I'm on fire!

Okay, I'm not, but things at work were today. I was sitting in the office hastily slapping together a schedule for the crew since I was told I have to do it in only two hours instead of three meaning that this next schedule did not receive the level love and attention I usually lavish on the arranging of employee shifts when one of my fellow managers (no, not Steve) came flailing along in a panic.
"Hey, it'sonfireshouldIpullthething?" he spewed at me.
"What's on fire?" I asked.
"The fryer. Should I pull the thing*?"
"No. How big is it? You can't pull it unless it's big."
"It's huge**!"
I followed him up to the line. Smoke was rising from one of the fryer kettles and little tongues of orange flamer were peeking over the edge. I think I may have laughed.
"Jeez, just get the fire extinguisher and put it out."
He scuttled over and grabbed the thing. I thought for a moment we might have to get scissors to get the safety tag off, but in the end he got it. One quick burst of the fire extinguisher and everything was all settled with no mess to clean up except rinsing out that mostly empty fryer.

Some people do all the panicking.

*The "thing" in question is the fire suppression system. It sprays out a metric shit-ton of powdery crap that, obviously, puts out any fire that might be present. If activated the all of the food on the line has to be thrown away. The store has to be shut down for several days for clean-up, equipment replacement, inspection, etc. The system is expensive to recharge after an activation. It also should not be activated when there is anyone near because the powder can be hazardous to breathe in. Essentially, it should only be deployed as the last desperate measure as you evacuate the store screaming "run you fuckers, run!"

**I am imagining an entire wall engulfed in flames here. Although, the lack of shouting, or say, the sound of such a conflagration, was suspicious.

Current Reads

The delightful and wonderful MissE has tagged me to do a book meme:

1. Pick up nearest book
2. Open to page 123
3. Find 5th sentence
4. Post next 3 sentences
5. Tag 5 people

I am currently reading several books, as usual, here's what I have in my stack:

Don't Know Much About Mythology by Kenneth C. Davis:

As they developed in wealth and size, these farming and herding communities eventually became "city-states," with merchants, skilled craftsmen, prostitutes, priests, and tax collectors, and armies of scribes who recorded everything from negotiations over the price of figs to real estate deals, law codes, epic poetry, and the military records and amorous adventures of conquering kings.

Unfortunately, the prosperity of these city-states also attracted attention. Unprotected by the vast stretches of desert that kept Egypt safe from most outsiders, the flat plains of Mesopotamia were like an open chessboard, across which armies moved freely.

Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen:

"Hmph!" said the nurse, turning to face the throng. "Relax, everybody."

A pair of orderlies clambered atop the bus and untied Brian Keyes.

I tag Julia, Mark, Steve, Lucy, and Shelley. Um, if you guys feel like it that is. I won't mind if you don't. :)

Today

1:30 pm - Leave to pick up parking sticker for roommate who lost his. The landlord sent out a note yesterday saying they would be cracking down on people parking in out lot who didn't belong there. Woohoo, I thought. I didn't even have to complain. Apparently somebody else didn't like not having a place to park.

1:32 pm - Arrive at the landlord's. As I approach the building the crazy old patriarch of said establishment was coming down the stairs with a sign in tow. "Looks like *mumble, mumble*" he says to me. "What?" I say. "Looks like its gonna rain," he says, the air is heavy with the smell of rain, the sky is dark, and the first sprinkles are falling. "Um, yeah," I respond as he lets me pass. It's nice to know that in this world some things never change.

2:00 pm - Pick up friends to go shopping. First we stop at McD's for some much needed junk food. We were served by the predictable pimply teenager, except this one was special. When one of my friends told me to go first he called her a coward. Which was out of line, but whatever. But then, after I ordered, he made an encompassing gesture, perhaps indicating his register, perhaps the restaurant at large and said to me, "If you're worried about this giving you cancer. Everything will give you cancer. From the day you're born everything in the world is going to kill you. Everything will give you cancer." Holy crap.

2:30 pm - Day of shopping commences.

6:00 pm-ish - Day of shopping ends. I am disheartened. Normally after a day of shopping, especially when I'm on the hunt for clothes, I am depressed. Not so today. I was in a good mood to look for clothes. Me and my self confidence were a go for clothes shopping. However, I couldn't find anything. All I wanted was a new shirt to wear out to the bar, but all there was to behold were t-shirts and polo shirts and a few dressy shirts my grandma wouldn't wear. So I looked for shoes instead because we all know shoes are awesome and make everything better. There were no cute shoes to be had. We even went to the sMall here in BG. No luck with that either, but they did have lots of tractors on display. They had a fucking tractor display.

7 pm - Lewis Black's stand up is on comedy central. But it's censored and it's hard to watch with all that bleeping. Eff that noise, I'll listen to it on my ipod.

9 to 10 pm - Try on every semi-suitable shirt in my closet.

10:15 pm - Have perfectly applied eye make up. I will never be able to duplicate this feat.

11:30 pm - Our entourage departs for the bars. Hmmm...hip hop night at Uptown. Why do they even have 18 and over bars? If you're not 21 you can't drink, so why are you here. Oh wait, you can dance. How could I forget. Crowded and annoying.

