The Last Several Days
So, yeah, about that entry I was promising about how things have gone.
Here it is.
Friday was interesting. I had a few things I needed to take care of for a midterm essay assignment, so I got that (relatively) done by about 2 or so. So, really for the rest of the day, I ended up hanging out with Andrea and Ariana, except for when the first went to work for two hours and the second went to pep band practice for three hours. But we more or less decided to have a singles' night out (since everyone else in the group was either gone or out with a significant other), but that became a singles' night in since we were so lazy. Ariana had a dogs edition of Uno, which got very interesting with its Fetch card -- it involves much card competition that may turn to violence, which got even more violent when Jeff swung by. He's a very passive person, except in any sort of competition. After playing that, we decided to hang it up for the night, but I accompanied Ariana to Wal*Mart so she could get some money for pep band (she didn't want to go alone), then I finished packing my car and got to bed by about 3.
Amazingly I was not woken up by Jeff waking up at 5 to get to the Habitat for Humanity send-off at St. T's. Instead I woke with my alarm at 8:30, and actually was able to lay awake without falling back asleep until ultimately getting out of bed at about 9. I got some odds and ends done, then swung by Andrea and Shelly's room to see their status. I helped Andrea bring her stuff down to my car and we were ready to leave before 11; unfortunately when I threw her stuff into my trunk, I also threw my keys into my trunk. So we had to wait a little while for VUPD to unlock my car so I could unlock the trunk. (What makes me wonder through that ordeal is why they never asked me for identification or proof of ownership of the car ...) We finally left before 11:30, and got to Youngstown only about five and a half hours later or so. Her family fed me, then the night was spent watching TV until I went to bed. They've definitely made me feel really welcome the few times I've stayed there on my travels.
Sunday I woke up before 7, and left under the cover of darkness. I filled up and had breakfast in Clarion, Pa., then went on the long, boring drive east on I-80. For a change (partially to see scenery, and partially since I'm on a never-ending quest to find the shortest route between Seabrook and Valparaiso), I stayed on I-80 almost to the New Jersey border (I hadn't been through the Delaware Water Gap in a while). I then had my usual lunch at Matamoras, Pa., drove home through New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and got home at about 5:45 with a total mileage for the two days of 979.3 (624.1 occurring on Sunday). My parents were still with the family after my aunt's wake, so I waited around an hour then went to church at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Hampton (I don't like the pastor there at ALL -- long story -- but it was better than no church at all). I got back at 8:30, ran back out to get dinner from the Subway in Wal*Mart (never again will I do that ...), and went to bed by 11.
On Monday was my aunt's funeral. (I hadn't mentioned this in my journal, but last week my mother's sister died of cancer. So we went up to Wakefield (or Sanbornville, or one of Wakefield's other villages) for the funeral, where I got to read a reading (a first for me in a United Church of Christ service). Then we talked to family at the food afterwards, where everybody was in pretty good moods because at least she didn't suffer or anything. My parents had warned me that I would get a lot of ribbing from other family members due to my living arrangements this summer -- apparently they already assume I'm sexually active (everyone else my age in the family is, apparently), and so living with at least one female is a natural extension of that. That's completely different than how I envisioned my relatives acting, but thankfully they didn't say anything about that to me. We drove back home, but stopped in Rochester to eat at a diner that my parents had eaten at with the family the day before. Good food. So the rest of the day was spent at home, mostly, except for some grocery shopping that my father and I did. I ended up going to bed before midnight again.
Tuesday was the first day of two where my mother and I got to be together. She had been given four bereavement days (I think) so it was an off-day from work. And I think I originally was scheduled but they took me off as well for the same reasons (but I don't get bereavement since it's not a close-enough relative). We had lunch at Pizza Hut, then checked out furniture, cooking supplies, beds, and other items at Sam's Club and Wal*Mart. We tried to figure out what I'd need during the summer, though they're also going to check around the house over the next week figuring out what extra things they have that I could obtain from them. It was a fun day out. That evening, my father showed me the first of (hopefully) several meals I can make quickly. It's something we call American chop suey, but it's Italian through-and-through. It's macaroni, ground beef, and Campbell's Tomato Soup, cooked together, and it's really good -- it's always been one of my favorite dishes. And it was easy to make, and will be during the summer, especially since my parents have an extra Pasta Pro. That definitely makes cooking pasta much easier. The rest of the night, I did a little Internet searching (also ordering my computer a new battery, since apparently it got damaged in the travel back -- I left it in sleep mode, and forgot to recharge it when I got home), and watched Celtics/Wizards, and again went to bed by 10:30 or 11.
