I See A Light

Yesterday morning I drove Father out to the downtown Minneapolis to get his first COVID-19 vaccination.  It was painless, simple and easy.  In fact, I picked him up ten minutes after his appointment, and I think I would have to wait for him for at least half an hour.  Nope.  And he seemed fine afterward.

So now both of my parental units have received their first dose.  I'm still nervous if each of them will get their second; Father has an appointment for next month but who knows if that's assured, and Mother somehow got into Walgreens, scheduled her first shot, then was told she could not schedule her second shot because there aren't enough doses in downtown Minneapolis.  Plus, I don't know how much, if any, immunity is conveyed upon the person after receiving just the first dose.  And can one tell after how many days does the life-saving engineering of scientists translate into not dying/not getting sick/not being able to transmit the virus to other people?

However, now may be the time for problem-solving instead of finger-pointing, and maybe we should be all gung ho about teamwork.  Because, as of right now, I can genuinely say that I see a light -- that I sincerely feel as though we have taken a step toward normalcy.  And if seeing ******a tonight for a massage is any indication, I sure as hell want things to go back to normal!

Working Like A Dog -- The New Normal?

It feels as though one of us in my department has said, "Yeah, we'll be back to normal tomorrow" every day this week.  And we're not, at least not yet.  I will say that yesterday, while we had a full day and we had heads of steam in order to get done, not only did we get done, but I had time to finish my training modules at the end of the day.

That may be a sign that the forms are starting to abate and we're, uh, "catching up."  But there are signs that we are not.  During work yesterday, I was asked if I could come in today.  I said yes because I'm a glutton for punishment -- well, that and I want to make money in this rare instance of my company allowing overtime.  The earliest I can come in probably will be around noon.  But I can do a full workday because we are behind on our second priority, namely the second-priority forms.  I don't know if I can sit and scan through form after form after form for eight hours, so I might bail early.  But I don't know the next time I'll be able to rack up the hours like I already am this week.

Meanwhile, one of our bosses asked us through e-mail if we could be ready to work Monday.  I already work Mondays, but she didn't want a repeat of last Monday, where she was scrambling to find enough people to handle the crush of work that came in.  And she's anticipating without knowing what exactly is coming in from the airport.  Maybe things are going to be done tomorrow.  But if not, and if I get asked to put in a whole day even on Sunday ... well then, I think it's logical to ask if we are going to be like this for the foreseeable future.

If so, great!  I can key to my heart's content, I can listen to the radio all day, and I don't have to beg for someone to let me into the laboratory.  I just wish that I could be given a head's-up if this truly is The New Normal.  Tell me straight up that I don't have to take off Friday afternoon, and I can adjust.  Right now, I'm just raking in the money while trying to thwart carpal tunnel syndrome.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Wild (Last Week: -2).  When you have an unbeaten screening Week (3-0), and you win all those Games on the road, and if you're riding a four-Game winning streak, and the last of those victories was an emphatic 6-2 triumph in Denver against a team seen as a Stanley Cup contender, you're going to stand atop a Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey, and most likely in Positive Numbers.

But there's more.  Small sample size, of course, but people are starting to notice that this isn't your father's Wild club.  For the first time in a long time, the Minnesota Wild have youth.  And skill.  And speed.  And excitement.  And that manifested itself Wednesday in the form of Kirill Kaprisov, potentially the most dangerous scorer to don a Wild uniform since Marian Gaborik, the franchise's inaugural draft pick.  I mean, look at this:

FSN did an iso-cam version of that Kaprizov shift and sped it up pic.twitter.com/gRQqklj7ja

— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) February 25, 2021

He's acting like fucking Michelle Kwan out there.

Kevin Fiala is starting to get into gear.  Mats Zuccarello, who's old and who I thought was a bad signing, is red-hot since getting sidelined for COVID.  And don't forget Kappo Kahkonen, the backup Goalie who was thrust into the pipes after starter Cam Talbot got injured.  Players are stepping up, and that's allowing veterans like Zach Parise to go down a line where they may have an advantage over other teams' third-liners.  If this budding movement is for real, the Wild will experience a force multiplier that will thrust them into playoff contention and may give an adrenaline shot to this organization.  Things might be looking up, for the short- and long-term, is what I'm saying.

A quick two-Game home series vs. Los Angeles Friday and Saturday before they travel to Las Vegas and play the Golden Knights Monday and Wednesday. 

#0: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: 0).  Swept Michigan St. at Mariucci last weekend by scores of 4-2 and 5-1.  Even with the non-use of the PairWise, I cannot believe that the Gophers won't make the NCAA Tournament -- well, unless there's an outbreak of COVID-19 with the club.  They're in good form, they're a good team, and I hope they don't underwhelm like other Twin Cities sports teams once tourney play begins.

They were scheduled to play Penn St. for two at State College this weekend, but because the Nittany Lions are experiencing an outbreak, that has officially been "postponed."  However, with news that the Big Ten has moved up the conference tournament by a few days, that series is most likely "canceled."  (Aside: I keep seeing on USCHO.com all these rescheduled, postponed and canceled Games in top-flight men's college hockey.  It seems as if there are more Games affected by COVID-19 there than in top-flight men's college basketball.  And it affects that sport's season more because there are way fewer teams.)  So these young men have the weekend off to get the coronavirus heal up.

#-1: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -1).  I give these guys a lot of shit, and I still will.  But they have finished the regular season 7-2 and, after a 29-10 home upset of Northwestern (the Wildcats, surprisingly, were ranked eleventh and the Gophers twelfth), they have won their last five Duals.  Gable Steveson, top Heavyweight in top-flight college wrestling, Technically Felled his opponent; his remains the North Star for this team's tournament success.

Conference championships in two Weeks, being held at Penn St.

#-2: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  No shame suffering the squad's first loss of the season since it happened in Nebraska.  And that followed a four-Set win, so a split in the most successful program in top-flight women's volleyball today is a sizable accomplishment.

Unfortunately, this weekend's series against Michigan at Maturi Pavilion has been postponed due to coronavirus concerns emanating from the Wolverines.  I thought the entire Michigan athletic department had already shut down because of COVID?  OK, so these young women have the weekend off, too, just like the Gopher men's hockey team.

#-3: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -6).  Finished the regular season going up to Bemidji and bullying the Beavers last weekend by scores of 6-1 and 9-1.  However, the 11-7-1 record has taken its toll on this team, and now they are in some jeopardy of missing out on the NCAA Tournament.

There are two series that ends conference play this weekend.  This doesn't affect the U., thankfully, but if the WCHA is going by winning percentage, Minnesota will, in all likelihood, wind up fourth in the league.  The top four squads will play this Year's abbreviated conference tournament (held, as always, at Ridder Arena), but as the four-seed, the Gophers will, possibly, play the top-seeded Wisconsin Badgers, a team that Minnesota has not beaten in regulation this season.  Moreover, there remains a lot of uncertainty on how the NCAA is going to select its field of (supposedly) eight schools.  If they somehow defeat the Badgers, is just an appearance in the WCHA Tournament Final going to be enough?  Or will they have to beat either Minnesota-Duluth (a team they have only played twice due to virus concerns, although those contests were a sweep in Duluth) or Ohio St. (a team that beat them four-of-six tilts, including the last two at Ridder), too?  Using their sweep of Bemidji St. as a start to a momentum swing would be advisable.

#-4: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -3).  Got killed at Maryland -- shouldn't have let Brenda (Oldfield) Frese go, Maturi! -- but pulled away from Nebraska at Williams.  This team is 8-11, 7-10 in-conference.  And that's all I have on this team.  Host Michigan for the final home Game of the Year Sunday afternoon.

#-5: Gopher soccer (Re-Entry!).  Yeah, finally, the Gopher soccer team finally starts its delayed season.  Saw the opening whistle for its first Match Sunday afternoon, at home to Nebraska, except that it wasn't at Cowles Stadium but instead was in the Recreation And Wellness Sports Field Complex.  Weird to see this XI play under a bubble, especially when Cowles Stadium is underrated for its beauty.

Anyway, they drew scoreless with the Cornhuskers.  They then lost 2-0 to Michigan yesterday/Thursday afternoon.  This Week: At Michigan St. Monday ... morning at 8:30?!?!  They then come home to face Northwestern Thursday afternoon.

#-6: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4).  A winless (0-4) screening Week, and the team has lost six in a row.  But the big news, of course, is that Ryan Saunders was fired just after the Woofie Dogs' loss Sunday night at Madison Square Garden to the New York Knicks.  And in a move that was unusual but makes very clear this was in the works for some time, General Manager Gersson Rosas plucked an Assistant Coach from another team -- Chris Finch of the Toronto/Tampa Raptors -- to become not the Wolves' interim Coach, but immediately the Head Coach.

A word about Saunders, and by extension Owner Glen Taylor.  I guess at the time he was elevating into the HC spot on an interim basis, Saunders was considered a rising star in the NBA coaching ranks.  But he was (and I believe he still was once he got canned) was far and away the youngest Head Coach in The Association, and for that reason alone I didn't think he this was a good hire.  His record speaks for itself, but I sympathize for him because even though Saunders coached for three seasons, none of them were full: He got hired in the middle of one, got fired in the middle of one, and last year was cut short because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  He never really, really got time to coach the way he wanted to coach, especially with Karl-Anthony Towns (and, later, D'Angelo Russell) shuttling in and out of the lineup.

