there's always money in the banana stand

The title of this post has nothing to do with the content. Sorry.

I got home from work today (a very long, busy day) and had all sorts of surprises waiting for me! My bathroom has a new mirror, light, and toilet paper holder, a ton of trash was out of the garage and waiting by the curb to be picked up tomorrow, we had groceries in the fridge, the laundry was done, and dinner was in the works! It was awesome! It's quite nice having a pseudo house husband. At least he's holding up his end of the bargain to keep getting things done around the house now that we're moved in, because I haven't been doing so well with that. We did a bunch this weekend, but in the evenings after work I haven't been very productive. Partly because we've been busy - we had/are having dinner with Alfred's family on Monday, with Gara yesterday, and with Ilya and Mercedes tomorrow - but also because, let's face it, I'm kind of lazy. And it's hard. And I don't wanna!

So I kind of hurt my wrist a few weeks ago with all this house stuff, so I've been wearing an ace bandage to work for the past few days. I came up with this great story about how I hurt myself while hunting pigs on horseback, nice and period appropriate and all. I was telling one of my employees this story, complete with Southern accent and ending with "we caught 3 pigs, which will feed my family through the winter," and she totally believed me. None of the gullible little kids I told even believed me, but she did. It was kind of awesome. Apparently it's totally believable that I'm that much of a bad ass. I told some little kid the other day that life wasn't fair. I was also asked this morning if the houses behind the museum were real. When I said yes she seemed surprised. She thought they were just models. Ha! Kids are dumb. And funny. I've really turned up the threats with them lately, which is fun. I have to entertain myself somehow. Anyway, dinner's ready, and I'm on my second Kahlua, so I'm out like a deaf kid in musical chairs.

I carried a watermelon

This watermelon happens to have grown in our garden. It's one of two that did; unfortunately the other one split open and started rotting while it was still on the vine. Also unfortunately, we brought this one over to Kevin and Gara's house on Saturday night and forgot to eat it. Very disappointing.

I've been quite the little social butterfly the past few days. Thursday evening I went out to dinner with a bunch of people from work, we hit up the 2 for 1 margaritas. Friday evening was claude's with some other work friends (he makes his own marshmallows now! Chocolate covered coffee flavored ones, mmm), then joined Alfred, Ilya, Mercedes, Kevin, and Gara for dinner at an awesome barbecue place. Saturday was a beach party for most of the day (flanked by visits to the museum to open and close, and pick up a couple bottles of wine for the road), then a power hour at 7 with the gang from the night before, plus Melissa and her new boy toy. Sunday was Turk's birthday, so we had dinner in his honor with Alfred's family after I got home from work. Busy, busy!

Sunday was also both Katherine and Jevon's anniversary, and Katie's baby shower. Many expressions of love and congratulations to all of them :)

it's tough

I'm sorry about the lack of posts lately. It's just been a lot harder to post for the past couple of months for some reason. It's not that we're not doing things, because we have been. It's just that I'm not very motivated lately, I guess. I get home from work and just don't feel like writing and editing pictures and stuff. I have been doing this for almost 2 1/2 years, so I guess I just need a little break. I'm sure I'll keep posting, I just can't promise how often it will be for a little while. I'll try to do it at least once every week or so, and hopefully I'll get back into it at some point, but maybe not. We'll see.

Onward! We had a few open house events last week, 2 for hospitality and tourism employees and 1 for the general public. They were pretty successful, especially the general public one - we had almost 300 people despite rain and the road being closed right next to our entrance because of construction. After a couple of the events a few other employees and I helped finish some of the leftover alcohol. Because we didn't want it to go bad, you know. It was fun. A good way to end a few really long days. Here are some pictures! One of our employees came and took pictures for us, so we've got a whole bunch now, which is good. This first one just cracks me up, the woman is the wife of one of our blacksmiths, she's not even one of our employees but came to hang out one night for some reason. The Indian about to attack is one of our guides. The point of the spear he's holding is from a swordfish bill. I was playing with it the night before, spinning it around, he said something about how I was going to drop it and break it, I said "no I won't!" and spun it around again, and promptly dropped it and broke the end of the tip off. Hurray for super glue!

This one shows me in action, I'm showing them how to make a canoe. The real reason I posted this is because you can see the frame of the barn in the background. It's the last building that needs to be completed in the museum. It's freaking huge. Initially it was supposed to be done spring 2009, then by this past April 1, the new estimated date is the end of September, and reality is probably next March. We'll see.