I worked for the first time since I got back on Wednesday. I came in at 7 to do truck, which was one of our easiest trucks ever at our present location. I was done with bulk in three hours (usually I end up leaving a pallet for the night crew). So for the rest of the time I was there I did the shaving/deodorant aisle, then started trying to figure out how our reorganization would work, if we could get it done in a week. (Pretty much our entire beauty quadrant, except for shaving, is moving. Our current configuration:
1B -- Suncare, Travel Sizes
2 -- Skin Care
3A -- Shaving, Facial Tissue, As Seen on TV
3B -- Deodorant, Hair Color
4A -- Hair Accessories, Hair Care, Hair Appliances
4B -- Salon Hair Care, Shampoo
This will become, through an increase in skin care and a breaking-off of several departments:
1B -- Deodorant
2A -- Bath
2B -- Hair Appliances, Hair Accessories, Hair Removal, Essence of Beauty
3A -- Shaving, Suncare, Puffs
3B -- Skin Care, other miscellaneous skin care planograms
4A -- Shampoo, Hair Care, Travel Sizes
4B -- Christophe Hair Care, Salon Hair Care, a NEW Salon Hair Care section, Hair Color
I don't quite agree with all of the changes (though I'm sure they're done in that way to appease the footage we have), but ultimately this will end up making for a fun week if we decide to go through with this initiative while I'm home. My manager told me that as long as myself and one of my coworkers could get it completely done before our Area Vice President visited next week, we could do it. So we need to figure out when that's going to happen, and how much time we will end up needing. To start the process yesterday, I moved ASTV out and moved Kleenex down (though later on realized Kleenex =/= Puffs, so now we'll have one Kleenex location in the store), and the coworker was supposed to move suncare and put Travel Sizes on risers so we could move deodorant soon. I don't know what I'm getting myself into, but hopefully it will work (if it does, I'll have my DM AND the AVP really liking me and willing to put in a good word for me if I need to work fulltime at CVS in Indiana during the summer, if none of my opportunities work out).
Today is another day with my mother, so I'm looking forward to that. Probably eating somewhere, probably doing other stuff, it should be fun. Tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday I work (and of course whenever I can come in to get some of the reorganization done). It should be fun. Let's hope it is.
Here it is.
Friday was interesting. I had a few things I needed to take care of for a midterm essay assignment, so I got that (relatively) done by about 2 or so. So, really for the rest of the day, I ended up hanging out with Andrea and Ariana, except for when the first went to work for two hours and the second went to pep band practice for three hours. But we more or less decided to have a singles' night out (since everyone else in the group was either gone or out with a significant other), but that became a singles' night in since we were so lazy. Ariana had a dogs edition of Uno, which got very interesting with its Fetch card -- it involves much card competition that may turn to violence, which got even more violent when Jeff swung by. He's a very passive person, except in any sort of competition. After playing that, we decided to hang it up for the night, but I accompanied Ariana to Wal*Mart so she could get some money for pep band (she didn't want to go alone), then I finished packing my car and got to bed by about 3.
Amazingly I was not woken up by Jeff waking up at 5 to get to the Habitat for Humanity send-off at St. T's. Instead I woke with my alarm at 8:30, and actually was able to lay awake without falling back asleep until ultimately getting out of bed at about 9. I got some odds and ends done, then swung by Andrea and Shelly's room to see their status. I helped Andrea bring her stuff down to my car and we were ready to leave before 11; unfortunately when I threw her stuff into my trunk, I also threw my keys into my trunk. So we had to wait a little while for VUPD to unlock my car so I could unlock the trunk. (What makes me wonder through that ordeal is why they never asked me for identification or proof of ownership of the car ...) We finally left before 11:30, and got to Youngstown only about five and a half hours later or so. Her family fed me, then the night was spent watching TV until I went to bed. They've definitely made me feel really welcome the few times I've stayed there on my travels.
Sunday I woke up before 7, and left under the cover of darkness. I filled up and had breakfast in Clarion, Pa., then went on the long, boring drive east on I-80. For a change (partially to see scenery, and partially since I'm on a never-ending quest to find the shortest route between Seabrook and Valparaiso), I stayed on I-80 almost to the New Jersey border (I hadn't been through the Delaware Water Gap in a while). I then had my usual lunch at Matamoras, Pa., drove home through New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and got home at about 5:45 with a total mileage for the two days of 979.3 (624.1 occurring on Sunday). My parents were still with the family after my aunt's wake, so I waited around an hour then went to church at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Hampton (I don't like the pastor there at ALL -- long story -- but it was better than no church at all). I got back at 8:30, ran back out to get dinner from the Subway in Wal*Mart (never again will I do that ...), and went to bed by 11.
