Enik the Altrusian

Well, that's over with. Or at least it will be after two more coats of paint. The costume will finally be finished.

Of course, now it is so stiff and difficult to get into that I probably won't even wear it. Luckily, I have the purple dress and fairy wings as a backup costume that I have to actually wear to the party, because I can't drive in the other costume, or eat in the other costume, or dance in the other costume. (Not that I can dance in the purple dress either, but at least I might be asked.)

And the party is at AAFES, and you have to show a photo ID to get in.

There's no way I could get on to a military place dressed as Enik the Altrusian. There's no telling who could be under that mask.

I am very tired.

I still wish I had quit the job, even though tomorrow will probably be my last day.

I miss my husband. It will be good to see him Sunday.

I forgot to ask him if he was going to try to come in on Saturday. Surely not, but I forgot to ask. It's too far, and I don't want him to try.

Today was more work that going to work

Today I ran two errands, went to lunch, and spent the rest of the day getting ready for Saturday. I am so tired. And I am still not finished with the costume.

I bought and cleaned out a pumpkin that I plan to carve tomorrow. I got a picture off the internet, and with a couple of slight alterations it will make the perfect pumpkin pattern to go with the costume.

And I'm finally working on the headpiece that goes with the purple dress on the other costume.

Well, I'm sure my husband is glad he isn't here. There are pieces of costume all over the bed, even when I am sleeping in it. I have to finish it tomorrow or admit defeat and save it for next year.

Speaking of my husband, he made it safely to Louisiana and is now in a motel room he likes much better. Still no internet, but this little motel chain has whirlpool tubs in every room. Nice.

Must get some sleep now.

Almost the end of the job

Well, they didn't write what I asked for on the schedule. 10-3, I said. 10-4, if absolutely necessary, because that's what I originally asked for more than a month ago. The district manager just couldn't understand why I wouldn't agree to 9-6, and I just didn't even think we needed to have the discussion. Just put 10-3 on the schedule, or hurry and get to the part where we both agree that I won't be coming in at all. And he's saying he's not mad, he's just upset that the other manager made all these agreements that aren't company policy. And he wants to show me a company manual that says everyone is supposed to work at least eight hours that day, but what difference does that make? I'm busy that day, and I was hired knowing that I would be busy that day, and showing me a manual that I never saw before and did not agree to isn't going to help. None of that changes my mind. None of that changes my situation. I care more about this party that we've been planning for months than I care about a job I didn't even want enough to apply for. And he's all saying how he likes me and I seem to be really good at the job, and can't we come to some compromise? He doesn't understand that I already had this discussion last year with the other manager, and this was the compromise. I'd rather not work Saturday at all. It will just make me nervous, and I'll have to miss another costume contest with prize money.

He was so upset with the other manager. But he shouldn't be. So she hired some people she knew couldn't work Saturday and people she knew would leave before the store closed. The important thing at the time was she had to get the store opened, and she couldn't have done that on time without hiring some people from last year and people who had scheduling problems. There's been plenty of time to replace us, if that's what needed to be done. And I personally was okay with that, and had even put that in writing before I left for Kansas. But you can't demand people work for you when they've already said they have a prior commitment. If you threaten to fire them, they'll just leave even earlier. It's a temp job, and none of us are going to be here in a couple of weeks anyway.

So finally, after he looks at all the paperwork I had signed, and after I'm able to convince him that I really don't even want the job and I really was hired under the condition that I be allowed to leave without a big fuss and that I would not under any circumstances work later than 4 on Saturday, he gave up. And he gave me off tomorrow and Friday and even let me go home early today to get me to work 9-4, which was what I had originally agreed to when I came back to work this season.

So now I should be able to finish the costume. In fact, I should be able to also carve a pumpkin and maybe even make a dessert.

Still, I tend to feel bad after having the discussion, even if I did come out ahead.

The Boneyard did not get its planned review today

Well, as I have said before, I did not take this silly job for the money. I needed a distraction, and this particular job comes with free haunted house tickets. Or at least, it usually does.

I have not received any actual tickets yet, supposedly because the store hasn't been given any. At least, that's what the manager said last week, and so far the shift manager says she hasn't been given any either. And usually, the second or third Sunday before Halloween, the store or even several of the stores go as a group to a haunted house. This year, the group went to the Dungeon of Doom in the Arlington Art museum, and afterwards took a behind the scenes tour of the place. But I did not do that, because they went the Sunday I came back from Kansas, and even if I'd been left a message about it I really would have been too tired to go that day.

And usually, there are several haunted houses in the area where you just show your store name tag and check stub and they let you in for free. You don't get to bring a friend for free, so maybe it's not as much fun as having free tickets, but I like haunted houses enough that I've gone to a couple by myself.

But it looks like this year I won't be doing anymore of that. I'd only been told of two places that would let us in for free this year: Mead Manor in Mansfield (which I went to a few weeks ago), and the Boneyard in Arlington. So last night I got off work a little after seven, and ran errands until a little after eight, so it would have been the perfect time to go to the Boneyard.

But they did not let me in free, so I ended up just going home.

That was just as well, I needed to work on the costume some more and get some sleep, but it did come as a bit of a surprise. I was under the impression that we got in free, and the people working at the place were under the impression that we got in free, but when I actually started to walk into the place, the guy running the place came out and said he hadn't made any arrangement for that. He offered me a half-price ticket, but I was by myself and starting to get tired, so I declined.

Speaking of being tired, my feet are still sore from yesterday. It would be nice if the district manager could break the computer so the store would have to close today. But it's nearly five hours before I have to go in, so hopefully I'll feel better by then. But really, I'd rather just work on my costume a bit and then go back to bed.

They'll have to put up the work schedule today. If it says something unreasonable I'll just leave. Except for the shift managers and a couple of people who have been doing this for five or ten, I can't think of anyone else I worked with last year who is still there. The guy I had so much fun with last year at the haunted houses only worked weekends, and then he didn't work one week because of a miscommunication about the schedule, and then one day he called in sick, and I think he finally just gave up on the whole idea and quit, cause I only saw him that first day and then at the store meeting. One lady quit after two weeks because she got a divorce and moved to California. There's about five other people that I just haven't seen in a while and I have no idea what happened to them. Actually, now that I think about it, there are a couple of girls who are still working, but really they're just kids who mainly work nights and I don't talk to them much anyway.

I know. I'm always saying I'm going to quit, and then I don't. I'm just saying I might as well quit, but if the schedule is reasonable I probably won't.

Of course, if my husband's schedule changes, I might not even be here anyway.

Great to be home, or not

Practically as soon as we're here, he has to leave again. He's off to Arkansas and Louisiana for the week. I had thought about going with him, but decided against it, especially after there was a slight change in his schedule.