This is the new blacksmith area, it's sort of in the middle of our fort. That little girl (who is the daughter of one of our former employees and is featured on a bunch of our advertising) is helping to work the bellows to keep the fire going.

This is my boss and some dude in the main entrance of the fort. When you enter the museum (at least for the general public, not the school groups) you go through this area first. At the left of the picture you can see the very beginning of the blacksmith area from the last picture. It's a neat little area. It's more fun to climb up onto the gun deck above this, but there's no ladder kept there because, you know, we don't want kids climbing up there and falling off or something. It's ok if the employees do, though.

Here's another one of our blacksmiths (not blacksmithing at the time, he was decked out in his Spanish finery instead) guarding Carlos, the ear of corn growing in the Spanish yard. Poor Carlos, all alone. The garden in the Indian section has at least 8 or 10 ears developing, but those were at least planted there by kids doing the school programs. Carlos started his life in a corn grinding bowl on the table that used to be in this spot, apparently he was one of the lucky kernels that fell off, got some of the oyster shell dirt kicked over him, and grew like crazy. All these damn corn plants at work look about 1000 times better than the corn in my garden. So unfair.

Ok, one more that amuses me: costumed employees hitting up the Weinie Wagon at the end of our shift! The trailer belongs to one of the owners, it's not at the museum full time but certainly came in handy on these evenings. The guy on the left is yet another blacksmith, he's also a bit of a racist. He told me I was being disloyal to my race the other day because I had music by black artists on my mp3 player. The girl in the trailer had a baby about 7 weeks ago. She looks fantastic. Her middle name and her daughter's middle name are both Jean. And her birthday is the day after mine. Obviously we get along well.
Ok, hopefully this post makes up for the past 2 weeks, at least a little!

check it out!

I think everyone who reads this regularly is my friend on facebook also, so you should go over there and check out the pictures I posted today. The museum is getting some billboards! It's super exciting, definitely more exposure than we've ever had before. Hopefully it works and we're nice and busy this summer. I'd like to have a job for the rest of the summer.

In other news, I passed a pick up truck on the highway doing probably 70 miles an hour, with 4 little kids in the truck bed. Ah, Florida.

par-tay!

Last night was our annual end of the season party for work! Not to brag, but I totally started this tradition 5 years ago. I planned the first 2 annual parties, then my replacement planned it the year I was gone, then last year we didn't have one (it sort of fell through), then this year it was all me again. We set the date about 2 1/2 weeks ago, I ordered all the food within the past 3 days, then got all the decorations and got everything set up yesterday afternoon. I did have help with decorations and set up. It was pretty fun, I do like doing this sort of thing. It was pretty simple too. We had about 70 people RSVP yes, and probably about 50-60 showed up. I'm not sure, I could try to figure it out but haven't bothered. It started out all normal and innocent.

After the first couple of hours, people started leaving, and the people who were sticking around started getting a little tipsy. (We had 3 cases of beer and 20 bottles of wine.) At some point my maintenance guy started singing along with the music using the microphone that was attached to the sound system. It all went downhill from there.

I may or may not have performed "Baby Got Back" for the benefit of a few of my employees. I was smart enough to stay far, far away from the microphone. It was really a lot of fun, I had a blast! It was a great way to end our busy season and go out with a bang.

reaping what we've sown

We've used stuff from our garden in 2 meals this week! It's been pretty awesome. This Sunday I used a bunch of basil, oregano, and parsley in this turkey and vegetable casserole thing I made, and then yesterday we made this pasta, tomato, shrimp, and basil mix. Both meals were quite delicious. It's been fun being able to use stuff already. Not much is ready to pick and use, mainly just herbs and some tomatoes, but it's still cool. I can't wait for more stuff to be ripe enough to eat. Oh, and blueberries! We've picked and eaten like a couple dozen blueberries. It's awesome.

Speaking of the garden, it's growing out of control. Like seriously, the eggplant leaves are bigger than my head. The zucchini have overpowered the strawberries, though the strawberries seem to love it. I guess they like being in the shade, it keeps them cooler. It's pretty exciting that I have yet to kill anything.