12:40 am - Steve begins analyzing his tipsy-ness and providing me with a running update of the symptoms. Then...then, they decided to go to another bar. Another crowded and annoying bar.

1:00 am - Enroute to bar #2 the 25 and over portion of the adventuring party (Steve, Julia, and I) decided to go sit at the adults' table. We decided to go to Grumpy Dave's instead of annoying bar #2 and watch karaoke. Good times.

2:15 am - Arrive at home. Discard shoes. Turn on tv; Lewis Black is on again and this time uncensored. All is right in the world.

Cruising the Cerebral Galaxy

I had to park on the street Sunday night. I can understand the parking lot being full on, say, a Friday evening, but Sunday at Midnight? No. I just got off work. All I wanted was to park and a shower and sleep. People had even parked in the spaces with the telephone pole in front of them that you can't park in. I have no idea how they got in or out of these spaces with out monster truckinig over the surrounding cars. Due to the lack of broken glass and police inquiries I assume they figured it out.

We started selling milkshakes at work today. We hand make them with ice cream and flavored syrup. They're good, but there's a knack to mixing them unmessily. I spent the day smelling like strawberry syrup.

I went to my dad's this past Saturday to visit (and do laundry. I'm not taking advantage. He yells at me if I don't bring any. Serious.). My car had a hiccup on the way up. Thankfully it was just in need of some coolant, and the out of control temperature was not due to some more expensive problem. While I was there we talked of many things. There was even a phone conference with my Grandma to confirm some genealogical info we were discussing. My dad, as his custom, offered me numerous items from his cupboards. "They had chocolate chips on sale for 92 cents or something for a bag. A two pound bag! Do you want to take some with you?" So I guess I'm making cookies now.

The company my dad works for makes machines for other companies (stretch-wrappers, conveyors, stacking robots, etc), so sometimes these companies give them test product to run on the machines. And sometimes they get to keep the product which my dad shares around. At Easter he was giving out boxes of Betty Crocker instant potatoes. This weekend he was offering me lemonade mix. He also holds up a box of grape kool-aid mix and says, "Vodka. Purple jesuses." I said, "I know what a purple jesus is, Dad."

I had some new info to add to my +1 Binder of Genealogy from my trip to my dad's. I ended up going over again some of the paper's my grandmother had given me a while back. I realized I had more info on a couple individuals than I thought. After a little more work I can now say my family tree now covers ten generations* and goes back about 330 years**.

I slept a lot last night, but the night before I only had about an hour and a half of sleep. I was having a really weird dream this morning. I don't remember all of it (and it feels like I forgot some important part), but I do remember there were these paintings. And I had painted them, and they had magical properties, or at least the Dream People believed they did. Then I had to kick the crap out of this leopard that was going to attack. This pissed off his tiger buddy, who did not believe I had magical properties***. Run-away! Run-away!

*Eleven generations now that I think about it; my cousin has had a kid.

**Oh, and I have to work on verifying a lot of the info, but it's exciting nonetheless.

***And this all wasn't even the weird part.

Headline News, or not

:::::Before my day off yesterday I had to work six days in a row. Normally, I only work four, then have a day off, work a day, and another day off. I like the schedule. I don't get my days off together, but it's Thursday and Saturday. And Fridays at work usually aren't bad. However, after four days in a row I'm ready for a day off. They're ten hour days (minimum, most often more), so I'm not being a baby.
:::::Well due to some stuff my boss had going on I wound up working six days in a row. You can imagine by the sixth day I was kind of...twitchy. Especially since every single day had awesome weather. It's warmed up, the sun was shining, awesome. Of course, yesterday it rained, all day. Today I have to work again. There's a chance of a storm or two later, but it's warm and not doing anything now. Tomorrow I have off and it's supposed to rain all day long.
:::::Damn you, weather.

:::::My mother invited me to go to Chicago with her and my two sisters on Saturday to a quilt show. By the way, my mother makes quilts. Very nice quilts, she's won awards. Ask her, she'll tell you about it. Anyway, I do not make quilts. And while I enjoy the benefits of the quilts she's made me, I'm not really into quilts. I could only walk around and look at them or listen to people talk about them for so long before I'd become terminally bored and order my cadre of ninjas to attack.
:::::The other factor(s) that led to me declining the invitation (which I received with less than a week's notice) was the 4+ hour drive to get there. Normally I enjoy a good drive, but I would not have been the driver. I would have been trapped in a car, with my mother and two sisters. Don't get me wrong, one of my sisters, Youngest Sister, I am quite okay with. Middle Sister and I, however, suffer from irreconcilable differences. My mother and I have some history. I am willing to lay it aside and be civil for family functions and the occasional lunch date, but 8 hours in one car in one day is asking a lot.

::::Spring is here, and even I am a little glad. For many reasons really, not the least of which is that our hours at work will go back to their late night schedule. Sure my closing shifts will end two hours later, meaning I'll get home somewhere in the vicinity of 1:30 am, but I won't be going to bed much, if any, later. What it really means is that when I roll out of bed at noon...thirty...ish I'll have time to actually do stuff before I have to go to work since I get to go in two hours later. And that makes me a happy camper.