Thursday, November 30, 2006

One of those things...

Let's say a person is buying less than 15 items at the grocery store, but five of the items are large bottles of wine. If the cashier alone is responsible for scanning the items, putting the bottles into individual sleeves, and bagging them and the other items with some attention to portability (in other words, double-bagging), can we really still call it an express lane? If the shopper behind that person, at first seemingly patient, looks like they need to pee really badly before the transaction has been completed, I'd say no.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Sippy Cups

My niece is coming to Wisconsin with her parents... they'll be here in about 12 hours! This is possibly going to be the best Thanksgiving ever. I have sippy cups, baby spoons, special chairs, jars of mush, and some normal people things, too, like good chocolate. And my boss let me off early today to boot.

I'm a little burnt out from work, frankly, so I really am looking forward to the long weekend. Management changes have been strange and awkward. Exhibit A: In which my 40-something-year-old well-educated white supervisor is discussing difficulty finding a desirable spot for his deer hunting trip - "I was really jonesin' the other day when we found out everything was already taken." Now I know just enough not to use the word jonesin', seeing as how I never really knew what it meant, and also because it's not something you generally hear around the office. But let's take entry #3, for instance, from urbandictionary.com:
an immense and incredibly emotional, mental, and physical need for heroin
Ok, I wasn't about to correct him or anything, but since he's been my supervisor for at least three months, I figured he would at least understand that I'd be the last person to sympathize with him on his deer huntin' troubles anyhow. I guess I'm hoping for way too much here. So needless to say, I expect a weekend with Kevin, my brother, sister-in-law, and of course my favorite bay-BEEE will do me a lot of good.



Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Sunday, November 05, 2006

The Game

It's funny how, even after four years of living in Madison, I am still struck by little reminders that I'm not on LI anymore. An announcement heard while shopping at JC Penney yesterday afternoon:
Attention JC Penney's shoppers - the final score from Camp Randall Stadium is Wisconsin Badgers - 13, Penn State - 3. Thank you for shopping at JC Penney.

Which was immediately followed by applause and cheers from our fellow shoppers as we stood, bewildered.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Milial Dermatitis And A Big Texas Hairdo

Unfortunately I had to work this past Saturday. Or to clarify, I offered to do about 1/2 hour of work, and then I got called for a problem that took all day to resolve. And I also did the 1/2 hour of work while I was at it. But before that, I helped Kevin tidy the apartment, vaccuumed everything, washed bedding, cleaned the bathrooms, baked an apple crumble (yes, the crust was homemade too), showered, and then went with Kevin to pick his parents up from the airport at noon.

The weekend otherwise went swimmingly. There were few arguments and many games of poker. Many meals were eaten out, and a good few leisurely strolls followed those meals. If I could change one thing, I suppose it would be the sleeping arrangements.

We give Billie her own room for a reason. But we put Kevin's parents in our room for the weekend, and imposed upon Billie so we could sleep on the futon. I spent three nights sleeping for 4 hours, and petting her every 20 minutes or so for another 4 hours. My right hand is just about shredded because she would get overly excited that I was paying attention to her. So as the days passed, I became less coherent and less patient. But I did well for having been generally exhausted.... at least from what I can remember. I even let Kevin's mom put my hair in rollers. Kevin returned from a lecture at precisely the right moment. After he greeted us and was asked for an honest opinion, his response was, "Mom - don't you think that's a little too tall!?" She had been teasing it up for a good couple of minutes.

Also, I took Billie back to the UW Vet Clinic yesterday afternoon to another dermatologist. Their final diagnosis was that she has milial dermatitis caused by environmental allergies. They could not explain how she developed full blown allergies over the course of one weekend. They were able to determine that their routine allergy screening would not give us any dependable results, so we will therefore need to perform some very expensive intradermal skin tests to find out what she's reacting to. Then we'll be able to give her a shot every day to help minimize her reaction to those allergens. Then there will be a chance that her skin will clear up.

¡
Quiquiriquí!