But there is another very good reason (at least in retrospect) elevating Saunders was not a good move: This clearly was a Glen Taylor joint.  It seems obvious now (and, according to some people, was obvious when the move was made) that Taylor wanted Saunders to be the Head Coach because he is the son of Flip Saunders, the greatest Head Coach in this franchise's damned history and, apparently, a man whom Taylor loves on a personal level.  And when Rosas came in and had the chance to evaluate HC options and opted to rip the interim label off of Saunders, it seemed obvious at the time that Taylor told Rosas to keep Saunders.

This seems like yet another way Taylor doesn't get how to act like an Owner of a professional franchise.  The hiring of Saunders was something a mom-and-pop shop does -- autocratic and with no consideration for the success of the operation itself.  He wanted Saunders as HC not so much because he was a "player's coach" that could relate to Karl-Anthony Towns et al. in a way Tom Thibodeau refused to do, but more because he wanted him to have the job.  And this appears to be another in a long line of moves that shows that Taylor does not know how to run a successful sports team.

And yet, and I know I really shouldn't harp on this after a Head Coaching change, I still am grateful for Glen Taylor because at least (and I don't want to "at least" all of you, but it's important) he is keeping an NBA franchise in Minnesota -- at least for now.  I'll take an incompetent Owner who saves an NBA franchise for the state instead of a super-sharp one who takes our Timberwolves away from us and gives it to, say, Seattle or Las Vegas or Kansas City or Louisville or Tampa or. ...

Anyway, this Week: At Washington, home for Phoenix and Charlotte, then in New Orleans.  And even though this team has hit rock bottom, what was inevitable has been done, so in that sense things can only go up from here (I've said that a lot about the Woofs too, I know), which is why this club is not last in this Week's WMNSS.  The same cannot be said for ...

#-7: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -5).  This Week truly was rock bottom for the University of Minnesota male b-ballers, and this was a spectacular fall from grace.  They have now lost four in a row after getting annihilated by Illinois and embarrassed by Northwestern (which had been on a 13-Game losing streak) at The Barn, a place where they had lost only once this season.  They're not on the bubble; they've burst through the bubble and into the craggy, soapy floor below it.

Liam Robbins was the linchpin of this entire team.  The Drake grad trans was a reliable inside option.  With him hobbled with an ankle, opposing players could just double Marcus Carr, and none of his other teammates have been able to step up.  Meanwhile, it is hard to imagine that the Golden Gophers, who came through a hellacious first half of a conference schedule with impressive victories over Iowa, Ohio St. and Michigan (the latter two being projected as #1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, the last of which still the Wolverines' only loss this Year), would get completely undone by a relatively tame second half.  Maybe they ran out of gas.  Or, maybe this is more of an indictment on Richard Pitino as recruiter, player developer, and Game manager.

This squad plays its last two road Games of the season this Week, versus Nebraska and Penn St.  They have yet to win on the road, but their recent track suggests a victory away from home is too little, too late.

OT's Back!

For this week, at least.  The ice storms down south has had a ripple effect, effectively cutting off work last week because our forms couldn't fly in, but I didn't think those ripples would still be propagating now.  Hell, I thought things would be back to normal last Thursday, but that has not been the case.

The people flying in the forms got off the mat, apparently, on Sunday, when I was told a big shipment of forms that had to be done were going to come in.  It was so important, in fact, that my boss came in, and he usually doesn't do that.  He called off the dogs, however, when he was told the shipment would not be coming in until the night.

The shipments, I have been told, are not consistent -- that is, not only does my department not know how many forms come in every day (although my bosses have a rough estimate determined by past yields), we are not even guaranteed a shipment every day.  I mean, we get shipments every day besides days affected by inclement weather.  But it's a shock to me that we don't really have a good grasp of the level of work, let alone the timeline, when we come in every day.  I kind of thought that happened.  And I kind of think that should happen.

So that leads to last week, when we were told one day that our grand shipment from Memphis was grounded.  And that also leads to Monday, where I was yanked out of filing early because a thousand forms, about five times the usual load we get on Mondays, was coming in.  And then, some time in the afternoon, that estimate was upped to 2,000.  My boss was scanning folders as soon as they were treated by the technicians.  One co-worker was pulled from filing to help.  In fact, three other people from my department who were not scheduled to work that day (one of them being my co-worker on Monday who had the day off) came in that day to work.  And even the revised estimate was too low; by the time my boss' boss told us we needed to go, we ran through over 3,600 forms.  I don't remember ever going through that many forms in a day, even on a Tuesday, when we usually get the most out of any day of the week and we are fully staffed.  And for the first time ever, I saw that we were leaving work behind for the late shift because we couldn't work more than ten hours.  And the work was still coming in.

While we were toiling through these forms, we were speculating on how long it would be until we "got back to normal."  Didn't happen Tuesday, where a relatively pedestrian morning turned into a rolling cavalcade of work in the afternoon that had me staying an extra 40 minutes.  And it didn't really happen yesterday, either, even though we were good enough that we got all that day's work done and got to leave when we were supposed to leave.

Now, all bets are off.  The winter storms were last week, but any of us who thought we were finally caught up with forms that needed to be shipped here last week has to divest ourselves of that notion, because there is a decent chance we will get much more work than we usually do today and tomorrow.

For that reason, my boss has told me that overtime will be granted, if only for this week.  I don't remember the last time we were allowed OT, but this changes my schedule.  When I was capped at 40 hours and worked my tail off Monday and Tuesday, I actually e-mailed my boss about when I needed to leave today and tomorrow in order to stay at 40.  (His reply is when he told me OT had been allowed.)  Now, I guess I'll just work full days.  Shoot, if they need me Saturday, I can come in in the afternoon, after I take Father to get his first vaccination.  Don't know when I'll get to accrue time-and-a-half again.

The downside is that I had plans I made for Friday afternoon, and I was formulating plans for Thursday afternoon, assuming that OT would not be given.  I had planned on getting my shoes shined, and my hair cut.  I also wanted to see ******a for a massage, and to get tested.  Unless the form spigot dries up and we're back to getting cut early, I'll have to do those things another day.  But hey, time-and-a-half.

I Should Look At License Plates More

So on my way to work yesterday I decided to take it slow and drive slowly behind some car in the right lane because I was about to take the exit.  As happens way too often, some car was zipping down the entrance ramp to my right, and if I didn't slow down, that car would hit me.  So like I was taught to do, I slowed down even further to let that car in.

And then he (I'm assuming the driver is male, and I think there's a 98% chance I'm right) turned on his right blinker.  He was going off the same ramp I was.  Well, I just let you in front of me -- the least you could do is drive somewhere I'm not going!  But this asshole didn't.

And then he had the balls to start accelerating.  I can accelerate, too!  And I was late for work!  So I decided I was going to try and pass him by getting on the left lane and zooming past the slow (slow being driving under 65) cars.  But this motherfucker (he was driving an SUV, I think it was an Audi) hit the gas and never let up.  My exit was coming up and I was going to have to fight through traffic, so I gave up.

It was around that time that I thought a thought I have had a lot when this red mist descends on me as I am driving: Why in the hell did I not look at the license plate of that motherfucking asshole?  I could remember it (even though I'm bad at remembering things), write it down, and then ... well, I would have it, that's the important thing.  I have rationalized not ever getting the plates of these cars that have "disrespected" me by saying that I had to keep my eyes on the road.  If I'm intent on looking at the characters on the license plate, how soon could I react if that prick car suddenly puts on the brakes, or if another car wants to slide inbetween me and that car?

Look, this car did ... little wrong.  I admit that.  I still think that I should be getting license plate numbers more often whenever a car does something wrong to me.  I've thought for some time about getting an on-car camera, but it's expensive, I don't know how much elbow grease I would have to expend in order to set it up, and I'm afraid it'll get stolen ... or it'll make me a target for road ragers.

Still, I should look at license plates more often.

You Know What I Can't Stand? Almond Milk.

Tired it once before; didn't like it, decided I wouldn't try it again.  But several weeks ago some anonymous co-worker left both a bottle of store-bought cold brew and Irish creme creamer with "Help Yourself!" paper signs taped to them.  Me, not wanting to pass up free liquids, took them.

I kept the Irish creme creamer at work to use for the coffee I get there.  But the cold brew I took home.  I had tried it once -- could take it or leave it.  And I thought I could drink it "neat" at least to taste how it truly is.  But I succumbed to my original thought that all coffee tastes better with creamer in it, and lots of it.  Hell, I don't really know if I like the taste of black coffee.

That's when I decided to try again with better-for-you creamer.  I have the real/good kinds at work, but a little bottle of, for example, oat milk creamer (which I tried for a taste test and came away mighty impressed) couldn't hurt.  I might even like it.  So I went to Target to find unconventional creamer, and I saw vanilla almond milk creamer, which I think I had before.  So I bought it.

I won't say I regret it.  But the creamer tastes stale.  And it overwhelms any flavor from the coffee by replacing it with something that, if you could see it, probably would have mold on it.  And no, the perceived benefit of drinking healthier stuff isn't worth it.

Still, I persevered.  I poured a bunch of it down into the cold brew a couple times, and even though I liked the taste of the cold brew by itself, I decided to fill the other half of my cup with this vanilla almond milk creamer whenever I could.  It actually didn't taste bad in the cold brew.  Which makes me wonder how it makes my work coffee taste so off.

And I should go back to an earlier part of my story and remind you that I bought almond milk when I taste-tested oat milk, which, if I recall correctly, tasted better than almond milk.  But I didn't see any oat milk creamer.  Which makes me think I should push the issue next time I need creamer, because I think that when it comes to almond milk, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Vaccination Follies

Update on getting shots for my parents:

It wasn't the plan for Mother to get her shots before Father did, even though he's older.  But Mother remained diligent in getting back on the websites for shots.  And lo and behold, she lined up not just the first shot but also the second shot for Father through the state.  It was for this past Saturday and exactly one month from then!