In other news, it's starting to slow down a bit at work. Finally. After next week we're done with school groups; then we just have to figure out how to get some more tourists in to keep us busy. Otherwise I'll go crazy with boredom after a couple of weeks. People keep asking me if we're going to take another trip this summer. They say they need something to read.

There's probably more going on, but honestly, I've been working on this post for about an hour and can't come up with anything else. Luckily I have this entire weekend off from work, so hopefully we'll go have some adventures and I'll have something to write about.

our ghost

So I think we have a ghost at the new museum. It's not a mean ghost or anything, just sort of a playful one. For months now, when supplies get moved somewhere they're not supposed to be, or something disappears, we jokingly blame our ghost. In one of our programs, we have about 8 ball and cup games (the kind where you try to catch the ball in the cup, hence the name). From time to time, the strings of those games get so tangled and knotted together that it takes a good 10 to 15 minutes to untie them. I always blame that on the ghost. To be fair, one of the construction guys is convinced that kids from the neighborhood hop the fence during the night and screw around in the museum, moving things and stealing things and stuff, so it could be someone like that doing it to be annoying. Once, a few weeks ago, the owner went in on the weekend and saw someone running out of the front gate as he came in the side gate, so apparently someone's been in there at least once. It could reasonably have happened more often that we don't know about. And that person could be a huge jerk and spend a ridiculous amount of time tangling up ball and cup games. It might not be a ghost.

However, one of our newer store employee claims that several times in the past few weeks she's been tidying up the store, putting things back in order, and will turn her back for a minute, then turn back around and something will be moved by several inches. Generally the store merchandise is arranged in straight lines, so it's fairly easy to tell if something's been moved. She said it's happened more than once. She blames the ghost.

All of this build up brings us to my story from yesterday. I got to work early, and was in the office alone. The office is a one end of the store, so I can see all of the entrances and the entire store from my desk. We have a display of loose marbles for sale right in the middle of the store, and one of the most distinctive (and obnoxious) sounds throughout the day is when kids run their hands through the marbles and swirl them around. It's kind of a rattling, clanking noise. Well, yesterday morning, I was at my desk working, and heard what sounded like someone moving the marbles around. I assumed it was my boss, though I hadn't heard the door open, so I looked up to say hi. The lights in the middle of the store were still off, and I couldn't see anyone. So I got up and went to the office door. No one was in the store. Immediately I thought of our ghost, and the show "Ghost Hunters," and did what they would have done: gone investigating! I walked to the other end of the store, where my boss's office is. He wasn't in there and his truck wasn't in the parking lot (which I could see from his office). I checked all the doors: still locked, and I was still the only one inside. I went outside and found the construction guys. They had been in the area kind of behind my office, in the opposite direction of the store. I asked if they had been using a chain or any equipment that might have made a rattling noise. They told me I was crazy, that they hadn't been using any tools or anything yet that morning. So, after eliminating all of the possible explanations I could think of, the only one that remains is our ghost. Which is actually really exciting! I maybe heard a ghost!

time flies

I didn't realize just how long it had been since I posted last. This week was the official start of our busy season at work. I worked 58.75 hours, if you pretend that I took half an hour for lunch every day, which I certainly did not. I spent one night at one of my employee's houses, just to save the almost 2 hours of driving. Wednesday we actually set a record in the store, which is pretty neat. But, in case you couldn't tell, it also means I have a lot less time for posting. So, sorry about that.

This weekend we've done a whole lot of not much. Well, Alfred did a bunch of stuff for work yesterday, but I did not. I did a load of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and we hung up some pictures. Other than that, I've been sitting on the couch, watching TV. And I slept in both mornings. It's been fantastic.

Last of all, this past Thursday was a really big day: it was Katie's 21st birthday! Happy birthday, Katie!

Remember the award I won last month for customer service for a NE FL tourist attraction? About a week ago my boss printed out a picture from the event, wrote a little note on it about the award, and posted it in the break room at the museum. Yesterday I noticed it was gone. So either one of my bosses decided I had had enough glory, or someone else there got jealous. I have my suspicions. I should have checked the trash or something, but by the time I noticed it was gone I think it had been gone for at least a day already. By the way, here's the picture. Not the most flattering, but you can see my award. There was one more of me on the official website, and it's hideous. It's of me walking to the stage. I have an extremely unattractive profile.