I didn't go with him because a) he'll still be out of town on Saturday, when I have a party to go to, b) I was told that I would still have the silly job when I came back, c) I left the place in a mess and really should try to do something about it, or d) all of the above.

And the answer is d) all of the above.

So he left yesterday morning. In theory, he was probably supposed to stay last night and get up really early this morning, but despite what it says on mapquest that would have meant a five or six hour drive before a full day of work, plus the extra hour or so that he has to work setting up at a new place. Anyway, I'm not as clear on when this company expects the employees to be where, and if you leave a day early or stay a day late they don't pay for the extra motel room. But he's made enough money that he can pay for the occasional room himself and get some rest rather than make long drives exactly on their schedule.

Anyway, he's in Arkansas, and he doesn't like his motel room, but since I didn't go with him he decided not to spend the extra money on a nicer one. It's just for a couple of days, but there's no internet and no microwave. No internet I understand, that's still a new concept for some motel owners, but no microwave or frig? We've gotten so used to that we've stopped even asking about it. It should just always be there, and more than ninety percent of the time, it is. But not today.

Also, I seem to have 7/8ths of a blueberry pie all to myself. I didn't plan that. He was supposed to take half of it with him, but neither of us remembered to put it in the cooler. So it is still here, except for the one piece we each had Sunday night.

That wouldn't be so bad, but we also forgot to pack the Rudy's BBQ that we specifically bought for him to take. BBQ really isn't my thing, but I eat it once in a while to go somewhere with him or when I go out with friends. And now there's a whole bag of it in the frig. I don't know why we forgot about it. He didn't really leave that early in the morning. I just kept worrying about his clothes and I mostly forgot about the food.

Well, it's not like he'll starve or anything. He does have money now, and they do sell food of some sort in middle of nowhere Arkansas.

Anyway, before he left for Arkansas, we checked the answering machine. Now, we've never fixed the time thing on the answering machine, so whatever time or day is on the message has nothing to do with when the message was actually left. One of his managers left two messages, and either they were left on Monday, or the manager is clueless. Why would he be here to answer the phone if he was sent to Kansas? Anyway, one of my managers also called, and again there was no point to that since I'd already said I'd be out of town. Whatever.

So, I worked on the costume a little bit, and then headed to the store to pick up my check and see if I did in fact still have the job. And just in case someone was going to ask me to work, or in case there had been a screw up and I was actually on the schedule on a day I said I couldn't work, I waited until I was okay with actually working some before I went to the store. And, as soon as I walk in, someone is asking me to work. Someone was going to be late and someone else called in sick and couldn't you possibly help out just for a few hours? Of course I can help out just for a few hours, and just as soon as I get back from lunch. Great, thanks so much. But before I leave, I decide to pick up my check and have a look at the schedule and write a note reminding the manager that I can't work past four or really three on Saturday. So the shift manager sees me writing and says I'd be better off just telling her, because she's going to write the schedule herself now that the manager quit.

What???

She doesn't work here anymore. She quit Wednesday. Nobody I could talk to had been there when it happened, so I don't really know what happened, but she's gone.

Wow.

Okay, so now three kids are mostly in charge of the store, except that the district manager comes by all the time to micro-manage everything. And he's driving the nice shift manager nuts.

So anyway, I told her what I could work on Saturday and Sunday, and then I decided to be nice and let her write whatever she wanted on the rest of my schedule. She was really getting desperate, and she seems like a totally decent person who doesn't deserve to have all this stuff dumped on her. If the district manager or the other shift manager doesn't screw it up, I'll stay, even though I really wouldn't have wanted this job without the manager who just quit.

That was so weird, but I'd already promised to help them out, so hurried off to lunch so I could come back and help. I went to "our" Arby's and bought enough extra sandwiches that I won't have to worry about lunch for the rest of the week, and then went back to work.

I kind of liked the district manager before yesterday, but now I don't think I really do. He really is making the poor girl nuts over nothing. When she's got something under control, go away and leave it alone. And then he was messing with the computer because he couldn't get the fax to work. Like, who cares if the fax doesn't work, you can arrange to use someone else's fax. But if you break the thing that connects the registers and the credit card machines and all of that, we might as well close the store and go home. Anyway, I don't think he actually broke anything, but he kept disconnecting stuff, but of course I only stayed a few hours and he might have broken the thing after I left.

Anyway, I ran some errands and went home. I neglected to wash some dishes before I left for Kansas, so now the kitchen smells like dead fish or something. Lovely.

The end of our week in middle of nowhere, Kansas

Yesterday was our last day in Kansas, and a long drive home.

This week was not so wonderful as previous trips to Kansas, but we did a few fun things, and we just needed the time together. It was nice. I'm glad I went.

We stopped in Bartlesville and went to Kmart. There are no more Kmarts where we live. This is the first Kmart I've seen in about five years. So I had to go to Kmart. I was looking for yarn, but I guess they don't sell that anymore anyway. So we didn't buy anything at the Kmart. Goodbye Kmart.

Next we went down the street to McDonald's for breakfast. There seemed to be great confusion at the McDonald's, like there were too many people working behind the counter, but none of them seemed to know what they were doing. So we ordered breakfast, and then found out their credit card machine wasn't connected or something. And nobody fixed it. I don't think anyone even tried to fix it. So we're pulling stuff out of our pockets trying to come up with about six dollars. You wouldn't think we'd have that much trouble finding six dollars between us, but we're so used to the debit card that we rarely use cash anymore except to buy lotto tickets.

Anyway, as we're taking our breakfast to the table, someone announces that breakfast is over. And then someone else announces that they're not set up for lunch. So no breakfast and no lunch. Whatever. We won two breakfast sandwiches and added three more game pieces to the monopoly board. A million dollars will be ours any day now.

So we left the confused people at McDonald's, drove down the street a couple of blocks in the wrong direction, and finally got headed toward Tulsa. We stopped for gas, but we forgot to get any cash and had to stop again at an Albertsons. I-44 from Tulsa to Oklahoma City is a toll road. Now it's only four dollars or something like that, and the company should pay him back, but I just don't think that toll roads should be allowed on the interstate system. I was quite sure that the interstate system is funded by taxes or something, and I know that other toll roads were not added to the interstate system until after they ceased to be toll roads, so why are there tolls on the interstate roads of Oklahoma and Kansas?

It seemed a bit cold to me in Tulsa, so we did not even think about stopping at the zoo. By the time we got to Oklahoma City, it seemed much warmer to me. Perfect zoo weather, but we decided it was too late in the day, and the dolphin show was probably already over anyway. So it was on to Norman, where we stopped to get lunch and another Marie Callender pie.

