"I'm sorry, we just suck right now."

-- My favorite response to customers' repeated frustration over all of our out-of-stock items. Not that I would say that ... don't have the seniority to quite get away with something that potentially snarky.

Work right now is hair-tearingly frustrating; due to, I don't know, planets aligning, Peter finally making his debut as the Antichrist, global warming, a ton of our stuff is out of stock. Not just sold out, but it's just not at the warehouse right now. And we don't know when a lot of it's coming back. The next time someone responds to this explanation with, "But it's so good!" I want to slap them into next week. The one doesn't really have anything to do with the other. Yes, we're out of something because we sold it, because people buy the things they like, but we're not this out of stock just from selling lots of stuff. No, this is apocalyptic-level out of stock.

This is where living in my neighborhood really gets to me. The people here are so incredibly used to getting everything they want right now that a simple wait of two weeks for, say, trail mix, is just out of the question. GAH!

It's nice to come home to a pet. All Kermit asks is that my hands smell interesting. And "interesting" can be as little as "I touched cardboard today." Easy.

Medieval Helpdesk

Please check this out. It will make you laugh.

Lost

I also forgot to report that we survived losing Kermit (in the old apartment).

He was perched on my shoulder one minute, watching me get his supper ready. The next minute, he wasn't. I completely lost it, hyperventilating, moving large appliances to check under them. (I thought he jumped to the fridge, fell behind it, then hid under our dishwasher, from whence we would never be able to retrieve him.)

Michael sent me to go get ready for bed, seeing as I was useless. After my shower, I went to our walk-in closet to get my pjs. Something skittered out from under the laundry hamper, and we found Kermit.

So somehow, he managed to go from the kitchen, down the hall, through our bedroom and into the closet (where he had never been before). He had to have run along the floor, as there is nothing to cling to along the way. He also had to have done all this in the about 30 seconds it took me to realize that he was no longer on my person.

He was also quite happy to be in the "clothes-forest," as he called it. It took a lot of convincing to get him to come back to Mommy (had to put on my bathrobe. He likes terrycloth.). --Especially when he found out he could fly from one side of the closet to the other. Oy.

Wardrobe Malfunction

OK, so we're "person-to-person" training Kermit. So far, the training is working pretty well: i.e. he's learned that he isn't physically capable of sticking to most furniture he's hurled himself at, while humans are pretty universally easy to cling to.

Until ...

... the brother-in-law showed up in a windbreaker. Whoops!

Busy month

... So I think I'm just about ready to rejoin the human race.

1) We moved ... end of last month, not quite done unpacking yet (waiting on the Tile Guy to do some last finishing touches so I can load up our shelving unit)
2) Threw a surprise birthday party for Husband (who will be 30 on Wednesday)
... is that it? Wow. Felt like more.

Also

Kermit discovered a new use for the magnetic poetry on our fridge.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are the size of a Teddy Bear Hamster. You're looking up at the fridge door, which is littered with magnets*.

Does it look like a climbing wall to you?



*"secretly
relaxing
soft and heavy
dead
wasp
in
my
mouth

I ask why
they never stoned
my butt"
by Wes Whitson

H'm

Kyle, the nice man doesn't seem to like the holiday you invented.

Shout-out to Kyle (et al)

Happy Singles' Awareness Day!

Common Problem

Something happens during the day, and I think, "Ooh! Gotta blog about that!"

Then I sit down to follow through, and promptly forget what it was I was so excited about.

But perhaps if I keep typing, I'll remember ...

Ah! Kermit did another Trash Can Leap on Monday.

And he found out that he can Climb Chairs. Or shimmy up them. Same thing, really. He was happy. I was nervous -- he moves fast, and the last thing I need is for him to get himself stuck somewhere inaccessible.

