Today at work ....

[Sister Sonya]

Its a 1900 era house = uninsulated!

Ask to see copies of heating bills.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Probably, but they said it has had some upgrades, so I would hope that insulation would have been one of the first ones. Its going to be a bit before I even can think about it anyway, as I will have to check with a bank or credit union and whatever else I can dig up to see what I can get the credit to get. More than likely it will be out of my price range anyway. But it is a cute little thing.

[Black Jack Rackham]

again going back to Zillow.com, it's telling me your landlord is asking 560k but Zillow only rates it at 496k. In the desc, it mentions a bunch of stuff that's been done to it but nothing about insulation or power costs.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

There are a lot of things needed to be done to it too, so he isn't going to get that amount for it, he will be lucky to get anywhere near what they say its worth.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Today at work I received the most affectionate kiss I have ever received from a guy in over 20 years. Actually, it was the first kiss I ever had from a guy in 20 years.
He broadsided me as I stepped out of the elevator, grabbed me and planted the kiss before I even knew what was happening.

But...

As per my usual luck, he was at least 25 years younger than me, married with kids and planted the kiss on the top of my head; which I was glad for, considering that he is married with kids and I have no interest in him.

He is a good friend that used to work in our produce department, and had gotten fired, but re-hired at another store, and is now back working in our housekeeping department.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

One of the things I was told yesterday at work was that some of our stuff for Mother's day was going to be delayed til Saturday, mostly roses, due to bad weather where they are going to be shipping them from . Well, we can't do anything about it, so I shrugged and said that it should be ok, because we had other stuff coming.

So today, we get an update, turns out all the other stuff we are expecting, is also delayed til Saturday. Which means, that we are going to have to prep and have everything ready for Mother's Day, the day before, instead of our regular way of building up and spreading out the work for the week.

So Mark, if I don't show up on Sunday, by 3pm (since I am supposed to get out of work at 2pm), I'm probably sound asleep in my car in the church parking lot, where we are allowed to park, from exhaustion (if I just don't fall flat on my face in the ally on the way to the car).

I really can't believe how badly this Mother's Day preparation is this year. It's been total chaos. Half of the stuff we have ordered, has been substituted, or canceled because of bad weather effecting the stuff, and the other half can't get here because of the bad weather.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

I really wonder sometimes how the company I work for has survived the way it has.

Lately they can't seem to get their information right on when we are getting product. So they told us we wouldn't be getting our product for Mother's day, until today, but we got a gigantic mess yesterday, that I ended up staying late to finish, so my boss told me that I didn't have to come in early today (as she had re-scheduled me when we had heard the above news). So I plan on going in around 10am, figuring that depending on what we got in, I will hopefully have time to start preping, before the stuff I prepped yesterday runs out.

Meanwhile it means that I hopefully will not be as exhausted as I thought I might be, but it has been a long week already and my ankle is really giving me some problems. I really can't wait for the Mother's Day rush to be over, but the problem with that is that we still have all the prom stuff happening, and sometimes that is worse.

[Black Jack Rackham]

I'm working on something to let you kill a bunch of stuff for gaming tomorrow. So maybe that'll help some.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Well, the Saturday night before Mother's Day is over, thankfully, and the way things sold today, I may get to leave work early tomorrow, because we may be out of flowers. (Unless they pull some from another store, which they probably will, as they did it last year.)

Either way, I'll get there when I can.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Ok, today I am at home, not at work, as it is my day off, and I was so looking forward to it. Figured I would have the day to work on my sewing, but the other day, my landlord asked me what day I had off, because he wanted to get someone to fix my bathroom for me, so here I am cleaning house instead of sewing, and have people in my bathroom tearing down the walls to put up the proper kind that are waterproof, as the walls that my land lord had put up were not quite that, and they were pealing, and water was getting behind them, causing more house damage.