Now, I was quite sure that I had carefully put aside the box with the Marie Callender pie tin, just in case we wanted another one. But when I got out of the van to look for it, he told me that he found the box and a couple of things on top of the box, assumed that it was trash, and threw whatever it was away. Now the pie tin only cost us sixty cents, but now I'm wondering what else I carefully put aside that he threw away. Never mind, as long as it wasn't my birth control pills or part of my costume, I don't guess it matters.

We were going to On The Border Mexican restaurant, but there was a mob of people outside, so we almost skipped that and went to Applebees instead. But it turned out that the mob of people were just leaving the restaurant, and were just standing outside talking about where they should go next. There was no actual line to get a table, and we were seated right away. After lunch I ran into a Michaels in the same shopping center, while he went to Barnes and Noble.

I didn't think we were shopping for that long, but I guess we spent more time in Norman than we meant to. But the time we got to the Texas tourist info place it was closed. Not that we really needed anything, I just like to go in just in case we can get a map or something for someplace he'll have to go later.

Next was a stop at Rudy's BBQ in Denton. Not that we were really hungry yet, since lunch had been about three hours ago. But we thought we'd get about a pound of stuff to go, and maybe eat a sandwich and have a couple of sodas. So there was a sign that said that the green chili stew was back, so we ordered a couple of cups of that too. It's made out of all kinds of leftover smoked meat, and it's not bad, but it does have a bit too much black pepper for my liking.

Then home. Finally home. Did one load of laundry and decided to worry about the rest of it later.

Tacos and the Neewollah festival

We didn't do anything special Friday. He went to work, I worked on the costume, and we went to lunch at the local taco place. They served...tacos.

There was nothing special about the taco place. It was just one we'd never heard of before, so we tried it. There are taco places all over the country that we've never heard of before, and we try them, and for the most part they turn out to be a lot like Taco Bell.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Saturday we didn't do anything special either.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. And in the middle of nowhere Kansas they were having their Neewollah Festival (Halloween spelled backwards). It was just getting started. Most of it is this week and I'll miss that anyway. And most of it doesn't seem like my sort of thing. And if there was a haunted house for this thing I didn't hear anything about it.

Still, I was in a town having a Halloween festival, and I didn't get to go to any of it. Not that I missed anything important, but Saturday was the chili cook-off and tour of historic homes. I would have liked to go to the chili cook-off, and I know he would have loved a tour of historic homes, but we didn't get to do either of those things.

He had to work, and I was stuck in the motel. While everyone else in town who cares about such things is out having fun, I'm watching somebody get buried alive on cable. Sometimes, this travel stuff sucks.

Price Tower Arts Center:Tourist stuff in the middle of nowhere

For the most part, my husband's job has involved a lot of travel for the past ten years. But usually the travel is to someplace like Waco or Wichita Falls or some other boring place in Texas. Sometimes we would get to go someplace more interesting like Houston or San Antonio or South Padre. For a couple of years we traveled the whole country, but now we're back to mostly boring places in Texas and Oklahoma.

So here were are in middle of nowhere south Kansas. Independence's main claim to fame is the Little House on the Prairie site, and the birthplace of space-traveling monkey Miss Able. We did that stuff the first day, so there's not much left to do as far as tourist stuff.

But middle of nowhere south Kansas is near middle of nowhere north Oklahoma, and we found something to do there.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed this skyscraper that ended up being built in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. While not his only skyscraper design, it was the only one that was actually built. So it's kind of a big deal, if you're into such things. And a special tour of the building started about a week ago, so we went.

Well, first of all, they only take in eight people at a time, so the tour filled up just after we got there. I don't remember that being mentioned anywhere, and if I have been one of the people who were turned away, I'd have been really mad. We took a similar tour of falling water, but it seems like the groups were of twenty or thirty people. Our group ended up being ten people, and we soon found out that was too many. First, we have to go up to the 17th floor in these really tiny, five-sided elevators. Then we go to this really small "lobby" which was even smaller than the tiny lobby downstairs. At least there was a high ceiling on the ground floor, but here the ceiling seemed less than a foot above our heads. Then we go through a really tiny hallway into one of the apartments, where we are not allowed to step on the carpet, so there is barely room for all of us to stand.

Our tour guide went on about the architectural device Wright used to make the rooms seem grand after coming from the small cramped hallway. Whatever. I don't know if it was done on purpose, but it's the same sort of thing that used in a lot of haunted houses. I've never really thought it was that wonderful.

So we went around looking at this and that in the little apartment, and isn't this wonderful and isn't that wonderful. Well, I suppose it is wonderful to look at, if you don't actually have to live in it. There's just all of this wasted space on the inside so that the outside will look interesting. And there are all of these balconies, which looks really cool from the ground, but I don't think that they're big enough for anyone to really use.

Up some stairs, and we all squeezed into the top floor office. And here the tour guide told us that the owner of building wanted a globe in his office, and Wright didn't want him to have a globe, and he was such a pain in the butt about the whole thing that he finally has a globe delivered that doesn't have Bartlesville on it. Well, I'm not surprised none of his other tall buildings were ever built, since he was such a headache to deal with. You wonder that any of his smaller buildings were finished. You tell him, do whatever you think best, but I hate orange, and then he makes everything orange and goes three times over budget in the process. Whatever.

So we went back downstairs in two groups, because only the one elevator works on the top floor. After the tour, we ate on the 15th floor at the Copper Restaurant. It was just sandwiches and salads for lunch, but I really liked mine. Like the rest of the building, the restaurant was divided up into really small seating areas, and our room only had four or five other tables in it. While we loved the food, we did think that the place could have been decorated a bit differently, and maybe had the food served on the Wright patterned dishes.

Anyway, we were glad we went. When will we ever be in this particular middle of nowhere place again?

Spending too much money this trip

Wednesday was uneventful. As expected, the only thing we did was watch cable and go to lunch. But my husband is making money at work, and we're getting to spend time together, so the rest of it really doesn't matter.

I meant to save money this trip. Really, I did. I brought stuff to eat and I thought that we wouldn't eat out much, except for the days that we're actually traveling. But then when we get wherever we are going, whatever our plans were, we end up wanting to try out the local taco place and we ask the locals what their favorite restaurant is, and we end up eating out more than we should.

I don't know what I expected from Eggberts. Crepes? Gourmet omelets. Bubba and Forrest Gump reciting all the things that you can do with eggs?

Well, there was nothing like that. It was sort of like a Denny's. Not that it was a bad place, but I just don't make a point of going someplace like that unless I have a coupon or if it is late at night and nothing else is open. Still, they sell pretty basic stuff, and if you're hungry you can go to a place like that and relax, knowing that it is near impossible to mess up a basic grilled pork chop.

