Tidbits for the Last Full Week of March

 Gift card boss has me working with a couple whose son normally cares for them but is out of town until Sunday. The shift differential for this is $6.50 more per hour, probably because they are only paying for split shifts. They get two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. It’s 8-10 am and 5-7 pm from this past Wednesday until this Sunday. GCBoss said it’s a very important client because they were referred by their hospice company and she wants that hospice company to refer more people. So, I’m the only one working with this couple in order to prevent them from thinking she sends different people all the time and plays musical schedules. This couple are both dying from COPD. I go in and basically just get them a meal, clean their commode, take care of all the pets, visit with them and that’s it. They are lonely. They gave me several cookbooks. In fact, they insisted I take them. I took only two and they wanted me to take more. 

I actually like having seven hour breaks. Can’t do it all the time, though. I had a doctors appointment, did the taxes, and a lot of grocery shopping. My doctor put me on a weight loss pill!  It’s called phentermine, and it’s great. I have a nice burst of energy all day long, and I’m good eating only half of what I normally eat. Tomorrow, I’ll be able to go to the park on my 7 hour break and get 10,000 steps again. 

I also got two $50 gift cards to Walmart for taking last minute shifts over the weekend. After I’m done working with this couple and their son comes home, I’ll get an Amazon gift card. The son of this couple, who’s traveling, told me about the Lone Star Walking Trail. It’s 96 miles. I gotta check it out. There must be some great nature there. I want to go before the bluebonnets die. 

I’ve also been using ChatGPT to help me in writing a narrative about some fictional characters based on me and my first boyfriend. My first boyfriend died last year at age 46. We were 18 and a half when we started dating and about 21 when we broke up. I dumped him out of pressure from others, and when I regretted it a month later and tried to get him back, he refused. We kept in touch here and there over the years. But with ChatGPT, I started exploring kind of a story line of us if we had actually gone through with the things we dreamed of in the future. The main thing is that we wanted 7 kids. Realistically, would that have happened?  Probably not, but we were young daydreamers. We had other goals and aspirations too, regarding jobs, businesses, house design, etc. ChatGPT is an insanely horrible writer. It can’t write the story, but it gives me ideas. It shows pictures of the house we dreamed of. It gives me potential story lines and characteristics of the seven kids we never got to have. Which in the story is a boy, then a girl, then boy/girl twins, then adoption of a sibling group of 3. If this were ever to become a “book”, there would need to be a character arc, perhaps even a character arc for all seven kids. And of course, in the made up story, he doesn’t die at age 46. It’s fun to go down the possibilities. I do not believe the claims that ChatGPT causes psychosis. I’m not psychotic yet. I’m 100% in reality, and I’m bringing companionship and help to a couple in their final days. An escape to the what ifs is deserved. 

Tuesday Tidbits

Thanks for the advice you two, but I kind of despise getting out my laptop. I have no idea why!  I was able to upload photos by simply opening safari on my phone instead of chrome. Here’s my friend DP showing how her broom stood up on the spring equinox. I also heard that eggs stand upright on the two equinoxes. I didn’t know these things had any sort of validity. 

I’m getting a lot better at going to the park intentionally to get my steps in while speed walking  while there, I saw this interesting flower.  It’s too big to be a dandelion. 

While walking, I’m listening to an audiobook that was a free download (with membership) on Audible called Writing with Impact: Crafting Compelling Arguments by Barrett Williams. It’s read by an AI voice, but the voice is tolerable and doesn’t sound too robotic. 

Last but not least, we have a nest outside, and here’s a short clip of our baby Jordan really thinking he can get those birdies. He’s really a joy.  He gets along better with Mitchell. Alex is old and just ignores the two of them. If they bother him, he hisses as if to say “Get off my lawn!”
 

Why has 2026 sucked so badly?

 I traded in my old iPhone 13 for an iPhone 16. I dropped the 13 flat on the ground and it ended up with a very bright stripe down the left center of the screen. It hurt my eyes. This phone is great, but I can’t upload pictures to my blog on it, and I want to. My friend, who is a witch, posted pictures of herself standing on her doorstep with her broom standing straight up by itself on the spring equinox. I heard that was a thing, but I didn’t believe it. 

