Friday, May 10, 2013

When I Should Have Time Off

We got done this morning before break.  I have become increasingly obsessed with the two people in my group who are faster than me by miles.  I was going to accuse them (well, not confront them at work, just, you know, accuse them in my head) of working so fast they alone got us to end work in the morning, much earlier than either of my two previous years on this project.  But if you take into account the overtime we had  never had during the workweek before and tack on those extra hours at the end of our day today, we would be done shortly before the end of day this afternoon.  So maybe it's a wash.

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I bought chocolates for the room; going to bring it to work next week.  But the Ballotin (what's a ballotin?  Something French, therefore something fancy) from Godiva is $90.  I should have checked what the total price was for the L.A. Burdick chocolates I bought the room the last two years (including shipping).  And then I should add that to the total amount of bread, peanut butter and jelly I bought to make PB&J sandwiches for the room the last two years, then compare that to the total of the Godiva Ballotin and the donuts I got for work (big hit, by the way, and oh! I should pimp them -- A Baker's Wife, legendary shop that is so mom-and-pop they still don't have a website, but who cares, their donuts are so good!).

I am so glad for the money I'm making right now.  But the price of the Godiva, even though I knew how much it would be by researching beforehand, still gave me sticker-shock.  With the combination of my parents being away and me having been "furloughed" till Tuesday (this is unlike the "furlough" at the flu billing agency, which I thought was temporary but turned permanent), I have a lot of free time on my hands.  I am going to take the opportunity to buy and do things, from fertilize the lawn to go to stripclubs.  And although I am way far beyond the three-figure threshold on my checking account for now, and although I have a big check coming next week, I'm not sure if I can splurge as much as I want.  It's because of my pending unemployment and my trip to Kansas City.  I may or may not talk about that later.

So anyway, yeah, I went to the Mall of America and got chocolates and it was expensive.  Good thing I didn't spend anything out of my wallet the past two days.

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Speaking of peanut butter and jelly ... finished my Frequent Jucy Lucy Card at The 5-8.  Thought I was done already, but apparently I wasn't.  You have to buy one each of the five Jucy Lucys they have.  The last one for me to complete the card, get a t-shirt and get a free Jucy Lucy next time was the one I did not want to eat, the one I avoided eating if at all possible to finish the Card: The PB & J.

Hey, I love peanut butter and jelly, and I love burgers.  But I know I wouldn't like peanut butter-and-jelly burgers.  If they were supposed to go together, God would have made me eat PB&J Jucy Lucys before today.  But I had to eat it today.

Even seeing what looked like gobs of jelly at the bottom of a basket underneath my fries already took me aback.  Some of the jelly got on the fries, and I'm not a man to waste food, so I ate the fry with jelly ... and wouldn't you know, it tasted really good!!!  No, I'm lying, it tasted horrible, just like I thought.  It didn't get better when I bit into those twin burgers, releasing the peanut butter in the middle.  It tasted like too many cooks spoiling the broth.  And so the peanut butter and jelly ruined the hamburger, and vice versa.

But hey, I got the t-shirt!  And my bowels are regular, too!

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In anticipation of my very short stint at work this morning -- I thought we were going to finished by 9, possibly even by 8:30 -- I furiously rinsed a set of beer bottles I got when my alumni group had an outing making beer.  We did this over a year ago, and my family and I took basically all that time to drink it.  I wouldn't call us brewmasters; the first bottles weren't all that great.  And we had more than half of my stash left after the three- or six-month time period, so I was secretly scared that those bottles would be undrinkable.  They weren't great, but they weren't undrinkable, and hey, we're still alive.  Anyway, we were supposed to rinse them in hot water three times and them give them back for money.

I looked at the bottom of the bottles, and most if not all of them looked OK.  But when I brought them back, the guy rejected most of the bottles.  I thought they were clean, but they weren't up to the store's standards.  However, the guy gave me another chance at washing them.  However however, I have to soak the tainted bottles in the sink downstairs overnight in water with a capful of bleach.  I don't have a stopper that keeps the sink loaded overnight.  So what am I going to do?

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I went everywhere today, all over the Twin Cities, from Bloomington to MOA, to Cedar Ave., to St. Paul, through the heart of the cities (that was already backed up; fucking construction), to downtown (which would have been a shorter distance to the car wash, but it took a long time), to Central Ave. where I was going to get my car washed (was watching the TV at The 5-8 and saw the extended forecast had no rain, and I thought, Wait, I haven't had the car washed in months because of all the bad weather -- now's the time!), to the hardware store, to home.  I did a number on my car.  Sounded like the "second sound" from my transmission is back.  I don't like making it go through these paces, especially the stop-and-go traffic I already subject it to going to and from work.  But beyond the "second sound" (which could be just my imagination) it seemed to do well.

That convinces me, however, to use my parents' minivan unbeknownst to them.  It's time my car got a break.  Besides, you don't want to rest a car for ten days.  It's rested four; that's long enough.  Shit, if this contractor goes I'm going to take the minivan tonight.

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Oh yeah, the money.  Took out $200 out of my ATM and I think I'm going to use all of it before I hit the hay tonight.  Surprisingly, I made three cash transactions today that each totaled about $15: Getting Powerball tickets at the Megamall Holiday store, eating at The 5-8, and the car wash.  But that has already depleted my bankroll by 25%.  Hooters and the stripclub just outside of MSP are next.

But, all in all, a productive day.  This is perfect: Working to make money, then having a little time off so I can actually do the other things I need to do.  Like take a nap after I got home.

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