I'm Okay. (You're Okay.) Thanks.

Hoo boy. Somehow I made it.

Today I told my boss(es) that I'd fallen a bit behind and I was feeling a little stressed and overwhelmed and I'd really appreciate some time next week without any new tasks or responsibilities or mail. My Lady Boss told me she'd make sure I had a day or two without anything new and to let them know if I needed more. That made me feel about 20% better. (Of course, that was after I was brought down about 5% when one of my customers to whom I'd spoken earlier in the day left me a voicemail and when I didn't answer within something like 23 minutes, which was probably my lunch break--not that I actually take it--drove something like 105 miles to the nearest field station to have someone there call and talk to one of my coworkers. That did not advance the customer in my long queue of callbacks one bit.)

Consider that I had started at about 100% lower than my norm on the Wellness Scale, so that brought me up to about 15% of of my norm.

After work we stopped at Star Liquor, where the friendly staff, bless their hearts, were sponsoring a beer tasting. The very enthusiastic O'so Brewing Company rep poured us a generous taste of 5 different beers. As is our norm when we attend a tasting, we picked up a 6-pack of the rep's beer, as well as 4 different singles of pumpkin beer for me to have my own private pumpkin beer taste-off. Our stop at Star raised my wellness by another 10% or so. (Thanks, Star Liquor and O'so!)

I had planned on making panzanella, or at least my soggy bread salad version of it, but pizza--one made by someone else, served with cold beer and fed to me with a spoon--started to sound much better, so we stopped at Mickey's Tavern on the way home. As luck would have it, our favorite waitress was there, which automatically boosted my wellness by another 5%. A sausage, onion, and red pepper pizza shared with My Dearest O and two Furthermore Propers tallied about 25% more betterness.

I think I'm back up to, what, 55% of my norm. With any luck, I can recoup the other 45% (or more) well before the weekend is over, just in time to go back to having my life and soul sucked out of me for another week.

Have a nice day.

(Back to tomatoes and other food stuff, with photos, tomorrow.)