randomly chaotic and frequently mundane

So we’ve been through snowmageddon… or snowpocalypse, whichever name you like.  It was frakkin insane at the grocery store.  Seriously.  Non stop and everyone was so freaked out that I was sure that people were going to come to blows.  I saw people cutting in front of other people at the self check out, people shoving people aside to get to the milk and bread.  It was nuts.  Why does all sense and reason escape people when the weatherman predicts snow???  Seriously, do they think they’re going to be stuck for the rest of the winter?  They DO plow, people.  12-18 inches is nothing.  In 96 we got damn near 3 feet, but you could drive to the store 24 hours after the snow stopped.  When I was in Virginia in the early 80’s we got so much snow one storm the front door was blocked.  Seriously, the front door was fucking BLOCKED by the snow.  Guess what… a few days later, we were able to drive around.  It’s a MIRACLE.  We have the technology to plow, so drop your attitude, grab the essentials and get the hell out of the store.  There is no need to stockpile a months worth of groceries for a snowstorm.  And what is it with all the bread, eggs and milk??  Who NEEDS eggs everyday?  Milk, I get.  If you have children, or use it in your coffee or whatever.  Bread, ok but do you really need 5 or 6 loaves?  Isn’t 1 loaf enough for a day or two?

clowns will eat me.

that’s it.  i got nothing else.

hey andrew, you still there?  lol

seriously.  Don’t believe me?  Take a job working with the general public.  Not a specific group of people, like the folks who frequent bookstores or certain clothing stores.  Somewhere that people of all different types visit.  Young folks, old folks, men, women, kids, working people, retired people… you’ll find that there’s rudeness from everyone.  Maybe it’s not rudeness, per se.  Maybe it’s the idea that somehow they’re more important than anyone else in the place.  Maybe that’s what the problem is.  My register shut down today.  Dunno why, but it just shut the fuck down.  I was in the middle of an order and there were a few people in line behind that person.  So the person I was ringing up got taken to another register to have her purchase re-rung completely, the others were directed to another register where I logged in to ring them up.  There were mutterings.  Comments like “well I’m never coming here again.”  Really?  Well don’t let the door hit ya on the ass on your way out.  Strike that, PLEASE let the door hit ya on the ass on your way out.  And feel free to make good on that promise.  Of course, the people who make statements like that made the same statement last week when they had to wait five minutes in line.  And the week before THAT, we ran out of something they wanted, so they said they’d never come back.  They always come back.  They can’t help it.  And they think that we don’t remember that last week they were never coming back to this store.  Seriously, where’s your conviction?  Grow a pair and make good on your promises.  Then you can tell the people at the next store you go to that you’re “never coming back” for awhile.

We’ve been searching the sites of the local animal shelters a lot lately, looking at the dogs they have available and contemplating what kind of dog we might want to open our hearts to and give all the love that Lucky’s not around to receive anymore.  I’ve notice a HUGE number of American Staffordshire Terriers and AmStaff mixes on all the shelter sites I’ve looked at.  Not just here, but all over the place.  It’s heart breaking.  These are beautiful dogs with such wonderful dispositions and yet they’re overlooked by a lot of people.  They’re loyal, playful and very protective of their humans.  They’re also great with children.  If you’re out looking for a dog to adopt, don’t overlook them because they look tough or mean.  Open your hearts and minds to them, you may find yourself a very special dog in an AmStaff.  My Tiger was an AmStaff mix.  He was an amazing dog and I miss him tremendously.  But he’s in a happy home with lots of room to run and children to play with, for which I’m glad.

*The picture is my son sharing a bit of spaghetti with Tiger a la Lady and the Tramp.

so apparently I got a mystery shopper at work the other day.  I was asked about the customer.  I remember him.  I was perfect except that he said I didn’t check the bottom of the cart.  Um, yeah I did.  In fact, because he refused to push the cart to a position to where I could easily see the bottom of the cart, I was standing on the shelf under the register to look over the conveyor belt at the bottom of the cart.  Which is when he pulled the item that he had intentionally left on the bottom of the cart out and put it on the belt as well.  This is one of the reasons that half the customers irritate the shit out of me.

in October of 1995, a wonderful soul came into our lives.  He had brown hair, beautiful eyes and a funny little tail.  Our dog Lucky.  He was named Lucky before we got him, but we thought it was a good name.  An appropriate name.  He was brought to us by a woman my mom worked with at the time.  She was at a flea market and the people who owned his mother were trying to sell her pups.  Lucky was the runt of the litter and failed to sell.  She overheard them saying they were going to just let him loose in the woods and told them that she would take him home.  Her son named him Lucky, because when she came along it was his lucky day.  It was ours too.  Pets are wonderful, they make great companions and they help make wonderful memories.  They’re as much a part of the family as your siblings, children, grand children, etc.

