The accidental tourists
So I nearly updated at four o'clock this morning. You see, I finally got some cold medicine at the store last night. I chose Advil Cold & Sinus. It's definitely helped me with my nose-as-faucet problem. However, when they say "non-drowsy," they mean it. I could not fall asleep last night, and when I did, I woke up at 2:30 AM. I took another liqui-gel and tried to fall asleep...including counting up to 100, where I was starting to doze off, but when I realized I was losing count I had to start over and that woke me back up. By then about an hour had gone by, so I put on either Nick at Nite or TV Land and got the Brady Bunch episode with the trading stamps and the card house, but by the end of that I still hadn't fallen asleep, and didn't for at least half an hour. I finally decided to screw sleeping on my back--while it helps with drainage, it's not a normal sleeping position for me--and flipped over and eventually fell asleep. Still, I didn't get much rest. This made work fun.
As the afternoon wore on, I got more and more spacey. Like, for example, J was wearing a tank top today. She'll normally wear a jacket and a scarf too (yes, it's been that cold in the store, plus she's our little fashionista), but it seriously didn't click that the reason she took off the jacket was because it was in the mid-70s, never mind that I'd noticed myself sweating. Yeah. And I got very talkative today. M is the newest person and I hadn't gossiped to her about some of the former managers, so I told her about Drunky and Skanky and Lazy (no, really, the managers have been like a bad version of the Seven Dwarfs; I'll be glad to expound upon them in person or in an email if you'd like and you actually know me). That's not to say I wasn't productive. I was by myself until close to one, and I did manage to do some work in the morning. M and I (and J, though she worked by herself) worked on moving our overstock around as well as getting rid of books we haven't sold in a while to make room for new stuff. We cleared out New Age, for one. AND, the Fed Ex overnight guy should be glad I didn't kiss him. He delivered a box of the good cookies, from Cheryl & Co. These are the regular cookies we get every holiday season. I am so glad that the company didn't completely forsake them! J and M agreed; these cookies are far superior to the ones we got for our winning team award. Sweet!
(Hey, mom was just thrilled that Moveable Feast, her favorite Swedish Days haunt, made it onto Oprah's Favorite Things list. I'm just glad a place other than a bookstore is feeling Oprah's wrath getting some business.)
So, have I forgotten to mention that it's my birthday? Yes, well, I got so ditzy today that I actually forgot and left work late. Nice. I'd already opened my presents: gift cards for Target and Kohl's (which I'd asked for) and a Sox T-shirt (which I didn't...I really only wanted the pennant, but since it's all World Series merchandise it's all collectors' items). I'd decided last week that I wanted to go to Bakers Square for dinner. Well, my father doesn't like the one down the road from the mall because it's "dirty" and he thinks he got sick the last time we went there. Okay, well, then, *you* find another location. He found one in South Elgin, which isn't too much farther up the road, so we went there. However, I kept having this feeling about an accident today. Because of that and my general ditziness, I was pretty careful when driving...but there was still an accident. No, luckily, not us, but there was a bad three-car accident at Randall and McDonald Roads. We're talking one of the cars was on its side. I didn't see that, as I was trying to drive and look for the Square. It ended up being at the next light, which is funny, as it's the same light to get to Culver's. All those times I've been to Culver's and my brain never registered the Bakers Square! However, because of the accident, all southbound traffic was diverted into the shopping center where the Square was. Great. We had to turn eastbound onto the cross street, turn around, and then wait for the light. This took a while because of the diverted traffic as well as several emergency vehicles going through the intersection. Then, of course, all the traffic was diverted past the Square itself, so we couldn't get in the lot. We ended up parking in an adjacent lot and just walked over. We did get seated right away...but after all my father's complaining about how dirty the other Square was, we got a table that clearly hadn't been wiped down. There were crumbs all over it. Nice. But dinner was fine, and the traffic mess had cleared up by the time we were done. Still, I decided to drive through the parking lot instead of getting onto Randall, just in case. Well, once at McDonald Road, you can't make a left, meaning I had to go west of Randall. Then I got a tailgater behind me. And it's not like there are any big roads out that way, and I'm not going to turn into some random subdivision and get myself even more lost than I was. I kept going until I hit the next "big" road, which was several miles down. This put my mother into super psychotic bitch mode, about how weird I am that I wouldn't just turn around, and this that and the other, and you know what? Screw that. I nearly pulled over and made her get out. My father kept saying, okay, you've expressed your displeasure (yes, those words), now get over it. But she can't. Finally she shut up for a while and got back to what passes for normalcy. We came home to have my white chocolate raspberry cake...only to discover that half of the raspberries on top of the cake were fuzzy. Ew. Luckily the cake itself was fine.
