This and that from the past week.
I'm sitting in the volunteer lounge at the Shakespeare Tavern, all by myself. It's the Preview night for A Christmas Carol and I was drafted yesterday to run the Gift Sale Table tonight for a sold out house (yay!), in addition to being here to work bar tomorrow night. Last night was #3 son's (Rick) girlfriend's graduate piano recital, which was lovely. I sat with apersonalchef and her boyfriend's father. He's a cool old bird, who used to teach music at a respected university, and was a composer and an excellent pianist himself, but Parkinson's has messed that up. He's still got intelligence and wit and conversation, and occasional fabulous forays onto the keyboard. Also sitting with us were #2 son, Stephen, and Sally (who is graduating with a degree in Vocal Music). All of us connected to the Shakespeare Tavern, in fact, all but the composer and I work in the kitchen (well, Nancy owns it). Isil (Rick's girlfriend) is from Turkey, and has lived in Austria most of her life, and the violinist who played with her in the Haydn is Chinese. All sorts of connections, and backgrounds, all tied together with music (and food and Shakespeare).
As I said, I'm working the Gift Table tonight, and had a trio of girls about 12 years old, all ultra energetic, and bubbly. They were tickled by the Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare Celebriducks, and pored through the Shakespeare Scenes coloring books and paper dolls. They knew the famous couples, finding Benedict and Beatrice, and searching for Orlando and Rosalind. Then they started reading the mugs, and I explained that you have to have a dirty mind to understand the Naughty Mug. They worked at it for a couple of minutes, and then, all three suddenly *got* something on it, and hurriedly put it down. They chickened out! Too cute! I should point out that they were middle school age, the age with the worst reputation, and not all of the same race. Adorable girls, and wish I could have spoken to a parent or teacher to tell them so.
I hate going to the Kroger near me - the parking lot is always full, and you have to drive around and around to park at all. All those people are inside shopping, and there are seldom enough registers open. The clerks are nice, and try hard, but they are slammed. Anyway, I had to go there the other evening, and I finally found a man about to back out. He sat for a while with his foot on the brake (why do they do that?) and when he finally backed out, another car had come up in the opposite direction. We sat there a few seconds - I thought about pulling in quickly, but it was a left turn for me, and I couldn't see having a wreck over a stupid parking place. - and the other driver waved me on in! Amazement! I was so tired and that was so rare. I said “I hope she gets a FABULOUS parking place!” and got on out. As I walked on to the store, I saw her pull into a space immediately in front, not handicapped - the perfect one. My blessing had been answered. I spoke with her on the way in, and thanked her.
I mentioned that Annoying Co-worker’s last day was the day before Thanksgiving. Well, the bosses had canceled their vacation to hire someone new, and trained her in. The new one had her first day solo this Monday, and didn’t show up the next day! Hasn’t been back at all, and finally answered an email today, after missing three days, saying she was too stressed out from the day and thought the job would be bad for her health. What? Tres bizarre.
As I said, I'm working the Gift Table tonight, and had a trio of girls about 12 years old, all ultra energetic, and bubbly. They were tickled by the Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare Celebriducks, and pored through the Shakespeare Scenes coloring books and paper dolls. They knew the famous couples, finding Benedict and Beatrice, and searching for Orlando and Rosalind. Then they started reading the mugs, and I explained that you have to have a dirty mind to understand the Naughty Mug. They worked at it for a couple of minutes, and then, all three suddenly *got* something on it, and hurriedly put it down. They chickened out! Too cute! I should point out that they were middle school age, the age with the worst reputation, and not all of the same race. Adorable girls, and wish I could have spoken to a parent or teacher to tell them so.
I hate going to the Kroger near me - the parking lot is always full, and you have to drive around and around to park at all. All those people are inside shopping, and there are seldom enough registers open. The clerks are nice, and try hard, but they are slammed. Anyway, I had to go there the other evening, and I finally found a man about to back out. He sat for a while with his foot on the brake (why do they do that?) and when he finally backed out, another car had come up in the opposite direction. We sat there a few seconds - I thought about pulling in quickly, but it was a left turn for me, and I couldn't see having a wreck over a stupid parking place. - and the other driver waved me on in! Amazement! I was so tired and that was so rare. I said “I hope she gets a FABULOUS parking place!” and got on out. As I walked on to the store, I saw her pull into a space immediately in front, not handicapped - the perfect one. My blessing had been answered. I spoke with her on the way in, and thanked her.
I mentioned that Annoying Co-worker’s last day was the day before Thanksgiving. Well, the bosses had canceled their vacation to hire someone new, and trained her in. The new one had her first day solo this Monday, and didn’t show up the next day! Hasn’t been back at all, and finally answered an email today, after missing three days, saying she was too stressed out from the day and thought the job would be bad for her health. What? Tres bizarre.