In October of 2009, it came time to let Lucky move on.  He’s gone to the bridge.  He had lost a good deal of the control of his hind legs and was starting to lose control of his bowel and bladder.  While he wasn’t in any pain, his quality of life had diminished, so we decided that it was time.  It was a tremendously sad day for us, and he is sorely missed.

Halloween was nice.  I bought Gage a Superman costume, and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.  So I took him to Walmart and showed him the costumes.  He took a fireman costume off the wall and said “may I have red?”  So he was a fireman for Halloween.  He had a blast trick or treating.  And this was the first time ever that he picked out his own Halloween costume.  I was so excited.

Thanksgiving, was the same as usual.  He avoided all of the usual dinner items and ate mac and cheese.  But he did play with his cousins a little, which was nice.

Christmas was an interesting time this year.  We went to pick out the tree with mom, and Gage walked right up to one tree and said “Christmas tree.”  Well after searching through all the other trees it turned out that the tree Gage picked was indeed the one we were going home with.  Even better, it was the most perfect tree we’ve ever had.  The right size, the perfect shape, no holes except for the kind that you hang large ornaments in anyway… it was PERFECT.  After we set it up, we had to give it a couple of days to fall,  before we decorated it.  Gage wasn’t having that, apparently.  He got out a basket of jingle bells mom uses for decoration and hung them all over the tree (where he could reach, anyway).  We had to distract him so that we could get the bells off to put the lights and stuff on.  Then he helped put the ornaments on the tree.  It was the first time he’s ever helped decorate the tree.  It was really special.  He had a blast Christmas eve and day, got lots of presents.  He got something really special from his grandparents… a train and a donkey kong game that belonged to his daddy when he was a kid.  It was awesome.  The train especially.  When he unwrapped that, he grabbed the box and ran like he thought we were going to take it away.  It was so cute.

I got a book called the Kid Friendly ADHD & Autism cookbook.  It has a lot of GFCF recipes in it as well as tips on slipping more veggeis and proteins into your kids food.  Some I’ll never try (like putting pureed meat into muffins — sorry, that’s just wrong), but some ideas are pretty interesting.  Actually, I’ve tried one already.  I put pureed cauliflower in his mac and cheese last night and tonight.  I’ve been reducing the amount of gluten in his diet a bit lately, and it’s made a bit of a difference in his behavior.  So I’m going to try going a little further.  Tonights mac and cheese was actually gluten free.  He’s going to start getting only gluten free mac and cheese and spaghetti.  Bread I think I’ll keep as is for now.  But I might start making gluten free muffins for his breakfast, something I can slip some grated veggies into.  He’s also started eating eggs.  A 1 egg omelet with a slice of bacon folded in.  Of course, currently he’ll only eat it if it’s been cooked using bacon drippings.  I’m working on gradually phasing that out. 

He’s doing great in school and being more social.  He’s always trying to play with his youngest cousin.  He likes to run around holding her hand and laughing.  He likes to spin around with her and they have a good time when they’re getting along.  It’s so cute.

I haven’t posted in ages, I doubt anyone actually reads this thing anymore, but I’m back.  Hopefully I’ll stay off my lazy butt and update more often.  I’m hoping to get back into at least a weekly routine.  Which also means that I’ll probably start doing some paid posts again, but I’ll do my best to be a good girl and only post paid posts on products, services, etc that I’m interested in.  I’ll also try to keep it from taking over, since I know there was a point that it got WAY out of hand (but it was also my only source of income at the time).

 Anyhoo, I’m doing ok.  The boyfriend mentioned awhile back is no more.  Hopefully we’ll stay friends, but let’s face it, how often does that work out?  C (the “boy toy” that preceeded boyfriend) has expressed interest in adding benefits to our friendship again, but I don’t know that I want to go there.  I’ll be 34 years old in a few weeks, do I really want or need a friend with benefits?  Don’t get me wrong, it was mighty fun to be able to say I was “nailing someone 10 years my junior” and it was VERY good.  But I just don’t know if that’s something I want right now.

