Walking infodump

I'm pulling extra shifts at The Day Job this week. Yesterday was not my normal day, but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary until about fifteen minutes before closing. We were down to two tables--a three top in the front room and a two top in the back. I had most of the dishes done and decided to duck to the back for a potty break. One of the ladies from the two top was missing, apparently in the restroom, which was no big deal since we have two restrooms. The second lady flagged me down, so I diverted.

She must have known I was headed for the restroom, because she opened with, "My friend is in the ladies' room, and it's a one-seater, right?"* In five minutes she told me about the charity fundraiser she's working on and suggested that we could provide cookies so we can "get our name out there," told me all about the funeral she'd just sung for, detailed her ill-fated career with a company that does home cooking classes, and asked me three times about the Boss' name, which she got wrong anyway.

Her friend came back and I was able to escape. Undaunted, she latched on to the gal who was working with me. Then she went to the restroom, came out, and said she'd just thought that if we were going to do cookies for her fundraiser, maybe it would be fun to sell little cups of coffee, "like expresso shots!"** for a quarter or fifty cents.

It was fifteen minutes past closing when she finally left. I'm still shaking my head. Hopefully she'll go down the street for lunch today.

*Apparently it's all right to stop someone from going to the restroom if it's a one-seater, because everyone knows that women would never use the men's room! The truth is, I use the men's room on a regular basis just to make sure the toilet paper and paper towels are stocked up.

**I know, it's spelled wrong. That's how she said it. That's how half the people in this area say it, which drives me truly crazy. As near as I can figure, the logic is that there must be an unwritten 'x' in 'espresso' because there is an unwritten 't' in 'pizza' and they're both Italian.

Over-sensitivie furr-ometer?

The rain from what's left of Heir Gustav is supposed to be here tonight or tomorrow. I keep checking the radar, but so far the rain is moving away from us. Seriously, it's curling off to the west like it can't get away from us fast enough. I know it's coming eventually, though, because Ryan is full of the devil this morning. So far he hasn't gone after Tess, Chloe, or me, but he has attacked an unsuspecting keyboard cord and a plastic soda cap. I fell asleep last night with his paws planted firmly in my belly and he was still there when I woke up. He's been grumbling a lot, and he doesn't particularly want to cuddle.

I have no idea what his life was like before our friends took him in and passed him on to us. I'm fairly certain he was born to a stray or abandoned young since he wasn't fully grown when we got him. He must have been outside because he's still afraid of storms and has made no attempt to sneak out the door, unlike the girls. Probably someone was feeding him; he wasn't malnourished or afraid of people. The first time we met he crawled into my lap. I've been his person ever since, but he's not picky about where he gets scritchies or who's lap he naps in.

I expect pretty soon I'll find him sleeping on the stairs. That's where he naps when the weather is changing; it's close enough to downstairs to hear food cans open and half-way to his hiding spot under the bed if he hears wind or thunder. He may be there when I get home from work, or he may be hiding somewhere. It's going to be a long week for him.

55 lbs.

I gathered up 55 pounds of stuff which my guys sweetly took to Goodwill for me. They even kept their grumbling to a minimum, especially after I explained that by having them do it, I knew it would get done. If I did it, I'd get sidetracked and it would take me two weeks, even though I drive through that part of town a couple times a week. I'm posting it here more for my own edification; this is more or less a permanent record, unlike the piece of paper I used to tally up the weight. I'm hoping that this will serve as motivation if nothing else.