Then, Mother told me that after she got her first shot from Walgreens, she was unable to get her second shot lined up.  The website wouldn't let her sign up for both in the same session, and she got no credible answer from anyone at the pharmacy (or at least that's the way she described it).  That's absolutely stupid.  She's now on the clock; ideally, she's supposed to get her second shot three or for weeks from her first, but she doesn't know if she can get, and if she can, she really doesn't know where.  I mean, does she just try Walgreens because that's where she got her first vaccination?  Wouldn't it be more prudent to cast a wide net, and if Wal-Mart or the state can bring her in, especially if she can snag a time when it's ideal for her to receive her second shot, just sign up for it?  But if Mother can, will there be complications since she got her first shot somewhere else?  And if she can only sign up, say, five weeks after her first shot, or two, is that a good thing, or should she really try and go for that 3-4 week window, risking not getting a second vaccination at all if she refuses all other times?

So besides that shitshow, it looked as if the world was a bit back in balance; Mother is younger and got her shot first, but Father was going to get his first shortly thereafter and, fingers crossed, he already had his second lined up.  But on Friday night he received an e-mail from the state postponing his shot schedule.  As the news said, the ice storm down south has disrupted distribution of vaccinations everywhere.  We were despondent and felt we were left adrift.

The e-mail said a new schedule would be coming within 48 hours ... and the state actually came through on its promise.  Father can come in (well, I'll be driving him) this Saturday and then a month after that.  Assuming everything in this country is back to normal (again, fingers crossed), my old man will be inoculated when he's supposed to be inoculated!

Now ... Mother?  I'm still not so sure.  And so I am still very concerned.

Please Don't Hate Me! I Don't Want Him Angry With Me Again!

I continue to have issues working by myself in filing at night.  I hate it because I love parts of it, namely the working alone stuff.  But there was one thing I was not quite sure I was doing right.  And the big problem with this is that I have done this process hundreds, if not thousands, of times already since I began working there, and only now, only now, was I not sure if I've been doing this right all along.  I don't want to get into it because telling you exactly what I did because it would bore the shit out of me.  But I will say that despite everything I remember doing in the past, I looked up the instructions in this book we have -- just in case a dummy like forgets how to do something -- and I did something different.

I wanted to e-mail my supervisor about this issue while I was there, but I got caught up working other stuff and I ran out of time.  But when I woke up yesterday/Saturday morning, I was really, really concerned that I went out of my way to do something that I should not have done.  No, I think I need to be honest: I was afraid That Guy was going to judge me for not doing it the right way.  For the time being, I am going to be filing two half-days every week because we are now short-staffed.  That means I'll be working with That Guy, side-by-side.  And this may or may not be worse, but on Mondays, it'll just be us two; there won't be my supervisor acting as a buffer between us.

It is getting obvious That Guy is not well liked.  I have seen his co-workers talk behind his back about his surliness and refusal to cooperate with tasks.  And just last week I saw him ... eh, kind-of snap at my supervisor once I walked in to start my day alongside him.  I feel as though if there was some sort of dispute between him and I, the other people in the department would take my side just on the basis of personality.  The merits of work performance is a different thing entirely, of course.  And I was scared that, come Monday, I'll walk into the back of the building and he'll be judging me because I stamped something I shouldn't have stamped.  Well, I don't think he'll outright confront me, but he has passive-aggressive ways of telling me he doesn't like my work, and thus me.  Or, maybe I'm just thinking things are there when they're not.  Or, he may just start yelling at me after all.  Fuck if I know.

It is within that confusion and, I'm afraid, fear I decided I would take time from my day off and e-mail my supervisor, from my home, off the clock, whether or not I should have stamped those forms (OK, so it turns out I am telling you exactly what I did).  I would feel awful if I didn't say anything, and yet I knew once I sent the e-mail that I would probably regret sending it no matter what she says.  I actually now think my biggest mistake was changing what I have done all these months and starting to stamp these.  I mean, I haven't been yelled at for not stamping them before, so that should tell me that's what I should be doing all along ... right?

Well, what's done is done.  Somebody's going to yell and/or judge me, maybe as soon as I step inside this morning.  I just need people who'll stick up for me despite any mistake I may have made.

Just want to note that in several minutes from as I type this, Fox (aka Channel 9) will be showing the first of two men's college basketball games featuring the two colleges I went to.  And it just so happens that both of my teams are hosting.  I wonder if I could have been hired to work the game at Dinkytown, but besides taking a shower and clipping my nails, I will do my best to watch the majority of both matches.

So My Fucking Mother Scapegoated Me The Other Day

OK, so even though Mother got an appointment for a shot, and her shot, I wanted to tell you about when she fuckin' yelled at me.  So here goes:

Back on Sunday, while we were still in the anxious throes of casting about for an appointment for a shot, Father called me downstairs to help Mother just before I went to work.  So I went into her office, where she was at her computer.

Several days before, I helped both Mother and Father sign up for accounts on Walgreens in the hopes of scheduling vaccinations for both of those old geezers.  The thinking was, at least the way I saw it, Mother would hop on her laptop and check for appointments through Walgreens, Wal-Mart and the state (all three places to which both my parents signed up) all day, every day because she's retired and she has time to do that.

I did not realize, however, that the Walgreens site may have a little bit of a user experience issue.  She called me down because she could not sign out of Walgreens.  When you hover over the ... uh, the "Account" tab (?), a vertical box with a bunch of options appears.  If you've done surfing, you would be led to believe the "Sign Out" option would be in this box.  It was -- but the box was so big, and/or the font was big because Mother can't see, that I had to zoom out in order to see "Sign Out" at the very bottom of the vertical box.  And the box was not designed for either of us to scroll down the box.

So I shrunk the type, signed her out of Walgreens, and blew the type back up.  And then she proceeded to fucking yell at me.  She signed herself up for a shot, which she luckily finagled for the Walgreens downtown.  But even though she wanted my help in signing up herself as well as Father (who is much older than Mother) at Walgreens, she thought she had signed him up for that vaccine downtown.  I set up her new Walgreens account on her computer at her request; she did not say anything about signing her out of her computer.  And she got confused, and that bitch took it out on me.

She does that a lot, scapegoating me.  Well, she complains a lot, and she does so in a barking, abrasive tone whereby she takes none of the blame.  But whenever I bear the brunt of it, she's all, "You did this," or "You didn't tell me ..." or "Why didn't you just ..." blah-blah-blah.  So I got real pissy.  I don't like to be yelled at -- anytime, but especially before going to work.  "Are you done?" I sniped at her.  And then I went to work.

And I have to admit I was not in a good headspace for much of the rest of the day.  Worst of all, I drove angry, and I took out my resentment for My Fucking Mother on my car.  My building has speed bumps all around the campus, and I drove nearly at highway speed over one of them.  And even though it may be because of the cold snap we're just getting out of, ever since I have heard loud creaky noises underneath the floor on my quadrant of the car, especially when I am applying the brake.  Is it because I ruined the brake, or the shocks, or both?  If so, I'll blame it on My Fucking Mother.

Thought I Made A Mistake ... Till I Didn't ... And Then I REALLY Didn't

I have been scheduled to come in for half-days on Sundays.  And since we are not allowed to accrue overtime, I have to take a half-day off from the rest of my workweek.  Naturally, it usually is Friday afternoons so I can begin my weekend early.

Sometimes, however, it can't be Fridays.  One example is this week's example: The woman who works in filing second shift wants to take that day off.  And if you fill in for her, you should be working all eight hours.  I don't mind volunteering for that shift because of the complete freedom I feel, as I have stated here before.  But in exchange for that, I have to pick another half-day (always an afternoon; I don't mind waking up in the morning to make absolutely sure I have work to just key in my four hours that day) of the week to take off.

I had stalled as long as possible telling my boss which half-day off instead I should take.  I have finally realized something I guess I should have been hip to earlier; these other forms that serve as the second priority of my usual day at data entry do not often come on Wednesdays.  Therefore, it seems as though we are scrambling for work more often on Wednesdays than Thursdays.  (Note, however, that I don't have concrete proof that this is actually true.)  And if I'm working second shift on Friday, taking off Thursday afternoon basically gives me a whole day to myself, which is something I like.  (Oh, I guess I should insert here that taking off Mondays and Tuesdays are options I do not consider.  I am one of only two people working on Mondays, and Tuesdays is my department's busiest day.)

Despite my preternatural fear of having no work and getting cut early, and despite my thinking that a greater chance of that would happen Wednesday afternoon instead of Thursday afternoon, I finally told my boss last week that I would take Thursday afternoon off.  But then the ice storm down south hit earlier this week.  The shipments of our forms (at least the way I understand it) come from two mid-sized cargo transportation hubs: Memphis and Indianapolis, although the greatest bulk of work comes from Memphis.  Well, despite all the news centering on the energy grid of Texas completely failing, what is affecting that state is ravaging the mid-South and the Northeast ... so much so that shipments from Memphis were cancelled Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday.

Tuesday afternoon, well after we got done with our main forms and blessedly were working on the second priority forms (we got a more than a thousand of them, the biggest single-day shipment of this type of form I have ever seen working there ... did these come from Indianapolis?), I got an e-mail from my other boss that things aren't looking good for work to do Wednesday.  With that, I e-mailed my main boss asking if I could change my half-day off from Thursday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon, in anticipation of both not having work Wednesday and, assuming that the ice storm cleared by Thursday, having all the work that was supposed to come Tuesday and Wednesday come in Thursday.  He didn't exactly believe my assumption, but he switched it.