Last night Alfred had some super important big shot meeting that went until pretty late, so I was home alone for awhile. Not all that long, actually, because I had a funeral to go to after work (the husband of one of my coworkers passed away, cancer, very sad), then I had to go run errands for work, so by the time I got home it was almost 9:00. However, I was finally successful in my search for a bathroom rug yesterday, so I decided to surprise Alfred and finish unpacking and setting up the bathroom. It looks really nice in there now. No more boxes! Alfred still needs to put up the towel rack and toilet paper holder this weekend, but then it's totally done. Finally. This weekend I have big plans to work on the kitchen and find the iron. I have the ironing board, but no iron yet. It's becoming a problem, because I need wash my work clothes and they then need to be ironed. I'm running out of clothes. I want to go buy a window shade for the front door, too. But really, as long as I find that damn iron, I'll be happy.

Fred Flintstone day

That's how one of my employees described it, and that fits so many of my days perfectly. I was busy all day, but feel like I accomplished so little. Like I was running in place all day. Suddenly it's March, and our busy season is upon me. One of my employees is out of town for a family emergency, one is scheduled for surgery later this month and will be out for 5 weeks, and another went into the hospital suddenly this weekend. And so, once again, I am short staffed as we go into our busiest 10 weeks of the year. This happened last year, too: half of my guides had sudden illnesses, or deaths in the family, or other emergencies that kept them out of work. And then i'm stuck redoing and redoing the schedule and doing tours myself and basically doing 3 or 4 jobs at a time. And then my boss will come in and suddenly take away some of the things I'm doing and delegate them on my behalf. I compared it the other day to a juggling act. I'm juggling 3 or 4 balls, doing fine, then some throws in another 3 balls for me to juggle. Then just as I get the gang of it and am getting comfortable with my new act, someone comes in and takes away 2 of the balls and messes me all up again. It gets a little frustrating.

Well, now that I got all that bitching out of my system, let me end with an amusing little story from today. We sell these little wooden pop guns in our store. They are both incredibly obnoxious and incredibly popular. This afternoon we had a group shop and as usual, many kids bought pop guns, opened them, and popped them like crazy both inside and outside the store. Well, apparently someone aimed one at a passing car with a paranoid driver, and the driver called the police. So a cop came to check out what kind of guns we sell and to give us a friendly warning about kids "shooting" at innocent cars. Those corks can be pretty dangerous, after all. Especially when they're attached to the gun with a string.

unexpected hiatus

And suddenly, it's been a week since my last post. Not the best week of my life, though I suppose it could have been worse. Monday I had to work late, and then of course there was an issue with the register so I didn't get home until 10:00. Alfred made me a grilled cheese sandwich and chocolate milk for dinner though, so that was nice. He made me his famous homemade Caesar salad dressing for dinner on Tuesday, which was also very nice, and extremely delicious. We made the croutons with different bread though, and they weren't quite as good as usual. Ah well, live and learn.

Thursday we had some really nasty weather while I was at work. More specifically, we had severe thunderstorms and tornado warning sirens while we had 150+ kids in various parts of the museum. It was a little stressful. We got everyone into the most secure building (about 75 in one section and maybe 90 in another) and locked all the doors and all just hung out for about half an hour until the worst of it passed. Apparently one of the tour guides that was there with one of the groups saw a cloud drop down and start to spin about a block north of us. Luckily it lifted back up before it turned into a tornado. It's times like those that being in charge is kind of scary.

Friday was sunny and gorgeous, until about 1:45. At that point the temperature dropped about 15-20 degrees and thick fog rolled in. Not dangerous, just cold and kind of crappy. Just as I was about to go eat my lunch outside and enjoy the sunshine, too.

Oh, and we did get some good news this week: a signed lease and deposit from the people renting our house! So it's official, we'll be moving by March 1. I'll write about and try to post some pictures of the new house soon.

A note about the picture: it's from White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. We were watching the movie Year One this week; there's a scene where they're in the desert, and at the end of the scene the camera pulls back and you can see mountains in the background. I said it looked just like White Sands. So we watched the credits at the end, and what do you know, filmed partially in New Mexico. It was kind of exciting.

week in review

Let's recap!

Monday: still in Boston and returning home, please see previous post

Tuesday: alas, back to work. I was a little surprised to find that we had a school group that morning, but luckily I had a costume in my car from Friday so I just got changed there. Better than the other girl, who was late and forgot a costume. That night we had a couch surfer arrive to spend a couple of nights with us. He's been traveling for 4 years so far. Yeah, 4 years. And we thought we had a long trip. We were up until after midnight looking at pictures. I sort of dozed off a bit during the slide show, although I really tried hard to stay awake..

