Whew! Whirlwind of excitement, or at least lots going on...

It's been a busy few days. First of all, I have to say that my dad is much better. He's at home and feeling well. It was appendicitis. That is rare for a person his age. I am so glad he is better. I was very worried about him.

Company X - With the departure of Tom, the week started out a little uncomfortable for me. The new guy, Skywalker (not because he looks like Luke, or will save us from the evil Empire but because he love SW...) jumped right in and began learning about our semi-crazy department. I think he will be a good fit. I was also awarded the gigantic task of managing a new HUGE client - Client Pinto. They have more sites to do than Client D and Client Dutch - combined. Whew! I am going to have one of the guys in my department work on it with me to share the load. He can also do some of the more technical things that I can't. It will be a big challenge, but I am looking forward to it. The salesperson on the project and I talked about it. I think it will go fairly smoothly. But only time will tell. Company X has the big convention coming up soon, so the designers can't really work on my project until after that. But that shouldn't stop me from doing lots of the job.

G-store - They had me work Thursday through Monday. Most of it was uneventful, which is a good thing. We have a new promotion (popcorn) which I have to pitch. I have found that it is harder to pitch popcorn than sports water or fruit snacks. Most of the time when people say "no" to the later two, that's that. But with popcorn, people are more vocal about their distate. How can you hate popcorn? It's one of the greatest foods ever discovered and stolen by the white man! I would go on about popcorn, but I am trying to stick with the current topic of work and the weekend. Working Friday night, things at the store were pretty steady. I was able to do the announcement as a Valley Girl, which was funny. There is a chick at the store who is one of the under 18s who scares me a bit. As teenagers are prone to be knowitalls and overly confident in their abilities and knowledge, I keep this in mind when talking with this one. I believe she has a kid. Not sure, but she keeps a picture of a child underneath her badge. She is brash to the point of rudeness. She's really new. Been there about a week. So, she thinks she knows her codes for the scanner. I think it's great that she knows as many as she does. I certainly wish I knew more. But her attitude when she gets help (and not just from me) is annoying. She flirts with every guy under the age of 30 (I don't flirt with EVERY guy under 30, just a few.) She hikes up the back of her work shirt in a white trash kind of way, which I find gross. It looks tacky. This is a grocery store. It's not a glamour job. If we were Hotdog-on-a-Stick, we'd have to wear butt-ugly yellow, red, blue and white dorky hats and uniforms. This is much better (though I don't dig the orange with green...) with polo shirts and our own pants. They even let us wear jeans, which is nice. I totally digressed there, didn't I? Anyhow, she really bugs the crap out of me.

Another thing I have noticed at the g-store is the great amount of people under the age of 25 who are either pregant/ newly babied, engaged or married. It just seems like alot of them are. Is this a Vermont thing? It's odd to me. I am happy for them, if they are happy about their situation. OMIGAWD. I just remembered one story. There is a gal I work with who is pretty young and has a kid from a rape situation. I think it's horribly sad. I can't imagine. She's going to school, which I think is great. She doesn't have complete custody of her child, and we didn't get into it much. Wow. Can't even imagine.

Saturday - I got up at 7ish and headed over to the laundromat. It was a little icy out, but I had to do my laundry. Working on the weekend now, my free time is much less, of course, so things lke laundry have to be timed just right. After the laundry, I ran over to WW and weighed in. -.2, which is fine with me. Anything is better than a gain. I had about two hours before being at the g-store so I did some errands. Work was really busy for most of the day. There were a couple of Orange Alerts working, which was nice to observe. One of the gals (who isn't really much older than the OAs) and I had a nice chat about them. It was pretty funny. I know, it's really gross when you think of it in terms that I am old enough to be their mother, but I am not their mother, nor am I planning to have a Mary Kay LaTerneau relationship with ANY of them. Also, I had several customers with kids. One kid was really crabby and crying. But I was able to get him to stop crying and smile. I felt so proud. Another woman thanked me for entertaining her kid (I was bagging) and told me that I work so well with kids. I know I do. Some of you know I do, so what do I do about it? Moving on... So, after work I met up with Stephanie O, Andy, his wife Jeanne, Elissa and Rocky at Shanty's - a great seafood place. The food was great! The atmosphere was great! The people were great! I had a really good time. Then I went over to Elissa's house where we met up with their friend Mark (who I have mentioned before) to play Fluxx (a totally fun card game). I think I was there until almost midnight. I want to do another game night, but I can't do it at my shoebox apartment. One of the guys at work might host at his house. We shall see.

Sunday - I met up with Carrie at church and then went on some errands before working at 4 at the gstore. I stopped at the University Mall, which is about half the size of the Glendale Galleria. I went there for one thing and one thing only - TACO BELL. I haven't had Taco Bell in about a year. I miss it so. It was really, really good. Sigh. Then I went to see Mark at Barnes and Nobles, where he had a book signing. His book is about graphic design for kids. I had him autograph it and I had to come home for a little nap before my gstore. But the nap didn't happen. I watched the movie, Millions, instead. It is an Irish film by Danny Boyle, whose movies I really enjoy. The boy finds millions of British pounds and tries to find good ways to spend it from the advice of several saints who appear to him - Peter, Francis of Asisis, Joan of Arc and a few others would appear to him. Okay, so then I worked at the store. I wasn't feeling well. Very tired. The first half of the time there it was really busy. I was glad when it slowed down. I was really pooped when I got home, but managed to watch Desparate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy inspite of my sleepy eyes.

Monday - I worked until about 1pm then had to go home because I was feeling naustious and had a major sinus headache all day. I came home and napped for about two hours. I worked for about an hour and half.