So on Wednesday there was a trickle of work from Indy.  Thankfully my bosses had this side project they were able to whip up Tuesday, which I believe the rest of my department was working on for much of the afternoon.  (Don't really know because I was assigned to filing for the morning.)  I left at around 11 Wednesday thinking I did the right thing changing my mind.  It was snowing and I didn't get tested where I wanted to, so my plans were sort-of ruined, and maybe that would have been a good day to just work all day, but whatever.

I really thought that the ice storm would have cleared by yesterday, and that good ol' American capitalism would have demanded the shipments get back in the air ASAP.  Maybe I should have paid more attention to the weather report.  But I checked weather.gov Thursday morning and saw that much of the state of Tennessee, probably including Memphis, was still under an ice advisory.  So, the output of main forms yesterday morning, like that of the previous two workdays, was meager.  Moreover, since everybody was working on this project Wednesday afternoon, everybody was pretty much done by Thursday morning.  Everybody, that is, except me, because I was working somewhere else Wednesday morning and not working at all Wednesday afternoon.  I pawned off part of my work to two other people, and the vast majority of work was still done by 11.

There was a chance that was some work with the secondary forms -- assuming some came in that afternoon.  But the decision was made to let everybody go at 11.  I, however, volunteered to stick around.  There were some folders that had yet to be "closed," meaning that not all the forms that were supposed to be in that folder had been processed and put in that folder, and someone had to stick around to see these folders through to the end.  And I, somewhat humiliated for making a calculation, changing my mind, and seeing that decision blow up in my face to the tune of extra paid time off I would need to take, was now doing damage control.  I was just trying to find as much work as possible in order to cut down on the time I would have to take off.

But then a few things happened.  First, these folders did not close for some time.  There apparently were forms that the technicians inside were waiting on for hours.  Then, a small stream of secondary forms came in, from Indianapolis or wherever.  It wasn't much, but I was now the only person in the department, so it took some time scanning and then keying them.  But then the relatively big news came: More folders were coming.  Just a few more, but again, such a workload that would have been devoured by a dozen people overwhelms one.

I thought I would be done by 11:30.  Then noon.  But then I heard that these new primary forms were being driven in, and so I had to take a lunch.  And then I saw that these folders were as full as they were allowed to be, so my revised thought that I would be done by 2 went to hell.  And not only were these primary forms, but these were forms that, per policy, should be completely keyed and looked over by 2:30 each day.  I finally got all these folders (courtesy of my boss, who stuck around and scanned them in) a bit past 2.  That's when it hit me: I, somehow, was going to pull in a full day at work, and when no one else in my department did.  In fact, I was going to be late with the work that was supposed to be done -- there were extenuating circumstances concerning the time the work came in and the labor that was dismissed earlier in the day, but it was going to be late.  Furthermore, I had planned on leaving 20 minutes earlier than I usually would because I have been working late earlier in the week, but that went out the window, too.

Miraculously, I got done around the time I would usually leave.  Stressed as all get-out, but I think I got everything done, and I hope I didn't forget or miss anything.  But I and the other people in my department probably don't understand how this day went from nothing to, well, more than nothing.  And since I was supposed to leave Thursday afternoon at 11 (and sure, if I hadn't stuck around someone else would have), it turns out I made the right decision.  I had no forethought this would happen, but I made the right decision!

And now I just need to get to work late and/or leave work early today!

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -1).  I am ... getting around to laying down my sword when it comes to being hopping mad that Minnesota got upset in Regional Semifinals of the 2018 NCAA Tournament, the one they were hosting in Minneapolis.  I don't think I'll ever fully get over it, but my fear (hope?) that the program would go into a tailspin after such a debasement has not come to fruition.  They reached the sport's Final Four in 2019.  And right now they're 8-0 after a scintillating two-Game sweep of Penn St. at Maturi Pavilion.

I give plaudits -- and, admittedly, not just the top spot in this Week's WMNSS but also an elevation into Positive Numbers (and subsequent lifting of all boats below this club) -- because both Games this past weekend were available to listen to on terrestrial radio.  Thank Buddha for The Fan, extending its Gopher sports media properties to include non-revenue but nonetheless popular sports such as volleyball.  I was able to listen to Sunday night's thrilling, come-from-behind five-Set victory over the Nittany Lions on 96.7 The Plus.  (Kudos go out to Golden Gopher announcer Corbu Stathes; he pulled double duty Sunday, calling the women's basketball win over Wisconsin at Williams Arena in the afternoon and then the volleyball win over Penn St., by himself, at the Pav.)  These Big Ten teams are so awash in money that they can afford to give some to their Olympic programs.  And I think there has been enough sustained investment by the Gopher athletic department that interest has been raised, and reinforced.  This new broadcasting deal, even though this club will be broadcast on the radio only five times all season, is a further investment in expanding the support of this proud program -- and, maybe in the not-too-distant future -- an important step in making it a self-sustaining one.

In the meantime the U. will play in possibly The Biggest Matchup In Top-Flight Volleyball This Weekend.  Minnesota, ranked fifth in the AVCA Top 25, travel to Nebraska, ranked fourth, for Matches tonight/Friday night and early Sunday afternoon.  Wish I could hear these Games on the radio!

#0: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -7).  Now this is what you call payback -- sweet, satisfying payback.  The U. responded to being swept at home a Month ago to Notre Dame by marching into South Bend, Ind., and sweeping the Fighting Irish -- and in fact blanking them, by identical 3-0 scores.  That pushes (or keeps) the Gophers in first place in the B1G, and almost assuredly gets them a place in the NCAA Tournament.  It also wipes away some of the bad taste left by Wisconsin coming into Dinkytown and whipping the Gophers' asses by 4-1 and 8-1 emasculations.

Already next week's series at Penn St., which was to be the last road series for the U. this Year, has been postponed or cancelled (one of the two), because of a potential outbreak with the Nittany Lions team.  But that's next week.  This week Minnesota is at home versus Michigan St. for contests tonight/Friday night and early tomorrow/Saturday evening.  Both Games can be heard on the radio -- 103.5 The Talk, to be specific.

#-1: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -3).  Routed Wisconsin in Madison last Friday morning, 27-7.  Unlike the Gopher men's and women's hockey teams, this U. program took care of Border Battle business, winning eight of the ten Matches, capped off by Heavyweight #1 Gable Steveson pinning the Badgers' Pete Christensen in 3:20.

Senior Night/last Dual of the regular season Sunday afternoon as the rasslers host Northwestern.

#-2: Wild (Re-Entry!).  Finally, after 13 Days of no Games, the Minnesota Wild had enough players to get back on the ice and resume its schedule.  That's not to say the squad had all their players back.  At its worst, the Wild had 13 of its players on the COVID Protocol List, and once the team resumed play, half of them were still on there.  (So can a club play Games even with several players on this List?)  Many of them that were still held out were Defensemen, so for the Wild's first tilt back, at Los Angeles, they had four D-Men called up from its AAA affiliate in Iowa, via its taxi squad.  And that inexperience, combined with trying to shake the cobwebs of a two-week forced furlough, contributed to an understandable 4-0 trouncing by the Kings.  But they got things turned around last/Thursday night.  With more players coming off the List (including Defensemen), Minnesota handed Anaheim a 3-1 loss.

They finish up a two-Game set vs. the Ducks Saturday night, then complete their road trip out west with stops in San Jose Monday and Colorado Wednesday.

#-3: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -6).  Outlasted Wisconsin by five Sunday (quick note: I feel as though all this team's victories have been relatively close, and I just checked; Minnesota has won only once by double digits, and that was by ten over Illinois on February 10), only to be throttled at Rutgers by 27 Wednesday.  They're 7-10 on the season and they're going nowhere.  At Maryland and home to Nebraska this week.

#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5).  They suffered through another 1-3 screening Week.  The losses were all by single digits, so there's that.  And their only win was a 116-112 decision over Toronto Valentine's Night, the first time since 2004 the Woofie Dogs have defeated the Raptors away from Target Center.  (This Game was played in Tampa, where the Raptors are playing their home Games this year because the U. S.-Canada border is tightly restricted due to the pandemic.)

Really, though, I should be ranking this franchise lower in the WMNSS.  'Cause when it comes to existential damnation, these sorry folks should be #-Infinity forever.  Last Year this organization was transformed by the trade for D'Angelo Russell, close friend of superstar Karl-Anthony Towns.  Those two have played a total of five Games together as teammates.  Five.  FIVE.  And the goddamndest thing is is that it seems that once the injured or sick teammate finally can play, the other one get sick or injured.  Russell was playing at the start of the season only for KAT to be waylaid with COVID-19.  Now that Towns is back, Russell has to sit ... literally, for four-to-six Weeks, because he just had knee surgery.  Seriously, this organization's only forte is fucking itself.

They finish a three-Game homestand by hosting Toronto/Tampa.  They then are on the road for four in a row, the first thing encompassing the majority of this Week: New York, Milwaukee, and Chicago.

#-5: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -2).  Have a very tough decision when it comes to the bottom.  Both the Gopher men's b-ball and Gopher women's hockey teams went 0-2 this screening Week, and as a result both teams suffered serious damage to their tournament hopes.

I am not quite sure ranking men's basketball over women's hockey is the right move.  It was demoralizing to see the Goofers get swept for the Year by Maryland after a shitty First Half led to their 13-Point loss in College Park Sunday, then possible The Worst Three Minutes Of The Year led to a 14-2 Hoosier run late in the Second Half on Minnesota's way to an 82-72 defeat Wednesday.