Backstory: my cat, Daffodil, when she was a kitten managed to climb the inside back wall of my vanity and get herself stuck in a junk drawer. She could've been there for hours, judging by how long she was missing before I found her. Kyle once lost a hamster in his room, didn't find him for days. (Or, should I say, the hamster found him. In the middle of the night. By climbing the sheets and biting him. Oh, Mariah Carey has nothing on the vocal range of a freaked-out 6-year-old boy!)

Porn for Book-Lovers

This is such a cool use of the internet, I don't even know where to start. Just check it out. No pun intended.

Now, you understand, this was in character ...

"Your [current] inability to hit anything is the gods' gift to us."

-- To a fellow-adventurer who recently caught a third adventurer at the edge of his Burning Hands spell. And nearly killed him. And later wanted to fire into battle ... again.

Gah

My world has gone crazy.

I thought everyone went nuts when the White Sox won the World Series two years ago ... that was nothing.

-- Well, this from a girl who still owns her two Homer Hankies (1987, 1991). And danced in a parade to the Homer Hanky Song.

Learning Limits

Kermit is learning the extent of his Squirrel Superpowers. To wit: he has found out that he Can't Jump Onto Walls.

After D&D Monday night, he was scampering around on my person as I prepared his supper and said goodbye to folks. There was a lot going on, lots to sniff, and the little guy got a bit overexcited. He saw a patch of wall and made a full-body flying leap (literally), which turned into a full-body belly flop against the wall. Slide down the wall about 5 feet, to land underneath our bookshelf. We eventually coaxed him out with an almond.

I'm getting the impression that the only way to person-to-person train this guy is to let him try out all the furniture and find out for himself why it's not Good for Squirrels. Sooner or later he will have thrown himself against most everything else and find that humans are simply preferable: he can stick to them.

D&D Quotables, Part III?

"[Horses are] way below NPCs on the list of things to kill."*

"A fairly average display of hut-smacking."

"With a warcry of 'BEANS!,' I charge forward."

"I am [fingers held 1cm apart] this much cocky."

"I'm gonna create some water when we get back, and I'm gonna dunk you in it."

"I'm going to search the women. You never know what you'll find."

*NPC: Non-Player Character [AKA "cannon fodder"]

Further Developments

Last night, Kermit figured out that he can jump from me to Michael and back again. He thought it was Very Fun.

I've created a fuzzy monster

So FuzzButt woke me up at 4:30 this morning (my day off, no less) with his Alarm Call. (An emphatic squeak! repeated at about 60 bpm.) I went out to check on him -- it usually means he knocked something over and wants us to Fix It. Can't find anything. Turn on the light. Still can't find anything. Open the cage door to make sure the wheel can still turn (usually the problem -- he has a tendency to wedge things against it). While checking various pieces of furniture, he clambers onto my pajamas and sniffs at my ear.

Oh.

So I obligingly step back to he can jump to his cage. As I'm herding him into the cage (if this isn't done quickly, he's on his way to Higher Things), he zips back up my arm. One more jump, then close the cage and back to bed (for me).

Five minutes later, he woke me again. Same story, only this time he worked his way all the way down to the hem of my very-oversized pajama shirt, only to find there's a lot of swing there. Whee! Had to help him up a bit.

I'm just glad he didn't pee on me.

Get Yer Parachutes Ready

The FuzzBug has learned a New Thing. He's figured out that he allowed Out Of The Cage, as long as he's On People (or at least Mom -- not so sure about Dad yet). It's a new game: climb on my hand, scamper up my arm and look around from the vantage point of my shoulder for a bit, then JUMP to the cage, squeaksqueak of triumph, turn around and do it again. He's Very Proud of himself.

Kermit is also Very Interested in watching us. Whenever Michael or I walk by (when he's awake, which admittedly isn't often), he rushes to the spot nearest us. When we approach (and who wouldn't, with that audience?), he skitters along the cage all around where our head is, sticking his nose out as far as it'll go. It's a trip.