There was a haunted house I liked a few years ago in Granbury

Yesterday turned out to be a beautiful day. We are well rested and I am feeling much better now. Outside now looks gray, but not so much as yesterday, so I'm sure it will be another beautiful day. Not that we'll do anything with it. He has to work, and I have to work on the Halloween costume. I'm afraid our big plans for the day are pretty much limited to lunch and watching cable. We're probably going to check out a place called Eggbert's.

I absolutely must finish putting the costume together while we're here in Kansas. There just won't be time for much work on it after we go home. I'll have even less time than I thought I would, since my manager says I'll still have the silly job when I get back.

Since I've recently written how most haunted houses now days aren't as good as they were twenty or thirty years ago, I thought I'd write about one that I was impressed with a few years ago. I think it was in 2003 (though it could have been the year before that or the year after), and it was in Granbury, Texas. I don't remember the name of the place, and I think when we were there was their last year (or maybe their only year).

My sister had this voucher for a bed & breakfast in Granbury, and it was going to expire at the end of the year, so she invited me to go with her to Granbury. With school and everything, we ended up going Halloween weekend, and I looked on the Internet and found a nearby haunted house. So after a nice dinner at an Italian place on the town square, we headed to the haunted house.

It wasn't a really large place, but there was a really long wait. But there was room for about a hundred of us to wait inside, and it was decorated with these dragon lamps, and maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I think they had a fountain there too. Anyway, it was a nice place to wait, and the only thing that would have made that part better would have been some chairs.

Anyway, when we got to the front of the line and a guide took us to...a lawyer's office.

A lawyer's office???

So the lawyer explains that even though we have been invited here to hear the reading of the will we are still expected to follow a few rules, which I don't remember what they all were. And under no circumstances were we allowed to touch the actors, and they would not touch us either, except that some of them might make an exception for my pretty sister.

Actors???

We giggled a bit at that one. The people who worked in the haunted house were repeatedly referred to as actors. And we were thinking, right, actors. I don't think that someone who puts on a mask and screams at you qualifies as an actor.

But, we were wrong. They were actors. Most of them had little parts to play and lines to say, and for the first part of the house they kept with this theme of there being a recently deceased person who might have left us something in his will or he might speak to us from the great beyond. Later it got away from the theme and was more like your typical haunted house, but if you have nice props and costumes that don't go with the theme, why not use them anyway?

So I really liked the place. There were talented people who cared about their appearance and their performance, nice costumes and makeup, nice props and set decoration, and mood lighting. There was very little stumbling around in total darkness. And if there was an idiot chasing people with a chainsaw, he must have been near the end and didn't bother us much.

A day in middle of nowhere, Kansas

Actually, it's called Independence. We have a nice enough motel room, but no fancy breakfast and no whirlpool. But the king size bed is comfortable, and the bathtub design is nice, and the water is hot. We'll look for a whirlpool and a breakfast buffet on some other trip.

There was a Safari Park nearby, but we won't get to go because in the fall they don't do many weekday tours, and the tours on Sunday will be too late in the day for us to go. We found a little zoo here and went to that instead. One of our first space travelers was born there, a little monkey named Miss Able. It was a really small zoo, but it was free.

Other than Miss Able, the famous former resident of Independence would be Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie and other books. So we went to see the Little House replica and looked around and bought a souvenir. The farm animals were very friendly, which usually means that the place sells animal feed, but not this time. Maybe they will do that in the future, and the animals are psychic.

We had lunch at a Chinese buffet. I wasn't feeling my best, and Chinese food usually makes me feel better. Other than that, all we did today was go to Walmart and Dollar Tree. Not usually places where tourists hang out, but that's okay. The trip was more about making up for missed together time than about sightseeing, and we are definitely having together time.

Well, it looks like I'll have Internet access after all. Great.

Probably won't have much to write about the rest of the week.

Yesterday, we set out, and it was foggy and raining like I thought. Unfortunately, it rained on and off for a long time, and it didn't seem to really clear up until we were on the other side of Oklahoma City. This morning it was foggy too, but it looks like it won't be that bad later.

Yesterday, once we got clear of Dallas county, we stopped for breakfast at McDonald's. McDonald's is not really our place, but we went there and ate and collected six Monopoly pieces. We are on our way to winning a million dollars, and our financial problems will soon be a thing of the past.

For lunch we stopped at Marie Callenders. I have wanted to stop there for about six years now, and it just never seems to work out. It's just as well that we didn't stop there until yesterday, since it was a bit expensive in my opinion, especially for lunch. But, money was not a problem this week, and we did not walk away in shock after seeing the menu. Two daily specials and two sodas cost about twenty-five dollars, but that included trips to the salad/soup bar and a piece of apple pie for me and lemon meringue pie for him, and we had enough leftovers that we didn't have to buy anything for dinner. Also, we were there just in time for the semi-annual pie sale, so we got a strawberry-rhubarb pie to go. So with the pie and the tip and everything, we spent about thirty-seven dollars. I think the last time we spent that much on lunch was about ten years ago on our anniversary at the then Atchafalya Cafe.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, except for an embarrassing time of trying to find a public restroom on the almost empty other side of Tulsa. Well, that's probably karma for not letting the customers use the restrooms at work. And we had to stop at a Walmart to pick up a few things we forgot to pack and some socks to replace those that didn't get washed from the last trip.

Well, we're off to see what a tourist can do in middle of nowhere Kansas.

I might not post for a week or so

Well, in a few hours we'll be on our way to Kansas. And I don't think I'll have Internet access, so I probably won't post anything for a while.

My husband is really looking forward to going. And I would have been just jumping up and down happy to go, last week or the week before that. But we're not quite going at the right time for some stuff, and we're not quite going to the right area for some other stuff, so I don't know if this will be such a big deal this time or not. Still, after a month at the silly job and not getting to spend time with my husband, I guess I'm looking forward to going anywhere for a few days.

It is raining outside. I know we need the rain and all of that, but I just don't care for it right at this moment. I just picture it raining during our whole trip, which is silly. There's no reason to suppose it will still be raining hundreds of miles away. But I always think that it is colder and wetter the farther north you go, so if I'm getting wet here I keep imagining I'll be wet and cold and miserable in Kansas. I meant to watch the news last night and pay attention to the weather, but I didn't. I went out with some friends and then after that I thought I'd make one more trip to Walmart to get something for the costume, and then I totally forgot to watch the news when I came home.

Never mind, I'll find out soon enough.

One of those idiots waving signs

Well, yesterday I was one of those sign waving idiots. The competing store down the street had people out waving signs and directing people to their store and away from ours. That really ticked off our manager, who decided that we would have better people waving signs to advertise our store. So that lucky person who got to put on a witch costume and go to the curb and wave at the cars turned out to be me.