My car is on its last legs, I’m hoping to save up enough for something decent before it dies.  If I don’t manage that, I’ll be borrowing mom’s bike to ride to work every day.  Which will be mighty fun in the dead of winter.  I actually found a used 98 Corolla, which is something that I used to drive and LOVED.  Hopefully, when I’m ready to get something it’ll still be available and in good condition.  It would be nice to have one of those again, it was my second favorite car ever.  My favorite was an 81 civic.  When I got my current car, I actually found one for sale but it needed an alternator.  When I called around to see what getting one put in would cost, the estimate was more than the asking price on the car.  I wish I’d gotten it anyway.  If I’d talked to Joe about it, I probably would have.  Alas, i was stupid about it.  Maybe this time I’ll do better.

if it wasn’t for the fucking customers.

Yes, we start today’s blog with a quote from Clerks.  God I love Randall.  Anyhoo… Maybe I should change the blog title to “bitching about work” and invite a few people to guest post from time to time.  That could be amusing.  Something to think about, anyway.

Seriously though, as much as I bitch about my job, I really do enjoy it most of the time.  I just like to bitch about the ultra-annoying customers or the ultra-rude customers from time to time.  Mostly because they represent (to me) one of the biggest problems with the world today.  A complete lack of courtesy.  I can tell you that it’s very rare that a person in line at the grocery store, who has a large order, will let a person with only a few items go ahead of them.  Usually when it happens, it’s a Senior Citizen who is extending the courtesy.  Somewhere along the way, we’ve become a very “me first” society.  Whatever happened to “do unto others?”  And these same people who wouldn’t so much as offer a stranger a quarter if they’re a little bit short wonder why they keep getting hit with so much bad karma.  Well kids, that’s what happens when you don’t put out a little good karma.  It doesn’t take much… let someone ahead of you in line if they’ve got a lot less than you.

One of the coolest things I ever saw at work… a couple of weeks ago, a young man paused after I rang him up and proceeded to bag the groceries for the elderly woman behind him.  Then he put her bags into her cart and offered to help her to her car.  When she thanked him and said that he really didn’t have to do that, he told her that he hoped that someone was being as kind to his mother when she went shopping.

Nice things like that…  You get what you give folks.  Just something to think about.

For starters, I’m starting to think my buddy Andrew’s got the right idea.  I’d like to be immune from the registers.  Maybe there’s something opening in bakery or something.  Seriously.  I love my job but it gets annoying sometimes.  Like when you’re yelled at to stop chatting with a co-worker by someone who has done nothing BUT chat with co-workers all day, often ignoring customers in the process (which I have NEVER done).  Yeah, that’s annoying.  Or when you have a customer come up to the SELF checkout in one of those courtesy mobile carts that informs you that “I don’t know how to use this machine, so you have to ring me up here.”  Before standing up and walking over to the lottery machine to get their lottery tickets.  Can you say “Wow, stupid AND lazy?”  I can.  Loud enough for them to hear me at courtesy, as a matter of fact.  But he was so self absorbed I’m sure he had no idea I was talking about him.

Halloween approacheth.  I’m contemplating 2 costumes for Gage.  Either a pirate or an engineer (as in train).  Depends on which one I find a cuter costume pattern for, I think.

And then we come to MY Halloween costume.  I simply can’t decide.  On the one hand there’s Dr. Shots who, by all opinions I’ve gotten so far, would be the hit of the party.  Particular if I have a generous supply of, well… shots to go around.  The other one is the Trophy Rack, which isn’t so much a costume as it is humor.  It’s highly humorous, actually, and I think it would be quite fitting.  But I also think it’s a little tighter than I’m prepared to be wearing without a body shaper underneath.  I’m still weighing the pros and cons, but I think I’m leaning more towards Dr. Shots at this point.

I think that’s it for the moment.

Or is this commercial highly suggestive?

Seriously?  Ok people, what happened to courtesy?  Has it gone out the window?  Is it buried with Michael Jackson?  What?

Here’s the deal.  Today at work, I was the attendant at the self check out.  Not a bad gig, you’re more free to move around and you can do more to assist a customer with a question than just say “They can probably help you at the courtesy desk.”   Every so often, when it gets busy, they send me over to a register to take a few customers and keep the lines down then it’s right back to self checkout.  The light that says “hey this cashier is open” isn’t even turned on unless we’re REALLY busy and they need me to stay there for more than 10 minutes.

