incredibly long back there. He has much more patience with that and the way the mower cuts out in that long stuff. So I’ll let him have the first cut. I’ll even thank him for being so kind to me. Then we’ll see who mows next!

Nelson called on his way home. He’s been really depressed lately. He suffers from chronic low-grade depression (dysthymia). Over the years he’s been on different meds and also sought counseling. I can generally tell when he’s moving from discouragement to depression, and generally notice it long before he admits it. I’ve seen this bought coming. I hadn’t caught the severity of it, however, until he looked at me and said he was wondering if he should check himself into a hospital. He decided against it since my insurance hadn’t kicked in and it was just too depressing to think about creating such a huge medial bill.

One of the things that Nelson does when he’s depressed is eat. This seems to offer a momentary relief which is soon overtaken by the guilt and remorse that comes from being morbidly obese. His drivetime call was to see what I wanted for dinner. At first he suggested Arby’s. I was okay with that. Then he called back and suggested BW3 (Buffalo Wild Wings). We had never been so I agreed. My mouth is still burning! It was .30 wing night so we got 10 wings. I ate one with Hot Barbque. My nose started running! My main course was a Caribbean Jack Chickenlito. It was also hot, but quite yummy. It’s definitely a place that I would like to try again. Nelson enjoyed his hot food and a bleu cheese burger almost as much as he enjoyed sitting in front of the huge screen TV watching Sports Center on ESPN. He smiled. I enjoyed that!

Well, he’s done mowing the lawn and I want to give him some special attention tonight, so, I’ll be signing off for a while. I hope there are spicy smiles in your evening as well!