Wednesday: Work again, although I got to meet our couch surfer for lunch, so that mixed things up a little. We managed to go to bed a little earlier this night.

Thursday: Gara's birthday! After work we joined her and Kevin at Peterbrooke for a chocolate dipping birthday party! They showed us how they temper and prepare the chocolate for dipping, then showed us how they make their chocolate covered popcorn and other goodies, then let us loose to try it out ourselves. Then we each got a big gift bag full of our finished products to take home! It was awesome! And delicious! After chocolate making we went to the local brewery that Alfred and Kevin go to (almost) every Friday for some pork sandwiches and beers. Good stuff.

Friday: My birthday! Somehow no one at work knew it was my birthday for the first hour or so which is odd because I know I mentioned it at least 2 or 3 times in the last week. Weird. Anyway, one of the girls at our downtown office made me an ice cream cake, and the day went by quickly because we were busy. After work Alfred and I went out to dinner at an Italian place that I've been wanting to try for awhile, then headed over to his parents' house for cake (made with Kahlua!) and presents. Overall, an excellent birthday. I think 29's going to be a good year. Stay tuned tomorrow (or maybe Tuesday) for our weekend update!

open letter

Dear men,

How are you? I am well. Now that we've exchanged pleasantries, do you mind if I get a little personal? Lovely, thank you.

Now, I'm a girl, so I pee sitting down. But I hear that most of you tend to void your bladders while in the standing position. I also hear that you have a nifty little appendage that you can aim towards the toilet, which presumably makes it easier to hit your target. So why, pray tell, do I find myself cleaning up puddles of urine on the men's bathroom floor at work on a regular basis? Maybe it's just the younger members of your species. Today, for example, I went into the men's restroom after several classes had eaten lunch. There was a large puddle on the floor, directly between the urinal and a toilet. It was such a large puddle that I actually used paper towels to push the fluid into the urinal instead of just soaking it up (I was wearing rubber gloves). In other words, it was disgusting. Unfortunately, today was not an isolated incident. The men's room regularly reeks of urine from the young men visiting our fine establishment. And I can always tell when some of them have been in the unisex, wheelchair-accessible stall. Puddles, puddles everywhere, cause they've had too much to drink. I'll save the non-urine messes for another day. And to be fair, those aren't always the boys.

So, gentlemen. If it's really that far of a distance from you to the toilet, or your aim is really that poor, perhaps you should consider taking a seat. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Parents, please feel free to teach your young charges the fun in aiming for the center of the toilet bowl. Yeah, the rim can be fun, and the floor's always a blast, but hey, why not the water? Peeing in the toilet: it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Thank you for your time.

we're hip. we're with it.

Yes, I totally used that title today simply so I could photoshop a picture like this. I'm awesome. Anyway, the "we" I'm refering to in the title is really the museum in general. We've apparently become the cool hangout for a bunch of the kids who live in the neighborhood. Somehow they never saw us before we moved across the street. Now they come hang out a lot. There's a couple in particular that come and talk to us a bunch, but there's a whole little gang that apparently comes around once in awhile at night too. They're probably in middle school if I had to guess. A bunch of them came in today just before I closed and wandered around for awhile. One of them tried to get me to let her volunteer for 15 minutes so she could go inside by herself. Yeah, it totally worked. Another one harasses me for free candy. It makes me feel kind of bad for being so annoying like that when I was that age. In other words, I do not enjoy the museum being a hangout.

Speaking of the museum, we had a little boy there today whose name was Cullen. For those of you who have been living in a cave, or are over the age of 17, that's the last name of the vampire family in the Twilight books. The kid was about 5, so it's possible his parents (mom) liked the books, but probably more likely that they now hate the books for making their kid's name so popular among teeny bopper vampire loving weirdos. And speaking of vampires, I'm totally into this new show in the CW, The Vampire Diaries. I read the books when I was in high school or so and really liked them, so when I saw they were making them into a show (since vampires are sort of hip right now, in case you haven't noticed) I recorded the first one to see how it was. It started out kind of cheesy but has actually gotten really good. I'm hooked. I have one still on the DVR and can't wait to watch it when I exercise tomorrow. Part of the appeal, I must admit, is the super hot vampires. Like Ian Somerhalder (on the right in this picture). The other one's not bad either (neither is the lead actress, actually). Maybe women wouldn't be so into vampires if they didn't cast such freaking hot guys in those roles. (disclaimer: I do not find the twilight guy attractive. I'm not that much of a loser.)