So today, I was put on a register to take exactly ONE customer.  A customer with a very large order, which would hold up and cause delays in any other line, but since I wasn’t actually open or taking other customers it wouldn’t matter.  I’m getting to the end of this person’s order, placing items in the bag with my back to where the line is and when I turn around there’s not one, but TWO more people unloading their carts at the register.  I check to verify that the light is in fact off… it was.  I finish with the one person that I was supposed to ring up and figure I might as well take these other two customers.  So I start ringing up the first lady… who decides to inform me that we shouldn’t let people with more than 20 items go through the express lane.  I’ll grant her that, especially since the register they put me on was the lane closest to the self check out, where I could still monitor, and that lane happens to be an express lane.  Of course… I wasn’t open, so there SHOULDN’T have been any customers to be upset by this.  But this woman took it upon herself to let me know how bothered by it she was.  So I told her “Well ma’am, this register was only opened to ring up that one customer, who would have caused a big delay in the line at any other register.  I’m monitoring the self checkout and this register isn’t technically open.” To which she responded something along the lines of “well does that mean if I wanted to take a cart full of groceries through express I could?”  I told her no.  Because the register that rang up that cart full of groceries was and still is closed.  She continued to argue that it wasn’t right and that no one should be allowed to take more than 20 items through the express.  So I said “Ma’am, I don’t know that this register qualifies as express, since it’s closed.”  Wouldn’t you know it, by the time I finished bagging her stuff, more people got in line… while my back was turned.  Each time I made a point to give them a raised eyebrow and glance up at my light.  After that, I started taking a tally.  Minus the people that were directed to the register I was at, and the people I told to come into my line, I had 45 people jump in my line today.  While the light was OFF.  Not a single one was courteous enough to ask if I was open.  I even had one who came up as I was leaving the register and say “Don’t go anywhere, here I come.”  I told her I was closed because I had to get back to my station.  She wasn’t thrilled by that, but I really don’t give a fuck.

People please, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which lanes are open or closed at the grocery store.  And just because there’s someone standing there doesn’t mean that it’s open.  Hell, I had people line up when I went from the self check out to the nearest register to use the hand sanitizer dispenser at the register.  And while you’re shopping, buy some fucking patience.  If I have to hear one more person ask if another register can be opened because there’s 1 person being rung up at express and 1 person being rung up at the “bring as many items as you want” lane, with nobody behind them, I’m gonna scream.  If you’re in that big a hurry, I suggest learning to use the self check out (which is usually completely empty when people pull this bullshit).  You’re not so important that a store must rearrange it’s employees to serve you immediately.  Wait the 2 minutes that it will take for the person in front of you to be done and be happy that it wasn’t 10 people in front of you.

This book #2 in a series (of 7, I believe).  The first book, Dies the Fire, was an awesome book.  An exciting, interesting and sometimes intense read.  The Protector’s War lives up to the first book in every way.  I’m gonna have to get my hands on the next books in this series as Rob has created a monster.  He loaned me the first two (from his brothers library, LOL) and I’ve absolutely fallen in love with the series so far.

A friend loaned it to me and said that when I’m done I’d be begging her for the next book in the series.  I put it off until I was done reading the book I was reading at the time (The Protector’s War by S. M. Stirling - I’ll review that in another post in a moment) and decided to pick it up.

It was good.  The characters were engaging, the story was interesting.  A nice little love story and all that.  When I finished Twilight, I did not feel the need to immediately get my hands on the next book and read it.  HOWEVER, when I read the snippet at the end of the book of the NEXT book in the series, I was overcome with an intense “BUT WHAT HAPPENS???”  feeling.  So I guess I WILL end up begging for the next book.  Not based on the merit of Twilight itself — I would probably have pursued the rest of the series eventually because it was a good story and I enjoyed it quite a bit; but on the basis of the excerpt from the next book which painted a portrait of a scene so intense and dramatic that I simply must know how it’s resolved.

And just to give you a taste of my eclectic reading habits… I’m now reading “Heir to the Empire” which marks the first time I’ve ever read a Star Wars book.  Hello Geek-dom, I’m here to join.

So, anyone who reads this knows that I have a child with Autism.  It’s not the easiest thing to work with in the world, but it could be worse.  I see parents with “normal” children who have a harder time getting their children to listen to them than I have with Gage.  I do tend to visit websites, messageboards, etc where parents of Autistic children can chat, exchange stories, etc.  Someone posted something a week or so ago that I found kind of disturbing.  She posted the date that her son was diagnosed, and said that was the day that Autism took her child away from her. 

What?  Did the doctor confiscate the child because of Autism?  I think back to the day that Gage was diagnosed, and it was an emotional day.  That day I accepted the fact that my son might never fall in love or get married.  That he may have to live with me for the rest of my life, or live in a group home.  But I never felt like he was taken away from me.  I think of it more as having been introduced to him for the first time.  There were a lot of “that’s why” moments that day as I thought about various behaviors or milestones he missed or hit later than the average child.

Of course, the progress he’s been making the past 2 school years and having a co-worker who is engaged to someone with Autism does give me plenty to look forward to and hope for as far as Gage’s future.