um, i think i lost a week there somewhere...

She's staring at the ghost behind you

Now that my brain is working again, I can update this thing! My two-day trial run at the bakery down the street from my house turned into a full time job ("Why don't you just come in the rest of the week and hit the ground running?" I was asked).

I really enjoy the work so far, but the hours are killing me. I have to get up at 4 a.m. to be there by 5 (MUST eat a full, fiber-filled breakfast before I go). But, I have a hard time going to bed before 10 p.m., mainly because there are shows I want to watch and we don't have a DVR or TiVo. I know, I know, that's not a good excuse, but staying up later also gives me more time with my hubby because it's not like he's going to get up at 4 a.m. with me.

As a baker's assistant, I basically help prepare ingredients for the baker (i.e. the owner). I also make sandwiches that are sold in our cafe and around the area, followed by prepping ingredients for work the next day. This is supervised by the other owner, the baker's wife. The people who work there are super nice and helpful, and they are very very competent.

I always appreciated my coworkers at the paper who just had a lot of common sense. They became invaluable to making me have a good day. At the bakery, most everyone has some form of higher degree, or is working on a degree. We are a vastly overqualified group to make baked goods.

I don't know if this will be my permanent job while living on the East Coast, but it's a good steady paycheck for now, and I'm learning awesome cooking skills (like how to properly use the different knives for their intended purposes).

In other news, we've been having some drama with Cali. Either she's seeing ghosts (or is possessed by one) or she has some sort of lower GI bug. Three times in the past week, we've found the nastiest piles of poop on the floor, and she's been acting much more terrified than normal. The second time she pooped outside of the box, she was so petrified by something, she didn't calm down for 4 hours and was a ball of tension for that whole time. So, either she's freaked out by something, which has scared her from using the box, or she's sick with something that's making her so out of sorts and uncomfortable, she poops where she is at the time.

It all came to a head early this morning when I vaguely recall a cat-like figure leaping across the bed (about 4:30 a.m.). I reached down and felt a cat, so I thought I'd dreamed it. Not 5 minutes later, Cali leaps from Ben's side of the bed to my side and I start petting her. Then I smell something awful, and I say, "Ben, I think Cali pooped in here again." That's when Ben said, "No, she pooped ON THE BED." He realized this because he had put his hand on a fresh pile right next to him on the sheet. She finished her bidness on my side while I was petting her head (I hadn't realized she was actually pooping until I smelled it). Then we found another pile on the floor and one in the hallway. There were two more turds on the carpet in the living room, but those looked like Dodger's manly poops (we think he was getting in on the fun).

Sidebar: The bed upon which we were sleeping had gotten delivered the afternoon before, and this was the inaugural sleeping on the new mattress night. She defiled a brand new bed. Thankfully, I had heeded the salesman's advice and bought a waterproof mattress liner to go on top of the microfiber top.

At 5 a.m., we were wide awake, stripping the bed, cleaning up the stinky piles, opening windows to air out the apartment and trying to figure out exactly what the hell was the matter with our cat. I made a vet appointment for tomorrow and saved a stool sample so we can get that tested to see if she's actually sick or just crazy as hell. Maybe she has a brain tumor, which is making her see things that aren't there (or she's like the kid in 6th Sense). Or maybe Dodger has convinced her that demons live in the litter box.

Oh yeah, and this is on my day off from work (I got a surprise 3-day weekend to cover a Sunday shift next week...yeehaw!). Needless to say, my plan of going to the DMV to get a Massachusetts drivers license will have to wait until Wednesday after work.

I did take advantage of the nice day, though, and walked down to the Central Square farmers' market. I got a boatload of veggies for various meals we planned for the week, and I got to discover a few more places in Central Square.

With the rest of my day, I'm going to make a loaf of pumpkin bread to use up the last half of the can, then I'll squeeze in some knitting before I make dinner. It'll be an early night for me because tomorrow is a work day, so hopefully I can get to sleep without being crapped upon.