halloween goodness

Alfred got my camera back (I left it at Ilya and Mercedes' house by mistake the other day) and came home tonight, so I have both pictures and internet! In other words, I get to post! So here are my pictures of our Halloween Festival this past weekend. Here's our fancy sign and Jack the Scarecrow driving the tractor.

I actually did get to drive that tractor a couple of weeks ago. It had been sitting in the museum, and when they started working on construction in that area they decided to move it out front. So one of the guys tied it to his truck bumper and had me steer while he towed it. It was bumpy. But pretty fun. I got a lot of looks. Anyway! Here's a picture of some pirates and a princess. Their dad was a pirate as well.

Some cute little kids with the curliest hair I've ever seen, plus one of our guides all dressed up to scare people.

One of the Dorothys. Her dog was not named Toto, though. Her name was Poochie. The angel was cute too, though Mario was definitely one of my favorites. He was a little camera shy. He did not have a Luigi. Now that would be cute for two little boys.

This car was probably my favorite costume. He kept saying "honk honk" as he walked around. It was so creative and cute and he was having so much fun with it, and all it really was was a cardboard box. Awesome.

And the best family costumes: our other Dorothy, along with a Scarecrow and slightly homicidal looking Tin Man. That mask is seriously creepy looking. Apparently it was hot, too.

We actually turned a profit on the event, so I'd say it was a success. We sold some drinks and some of the craft people sold some stuff too, but we ended up giving away the popcorn and cookies because no one was buying any. Disappointing, considering how much time I spent on my dman cookies, but at least we know for next year. The end!

long time, no blog

I know that people aren't checking this as often, most likely because I'm not writing as much. Sorry, it's just tough to find the time right now. Mainly because we still have the internet card that we used on our trip, which Alfred takes to work every day, so I don't have internet access when I get home from work, which is when I generally used to at least start writing my posts. It just seems harder to write now, too. Ah well. Excuses, excuses. Anyway! On with the news of the week!

Celebrations: it was a big week for events. Katie and Ingo kicked it off last Saturday with their wedding, then Katie continued the fun with her birthday on Tuesday. Tony and Cathy were also celebrating their anniversary on Tuesday. Wednesday was both Egee and Max's birthday, which we were able to celebrate with him. Then yesterday we went to Mercedes' birthday party; her birthday is this coming Tuesday. Lots going on.

Work: we're having a Halloween festival, so the other girl I work with has been stressing herself out over that for the past couple of weeks. She's the type to plan things out way in advance and then worry about it for as long as possible. Pretty much the opposite of me in that way. But there's a scarecrow riding a bone motorcycle on display out front now, so that's neat. We have rats living in our ceiling, we put out some poison, and I found a dead rat in our break room on Friday. There's lots of construction going on, so we have lots of shirtless men roaming around, none of whom are worth looking at shirtless. It's a shame.

Weather: suddenly, it's fall. Today's high is only in the 60s, although it's supposed to be back in the 80s later this week. It's a nice change. It makes me want to bake some brownies or something.

I don't think our break in guy was ever arrested. There was an article about the guys who beat him up being arrested, so I have his name, but google doesn't tell me anything about him being arrested.

return of the weekend cooking fest

This was supposed to be our first weekend home together since about June. So of course my boss called me at about 3:00 on Friday afternoon and asked if I would come in Saturday morning to meet a bigwig who was coming to see the museum with his wife and kids. So of course I had to go in. I was only there for a few hours, which wasn't too bad, and my job ended up being to entertain their twin 3 year old boys. They weren't too sure of me at first, but after showing them an alligator and letting them play a drum, we were old friends. I went in at one point to get everyone bottles of water and the boys followed me, even though my boss tried to lure them away. I didn't get invited to lunch with them, but I got a three year old high five at least. Not bad.