They are, according to ESPN.com's Joe Lunardi, still in the field -- in fact, in his latest projection, the Golden Gophers are still in the "real" tournament (of 64 teams -- those "First Four" Games are nothing but Play-Ins, and they are legitimate, and they should be disregarded with prejudice).  But they are a 10-seed and, as you may have guessed, are dropping like a stone.  These guys still haven't won away from home, and I don't know if any team has made The Big Dance going winless on the road.  My guess is no, and for good reason.

The problem is that the two-man team of Marcus Carr and Liam Robbins has been solved; shut them down and the team shuts down because none of the role players have been able to step up to save his teammates and steal a Game, whether it be Gabe Kalscheur or Eric Curry or Jamal Mashburn, Jr.  And the outlook for this squad is getting gloomy because Robbins continues to be hobbled with a bad ankle.  That means you can shut Minnesota down for good if you just double-team Carr.

They've only lost once at home, to Maryland, but their only contest this Week will be a big one: Illinois, led by budding star Ayo Dosunmu, comes to town Saturday afternoon.  Winning that Game would be a huge boost to the U.'s tournament chances, but it'd be like having an exterminator go through one side of your house when termites are eating through the other side.

#-6: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -4).  And then there are the Gopher women's hockey club, which, I'm afraid, are in serious danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for, I believe, the first time ever after getting swept, at home, by Ohio St.

First of all, kudos go out to Buckeye Head Coach Nadine Muzerall.  The U. legend took over a program that was considered to be a mismanaged joke that had violated NCAA rules the Year before and, in five seasons, turned it into arguably The Second-Best Team In The WCHA.  They're a force to be reckoned with, especially after winning the season series with the Gophers, 4-2.

With that being said, the U. have now (technically) lost four of their last five Games.  They have just finished a homestand at 1-3.  They have slipped from second to fourth in the USCHO.com poll.  And even though they are third in the WCHA when it comes to Points, because of the pandemic and all the Game cancellations and the resulting fact that the teams in the conference have not played the same number of Games, if the league were to rank their teams by, say, Point Percentage, the Gophers actually are in fourth.  Add to that that the PairWise this season doesn't work because there are little-to-no inter-conference results with which to compare conferences.  If the NCAA decides to, for example, allot the eight tournament slots by conference and dole out to the WCHA (far and away the best conference in top-flight women's college hockey) four, or three, or even only two spots ... that would mean the Minnesota will not make the tournament.  Such a "first" is an existential threat to the aura of what Minnesota women's hockey is and the standards the program should permanently hold itself to.  And that is why I decided to place these women at the bottom of this Week's survey: It's a wake-up call.

Now, I could be overreacting.  They finish up the regular season this weekend at Bemidji St.  There ... may or may not be a conference tournament ... ?  And the NCAA still hasn't decided how to select for its tournament.  Maybe there's nothing to worry about.  Or, maybe it's too late.

It's A COVID Coincidence!

Now that a lot of my anxieties have been assuaged because both of my parents are now on track to get their shots, I can now stick my head above water and start asking other members of my extended family if our elders are in line, too.

After dinner, I texted both of my cousins to see if their parents/my uncle and aunts gotten appointments yet.  And sure enough, after I fired off a text to my second cousin, I received a text message from my sister-in-law asking if my parents are getting their shots.

We're all concerned!!  And at the same time!!!

The Three Items I Am Donating To Goodwill:

1. My brown/mud brown Duluth Trading Company thermal underwear bottom.  "Duluth Trading Co," in that same brown shade, is written in a large black waistband.  That waistband has lost its elasticity.
2. My light tan thermal underwear bottom.  I have had it so long that the care tag, which I think also had the name of the company I bought in from, has completely worn off, so I don't remember where I got it from, but I'm sure I bought it online.  Its waistband also has lost its elasticity.
3. Finally, and most heartbreakingly, I am giving up my alma mater-themed Hawaiian shirt I bought just before I graduated.  I loved that shirt; wore it many times for alumni functions.  It is one of those things that is colorful to wear, but when you into the details, the only people who will recognize the illustrations of the mascots and statues probably are the ones who went to the same university as I did.  It has served me for more than two decades, but alas, it's gotten so worn out that the shirt has rips on the left shoulder.  Time to buy a new one, looks like.

Don't know when I will donate this, but I will soon.  In fact, I will update this blog post once I bring those items into good hands.

ETA at 12:26 p.m. on February 19 that I did swing by Goodwill after getting tested to drop off the above items.

And Back To Bad Blood

So yesterday at work we were scrambling for work.  The shipment of forms that morning was cancelled because it comes from the mid-South, and the ice storm that includes that polar vortex that's turning Texas into the North Pole precluded any chance that the forms were sent here, or even picked up from the testing labs.

What we did have were "the other forms."  How they came I don't know.  They come from all over, so how did these get here and the others did not?  Anyway, we had over a grand of them, and we were plenty busy getting those done -- both keying them and then looking over them before filing them away.

These folders are on my supervisor's desk.  What usually happens is once they're keyed, I take them off her desk to do one final once-through.  But because there were so many and because my boss (my "other" boss) found a project that we could also do, I was told that only to do those forms that were priority.  Do those, then flip over to the other project.  Problem is is that it's not too apparent when those forms are keyed through and ready to be looked over.

I thought I knew that the data entry portion of those forms was done, so I went over to her desk to look through those priority forms.  She was there, but she mumbled something.  So I innocently said, "Sorry, what now?"  That's all I said.  That's.  All.  I.  Said.  And she just snaps: "I DON'T THINK THESE WERE PRIORITIZED!"

At this point I just have to roll my eyes at her.  I ain't her favorite, and therefore she's not mine.  But I can't get all bitchy over her outbursts unless I'm prepared to quit.

But Jesus fucking Christ, don't fucking mumble if you don't want to be sorry-what-now-ed, fuck. ...

I'm So Nervous ... Mother's Getting Her Shot Today!

I want to loop back to a beginning of this story, because it's important that I tell you how My Fucking Mother hung me out to dry.  But that doesn't matter now, because she's supposed to get the first of her two vaccinations today.

The way she described it, she scrambled to find an appointment as soon as she saw that there were shots available.  Therefore, she has to drive to downtown Minneapolis.  I don't like that.  She (well, I think Father's tagging along with him in the very slight chance he can get a shot too, so they) will have to go to an unfamiliar but busy area in a relatively busy time of day.  They will have to find parking, which will be difficult if you're unfamiliar with the area and, if you are not familiar, it'll be expensive.  Finally, and I don't want to raise this with them too much because I don't want to get into a fight, but I'm scared that they're going to get jumped by some dudes.  Anti-Asian sentiment is running high thanks to Trump that dirty, bigoted motherfucker Pompeo, and there always are crazy people downtown.  I'm ... concerned.

Oh yeah -- I took a dirt nap this evening, and when I finally woke up I realized that Mother might be missing something.  She is supposed to come in and show the pharmacist the e-mail confirmation, proof of identification, and an insurance card (I don't think she's supposed to pay for the shot ... right?).  She also is supposed to have a form filled out, which I didn't realize until tonight, so I don't know if even she knows.  Now, they say that if the form isn't filled out, there will be ones at the pharmacy.  But shit, you never know if it somehow runs out of them.  Then what?

The only saving grace is that I am taking a half-day off today.  It was supposed to be tomorrow, but the ice storm (or storms) that are hitting the South is affecting shipments of the forms we take care of every day, and I am banking that there will be such little work today that people will get cut early.  Anyway, while I would love to have the afternoon free all to myself, if (Buddha forbid) something happens, I'll be able to see them after work.

Let's hope everything goes without incident.  And then -- well, Mother will have to trek downtown again in a few weeks for her second shot.  And then I can worry about everything all over again.  Dammit.

Not At My Best At Work Yesterday

Important shakeup at work.  A longtime employee in one department abruptly left last week.  She and her family apparently had planned to move down south for some time, plus a family emergency has changed her short- and intermediate-term plans, so she decided it was time for her to leave.  She was really nice to me when I kept asking her questions, sometimes probably the same ones I asked her before.

That means that, until (or maybe even if) my boss can find or hire a replacement, I will be working in her place a couple times a week -- just a few hours, but I am expected to be there until he can find someone.  Don't know how long that will be.  Maybe this is not a good comparison, but when the person who had done the wraparound (Saturday through Tuesday) job left, I thought that me filling in on Sundays (the day of the week that had to be covered) was going to be temporary.  It's been almost four months now, and in the e-mail I blog posted about prioritizing duties, he hinted that me coming in on Sundays was going to be "long-term."

Trying to find someone who will work Saturdays through Tuesdays is probably a lot tougher than finding someone to work a usual workweek.  Hope so, because if yesterday is any indication (and it might not be), it's probably best my boss finds someone quick.

Basically, filing's just not my thing.  I get in in the morning, and there is a pile of stuff that I am confronted with (nothing unusual there), and ... well, I know that other people could probably do it all in three hours, but I didn't.  I don't really know why.  Sure, I was sidetracked by doing other things.  But ... well, this is going to sound like excuses, but they're my excuses ... it was a Monday ... and this was the first time on a new work schedule that I might need to be in for some time ... and I needed to get my radio going at the computer because I can't work without it, but the goddamn headphones were in my way the whole time I was sitting down at that workstation, and that was really harshing my mellow ... and That Guy wasn't working yesterday, so I felt as though I could be self-indulgent with my work environment ... anyway, I was slow, OK?  I was slow.  It felt like I did a lot, but if I weren't so slow to get up to speed first thing in the morning, and if I didn't mess around as long as I did with getting the satellite radio station I wanted, I think I maybe could have done all the work I had when I came in in the morning.