So, that was my day.
As the afternoon wore on, I got more and more spacey. Like, for example, J was wearing a tank top today. She'll normally wear a jacket and a scarf too (yes, it's been that cold in the store, plus she's our little fashionista), but it seriously didn't click that the reason she took off the jacket was because it was in the mid-70s, never mind that I'd noticed myself sweating. Yeah. And I got very talkative today. M is the newest person and I hadn't gossiped to her about some of the former managers, so I told her about Drunky and Skanky and Lazy (no, really, the managers have been like a bad version of the Seven Dwarfs; I'll be glad to expound upon them in person or in an email if you'd like and you actually know me). That's not to say I wasn't productive. I was by myself until close to one, and I did manage to do some work in the morning. M and I (and J, though she worked by herself) worked on moving our overstock around as well as getting rid of books we haven't sold in a while to make room for new stuff. We cleared out New Age, for one. AND, the Fed Ex overnight guy should be glad I didn't kiss him. He delivered a box of the good cookies, from Cheryl & Co. These are the regular cookies we get every holiday season. I am so glad that the company didn't completely forsake them! J and M agreed; these cookies are far superior to the ones we got for our winning team award. Sweet!
(Hey, mom was just thrilled that Moveable Feast, her favorite Swedish Days haunt, made it onto Oprah's Favorite Things list. I'm just glad a place other than a bookstore is feeling Oprah's wrath getting some business.)
So, have I forgotten to mention that it's my birthday? Yes, well, I got so ditzy today that I actually forgot and left work late. Nice. I'd already opened my presents: gift cards for Target and Kohl's (which I'd asked for) and a Sox T-shirt (which I didn't...I really only wanted the pennant, but since it's all World Series merchandise it's all collectors' items). I'd decided last week that I wanted to go to Bakers Square for dinner. Well, my father doesn't like the one down the road from the mall because it's "dirty" and he thinks he got sick the last time we went there. Okay, well, then, *you* find another location. He found one in South Elgin, which isn't too much farther up the road, so we went there. However, I kept having this feeling about an accident today. Because of that and my general ditziness, I was pretty careful when driving...but there was still an accident. No, luckily, not us, but there was a bad three-car accident at Randall and McDonald Roads. We're talking one of the cars was on its side. I didn't see that, as I was trying to drive and look for the Square. It ended up being at the next light, which is funny, as it's the same light to get to Culver's. All those times I've been to Culver's and my brain never registered the Bakers Square! However, because of the accident, all southbound traffic was diverted into the shopping center where the Square was. Great. We had to turn eastbound onto the cross street, turn around, and then wait for the light. This took a while because of the diverted traffic as well as several emergency vehicles going through the intersection. Then, of course, all the traffic was diverted past the Square itself, so we couldn't get in the lot. We ended up parking in an adjacent lot and just walked over. We did get seated right away...but after all my father's complaining about how dirty the other Square was, we got a table that clearly hadn't been wiped down. There were crumbs all over it. Nice. But dinner was fine, and the traffic mess had cleared up by the time we were done. Still, I decided to drive through the parking lot instead of getting onto Randall, just in case. Well, once at McDonald Road, you can't make a left, meaning I had to go west of Randall. Then I got a tailgater behind me. And it's not like there are any big roads out that way, and I'm not going to turn into some random subdivision and get myself even more lost than I was. I kept going until I hit the next "big" road, which was several miles down. This put my mother into super psychotic bitch mode, about how weird I am that I wouldn't just turn around, and this that and the other, and you know what? Screw that. I nearly pulled over and made her get out. My father kept saying, okay, you've expressed your displeasure (yes, those words), now get over it. But she can't. Finally she shut up for a while and got back to what passes for normalcy. We came home to have my white chocolate raspberry cake...only to discover that half of the raspberries on top of the cake were fuzzy. Ew. Luckily the cake itself was fine.
So, that was my day.