It’s also bluebonnet season here in Texas. The Texas wildflowers are so beautiful, and there are way more of them this year than last year. The bluebonnets give sort of an indigo mirage against the green grass. They are usually surrounded by yellow and orange wildflowers. The spring equinox was also my father in law’s 89th birthday. There were three or four times this past year that we thought this was it for him, but nope, he’s been blessed with another birthday. 

March 19 was our one year wedding anniversary. To celebrate, we took Anna to the sushi place where we had our first date. She’d never been there before. Anna was home for spring break. Now she’s back in her dorm. She drove her little prelude all the way to town and back and complained about gas prices. 

At work, a mother and daughter client have requested me to come more often. On a bad note, I am not working with the married couple anymore. He always made flirty comments towards me and apparently other female caregivers. One day, he attempted to sexually assault me. Gift card boss feels super bad about it, but I don’t hold anything against her. I don’t want to go into detail. I say sexual assault, but honestly I’m not sure if  I even have the “right” to say that’s what happened. I feel like if it was anyone else, they could call it that. He doesn’t have a diagnosis of dementia at all. It’s a long story, and that was a very bad day. Since then, I’ve had a little bit of dissociation, but I’m trying to ground every day. I wish I could post a picture of the bluebonnets. 🪻🪻🪻

Tweakers at Dollar General

 One of my friends used to say she believed they must hold job fairs for Dollar General managers at meth recovery centers, because to her, they all look like they’ve done meth. She said it was a joke, and I do know that not all dollar general managers are current/former meth users.  Just to get the “not all” out of the way!  But the one I saw today when I attempted the cigarette merchandising job fit the description. She was supposed to have the signage at the store, and as soon as I read that I kind of knew they weren’t going to have it. I hate it when they say DG will have supplies at the store. More often than not, they don’t. This lady looked everywhere and said she didn’t have it. She then said she had posterboard and markers if I wanted to make signage, but the instructions reiterated like three times not to do that. The job would be rejected if I did that. I explained it to her, and she immediately got irate and said, “Well I was just trying to give you an alternative!”  Oh!  “That’s fine,” I said in a calm voice in an attempt to calm her down. “But I’m just not allowed to do that.” I told her I was stepping outside to message the person in charge. That person never responded, so I just documented what happened and submitted the job and left. Another person from merchandiser messaged me and asked what time I would be completing the DG cigarette jobs. I messaged him the whole story and said I had another experience last week where the customer service desk employee didn’t accept the LOA from the vendor. (This is true, they didn’t, and this was at an HEB). I said I no longer felt comfortable doing assignments from that vendor. 

Now, it’s a huge deal for me to say that. I was raised that if you do anything like that , you’ll get fired immediately and they’ll get extremely mad at you and you’ll never work again, because no one will hire you, because they’ll badmouth you all over the place. I should know by now that it’s not like this, but that freak out crept in. The merchandiser dude just messaged me back, and said “No problem.  (That vendor jobs) are removed from your list. Thank you.”  

I finished the day out by doing the rest of what was on my list- two more Costco jobs that I did five of last Wednesday, and one with electrolyte straws at Target. They were easy, and the staff was knowing!  

Tomorrow, I plan to do another one that just posted today where, like the Costco ones, you don’t have to talk to management unless there’s an issue. I plan to do them all the way to my mom’s house, take a bath and take her trash out, and do them on another route back. 

Then gift card boss texted everyone saying there was a call out for the client I worked with yesterday morning. She needed someone with her from 6-8 pm tonight, and aside from getting paid (two hour shifts also have a differential for being short), she was offering a $75 gift card!  Oh?  Are gift card incentives back?  I entered the client’s address into my navigation, and it would have taken an hour and a half with traffic. Then she texted that someone took it. Eh. At least gift cards are back. 

The Anti-ABA Rabbit Hole 🕳️

Recently, this Wall Street Journal article was posted to social media trying to expose Medicaid fraud by ABA facilities. It doesn’t surprise me. The centers seem to have a ton of money, and there are a ton of them too. Every time I log into indeed to just browse, another ABA center “behavioral technician” job pops up on my suggestions. I always click the thumbs down for “this is a bad match.”  Indeed doesn’t get the hint. 