I say all of this because there was no one else in the department working that day.  Someone from somewhere else was working in the department too, and since she's been there a long time (or she wasn't stuck on finding the right radio station), she blazed through all the stuff that she needed to do.  She even had time to help me.  But when I had to leave for my regular duties, I left her with a good-sized pile of folders to put away.  And I know that since she was now the only person in that department yesterday, plus she has her own duties with her own job of which she still had to stay on top (she is the only person in that "department"), she probably saw everything I left her and went, "How come he's so fucking slow?"  I like her, she's not a bad co-worker at all, but I'm pretty sure she thought that.

I kind of felt bad leaving that much work behind, and maybe that affected me the rest of the day.  I did that thing whereby I left one program open so a technician in the lab could not access that folder, so he had to come up to the window and remind me to close the program so he could get in.  Thankfully he was not in a bad mood, and thankfully he was not that other guy who actually pounded on the fucking wall to get my attention.  Moreover, me and my other co-worker in my main job were assailed with work in the afternoon.  She estimated that we did between twice and three times as many forms as we would normally encounter on a Monday.  We were in the shit in the afternoon.  But, somehow, we got out of work in time.  We had to work through our afternoon break, and I don't like that, but we got out of work in time.

---

So I'm up after conking off at 7 this past evening and waking up at a quarter to 1.  I may be dead tired going into work today.  But it is a new day.  The full cast will be there, so assuming we won't get dumped on with work that would overwhelm a dozen people and not just two, we'll be fine.  And the day after that I'll be back in filing, and maybe with one clumsy day gone and That Guy back putting a damper on everyone's work environment by his mere uncooperative presence, I'll have my head on straight and be willing to just work.  At the very least I doubt it'll be as bad as yesterday was.

Thanks For Spelling It Out For Me. (Seriously, I Thank Them)

Both on Friday and Sunday I received e-mail from, respectively, my boss and my supervisor when it comes to prioritizing specific tasks in a couple of the departments I work in.  The first was unsolicited; the second I e-mailed my supervisor.

The e-mail from my boss probably came as a result of a couple things that have happened lately when I have come in to work on Sundays.  I thought what I needed to do was static and certain.  However (and I don't want to bog any of us down on details), there was a flood of post-holiday work that was left over one Sunday.  Along with that, I had been asked via e-mail on a previous Sunday by my other boss (she was not at work, she apparently e-mailed me from her home) to specifically process several forms that were in the pipeline.  Normally I would let them pass if I didn't get around to it before I had to leave, and for Sundays I was (initially) expected to work only four hours.  But the following day this same boss talked to me following up on those forms.

She did not explicitly say it, but I got the impression that these forms represented a type of form that needed to be done on Sundays.  That thought was reinforced (at least in my mind) on a subsequent Sunday when she asked (via e-mail again) to process these other forms that were just sitting around.  So I come to this Sunday, and this gargantuan backlog of these types of forms (maybe, oh, a hundred of them?) that I had come to believe needed to be done.  I stayed six hours that Sunday doing them all.  By law, if you stay six hours, you really need to stay 6 1/2, because you are required at that point to take a half-hour for lunch.  I did not do that.  Moreover, there were other ... um, folders that I needed to do, which was the main task I thought I had to do on Sundays, and in my mind I needed to shunt those off until I did these priority forms first.

Then it gets weird, and I hope you can understand what I'm saying.  The day after this, I was approached by my other boss as to why these folders, filled with these forms I had initially done first when I began working Sundays, were done so late in the day.  (It dawned on me recently that all these forms are tracked as soon as they enter our building; someone knows where a specific form is at a given time, and that someone likely wants that form fully done when possible.)  Later that day, this boss e-mails me a priority list of what to do on Sundays.  To be honest, it didn't quite line up with what she told me that morning.  So this past Sunday (not yesterday but the Sunday before) I did the work according to what she told me to do.  But, even then, I stayed five hours instead of four because these "main" folders, what I thought was my main task when I started working on Sundays, was not completely done.  There were folders that I still needed to touch -- not do, but touch, because they were empty.  But I "did" them, and I left at around 3.

I think that prompted my main/real boss to finally spell everything out for me in that e-mail on Friday whereby he gave me a numbered list of what to do first, then second, then third, etc.  And, maybe more important, he told me what had to be done on Sunday and what could wait.  Finally, he said in clear terms that unless the shipment is late due to an ice storm or truck accident, I should not be there more than four hours.  Fair enough.  Armed with that checklist, I completed what I had to do yesterday/Sunday by 2 o'clock.

I saw my boss' e-mail Friday morning.  I was working at The Third Department that day, filling in for someone, when a series of things came in.  Things come in in The Third Department, and I'm still trying to figure out how to do them ... and when.  My co-worker pointed out that there were some forms in a particular folder that needed to be done right then and there.  That got me to thinking: How serious is doing that task?  I was matching up forms with affidavits that provided missing information; do I just drop everything in order to process these, uh, priority forms?

And that prompted me to e-mail my supervisor for that department, even though she went home for the day by the time I decided to create that e-mail.  I saw her reply yesterday/Sunday; they're fairly important, because those forms have to do with accidents, and investigations into them are ongoing and need to be wrapped up very quickly.  Good to know, although I probably need to actually drop everything and process them before I fully understand how big of a priority they are, if that makes sense.

I appreciate these rankings of stuff I need to do.  I frequently like freelancing in my duties, but when I am in a bind, dealing with a bunch of things I could do, it is good to know from my higher-ups what are priorities over what.  I have gotten in trouble for not doing these forms first, to which I say I didn't know.  I do now, and I like that.  I wonder, however, if having these tasks spelled out to me in the order they want them done makes me look like I am incapable of recognizing what needs to be done and what can wait.  Being told what to do clears up a lot of misunderstanding, but I'm afraid my bosses are disappointed that they needed to do even that for me.

Kombucha Bugs Me

Went to Target after work today.  Wanted to pick up some non-alcoholic libations -- Coke, apple juice, Naked juice.

Saw that in the same end cap I saw the single-serve bottle of Naked, there were many, many bottles of kombucha, that New Agey-type of drink that I first heard about 20 years ago and am seeing everywhere.  I had seem them being sold at Target for some time.  But I swear that more than half of this end cap was infiltrated with all these different brands of kombucha.  It was noticeable, and scary.

I have never had it.  Thought about trying it once.  They say it has these natural properties that control inflammation of your gut, which is very important if you want to live a long, productive life.  But there is something ... off-putting about kombucha.  I am not sold on its positive health effects.  I'm not saying this drink is such a sham that Goop is selling it, but I have yet to see a scientific study on it.  Plus, from what I hear about the ingredients, it sounds like it'd be an awful thing to drink.  All that has turned me off on kombucha, and unless I get swindled into trying it, I'll be OK passing through this temporal plane without ever drinking it, no matter how many brands Target puts on its shelves.

So How Did I Do In Predicting The Super Bowl?

When it comes to the most important result, who won and by how much, I was totally wrong.  I was certain it was going to be a close Game, even to the point where I wasn't sure if Kansas City or Tampa Bay would win (although I thought, in the end, the Chiefs would win).  I thought there was a slight chance the Chiefs would rout the Buccaneers.  I never, never thought Tampa Bay would manage to toy with the Chiefs.  I guess having two replacement Offensive Tackles does make all the difference ... even though all those penalties in the First Half can't be overlooked as a factor, justified or not.

So I got the team and the type of result wrong.  As for my other super-specific predictions ... well, for some, the less said, the better.  I will recount my most off predictions:

• Tyreek Hill did not finish with more Rushing Yards (5) than Receiving (73).  Maybe he should've been given more than one jet sweep; maybe that would've slowed the Bucs' Pass Rush.
• Mecole Hardman did not have a run of at least 30 Yards.  He didn't have a run, period.
• Neither Chief back-up Tight End scored a Touchdown.  Neither of them caught a pass, period.  Shoot, no Chief scored a TD, come to think of it.
• Finally, Tom Brady did not throw an Interception in the back half of the Fourth Quarter that shifted momentum of Super Bowl LV.  Far from it; the Game was well in hand by then.  His numbers prove that he did not turn in the climb-on-my-back performance that should be rewarded with the Most Valuable Player award (I'm having a hard time who I would have picked, though -- Rob Gronkowski?  Devin White?  Leonard Fournette?), but he certainly did not hurt his team, and yeah, I believe that the "aura" of a legend influences teammates to play harder and better.

With all that said, I did give one Anti-Pick.  If I had been in Las Vegas and I was compelled to make one bet on the Super Bowl, it would have been Under 56 Points.  And the Game, which finished 31-9, definitely was under.  At least I got that right.

Tempting The COVID Bear

OK, I don't think what I did yesterday was heeding risk of contracting the coronavirus.

I had the day off yesterday because of Chinese New Year.  Oh: It appears as though I will be filling in on Sundays for the time being, so I usually will have Friday afternoons off.  Beyond that, because of the pandemic, I am rolling over a bunch of paid time off, and even though I don't want to use them all now, I figure I should treat myself with a whole Friday off once a month.  It just so happens that I used yesterday because it was Chinese/Lunar New Year.

What I wanted to do was go to Eat Street to get tested.  But I couldn't.  That clinic recently revamped their hours; they will not test in the afternoon.  According to its website, the clinic will end testing at 11.  OK, so I went there before 11, but the guy said they ended testing at 10.  Sure they did.  Did the guy expect me to accept him just tossing out a time to get me to leave?  Well, I did leave, because it's not as if I can barge in and demand a test.  But I don't appreciate the sudden change in hours -- as uncomfortable a swab up the nostril is, it's more accurate than the spit test -- and I think the guy was lying to me.  And this clinic is sending me e-mails asking me for money?  Fuck you guys.