I did that for three hours yesterday. And since I didn't know that would be my job I didn't bring a radio or anything, so it was just extremely boring.

I was just so glad when it started to rain a bit, and I got to go back inside.

The good news is that the manager didn't seem at all upset about me going out of town this week, and I should still have the silly job when I get back. I wasn't really worried about losing the job, I just didn't want anyone mad at me if it left them short handed. But, she was already planning to hire a couple more people anyway, and now that that's done everything is okay.

Sad note--the assistant manager's sister died today. She's very upset, and she'll have to go home and help plan a funeral and all of that. She probably won't feel up to working for at least a week, and since the store will only be open another seventeen days she'll probably be replaced. Which means that when I come back they'll probably either be a new assistant manager who can't even spell Halloween, or they might promote someone that I don't particularly care for. Hopefully, they will promote the shift manager who made a point of thanking me the other day, and that should work out okay for everyone.

Mead Manor haunted house, Mansfield, Texas

Okay, not the best I've ever been to, but they were nice enough to let me in.

First, I guess I got there a bit early, and they did not yet have the anybody directing traffic. Not that there was traffic yet, just me and one other car, but I still needed to know where to park and such. I don't like the way the park was set up, but I'm not going to complain about it since I have been to places that make you park somewhere across the street where you are afraid you'll be towed, or they charge you extra money that they did not bother to mention in their advertisements.

Next, I wandered around a bit before someone recognized that I was a customer and not one of them, and then someone directed me to a ticket booth. They gave me a ticket with the name of my company written on it and told me it would be about fifteen minutes before they got started.

After that I met a nice man named Doug, who again thought that I worked at one of the houses. His house is called The Haunted Tomb of Anubis, or something like that. From the outside it looks like someone started to build a pyramid but then got tired and didn't finish the top three-fourths of it. It is a very small house, and I think that it only had two people in it. One of them is Anubis, and the other is a more common type of creature with a hooded robe and a skull face. One of the props inside is an impressive looking revolving pillar, inspired by on of the Hellraiser movies.

Despite the high quality props and costumes of that house, I think I preferred the Nightmare at the House of Wax. I can't say that there was really anything special about it (other than some more nice people who work there), but one thing that I did appreciate was the tour guide. The tour guide didn't really do anything, but I do like having one to make sure we are in the right place at the right time and the other people in the house know when we are coming and all of that. I am quite the blind bat, and I did get turned around once, and the girl was nice enough to stop and ask everyone to wait for me. No Anubis or anything like that, just the usual people with chainsaws and such.

Mead Manor itself was a bit bigger than either of the first two, but again it was just the usual stuff and people with chainsaws. But this one did not have a tour guide, and there were several groups in the house at once, and as often happens without guides, a group behind our caught up to us. This particular group was made up of annoying teenage girls who kept running into me and pushing me. I'm sorry, but it's bad enough grabbing the people you came with, but grabbing people you don't know in another group is totally unacceptable. And if you're really that scared, stay home with mommy or go to one of those kid-friendly lights on things and let the rest of us try to enjoy the show without being beat on, okay?

I miss haunted houses of the past

It seems to me that when I was younger, haunted houses were better than they are now. Not that I don't still like them, but I remember them being a lot different. There were people in them with really great makeup, and the house itself was really something to look at. The outside of the house might be a spooky graveyard with interesting tombstones for people to read while they waited in line.

Now it seems like they are all about people chasing you with chainsaws. Gone are the perfectly decorated rooms with mood lighting. The hallways that were once carefully painted to look like bricks or cracked walls are now mostly covered with that splatter type paint that is used to hide graffiti.

And why spend hours on someone's makeup and set decoration, if it is going to be too dark for anyone to see it? I used to be able to see such things by the lights of fake candelabras and lamps with colored lightbulbs, but now the rooms are just barely lit enough for you to see the exit, and many of the hallways have no light at all. I don't like literally stumbling around in the dark. Once or twice might be okay, but after that it really gets annoying.

Maybe it's all my imagination. Maybe the reason I remember the better lighting when I was younger was because we went to some special early show for kids when they turned on more lights. Maybe we went to a preview show, and the people were making more of an effort with their makeup and such, and later in the season they're just too tired to bother with it anymore.

But I don't remember running through the whole thing just trying to get out. I remember stoping to watch people. I remember going through rooms with black lights and laughing at people whose white bras and underwear became visible beneath their dark colored clothes.

Not that I dislike everything new. I like the bridge that goes through the vortex. Okay, it isn't as impressive now as the first couple of times that I saw one, but I still like it. And I like some of the animatronic things, but not all of them. (I especially do not care for the one that has spasms on the toilet. And why are we supposed to be scared of a guy playing with himself anyway?)

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like for the most part we're paying more and more money for less quality entertainment.

Almost definitely going to Kansas

Okay, so I had pretty much decided that I was not going to Kansas until a couple of things happened.

First, I got this email from my husband saying how much he was looking forward to us going to Kansas together. Isn't he sweet.

Second, we found out he'll be going out of town again the week after next. That will make four weeks in a row. That means if I don't go, I'll hardly see him for most of a month. Really, the weekend before last was just wonderful, but I can count the times that I've seen him since or that I'll get to see him before he leaves.
Sunday, we had lunch and a little time afterwards, but not much because I had that silly meeting at work. Monday, we had breakfast together before he went out of town again. Last night when he came in I was already asleep, but we had breakfast this morning before he went out of town again. He'll be back late on Saturday, and we'll hardly see each other on Sunday because of the silly job and previous engagements. If I don't go to Kansas we'll probably have Monday together, but then we won't see each other again until late Sunday. We might have most of the next Monday together, or we might not, depending on the schedule. And then we won't see each other again until late Saturday, and then we won't have much time together on Sunday because of the silly job. We'll probably have Monday together, and after that I have no idea. That's it. I can count on my fingers the time that my husband will be in town for the rest of the month, and most of that time I'll be busy with something else.

So I'm almost definitely going to Kansas.

Only since I've found that out, I haven't seen the store manager to tell her that. I was off Monday, she was off Tuesday, I was off Wednesday, she was off today, and I'll be off tomorrow. I called yesterday, but she was in the middle of something, and I don't think she really understood what I said. I left her a note today, but I'm not even sure that she'll get it. Some other people have had problems like that recently. I guy came in today and worked an hour and a half and then had to leave because he was scheduled to work at the same time that he had to be at his regular job. People have been scheduled to work when they have to be in school, and that sort of thing. We get more and more new people, and it gets complicated, and you don't even remember who is who or what that guy's name is or anything.