On Monday was my aunt's funeral. (I hadn't mentioned this in my journal, but last week my mother's sister died of cancer. So we went up to Wakefield (or Sanbornville, or one of Wakefield's other villages) for the funeral, where I got to read a reading (a first for me in a United Church of Christ service). Then we talked to family at the food afterwards, where everybody was in pretty good moods because at least she didn't suffer or anything. My parents had warned me that I would get a lot of ribbing from other family members due to my living arrangements this summer -- apparently they already assume I'm sexually active (everyone else my age in the family is, apparently), and so living with at least one female is a natural extension of that. That's completely different than how I envisioned my relatives acting, but thankfully they didn't say anything about that to me. We drove back home, but stopped in Rochester to eat at a diner that my parents had eaten at with the family the day before. Good food. So the rest of the day was spent at home, mostly, except for some grocery shopping that my father and I did. I ended up going to bed before midnight again.
Tuesday was the first day of two where my mother and I got to be together. She had been given four bereavement days (I think) so it was an off-day from work. And I think I originally was scheduled but they took me off as well for the same reasons (but I don't get bereavement since it's not a close-enough relative). We had lunch at Pizza Hut, then checked out furniture, cooking supplies, beds, and other items at Sam's Club and Wal*Mart. We tried to figure out what I'd need during the summer, though they're also going to check around the house over the next week figuring out what extra things they have that I could obtain from them. It was a fun day out. That evening, my father showed me the first of (hopefully) several meals I can make quickly. It's something we call American chop suey, but it's Italian through-and-through. It's macaroni, ground beef, and Campbell's Tomato Soup, cooked together, and it's really good -- it's always been one of my favorite dishes. And it was easy to make, and will be during the summer, especially since my parents have an extra Pasta Pro. That definitely makes cooking pasta much easier. The rest of the night, I did a little Internet searching (also ordering my computer a new battery, since apparently it got damaged in the travel back -- I left it in sleep mode, and forgot to recharge it when I got home), and watched Celtics/Wizards, and again went to bed by 10:30 or 11.
I worked for the first time since I got back on Wednesday. I came in at 7 to do truck, which was one of our easiest trucks ever at our present location. I was done with bulk in three hours (usually I end up leaving a pallet for the night crew). So for the rest of the time I was there I did the shaving/deodorant aisle, then started trying to figure out how our reorganization would work, if we could get it done in a week. (Pretty much our entire beauty quadrant, except for shaving, is moving. Our current configuration:
1B -- Suncare, Travel Sizes
2 -- Skin Care
3A -- Shaving, Facial Tissue, As Seen on TV
3B -- Deodorant, Hair Color
4A -- Hair Accessories, Hair Care, Hair Appliances
4B -- Salon Hair Care, Shampoo
This will become, through an increase in skin care and a breaking-off of several departments:
1B -- Deodorant
2A -- Bath
2B -- Hair Appliances, Hair Accessories, Hair Removal, Essence of Beauty
3A -- Shaving, Suncare, Puffs
3B -- Skin Care, other miscellaneous skin care planograms
4A -- Shampoo, Hair Care, Travel Sizes
4B -- Christophe Hair Care, Salon Hair Care, a NEW Salon Hair Care section, Hair Color
I don't quite agree with all of the changes (though I'm sure they're done in that way to appease the footage we have), but ultimately this will end up making for a fun week if we decide to go through with this initiative while I'm home. My manager told me that as long as myself and one of my coworkers could get it completely done before our Area Vice President visited next week, we could do it. So we need to figure out when that's going to happen, and how much time we will end up needing. To start the process yesterday, I moved ASTV out and moved Kleenex down (though later on realized Kleenex =/= Puffs, so now we'll have one Kleenex location in the store), and the coworker was supposed to move suncare and put Travel Sizes on risers so we could move deodorant soon. I don't know what I'm getting myself into, but hopefully it will work (if it does, I'll have my DM AND the AVP really liking me and willing to put in a good word for me if I need to work fulltime at CVS in Indiana during the summer, if none of my opportunities work out).
Today is another day with my mother, so I'm looking forward to that. Probably eating somewhere, probably doing other stuff, it should be fun. Tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday I work (and of course whenever I can come in to get some of the reorganization done). It should be fun. Let's hope it is.