Of course the only reason its getting fixed, is not that I complained about it, but the fact he wants to sell the house so it has to be fixed. Otherwise it would still be there, along with the refrigerator that I have wanted tossed out and a new one put in. Nope, the refrigerator isn't getting upgraded, unfortunately.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Ok, after 5 recitals, 2 proms and 1 graduation today, I am finally home. It was a very busy day.
But that wasn't the highlight of my day, it was on the drive to work that it happened. I had late shift, so I decided to take what I call the "back" way to work, so I could stop by my gas station to fill up my tank. As I arrived there, I saw a truck in my usual spot that I fill up at, so I made a swerve to go around him to come around to the other side. Just as I made the beginning of the swerve, I suddenly saw something out of the corner of my eye, down near the pavement, and then it swooped up and flew in front of my car. A red tailed hawk had just grabbed a rabbit off the edge of the parkinglot, in a small patch of grass, and flew in front of me for a few seconds, carrying it until it lifted up enough from the ground, to skim over a wooden fence at the back of the gas station, and disapeared. That was so amazing! Not that the hawk caught the rabbit, but that I was able to catch him/her at it, which other that seeing it on TV, is probably not seen very often in suburbia.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Today at work, one of the other girls had messed up her scheduled, and ended up coming in early. So she decides to call her boyfriend to pick her up and trick him to take her out for a late breakfast. She complained that he always said that it was too expensive to go out to eat, so she told him when she called, that she had gotten fired and wanted him to come and pick her up.

So he leaves to come get her, and gets stopped by cops before he makes it to the store. Turns out he owes a few parking tickets, so they towed his car and took him in. He calls back, while she is waiting on him outside, and I speak to him. He ask for her and I told him that she was out waiting for him to show up. He said to have her call him, and tell her that he had been stopped by the cops (which surprised me, and I thought he was trying to 1 up her, as they are always doing that). So she shows up a few moments later, and I told her what happened.

She tried to call him back but wasn't able to reach him. So she went back outside and just happened to catch the tow truck towing his car to the pound. So she ends up walking to the police station to talk to him. He was waiting to see what the judge was going to do, and then hopefully head home, if he didn't have to sit in the jail cell over night, if the judge couldn't see him today.

So she feels really bad now, because if she hadn't called him to pick her up, he wouldn't have gotten arrested, but I told her it was just a matter of timing, if he hadn't paid off the tickets, and he would have gotten caught eventually. But the worse of the fact is, is that he is supposed to be graduating from college tomorrow, and she doesn't know now if he is going to make it to it or not, now.

I'll not find out how things went til at least Monday, as she has taken the next couple of days off, and I'm off on Sunday.

[salamanca]

4 years of education and the only lesson that will stick is "pay your parking tickets". Now, the lesson that should be learned is "stop parking where you shouldn't". And the tragedy of this tale is "somewhere in New England, a perfectly good breakfast went unordered".

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Things turned out ok for our young couple I mentioned in my above post. He got to go to his graduation, but he doesn't have his licence, so he's riding a bike to work at the moment.

Meanwhile, things otherwise have been pure non-stop it seems, regarding proms, recitals and graduations. This past May was one of the worst I can ever remember in my 20 years at Whole Foods. The stress it has all of us in the flower department is over the top. My boss and I just looked at each other the other day, each of us sighed real big, and we both knew what the sighs were about, lol. We had a pile of boxes down stairs that had to be prepped and put into our walk-in, but it was so full, there was no space. It's been like feast or famine one week right after another. Seems like when we really need the product, we have famine, but when we don't we have feast. Thankfully she was able to pass some stuff on to another store. But we still have graduations and proms happening for the next couple of weeks. I only have this week to get through before I'm on vacation, and I really can't wait. Not only that I'll be going to Origins and seeing everyone, but also that I can finally get away from all the Prom/Graduation/Recital madness!

[salamanca]

Get away...there is no getting away!. Time to go rewrite the larp to a prom/recital/wedding theme. Time to watch the players fight for a date, cry when their date shows interest in someone else and leaves with them, awkward dancing is done as Peter Galvin and Orianna perfrom awkward musical selextions and we wind things up by marrying off Tomas to...someone!. Flowers provoded by Laura.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

LOL, thanks for the laugh Dave. Though after I thought about it, I have already been there done that as far as wedding's in 7th Sea is concerned. Just ask Mark.

[salamanca]

But I was angling to marry Tomas off to Helena or Bravada or Annie or Sister Sonya or...so many choices. Father Juan could do the ceremony. WE could have duels to determine the Best of the Best man...

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Oh, I didn't think you were thinking of my character to marry "him" off too; Mark has other plans for it. I ment that I already had done "The Wedding Planner" part of it, lol.