I bought Jimmy John's -- chicken, because of the New Year -- and ate it at the parking lot of Glam Doll before getting out and ordering donuts and hot chocolate from Glam Doll.  I had thought about exercising at the cemetery, but just that walk froze my feet.  And I didn't really have anything to do the rest of the afternoon, so I went to the Mall Of America -- primarily to walk, even though I ate the donuts at the MOA parking lot and brought the hot chocolate into the mall with me.

I wouldn't call it busy.  But I wouldn't call it not busy there.  And I was surprised that I saw more kids there.  Isn't it a school afternoon?  Then again, with the pandemic, maybe they wouldn't be holding classes in person, and if they're not, can parents just decide to take their kids to the mall one afternoon?  Most of the people were wearing masks, but many of them were wearing them incorrectly -- under the nose like men pulling their genitals above and past the top of their underwear, and chin diapers.  And since I was there to walk, I spent 75 minutes doing laps there.  Didn't stop besides taking off my mask to sip my hot cocoa; didn't want to catch corona.

But ... I later went to Wal-Mart because I want to see if I could buy a cable that will allow me to charge my laptop from my battery.  (I went to Wal-Mart because my supervisors got me a $10 gift card for the store.)  And I went up to the cable aisle, and I tried reading all the labels of the cables, and I still was not sure what to get.  So I stood there, opened up the Internet, and tried looking up information as to which specific cable I should get.  And it dawned one me that I had spent, oh, half an hour at that aisle ... in a somewhat-crowded store ... not moving and staying about in one place.  And then I left, because I don't think the cable I needed was there.

Goddamn, I contracted the virus today.  Whether it was at MOA or at Wal-Mart, I got it.

---

I was woken up this morning by Father.  He asked for my help in scheduling a vaccine for him.  He called me out of my bedroom again about an hour later because he found another place in the area where he could sign up for a shot.  I was visibly annoyed at him -- for waking me up, for coaxing me out of my cozy and warm bedroom, for doing something that I was hoping he and Mother could do themselves, for being helpless.

But I understand that this is all coming from an anxiety, and from Father feeling he is entitled to get a shot now.  He's right; he is entitled.  Plus, I want him to get a vaccination.  And so that makes me feel even more guilty that I engaged in risky behavior yesterday just because it was too cold to walk outside and because I want to buy a cable for my laptop.  I really, really hope they don't get COVID-19 just as they're able to schedule an appointment for a shot.

---

And on top of all that, I feel a mass in my chest.  I hope I'm being a hypochondriac, but shit, man, maybe I did get the virus yesterday.  Goddammit. ...

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  Well, their streak of not dropping a Set to begin their delayed season ended this past weekend at Purdue, a proud program that has not come as close to getting over the hump as Minnesota has, but they nevertheless the Gophers take both Games in West Lafayette.  That keeps them on top when it comes to comparing local teams, but I am looking for a reason to knock any Twin Cities club into negative territory at some point in their season -- not every Week can be sunshine and rainbows -- so winning a pair of 3-2 decisions gets them a -1 for this screening Week.  They also rise to fifth in the AVCA Top 25, although they are behind two Big Ten squads (#1 Wisconsin and #4 Nebraska) in this weird season where many BcS schools completed their seasons in the fall.

A huge series coming up.  Prime nemesis Penn St. comes here for Spring 2021, both tonight/Friday night and tomorrow/Saturday night.  Not only can you see this on TV (Big Ten Network), but -- and I didn't know this until recently -- you can now listen to Gopher volleyball Games on the radio, on The Plus, 96.7 FM!

#-2: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -6).  This team suffered through a three-Game skid that made me think about taking back my belief they were just about a Stone Cold Steve Austin lock for The Big Dance.  And they were falling down Joe Lunardi's Bracketology, getting close to "Real Last Four In" status, or worse.  So they turned away from the abyss this Week with a pair of important wins at home, over Nebraska by 18 Monday and, probably more importantly, over Purdue by three yesterday/Thursday afternoon.

Liam Robbins and Marcus Carr have become the engine of this team and a formidable inside-outside duo when they're working.  But inconsistent Guard play has hampered this team, and opponents have been able to disrupt, if not shut down, their Big Two.  Recently they've been undone by horrible starts to their Second Halves.  And while I want to credit their team's fortitude in their victory over the Boilermakers, it's accurate to say that they haven't been a consistently clutch team this year, either.  It made yesterday's contest an entertaining nailbiter, though; after Purdue's Trevion Williams made a lay-up put his team up 68-66 with 24 Seconds to go, Carr drilled a Three-Pointer with :14 left.  Williams then was called for traveling with seven Seconds left, Gabe Kalscheur made both Free Throws after being fouled, and the Gophers escaped with a 71-68 win that should arrest the U.'s slide.

Unfortunately, I now see that the Gophers this screening Week face a pair of B1G schools hanging onto tournament hopes on the road, at which they are still winless.  They visit Maryland (the only team to have defeated the Golden Gophers at Williams Arena, and they did so humiliatingly, 63-49) Sunday evening, then travel to Indiana Wednesday.

#-3: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -1).  The U. is ranked tenth, and Illinois is ranked 13th.  I guess it's, uh, encouraging to see that the Gophers overpowered the Illini at Maturi Friday evening by a 25-13 Dual Score.  The U. only won six of the ten matches that count toward the Dual Score (for this season only, teams are allowed to stage extra matches so competitors can rack up records for their personal prospects for NCAA postseason play), but those wins included back-to-back Technical Falls by #6 Brayton Lee at 157 and #15 Andrew Sparks at 165 to take the lead from Illinois and, to add the cherry on top, Heavyweight #1 Gable Steveson's Pin of #6 Luke Luffman just 34 Seconds into their match.

Hmmm, this is odd: They are at Wisconsin this/Friday late morning.  The Dual starts at ... 10 a.m.???

#-4: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -2).  It looks as though Minnesota and Wisconsin are the two programs that stand out above the rest this season in women's top-flight college hockey.  Evidence of that was provided last weekend when the Badgers came to Ridder Arena and split a two-Game series.  Each team blew a two-Goal lead and lost, the Gophers Friday on their way to a 4-3 Overtime loss, the Badgers Saturday on their way to a 3-2 Shootout loss.  It's a wash when it comes to the WCHA standings: both clubs took two Points in their victory and one in their defeat.  But considering that the Goofers traveled to Madison and got swept by a combined score of 11-3, it's fair to say that the Badgers have the leg up this season.  That portends bad things in a possible (probable?) tournament matchup, possible in the Frozen Four Final.

Their final home series of the regular season is this/Friday and tomorrow/Saturday afternoon vs. Ohio St., a squad against which they have split a pair of series so far.  Friday's tilt can be heard on The Plus.

#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3).  Finish this screening Week 1-3.  It feels as though they have finished many, many, many screening Weeks 1-3.  The Wolves' sole win was the first Game of a two-Game series at Oklahoma City on Friday, squeaking out a 106-103 result as they finally showed some late-Game grit.  But they demonstrated a lack of said grit the following night, losing 120-118 the next night, and it has been typically downhill from there.  With Wednesday's 119-112 home loss to the Clippers, the Minnesota Timberwolves now have the worst record in the NBA.

I see a few encouraging signs that leads me to rank the Woofie Dogs above two other teams for the week.  The road win over The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics is one.  Another: Karl-Anthony Towns finally has returned to the team after a month away from the team while fighting COVID-19.  Man, a young man in extremely good health like KAT, and just because his genes and that of his family are such a bad matchup with this virus, he was waylaid for that long -- and probably will need at least several Games before he's back to full strength?  But hey, at least the squad has its leader back.

Four Games this Week -- at Charlotte (tonight/Friday night) and Tampa (versus Toronto Sunday), then home contests against The Bastard Minneapolis Lakers (Tuesday) and Indiana (Wednesday).

#-6: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -4).  A 24-Point loss in Ohio St. Sunday afternoon in which they just had a shitty Third Quarter.  That was followed up with a ten-Point win Wednesday versus Illinois.  Like the men, thin Guard play has hampered yet another season with the women's basketball program.  I mean, 6-9 overall and a 5-8 conference record is barely better than those of squads during the Littlejohn Era.  This Week they host Wisconsin Sunday afternoon (like all women's basketball Games, you can hear this one on The Plus) and play at Rutgers Wednesday.

#-7: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: 0).  The worst Week, by far, goes to the U. male icers.  It actually was an embarrassing Border Battle for both Minnesota hockey programs.  Both the male and female Wisconsin teams came over.  And while Minnesota at least managed to win in a Shootout to save some face, the young men did nothing of the sort, losing badly and looking horrible in the process, by scores of 4-1 (courtesy of a brainfart in the middle of the Third Period when they were tied at 1) and, fucking Christ, 8-1.  A high-flying offensive juggernaut somehow only scored two over the weekend.  Meanwhile, the weaker part of this team, defense, got exposed time and time again by Bucky Badger.  Therefore, the U. went from second to fifth in both men's college hockey polls.  I am getting the feeling that these Goofers can just pepper teams with Goals, and they can get peppered by Goals in turn, and that's not a good feeling to have for a team when you want it to go far in the postseason.

Another team that depantsed the U. at home is Notre Dame, and Minnesota visits South Bend for a two-Game set tonight/Friday night and tomorrow/Saturday late afternoon.  As always (and has been the case for the past few Years), you can hear these tilts on The Talk, also known as 103.5 FM and AM 1130.