It's not all bad at work. Today, one of the assistant manager came and said thank you to me before she went home. And I said, sure, you're welcome, or something like that, and she left. Only now I'm trying to remember what she was thanking me for. I don't usually work with this woman, so for all I know she makes a point of saying that to everyone. But that's usually the sort of thing a manager does after you've done something especially good, or something that's not usually part of the job, or after you've had your break cut short, or after you've had to deal with a really difficult customer. Only I don't remember any difficult customers, and I don't remember doing anything special, and my break wasn't cut short. It was just a normal boring day. I spent most of the day restocking. I have no idea what she was thanking me for. I wonder if she had me confused with someone else.

Anyway, I'm probably going to quit the job on Sunday. If I go to Kansas I'll miss four shifts that they probably can't cover, but if I quit they can hire someone else. And there is this sign up next to the schedule that says were aren't allowed to ask off next weekend or the weekend after that or the three days after that. I have another idea, but I don't think it will work out.

The good news is that I'm finally making some progress with the Halloween costume.

Of course, if I go to Kansas, I'll hardly have any time to finish it.

Why did I take this job anyway?

I'm sitting here trying to decide if I should quit this silly temp job. I like the silly temp job okay, and I like most of the managers, but the pay just isn't worth disrupting my plans like this. If I'm only going to work five or six hours, let them start at nine or ten in the morning so I can get them over with and do something else. Sometimes the job starts at ten, sometimes eleven, but more often twelve and now sometimes one or two. That just seems to waste my whole day, but without working all day, and I'm only getting paid for five hours or so. And of course, the one day that I can't come in until one, they forget and schedule me to start at eleven.

So I'm probably going out of town next week, but I won't know for sure until Saturday. I can't wait till Saturday to say I want off next week. So I thought to be on the safe side I would tell the manager today not to put me on the schedule after Sunday. And that usually works because she usually doesn't do the schedule until Wednesday afternoon.

Only this week she decided to write the schedule last night. And I've been scheduled to work the Tuesday that I'll be heading out of town.

So there's all these other people who want the extra hours, but they have to wait til after school or after their other job or whatever. So none of them will work. Only one person left to ask, and I just missed her, so she probably won't work out either.

So, if I'm going to Kansas I should go ahead and tell the manager that I'm going to quit, and she can find a new person before Tuesday. Maybe she can find a new person by Sunday, since I'll be in two hours late that day because of church. (She already knew that, so I don't know why that is there.)

Anyway, there is little point to having this job as far as the money goes. So why did I take this job? I wasn't even planning to apply this year. I gave it some serious thought a couple of months ago and decided that there just wasn't enough money in it, and if I wanted a job I should go out and get one that paid more or had a better schedule at least.

But, even after I didn't apply for the job, the manager called and asked if I could work, and I said I was going out of town for a week, but if the job was still open after that, sure. And she said that would be fine, and that was that.

I guess it just does something for one's ego to be asked to come back the next year.

And I needed a distraction. I needed a reason to get out of the house sometime, even if the hours weren't great. And I'd already worked for these people before, so I knew it wasn't going to be a big hassle about getting out early that last Saturday for the party. That's why I haven't taken a seasonal job like this for almost fifteen years, since they want everyone to work that Saturday.

Well, when it is time for Halloween, the people that are cool to have work at the Halloween store are off doing Halloween stuff. That's just the way it works. You have to have enough people who don't care about Halloween work at the store to cover for the people who do, because they aren't going to work then.

It's too bad, because I'd just about decided to quit looking for a regular job and just get a couple of seasonal things every year.

I should quit worrying about it and go work on my costume.

Darkness

When I was seven, I decided that Halloween was my favorite holiday. The really weird thing was that I decided this sometime in the spring, when a lot of kids would say that Easter is their favorite holiday. I mean, either you would say that Christmas is your favorite holiday, or you would say that they are all your favorite, and so the next one about to arrive or the one that has just past must be your favorite holiday.

But no, we were in school that day, and we were taking down these colored papers that we had taped to the windows. Most of these papers had fall leaves stuck in between the window and the paper, so that the color faded except where the leaves had been. And I was holding this piece of paper with the colored shape of the leaf, and I wished that it was fall again so that Halloween would come. And that's a strange thought to have in the spring, since most of the rest of the school year you wish for it to be spring so that school would end for summer vacation.

For most other kids at the time, the thing they liked most about Halloween was the candy. I like candy just as much as the next person, but that was never really it for me. I liked putting on a costume and going out with my friends to run around the neighborhood in the dark. I just knew that when I was a grown-up I wouldn't wait til Halloween, and I would walk around the neighborhood in the dark on a regular basis.

I still like dressing up in costumes, and I've found reasons besides Halloween to wear them.

But the walking around in the dark bit...well, my feelings on that one have changed over the years. At one point, darkness became a way to hide the fact that I was kissing someone. Later on, the sun going down was really no big deal.

But at some point it was something I was really afraid of.

Nothing really bad like that has ever happened to me, but it does make me uneasy at times. My brother lives a couple of blocks away, and because of the awful parking situation, it is pointless to drive to his house (unless it is raining or something) so we often walk to his place. We used to walk to his place every Friday night.

Sometimes I walk by myself now.

The gates are all locked, and I'm sure it's perfectly safe, but sometimes it just doesn't feel that way.

Sometimes I am so unnerved by it all that I can't seem to get to sleep alone in my own bed. Silly. But the only place I've really felt safe enough to sleep by myself was my old upstairs apartment. I suppose someone could have murdered me in my sleep there, just as they could here or at the house I lived in before the apartment. It just seemed to me that if someone wanted to murder me in my upstairs apartment, they'd have to want it enough to bring a ladder with them, and that would probably make noise and they would get caught.

I used to really love being outside in the darkness.

I guess that's one of the things that people miss when they talk about the good old days.

Cool stuff in Kansas City this time of year

For three years my husband had a job that involved an annual fall trip to a place in Kansas, not too far from Kansas City. The trip allowed us to do a couple of things in Kansas City that we really enjoy, and because of the time of year, it coincides with the Kansas City Renaissance Faire and Halloween. (One year it also coincided with 9-11, which was an especially interesting thing viewed across the street from a military base, but that's another story.)

The Kansas City Ren Faire is pretty big and we like it a lot. And it is not so uncomfortably warm as it is in Texas (though one year it was so near freezing that people spent most of their time waiting in line for coffee). We watch people juggle, and listen to musicians, and watch the Jolly Roger's fight and sing. We also buy a lot of carnival food and look at artwork and say someday when I have money I'm going to buy that. We usually buy some small piece of jewelry, or something like that. One year we found someone selling fifty different kinds of honey (if you like a mild honey, I recommend fireweed.) If you are not dressed in costume, you are more likely to be pulled out of the audience to volunteer for who knows what embarrassing thing.