[Lady Grace]

Anyone who thinks Annie is gonna willingly marry anyone at this stage of the game is gonna get an axe to the head.

[Sister Sonya]

This past May was one of the worst I can ever remember in my 20 years at Whole Foods.

Laura, I didn't know your shop was a part of Whole Foods.

The company has been doing poorly in the financial news lately. The new Whole Foods in my village has lots of unfortunate selections.

There was no rye bread the last time I went there (I haven't been back since).

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Yep, it will be 20 years I've been with the company this November. It has it's ups and downs in the financial world, like any big company.

Your's having no Rye bread that day, was something just particular to that store's own problem. Either they didn't make enough of it (if yours has the ability to make it at the store like mine does), or someone didn't order enough, or it was extremely popular that day and they sold out. I would check it again, if you liked the bread. There are always bumps in the road. I remember about a couple of years ago, we ran out of bananas (now I bet your singing that song, aren't you, Mark lol).

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Well, today at work we surprised our boss with a birthday party. Her birthday is actually the 11th, but since I will be away then, I talked to the girls and decided to do it today, as Laura M, our boss would be coming in late to do inventory.
So we had everything downstairs in the breakroom kitchen set up before she arrived, and when she showed up, I told her that we had to go down to a quick "I Wonder" class that was just starting. I head down with her, keeping her distracted telling her the news of the day, and then we walk into the breakroom and everyone yelled "Surprise!" and she totally was. We got her a chocolate mousse cake, and had pizza. She got 2 scarves (she loves scarves, has quite the collection), a unique hanging pot holder, (holds 2 flower pots), and I made her a scarf pin to wear with her scarves. So she had a great start to her inventory day, and we got to eat chocolate mousse cake!

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Even though it was my day off, my boss had asked me to come in for a few hours this morning because she had some paperwork she had to finish from doing inventory, and that gets done downstairs, so she needed someone to be upstairs in the department with the customers. Got a ton of stuff in too, for a Friday, 3 pallet loads full, each as tall or taller than me. But thankfully a couple of the other girls were due in fairly soon, so I knew I would have plenty of help to get it done.

Anyway, it was on the way home from work that this story is mostly about anyway.
Now I know men think that women are vain (or at least some do, and some are), but the guy driving in front of me today had to take the cake (or rather the donut). He was in a BMW, was wearing a pinkish lavender colored shirt, and was constantly fixing his hair while looking into the rearview mirror or his side view mirror. There were times he was weaving back and forth in his seat trying to look at himself in both mirrors at once, reminded me of a snake, the way he was weaving.
But what was really the most horrible thing was that he was so intent on watching himself in the mirrors, that as he made a righthand turn, to merge into another road, there was a stopped school bus, with its red lights flashing, and he just kept right on driving past it, instead of stopping, since he was fixing his hair again in the mirror. The bus driver honked at him, but thankfully no children had been trying to cross the road at that time. I stopped and waited til the bus continued on its way, all the while watching the stupid driver go down about another block before pulling into the Dunkin Donuts driveway. Must have been going to get his free donut today (since it is free donut day), and sure had to look good to do it.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Well, I haven't even gone into work yet today, but already there is a hurdle to overcome. About a week ago, the store posted that particular streets in Newton will be closed because they are having a Heartbreak Hill road race today and tomorrow. So for the last week I've been fretting wondering how I was going to get into work, as I hate taking the highway, (I'm a backroads kinda girl), and the map that they had posted really didn't tell me much except that every way I usually go to work would be blocked off. Saturday's schedual on the T is very sparse and if I took the train, I have to leave early and stay late (not going to happen!).
In the back of my mind I knew there had to be a way around it, but for some reason (maybe all the aggravating prom/recital stuff), I couldn't get my mind to work on how I was going to get around it.

Thankfully on the way home last night, the brain finally kicked in, and reminded me of the back way I knew, by taking Rte 20 to Waltham and then down to Washington Street, so no more worries on that. Best of all, today is my last day, then I'M ON VACATION!!!!!

Edit: Well, it looks like I can't get away from graduations, even at home, lol. Walnut Hill School for Music and Art that is up the hill from me, just had their Drum and Pipe graduations walk down the hill, like they do every year. Looks like they had a good sized class this year. I will have to say that I do like the Drum and Pipe (bag pipe) walk, it's always neet to hear.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

I am now officially on VACATION!!!!!