#317 - Cherry Pills

Getting out of bed felt easier today.

I felt like I got some good sleep and it may have come down to the cherry juice and magnesium glycinate. Last night I ordered some tart cherry pills to try instead of the pure juice. Reviewers online claimed it helped their sleep in the same way the juice did, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

It arrived from Amazon this morning. I’ll give it a try tonight and see what happens. I was trying to avoid the acidity of the juice as well as the extra 140 calories it adds to my daily diet. And if it works, it will be significantly more cost-effective on a monthly basis.

I started work with some leftover pizza and an Alani energy drink. A breakfast of champions. I have one Alani left to try and although they were tasty; I don’t think I’ll be buying any more of them. They are about $4 a can and I am just not an energy drink kind of person.

I will continue to eat cold pizza for breakfast until I draw my last breath, however.

Right off the bat, my first meeting was rescheduled from 11 am to 1 pm and you know how much I hate a one pm meeting. But there was nothing to be done about it. I continued to prep some work for the painters and went through all the layouts searching for any reference we were missing. I found a few props that weren’t anywhere to be found and sent a message to my production manager who managed to track down the items and send them to me. This meant I could assign a whole section of work to someone if they needed it.

I continued to scour the layouts as they arrived until about eleven forty-five when we left to take a walk. I had really wanted to take a walk under the shade trees at the provincial park, but with a one o’clock meeting that was going to be out of the question. The weather was warm and we tried to take the most shaded route to avoid the full sun.

It was nice day for a walk, if not a little too warm.

We arrived back at home with enough time to cool down. I grabbed a Dr. Pepper Zero and a slice of leftover pizza to eat at my desk.

The meeting was about going through our personnel and doing a kind of review for some possible upcoming events. After we agreed to a strategy I got back to work. There were some finished paintings for me to approve, and I set about doing that before getting ready for my second meeting of the day.

This meeting is called a Leica launch, and it lets all the teams and the clients write down any questions or concerns about the next show. After we have entered our questions into an excell spreadsheet we watch the parts of the animatic or Leica and make some calls and decisions about how to handle things or what was meant by or indicated in the story board.

It certainly cuts down on a lot of mistakes down the line and there will be enough of them to deal with later as it is.

It was a short and concise meeting that only lasted about half an hour, which we all appreciated immensely, as we are all so busy.

I returned to my work, and stopped only to take a short break, playing a game of online chess to relax my mind. I’ll be going into the studio tomorrow and I hope I can get a lot of work done and maybe as the right people some questions.

When I came downstairs from my studio office, Robyn had already chopped up some vegetables and pulled out some frozen fish. I spiced and salted the veg and watched the oven while she got ready to go to her service work job.

We ate together enjoying the vegetables. The fish was good too, but it was one of those Captain Highliner pre-spiced cod filets you get in a box. Not as good as something I would have made myself, but it was an easy meal, and it tasted good. I wasn’t up for another slice of pizza that’s for sure.

We did have some meatloaf to eat, but I think Robyn had forgotten it was there. It’ll keep for another night.

Kiddo #1 has been cooking and eating her own healthy meals to get into better shapes, which is great. Last night she precooked her meal for the week which involves making rice, baking potatoes, salmon and boiling chicken. And it’s also great that she is buying her own groceries as well. But what she isn’t doing is buying her own Tupperware. And that meant when we finished our meal and wanted to pack a lunch for tomorrow, there was nothing to package it in. The kid had used up every possible container like they were hers!

Robyn left and I sat on the back deck and read four chapters of The Sand Pebbles trying to forget my food storage issues.

 It felt great to just sit and read for pleasure for a change. I really enjoyed the hour or so I gifted myself just to read. I decided it was foolish to try and get myself to read during the time I would normally be writing or watching a show. Why not take the moment right after work, when I am feeling tired and just sit and read. It felt like the perfect tonic to a hard day’s work.

I stopped after about an hour, assuming Robyn would have returned by then, but she must have gone off shopping or wandering. Or more than likely kiddo #2 devised a plot to have her drive him somewhere to get something he wanted. It happens almost daily. He always has something that he NEEDS to get or do or somewhere to be. And it’s always an emergency.

I took the opportunity to get some writing done. I moved up to the bedroom to enjoy some air conditioning while I worked. I may even get to finish the evening reading some more. I don’t we have any programs to watch, or any new episodes. So, it will be a reading night for sure.