Hottest Babe In The Hooters Calendar: January

I think I will be getting Hooters calendars till the day I die.  While Hooters is being battered, both by the pandemic now and by the whims of the restaurant industry and upstart "breastuarants" nipping at its heels in non-pandemic times, I still believe that Hooters is the pre-eminent restaurant chain (if "pre-eminent" is an appropriate word to describe a "breastaurant"), and I think its still-popular calendar is a sign that, at least as far as they are concerned, things are still full speed ahead.

And as for the calendar, I think that aesthetically, 2021 represents a new dawn.  I have snuck peeks at the months ahead, and I believe that Hooters is taking more risks with the photographs of their waitresses.  OK, what I mean by that is they're putting more of them in bare-ass bikini bottoms.  That alone represents something new, something risque, and something pornographic -- and I don't mind that at all!

January 2021 does not have any of their ten chicks showin' ass.  I don't mind it, however, because the overall vibe I got is a positive and promising one.  I will only point out five, but the five I don't point out still have some pop to them.  I think this month is good, and I feel the next months will be even better.

Of the five I point out, I will group three of them in a joint third place: Somer from Clearwater, Fla.; Alexis out of Naples, Fla.; and Las Vegas' Hannah.  They are sporting nice, hot bodies.  The only drawbacks I see with each of them are ones that I think originate from choices made by the photographer and editor -- respectively, her right hand is placed on the top half of her stomach; her arms are inexplicably and distractingly bent for no natural reason; and her eyeshadow is way too dark.  But I would not be upset if they were serving me for dinner.

In second place is Michaela, hailing from Wesbank, La.  She's a long, dark-haired beauty sporting a black two-piece bikini, the bottom of which is scandalously tied on the side!  She's got a radiant smile and she's holding both her arms over her head, which is a pose I think more women should utilize.  I only have two minor quibbles with her picture.  One, her overall vibe screams young college age girl, and my #1 choice looks to be all woman.  And two, Michaela is posing in front of a corrugated door that I see enclosing 25x25 storage units where I have my stuff.  Just a tad incongruous.

My award for top woman goes to someone who I think has posed in previous years, and who I may have selected in previous years: Angela, who, like Alexis, waitresses out of Naples, Fla.  She is only holding her arms partially up, but they're grabbing onto -- something ... well, I can see that the right hand is grabbing onto what looks like straw, so I'm going to pretend that her left hand is grabbing onto my dick.  She is wearing a patterned two-piece.  The bottom, like with Michaela, is tied on the sides, making me think it's very easy to just reach out, untie them, and expose Angela's pussy.  She has long, dark hair, and she's posing fully in front profile, showing off her totally banging body.  Angela is lit from the back; you can see a light that peeks just a bit around her beautiful mane.  She has a come-hither look that is devastatingly mature, like she's down to fuck.  Oh, and you can see that her tits are fake, but they're big, so big that her bikini top is barely holding them in.  So fuck yeah, congratulations to Angela!!!

And I will find the time to masturbate to these babes soon!

Do Better, Xorge Olivares!

Xorje Olivares is a media personality, radio producer and host on SiriusXM Progress.  I listen to the channel's morning show (which is actually a syndicated radio show that is heard on terrestrial radio), The Stephanie Miller Show, and a part of the show before it, Signal Boost, for which Olivares I think is the producer.

So what I am saying is that I have not heard him a whole lot.  But from what I have heard, he is smart and has solidly progressive views.  No problem there.  He has his own show on Saturday mornings, which I do not have time to listen to.  But a network commercial for that his show, Affirmative Reaction, usually airs once or twice a day during Miller.  And I need to get this off my chest: Those spots promoting his show are fucking terrible.

I don't know if this is how all talk show ads are formatted, or if it's just the ones for SXM Progress.  But in the 30 seconds, there is a voiceover that says the title of the program, then there is a clip from a recent show to give a flavor of what that program is about and what you can expect from the host, and then the VO comes back to slate the title of the program again, give its timeslot, then finishes the spot with, "... on SiriusXM Progress, 127!"

What I have noticed when it comes to ads for Affirmative Reaction, and I think I have noticed this ever since his show started several years ago, is that this clip that fills the "donut" of the spot rarely, if ever, is him talking about the issues of the day -- no Trump, nothing about an LGBTQ+ case in front of the Supreme Court, nothing about the kids being separated from their parents at the border.  The overwhelming majority of these clips features, and this is not a joke, him introducing a guest, and that guest complimenting him.  It literally is, "We welcome our guest, so-and-so. ..." "Oh, thank you so much for having me, Xorge, you're awesome!"

First of all, I find the repeated ass-kissing weird.  The same clip appears to run for a couple weeks before it's swapped out for a fresher one, and yet they just use a sound bite of another guest thanking him.  But the main sin is that these promotional ads are absolutely uninformative.  How are you supposed to promote the show and encourage someone to tune in and try it when we can't hear the host spouting off on the issues his talk show theoretically covers?  I have heard, at most, two rants where Olivares gives his opinion on a hot-button issue of the day, and neither of them were particularly information-filled nor, well, ranty.  These guests we hear him introduce are never heard talking about an issue, either.  It is quickie radio fellatio.

I could, could, buy into an explanation that someone else is cutting these spots, and that person either has no idea how to promote a radio show or is out to make Olivares look bad.  If that's the case, and regardless of whether Olivares is a jerk or not, it behooves him, his show and the channel to find someone who can do a better job.  But if you want to be less charitable and believe Olivares has direct control of what clips are used for these ads, the only logical conclusion one can arrive at is that Xorge Olivares is a thin-skinned narcissist who should care about progressive issues but really is only about promoting himself.

Like I said, I don't have time to listen to him.  And I want to believe that everyone who's on SiriusXM Progress has a brain and good intentions.  But shit, man, these spots aren't doing him any favors.  And I understand it is very weird for me to go off on shitty promotional ads on satellite radio.  But that should be a sign of how conspicuously execrable these are.  Man, I haven't done a radio spot in two decades, and I know I could find a better clip for these promotionals than the ones I routinely hear for him.  Xorge, the people who work for him, someone at SXM Prog -- jfc, step it up!

Expenses Without Receipts

Starting from Monday, February 8:

• Actually I really need to start Friday the 5th, where I had the afternoon off and made it to Glam Doll to eat a Valentine's Day-themed donut.  Text written in icing: "Send Me Dog Pic."  With tip: $5.32.
• This time around I used a lot of cash because I bought a lot of lottery tickets because of the twin megajackpots in January.  Case in point: Friday, January 22, where, while I was waiting for The Mechanic Around The Corner to fix the faulty valve stem core in one of my tires, I decided I was going to get my sister the Mega Millions tickets she wanted.  And it was time I used the small winnings from one of her earlier tickets to defray the cost.  Now, I have blog posted about the ticket I bought here; I can't find it, and even though it's probably a loser, I'm scared that I somehow left the ticket at the counter and that mean, rude bitch who cashiered me didn't tell me and just kept it to herself, pocketing the hundreds of dollars that ticket might've won.  Hate her.  Anyway, the ticket cost me: $8.
• And I went to Glam Doll afterward.  Charged a donut and hot chocolate.  But I tipped in cash: $1.
• Later that evening Father paid me back for buying those tickets I got for him, an Infusion of: $14.
• On Thursday the 21st I anted up my contribution to a pool for the remaining humongous Mega Millions jackpot at work.  Did not know until these megajackpots that there was a pool at work.  Gave: $2.
• And after I got home Father again paid me back for all those times I got those lottery tickets for Mother and him, an Infusion of: $50.
• Tuesday the 19th: Work pool for the Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots: $4.
• Did the same Friday, January 15: $4.
• And once again, once I got home from work, Father paid me back for buying all those ... OK, I honestly don't know if this was the day when he paid me back for buying all those lottery tickets for them.  I just decided to write it for this day because I know I used cash to spend on another thing on this day.  It's an Infusion of $40.
• To Sunday the 10th ... after work I bought Subway to eat at work the next day.  Charged the submarine to my credit card, but used cash for tip ETA at 12:51 a.m. on February 11 that it turns out that I did not charge the sub, and that I in fact used cash to pay for the whole thing.  Since I apparently have a receipt for the submarine (I wrote it down in my day planner), this EWR reflects only the tip, for which there obviously is no receipt: $1.

Good through February 8.

Beer Powder? I'll Get Right On That, Father

Popped out to the dining room after the Super Bowl (woof, what a debacle) got over to watch The Equalizer.  Just wanted to get out of my bed and out of the heat in the bedroom.

After the show got over and I was still on my laptop, Father came up for one of his usual late-night snacks.  He came up to me and said something like, "Well that Game was boring, huh?"  And then he launched into one of his non-sequitur ideas he has not talked to me about in many, many years.  He did that from time to time in the past, when I was younger and he saw in me potential to take his weird ideas and put them into practice, somehow envisioning a lucrative, world-changing future for me because of him.  That has never happened because I usually don't think anything of it.

At any rate, he said something like, "Hey, I have an idea: Beer powder.  It tastes like beer, but it's powder form.  You add water to it or something, put it in, like, water or on top of food like a dressing, but without the alcohol.  Good idea?  I'll give you money so you could. ..."  So, I could, what?  I think he suggested either investing in companies who make beer powder or, if such a thing somehow doesn't exist (and in this day and age everything exists), inventing it ... I guess ... ?

He hasn't talked this crazy in a long time, so maybe he's due.  But blog posting this is my attempt at even trying to remember his suggestion after tonight.  I'm not mad at Father, I'm just ... huh?