We have similar things in Texas (there's another big one near Houston this time of year, but I haven't been to that one yet), but we miss going to the one in Kansas City, and we were hoping that maybe the new job would send him to Kansas or Missouri in the fall so that we could go.

Saturday, the new schedule came in the mail, and it said...KANSAS!

So I got really excited for a moment, and then I checked the dates...and we don't get to go. We'll be going to Kansas a week too late to visit the Ren Faire. My husband will be working in south Texas on the fourteenth, and the last day of the Faire is the fifteenth, so there's just no way that we can make that.

So now I'm debating whether or not I should go on the trip to Kansas. There are places I like to shop and there are places we like to eat, but really it seems like a lot of trouble to go just for that. And I'd miss a week of the silly temp job, so I'd probably just have to quit so that they could hire someone else to fill the schedule that week. And I really shouldn't do that without a better reason than I want to go eat BBQ with my husband.

The other thing I like to do in Kansas City this time of year (that my husband says he is not overly fond of, though he does seem to enjoy it once he is there) is to go to haunted houses. Now, that may sound silly, I could stay home and still go to haunted houses (which I probably will) . But there are at least four haunted houses in Kansas City that are so popular that they open either the first weekend in September or the last weekend of August. No, I'm not kidding, there are haunted houses that open for the season in August. I've been to two of them, The Edge of Hell and The Beast. I've been to The Beast twice, so I'll say that one was my favorite, and I remember it a bit better so I'll talk about that one.

It is a large place, a four or five story warehouse, and it takes almost an hour to go through it. Near the beginning, there is a fog filled forest that is home to many werewolves. And you're supposed to find your own way out, but you usually can't. One of the werewolves is relatively friendly, and you follow him to the exit. You'll know which one he is because of his glowing hand. Later, there's a room with nothing really scary in it. As soon as you leave the room, you're in total black darkness, and you have to feel your way around. And then you hear someone laughing at you as you walk back into the same room. Or is it the same room? And then the same thing happens again, and you seem to be back where you started, but after that you're usually clear of it and the laughing stops. Every once in a while, you go up some stairs, so that you end up on the fourth or fifth flour of the thing. Now, unless you have a medical condition like my husband, or unless you are a big wimp like me, you exit the place by means of a giant spiral slide. (There is a similar slide at The Edge of Hell.) I got on the slide the first time, and once was really enough for me.

The main thing I remember about the one at The Edge of Hell was that at the top of the slide you seemed to be in heaven or outer space or something, but at the bottom of the slide you end up in Hell.

Anyway, it is cool place if you like that sort of thing. So if you happen to be in the Kansas City area this coming weekend, visit the Ren Faire. And if you are in town the rest of the month, see if you can visit The Beast or The Edge of Hell. All three are worth the time and the money.

ARK II out on DVD

Or, at least, it will be next month, according to my friend.

If you weren't a kid at the same time that I was, or if you just don't remember, I'll tell you a bit of what I remember.

It is set sometime in the future after whatever we did to almost destroy the Earth (having an atomic war, inventing a plague, using hairspray, or maybe not recycling soda cans). Four or five people and a chimp travel around in a (solar powered?) RV, looking for other people to have adventures with. They run into some telepaths, Robbie the Robot, and some other people. Then they save the day, and drive off looking for someone else to have an adventure with next week.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that it will be available next month, just in case someone wants to buy me something for Christmas.

Trick-or-Treaters

There don't seem to be as many around anymore. I would have thought that they were all but gone, but I'm told that is just the way it seems to me because of where I live. I don't think that any children live on my block any more. There aren't that many children where I live, and I think that their parents just find something else for them to do. I don't remember any trick-or-treater's here last year or the year before, and I think at my last apartment I had maybe four of them one year. The house before that I never saw any, just because of where the house was, with a convenience store to one side, a vacant lot behind us, a house where an old couple lived on the other side, and another store across the street. If there were any trick-or-treaters in my area, it just wasn't worth the trouble to walk all the way down the street.

I had just thought that everyone had stopped the neighborhood trick-or-treating practice and were all doing that sort of thing at the mall instead.

I'm not sure why it is supposed to be safer at the mall. If you have really small children, then the mall is warmer and better lit, and you don't have to worry about being hit by cars except when walking to and from the parking lot. I see how that part might be safer, but I question the other part. All these people taking their kids away from trick-or-treating in their own neighborhood with people they probably know, and are instead taking their kids to get candy from strangers in a mall.

What is so safe about that?

About twenty years ago, I was one of those strangers in the mall. And what did I have to do to get this position of trust? Nothing but get a job at an arcade a couple of months before. No one checked to see if I had a criminal record, no one checked to see if I had mental problems, and no one checked the candy I was handing out. For all anyone knew I could have put rat poison, LSD, or e. coli into the whole lot of it.

And if the kids had turned up sick, all the parents would have been able to tell the police was that they got it from someone at the mall.

For all I know, someone who doesn't even work there can just show up at the mall and start handing out candy in the hallway.

Not that I think anyone does that. From what I've been able to tell, the whole poisoned candy thing was greatly exaggerated, and no one has really been poisoned that way from a stranger. But if the point of all this is to be safe, is going to the mall the best way to do it?

When I was a kid, back in the dark ages, we went trick-or-treating the old fashioned way, in our own neighborhood, with our parents right behind us. A group of us went together, and our moms told us which houses we were allowed to go to. My mom would say she didn't know the person at such and such house, but my friend's mom would say it was okay because the lady who lived there went to her church, and stuff like that. So we weren't allowed to go to every house, but with the group going like that we did go to quite a few.

This year's Halloween Costume

Well, at this rate, it might become next year's Halloween costume. I've worked on it for hours today, and I just don't seem to be making a lot of progress.

When I first thought of doing this, I thought I'd have trouble with the eyes and the feet, but the rest of it seemed simple enough. But the eyes are done, and the feet seem to be working out, and while I still think I'm going about this the right way, I just didn't picture it taking so long.

Today I watched two hours of TV (episodes of Lost and The Nine that I taped last night), ate breakfast, left for about an hour to run a couple of errands, and ate lunch. Now I should wash some dishes and think about dinner. The rest of the time I was working on the costume.

And I haven't really given much thought to the other costume. I can't drive in this costume, and I can't eat in this costume, and I really can't do much of anything except sweat in this costume, so I'll have to arrive at the party in a different costume. I plan to change into this costume about half an hour before the costume contest. Last year, I was working on this full length purple velvet dress, but then I decided it was too tight, and I ended up with a black dress with wings to match. But with the recent weight loss, the purple dress looks really good now. I just haven't decided if I should make something to go in my hair or if I should wear fairy wings or spiderweb nylons or what. And I haven't picked my shoes. I'll have to give serious thought to the shoes.