We made sure to get up early enough to go to the farmers market and stock up for the week. After I got home from work, we came up with meals for the week, made a shopping list, then started moving furniture. Obviously. I think it was sometime around then that Alfred got a text from Billy's wife asking if we would house sit all this coming week. It's been awhile since we house sat for them, but it's pretty standard for them to ask us about 24 hours in advance of when they need us. So I guess this was more notice than usual, actually! However, it meant that our week's worth of meals was going to have to be prepared this weekend. So that's what we did today.

We started this morning off by shopping, then got to work cooking. We had a whole mess of vegetables and defrosted meat to use and needed to be as efficient as possible in our recipes. So we ended up making an arm roast in the slow cooker, an oxtail stew and roasted red pepper soup on the stove, and cucumber salad. We just ate the soup for dinner (pretty good), wrapped up the cucumber salad, and are still cooking the other two. Hm, it felt like a lot more work when we were actually doing it. Unfortunately we sort of forgot about taking pictures, so this one is from our first dinner of our trip, in Mobile. Also, we discovered at some point of the day that we somehow get Bravo, so I recorded a couple episodes of Top Chef, which we're watching now. What a foodie weekend!

this is screwed up

I expect to be busy at work all during the spring, but during the summer I'm supposed to be able to take it easy, leave early now and then, come in late, take long lunch breaks. But this week has been sucking ass! I'm already at 39 1/2 hours for the week, and I still have a 10 or so hour day tomorrow. We're gearing up to start new programs for the public next week, so between extra stuff to do and extra training we've been running, I've been working a lot. Sucks. So, that's my excuse for the lack of posts. I missed Mike and Ellery's birthday, which was yesterday, so happy birthday to them. And hopefully I'll be able to post for real this weekend.

Another weekend at work, another weirdo

I just say here and watched a woman change her kid's diaper on the seat of the trolley they park out front to attract customers. Um, we do have bathrooms. Just sayin. I'd love to be nosy about this family, they have 2 one-year-old girls, one looks white, the other black. I mean, they could be cousins or something, but I'm curious. But alas, I will not ask. Oh, the grandmother just came in to use the restroom. Hope that trolley seat wasn't too hot for the little girl. It's supposed to be in the 100s today. It was 90 when I got to work at 10:00. Nuts!

So Tony and Cathy and the kids left yesterday. Ella, Mason and I made cupcakes on Thursday night. They helped me measure and pour and everything, then picked colors to dye the cupcakes and helped me decorate them. With sprinkles. Which, in hindsight, was not the best idea. Well, the idea was fine, it was the execution that was the problem. Sprinkles everywhere. Mason went through almost an entire container on 1 cupcake. I got a couple of pictures, I'll have to post them later.

This weekend kicks off our month (or so) of house sitting for Ilya and Mercedes. They're in Spain for a few weeks, so we get to hang out with the kitties. It's a good distraction so we don't have to notice how quiet the house is without guests. Ok, time for my leftover mac and cheese lunch and some more "work."

Oy

Alfred asked me last night why I hadn't blogged in so long. I told him I blogged from my phone on Sunday. He said he hadn't even checked it in a few days and didn't realize I had posted. In other words, I've been too busy to post at night, and he's been too busy to check it at all. And since I'll likely be busy tonight too, I guess I'll just blog by phone again. I prefer to do it on the laptop because then I can add my tags, and I never remember to go back and do them when I blog from my phone. This is all fascinating, no?

So, we've been busy in the evenings cleaning and getting ready for the familial invasion that begins tomorrow (yay!) Since we weren't home this weekend, I've had to fit all the laundry and cleaning into my few hours between work and bed, along with the usual dinner work. We've had a bunch of other work on the computer to take care of too. And a tiny but of TV (wipe out is back for the summer! And so you think you can dance, of course, which I'm super pumped about. I've been reading spoilers online this morning.) Tonight I also get to make a cake for a co-worker's birthday, her birthday is actually Friday but they're celebrating it a day early so I can come. And make the cake.

Work's been good. I'm trying to balance the actual work with goofing off, so far so good. I catnapped mama kitty yesterday morning and brought her to the new museum, but she bolted as I was opening her cage a bit to give her some water. Damn cat. We're also in the midst of starting up some new tours for the summer so we can make some money for a change. Of course it's happening when I'm planning to take a few days off. Oh well, they don't need me.

This has been a nice way to spend some time. It gets boring all by myself. I like to time how long I go without speaking to another human being. My record was about 2 hours on Sunday. It was broken by a tourist calling me. Damn tourists.