Just some stuff

My schedule is so screwed up right now. My days off got split this week and it threw me more than I thought it would. Normally I would work Saturday night thru Tuesday night and have the other three nights off. This week I worked Saturday thru Monday, had Tuesday off, worked Wednesday, and off Thursday and Friday. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I were on days but being on nights made it so much worse. This should be the only time that happens though. I’m on five days for the next two weeks, but after that we should be back to four on three off.

Critter and the kids came over yesterday and we spent some time together. It was fun. D brought a game over he had been playing (I honestly think he carries a game and memory card in his backpack all the time) and planted himself in front of the PS/2. K and B found other ways to amuse themselves while Critter and I just talked and got caught up on the past week or so. K is fascinated with my front deck; she just ran back and forth along the length of it for about fifteen minutes just giggling away. Critter finally relaxed enough to let the kids play out in what passes for my front yard so that was good. She also checked her e-mail for the first time since January, she was a little behind.

A little while after they left AmandaS came over. She’s getting a serious case of cold feet about her new place. She was over here last night almost on the verge of tears listing all the things that she was worried about. The only real thing on her plate is her car that intermittently refuses to start. Her boyfriend the mechanic has looked at it and has had co-workers look at it and they all say the same thing: unless they are standing there when it won’t start or it finally dies completely there isn’t anything they can do to diagnose the problem beyond checking all the obvious things which the boyfriend already did. She’s going to finally have what I like to call the “come to Jesus” talk with him about their relationship tonight. She’s going to tell him that they’ve been together for five years, he’s twenty-one and has a good job, he doesn’t need to live with his parents anymore. She wants him out on his own (or living with her) and a ring on her finger and if these things fail to happen in a very short time then his chance is over and she moves on. I did almost choke on my Kool-Aid when she went on about how she wasn’t getting any younger and all. She’s twenty-three and he’s twenty-one. Yep, they both have one foot in the grave all right.

I’ve decided that she-who-must-not-be-named, in addition to being really long, isn’t really a fair pseudonym for my boss. She isn’t evil after all, just crazy. I’m sure the things she does make perfect sense to her even though no one else understands them. It came to me the other night when someone was asking what I was doing and without even thinking I told them I was “hunting for the Captain’s strawberries”  Of course they didn’t know what I was talking about and I declined to explain as it would have been disrespectful to do so. However, my boss shall henceforth been known in my journal as Capt. Queeg or just Queeg for short. It’s amazing what the subconscious can do though. I haven’t seen The Caine Mutiny in years and I still came up with that allusion with no effort at all. I really am a bit snarky sometimes. Anyway, we had a big visit by the other managers in the district to see how we were coming along getting ready for inventory, and according to the other managers and hourlies I’ve talked to we did really well. As a matter of fact someone from the district office said we could be ready for inventory on Friday if we needed to be, so that puts us about two weeks ahead on our preparations. When I got in that night though, she called and said that we had a long way to go to get ready and we (the overnighters) were going to have to pick up our slack, blah, blah, blah. You just can’t win with her.

I have almost assembled all the tools I need to try the fried chicken recipe I saw on Good Eats. The only thing I need is a container to soak the chicken bits in after I’ve disassembled it and a proper knife to do the job with; my little produce knife just isn’t big enough for he job. Well, I also need a container for the seasoning, but I’m having a devil of a time finding the one he recommends. I’m sure I can get something that’s equally useful, it’ll just take a bit of effort.

I’m pretty sure I had something else I wanted to say when I started this, but now I can’t remember what it was. And yes, I took my medicine this morning…