The Word is Out

Apparently, we are the Suckers of the Animal World. Two tree squirrels (I've named them Jasper and Emily) have decided that we are Nice People Who Should Feed Them. They're definitely male and female, I'm gonna guess they're mates (not that I've seen evidence, thank goodness). They just showed up on our balcony one day, and Jasper came right up to our door to ask for food. Naturally, I obliged. Emily is very much the shyer of the two and I don't have any pics of her yet, but here's several of Jasper.
He likes hanging out on Michael's bike. He's also tried to store grapes on it, to no avail.




But it's also a great place for Thinking Squirrel Thoughts.











Now, this is something I've never seen before. A squirrel just Hanging Out. He's not eating, he's not washing his whiskers, he's not doing anything. Just watching life.


He watched me take pictures, but didn't seem to mind.
Even though he's really close to where we're standing.

ComEd

I arrived at work yesterday morning to find the store in a state of confusion. It seems that there was a power outage some time Christmas Day (6 p.m., the theory goes) and there's a reason they're called "perishables."

Also, the grease trap apparently has an electrical component of which we were previously unaware, 'cause damn. Wanna smell a grease trap? Stick your nose down a clogged drain and take a deep breath. Then cube that. Yeah.

Soooo, we had to pull all refrigerated product off the shelves, write it off, throw it in ye olde Dumpster and start again. We didn't open until 2 p.m.

I'm tired.

Also, meh.

*THUD* ..... mmmmrrrppppphhhh

-- Is the sound of me being buried under a mountain of laundry. That I have to do today. That I don't wanna do. (Did that sound whiny to you? If not, back up and read again until it does.)

Auughhh! I am aware that the Christmas (or Christmahannukwanzakah) season is a joyous one. But from the retail perspective ..... waldskjg;awlrethyg. Totally crazy.

I've seen customers leave long register lines to fetch something for a total stranger.

I've been cussed out by a customer for not selling her liqueur candies before noon on Sunday. (FYI -- Glen Ellyn Villiage ordinance prohibits it. We could lose the liquor license and I'd lose my job. So totally not worth it.)

I saw a woman stop her shopping to make sure a crying little girl found her mommy.

I've had customers try to force me to open a register to which I am not assigned.

Two days ago, a little boy (about 2 1/2 years old) was singing, "Jingle bells, batman smells, Robin laid the [sic] egg .... batmobil mumble a wheel, Joker got away, HEY!" Over. And over. And over. And all the customers in line around him were just cracking up. (Mom was mortified.)

One woman complained the she couldn't get her Napa Creek (or is it Valley? We've had several geological features of Napa in wine form) wine anymore. I tried to explain that it was a one-time deal, we put that on the sign, es no mas. "But my family drank it all the time. You don't understand -- wine is like water to us!" Then she was upset about the potstickers. Well, ma'am, that vendor went out of business. Can't get no potstickers from a factory that don't exist, you see. "But they were so good! I don't know why you guys get rid of everything I like!" Rrgh.

Every morning I knock on the glass with my keys. Someone opens the door for me, I sign in. Check the Daily Log for morning instructions. Trudge across the front (dodging flower pallets), say hi to Alicia (flower child), the Bread Person, Joe (produce guy). Right after seeing Joe, I always notice this one case of onions. It's there every morning by the time I get in. Same place, on the floor right under the conventional cherry tomatoes. It's got a cartoon of a figure with an onion bulb for a head. This "head" has a pink bow on the top (tying up the remains of the stem, I guess) and long eyelashes. The Onion Girl is wearing a knee-length white skirt that "she" is holding up as she curtsies. Right next to this character are the words "Sweetie Sweet." Every day a new box, but always the same place, always from the same vendor.

This is a very disturbing recurring image to have. Little Miss Sweetie Sweet has started showing up in my dreams.

So I'm OK. Have good moments and bad moments at work, I try to remember the good ones more. (The last customer example above I have decided is hilarious. Oh so frustrating at the time, because communication was so not happening, but it's funny now.)

I'll post more later after I dig myself out from under this pile of chores.

See you in February!