The Sand Pebbles is getting better as it goes along. It really is a glimpse into the lives of the men on these gunboats, patrolling the rivers in China. It gets into the politics of the day a bit and some of the cultural aspects of the Chinese at that time. As seen through the eyes of an American sailor of course.

I suspect it contains too many words and ideas that might scare off today’s generations and attract a whole lot more for all the wrong reasons. In the same way that Gone with the Wind is a triumph of storytelling, while simultaneously being as racist as fuck.

But that’s how these American sailors would have thought about the Chinese. And on the Sand Pebble, the American navy men hired Chinese workers to do a lot of the dirty work. And in a very Chinese way ceded their duties to them so they wouldn’t lose face.

It is definitely a story full of interesting relationship and characters of all kinds. And being rough and ready sailors, not all of the characters behave as angels. It wouldn’t read as true if the author had cleaned up their behaviour for the sake of posterity.

One word that is used a lot is, “Prong!” As in go prong yourself. I am not sure if this is an attempt to bypass censors who would be on the look out for fowl language or if it is historically accurate. I think the author may have made it up as slang that the crew all spoke and to avoid writing what they were really saying. The book came out in 1962, and the story takes place in 1926. Maybe prong also sounded more believable in the historical sense.

One of the reasons I picked this book up, other than I saw it on an episode of For All Mankind, is that it is labeled as an adventure book. And I was supposed to travel to Las Vegas last January to take a one-week course on writing adventure stories. Collecting these older stories make for good examples to follow.

And I could use all the help I can get.

Just turned on the Apple TV out of curiosity and saw that we have two shows to watch tonight after all. Tonight’s choices are Ted Lasso or Lucky. I’ll have to see what kind of mood Robyn is in when she gets back.

Apparently, she was shanghaied into taking kiddo#2 to get his medications. And he uses Shoppers Drug Mart to fulfil his prescriptions, and they are so slow at dispensing just about everything.

But at least I know they are alright and safe.

Robyn returned and offered to make me a tea. I couldn’t say no to that! I opted for the decaf version of my Earl Grey tea, so it won’t interfere with my tart cherry pill experiment tonight. There is something wonderful about a cup of tea you didn’t have to make yourself. A true sign of love. I was regaled with the ineptitude of the Shoppers Pharmacy staff when she got back. I think they just really like to make people wait. Maybe they make more sales in the rest of the store if people are forced to hang around. I wouldn’t be surprised!

Some executives at corporate probably thought it was a great idea to increase sales.

I remember working for an illustrator in Toronto and I was tasked with picking up a check that he was owed from an advertising agency for work that was completed over three months ago. As I got into the elevator of the swanky building, two other guys in suites stopped the door from closing and got it in.

One of them went on to say how he was delaying all the payouts to their suppliers for an extra month because they were making an extra two percent interest on all the money in their account. That was a bit of an eye opener to me at that young age.

I ended up getting off at the same floor and following them into their offices. It was that greaseball who I was going to pick the cheque up from! He had the decency to turn a little red in the face at least.

And there was no way I was coming back to the studio without that cheque in my hand.

We had the choice of watching the two shows, or both if we wanted, and decided to watch Ted Lasso because it was a comedy and Lucky is more intense. Better to end the night with the feel-good episode where no one gets killed.

I am up early tomorrow to catch a train into the studio. I have taken my tart cherry pill and my magnesium already to help me get a good sleep and wake feeling rested. Robyn has to drive me to the station as she has an appointment in the afternoon that requires the car.

I am really hoping that these cherry pills work. The reviews mentioned it helped with sleeping quite a few times. The original video where I learned about tart cherry juice as a sleep aid mentioned you had to get the non-concentrated juice. And the pills are concentrated and make me question their efficacy.

Only one way to find out, I guess.

It sounds like the studio might be quiet tomorrow, and that means I’ll be able to write during lunch and on the way home if all goes well. I am about a day and three quarters behind schedule as of this evening, which isn’t too bad if I don’t miss anymore days of my quota. I hope to get ahead again by the end of this week as I have another assignment due on Sunday. And I can’t wait until the last minute this time or I might miss the deadline again. I can’t really afford to do that ever again with my mentor. It just means less learning is available to me with the time I have with her.

And I don’t want to squander anymore of that precious growth as a writer.

Okay, time to call it a night and get some beauty sleep.

Until tomorrow.