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.