Here is a list of books I’m in the middle of reading about this issue: 

The Autism Industrial Complex by Dr. Alicia Broderick. Dr. Broderick also talks about this issue on a couple podcast episodes here, and here

A book I have but haven’t looked at yet is The Gold Standard Fallacy of ABA by Julie Roberts. She’s hard to find any more info on without coming upon tons of links to Julia Roberts. 

TikTok content creators I like: 

Songbird Speech (an adult with autism and a speech language pathologist)

Jean (autistic adult, educator with a doctorate in education)

They both do a lot of talking about how communication isn’t behavioral. This is one of the things “wrong” that I couldn’t put my finger on when I attempted to train to be an RBT.  Communication is innate, and it’s not true communication when it’s treated as a behavior. Maybe once I learn more, I’ll get into it more. 

YouTube links:

Paige Layale’s video on her own childhood ABA experience. Some people on Reddit say that about half of what she says is spot on and half is her projecting, but to me, if she’s been in therapy her whole life, then she should know when she’s projecting and not do it in a YouTube video. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Because of that, I give her the benefit of the doubt. 

How to advocate against ABA without losing your mind.  They do a very good job explaining a lot of things, as well as understanding many aspects of “the other side of it.”  

I think that’s all for now.  More later.   I re-watched and re-listened to all of that and most of the TikTok’s before linking. You can also fall down the rabbit hole on Reddit by searching for ABA SLP. One might ask, well what would the alternative be?  The alternative would be speech and occupational therapy, along with pouring some of the billions from that Medicaid fraud into special education and parent education. 🫶🏼

Finally a Few Days Off

 Well, Kathy, you were right, she kept asking haha!  BUT to be fair, I was already scheduled with the lady who canceled for today and then figured I couldn’t say no when she had another client during the same hours roughly. I could not tell her I already “made plans” in the hour between the cancellation and the call out, especially since I was with the couple and not supposed to be on my phone anyway. (I could still hear the texts ding across the room though, and glanced at it just enough to see what she was saying but not enough for her to get a read receipt . 

Well this lady adored me, and she was on the phone with her daughter saying, “Danielle is very knowledgeable and a very good girl!” Lol. 

I texted gift card boss some specific questions I had about the lady this morning. She then said “thanks for being such an awesome caregiver” with her responses.  I don’t think I’m that “wonderful” of a caregiver, but maybe compared to some of the others I am. There is another caregiver that clients rave about who’s really great, and he’s a male. 

So gift card boss asked me,”I know you mentioned only working Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but would you like to work with (this same lady) every Monday from 9am till noon?”  Haha, I thought of Kathy’s comment on my last post immediately. I said, sure. I mean. It’s only 3 hours.  This lady is very sweet, and it’s in Conroe.  I can’t complain, and I feel more confident after winning over the couple. 

Tomorrow, I told the merchandising app that I would go to two dollar generals here in my area and set up a cigarette display. They actually called me from Boston to ask persistently if I’d do it, with a very nice bonus. Dollar general managers never know what’s going on with merchandising and audits and tend to get defensive. They are supposed to have price stickers for me, but something tells me they’re going to be like “Wuuuutttt price stickers”. Luckily, I can still get paid if it’s a flop due to the manager not knowing. 

Long Weekend Done

 I worked all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the couple with the $4.50 shift differential. I mentioned earlier that they must have had bad experiences with other caregivers. Well, they finally opened up to me about the main lady they had a problem with, and Jesus Christ. She sounds like a real prize package. I wished they hadn’t assumed I’d be the same way, but I eventually won them over. 

Gift card boss texted me saying the four hour shift I told her I would do before I changed my availability was now canceled. I started getting really happy and then she texted me an hour later saying someone called out for tomorrow 9-noon and could I do it 🙄. I guess I couldn’t say no, because I was going to work anyway with the cancellation and told her I would that one time despite the change in availability. Usually the really short shifts are just people who want you to help them shower, get dressed, make a simple meal, make the bed and leave. So I said ok and she told me this.  This just makes me think there must be some crappy caregivers here. And the musical schedules mess with my head so much.  I’m glad I set my days at only Friday Saturday and Sunday.  Can’t deal with it 24/7

“It’s a new client. Very sweet. Bed bound.

I will tell you that almost all the caregivers have been late to this client and she’s about to pull services if things don’t change. Are you good to be there at 9am sharp?”