Sometimes, because of the weight-loss, I think I'll just skip both of those costumes and get a Leg Avenue or some other tacky thing from the Sluts-R-Us store.

But probably not. Besides, I don't want to spend fifty dollars plus accessories on something that I can't even enter in the contest.

Well, back to work.

There was a lot of nonsense at work this week

First, I have a light schedule at work, which is just fine because I just took this job as a distraction. There is no way that I am going to get rich at this job. This is just an excuse to get out of the house for a while. An excuse to get out of the house that comes with a tiny paycheck, an employee discount, and free haunted house tickets.

Then, yesterday, about twenty minutes before I'm out the door and heading to work, someone calls and says I've been taken off the schedule until Friday because the store didn't have good sales over the weekend.

My first thought is to get mad and wonder why I'm the one who is taken off of the schedule. I'm glad I didn't say anything like that, because my second thought was more like that works out better anyway. My husband just made all this money on Saturday, and I'd just said something like my time would be better spent doing housework and working on the costume this week. I'd just been wishing that I didn't have to work this week, and for the most part I was now told I didn't have to work this week except for Friday. Great. Wonderful. I can relax now.

So did I make good use of my valuable time?

Of course not.

Since I thought I had almost the whole week off, I sat back and watched some TV, and fell asleep. I went to the store to buy some bread and a couple of other things that I just had to have, and when I got back home there was a message on the machine.

Could I please work a few hours the next day?

So that was weird. For a couple of hours I just said, nope, not even going to call them back. They'll find somebody else. I feel more relaxed now than I felt for about a month, and I don't need to ruin it to go work a few more hours.

A little later I decided to quit being a baby about it and call them. They probably already got someone else to do it. I'll just call to make sure.

No, they didn't get someone else. In all the confusion about changing the schedule, they accidentally scheduled someone when they had to be at some school thing. Could I come in?

Sure.

So today I get there, and someone tells me not to clock in because the schedule has been changed. Anyway, whoever put me back on the schedule yesterday forgot to write down that it was officially changed and I just about left before they decided I was actually supposed to be there.

Tomorrow, I am going to work on the Halloween costume. I don't care who has to go to school, or what kind of sales the store had, or who got sick, or any of that other stuff. Tomorrow, I am staying home. Period. The end.

Fruit salad spilled on a Christmas tree

Yesterday was another lovely day of shopping.

Now, I do not consider myself one of those women who just really loves trying on clothes and all of that. And I don't spend hours at the mall anymore. I spend so little of my money there, except maybe around Christmas, so I just don't bother with it anymore. I just wanted to live there when I was a teenager, but I grew out of that. If I'm going after something in particular, and it happens to be at the mall, fine. But I usually don't bother just wandering around the place looking at things, just in case I might want to buy something.

But we went to the mall yesterday, and the funny thing was that it was my husband's suggestion, and he usually has less use for the mall than I do.

It was nice. It was like, we'd already been to lunch and done all the stuff we'd planned to do and bought all the stuff we were supposed to buy, but he just wasn't ready for our day to be over. So instead of going home we went to the mall, bought a couple of smoothies, and walked around the mall for a couple of hours. It was like being on a date.

We went to Victoria's Secret, looked at a couple of bras, shook our heads and left. Victoria's Secret bras are now $42 and $48, so even with a $10 off coupon I think that is still too much. So we went to Hot Topic and looked around. It must be one of Murphy's Laws, that whenever I have money there is nothing cool at Hot Topic or Torrid. (Well, maybe that's not entirely true. With the recent weight-loss I didn't even bother looking at Torrid, so I really can't say if there was anything cool there or not. And the stuff I usually look at in Hot Topic probably had to be moved to make room for the Halloween costumes, so I can't really argue with that.) Anyway, we walked around a bit, bought some vitamins, ended up back at Victoria's Secret, and still decided not to buy the over-priced bra I wanted.

Very near the Victoria's Secret is White Barn Candle and Bath And Body Works. Now if you live under a rock and don't know what Bath And Body Works is, it's this place that sells soap and hand lotion and that sort of thing. Most of the stuff smells really awesome. So you try some orange peel scented lotion, and then spearmint/eucalyptus one, and the a strawberry-banana one, and since it's October there is a pumpkin pie flavor, and Christmas is coming so there is an evergreen scented thing. In a very short time both of your arms are covered with little dots of various scented lotions, and you end up smelling like a fruit salad spilled on a Christmas tree.

I left Bath and Body Works with a small bag of stuff that cost me $27, and two coupons that ensure I'll be back again before the month is up.

And of course, since we stayed out so long, we then had to go to dinner. Nothing special like lunch, but it was still nice to be out together. Then home to watch Prison-break and Heroes.

This morning was nice too, but I won't go into that.

Unpleasantness is put on hold for October

Well, I had told some of my friends that I was starting this blog so that we could bash a certain evil person and make fun of the stuff she wrote on her blog. I wanted to shift all of that stuff to the Internet and not have the subject come up in my real life. Luckily, she stopped having a public view blog, and I don't have to deal with that anymore. If we want to make fun of her on this blog, there's still plenty of material to work with, but I've decided that I won't do that for a while either.

It's October. There is so much more to talk about right now. I love Halloween, and I just can't see wasting the space to talk about someone like that when I'd rather be talking about my silly job and haunted houses and parties and such. In fact, I like talking about that sort of thing so much, I'd have trouble confining those discussions to just October. So I don't think that I'll have much to say about the other for a while.

Still, if anyone just has to say something about it then go ahead and say it here, because I'd rather it be here than at lunch.

Yesterday was such a nice day. I think the rest of the month is going to be pretty good as well.

Now back to work on the Halloween costume.

The bright side

My husband took me to lunch the other day. There were silly signs on the restaurant walls.

One of them said "IF YOU QUESTION YOUR HUSBAND'S JUDGEMENT, REMEMBER THAT HE CHOSE YOU."

I suppose I should concentrate on that, and not on the fact that he chose me a day and a half too late, or that for a couple of months he thought he was going to chose someone else.

But our whole life has to change because of that time, and he just doesn't get it.

Still, it was a good day. Yesterday he made a lot of money. Well, it was a lot of money for us. So there was a lot of hugging and jumping up and down last night.
Anyway, I have a list around here somewhere of stuff that I thought we should buy after the new job started paying off, and today we went and bought a couple of things on the list. An electric cooler and a new printer do not really fix all of our problems, but they will make life easier in the coming months. (And a trivial, silly thing; we found a local store that sells Happy Hempster muscle rub, which we haven't been able to get since a trip up north four years ago, and that will also make life easier.)

A nice lunch at a place we haven't been to in a while, an afternoon of shopping, and then a romantic walk made for a very pleasant day.