five thousand shades of blue
Saturday, December 29, 2001
I think I have managed to mostly catch up with my blog reading. I'm not even going to try to claim to have caught completely up with the
more prolific bloggers, but in reading the entries prior to holiday festivities, I can say that even more than ever do I feel like the winter holidays were stolen from me this year. I never really got into any kind of a holiday spirit at all, I barely had money to spend on gifts, and then... then it was
over, and a part of me is acutely aware of a sense of loss. Strange. That's not to say that I didn't have a good holiday -- maybe I should say that the sense of
anticipation was taken from me. I never even posted a holiday card online, or sent out a mail message, or even posted here, which has got to be the first time in about five years I haven't even done at least one of the above.
Next year will be better. I know it will. Still hoping for good news from a Major Software Company With A Local Office... keep the good mojo comin'.
At about 10:50 yesterday morning, the power in the café simply just went out. All power within our little domain, for about 5 seconds, went out. It came right back on again, but not before completely frying the machine I used to use here behind the counter. It just won't power up. So now we're in the process of reinstalling all of our important software (like mIRC!). I mean, I know we wanted to replace the machine back here, but not quite this abruptly.
My day today got off to a rockin' start when I locked my keys in the car at the bank, on my way to open the café at noon. Andra was able to get down here to save my hide but I ran out of time to go get myself some lunch. Then I find out that the new debit card I've been using for about a week now has been taking money out of the wrong account. Hopefully, the deposits I've put in via ATM went to the account listed on the deposit slip. Oy, a headache I just didn't need.
Friday, December 28, 2001
As promised,
here is a scan of the coral headdress thing I got, side by side with a ruler (for a sense of scale). (~22K) It seems to be a little darker on PCs, just a warning.
In a way I feel like an entire month has been stolen from me. It's like I went into a hibernation state and only awoke on Friday the 21st. The company treats their employees very well, but the work, while not difficult, was, shall we say, less than intellectual. I felt rather like Diane Chambers must have felt working at Cheers. ;) One standout moment was the phone call I received from someone on Friday the 21st, wanting to know if they could have a package arrive by Christmas Eve Day... to a destination in
Canada. Um, sure, if you want to pay me to fly it there directly, you bet it could.
Holidays (Solstice/Christmas weekend) were great and I spent a whole lot of time either shopping, being a bit of a vegetable, and seeing a movie (
Lord of the Rings, which was very good and I've never read the books). Christmas Day was Stuff Your Face And Lounge Around As Much As Possible Day, culminating in the usual Moroccan feast (on the floor, sprawled on pillows, eating with fingers from a large brass tray) and watching
Princess Mononoke on videotape. I really needed it.
As always, my friends and family were good to me this holiday season, though I do believe my Mongolian alter ego received more than I did (not that this is a complaint). A new bamboo parasol, a colour-shift green silk scarf (that will make an excellent sash), gold silk slippers with dragons embroidered into the fabric, a porcelain bowl/lid with Chinese characters painted on it, a miniature (~5" high) terra cotta Chinese soldier, not one but two sun hats of the Asian variety (one made in Senegal with painted leather decorations, the other a golden laquered 'heirloom' hat handed down from someone I admire very much), and finally, a decorative textured embroidered piece with coral, turquoise and cowrie shells that will make an excellent start to a new headdress (I will have to scan this in later so y'all can see what the heck I'm talking about). I would be remiss to mention a tee shirt I received
(waves to Jerry) that while isn't overtly persona-related, does refer to the award I got earlier this year. It reads: "Her Ladyship [drawing of a crown beneath the words]". I'm wearing it today in fact. Throw in the usual chocolates and slippers from Mom (and a cool windchime from another friend) and other assorted nice things and you have my loot list. :)
I am also the proud owner of the newest Nick Bantock book (which answers some questions about the first three books of the
Griffin and Sabine story, then turns around and asks three times as many in return -- more about this later in the correct section of my website) and the Twin Peaks first season special edition DVD set (I can't wait to watch, though I am mightily disappointed that the pilot episode is
not included). These were late-arriving birthday presents from my parents (as the DVD set wasn't released til mid-December.
It is hard to believe we're gearing up for another New Year's Eve. We're doing it at the café, with black eyed peas and everything. Here's hoping we have a good (and profitable) evening, hopefully wacko-free.
Thursday, December 27, 2001
I had a busy holiday weekend with little time in front of the computer, then after returning to my café schedule, Blogger was having some problems. Figures. However, it would seem I can post again. It's good to be back.
A possibility of some good news on the horizon, we hope. Keep all digits crossed, as it would be a great way to start climbing out of the hole.
I forgot what else I wanted to say. That's okay, I'll be talking more frequently. :)
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
I'm now up to book #4 in the Harry Potter series. Good stuff indeed.
Monday, December 17, 2001
Just a quick note to let y'all know I'm still alive. :)
four more days, four more days, then a loooong weekend.....
Monday, December 10, 2001
In sharp contrast to last week's episode (see last entry), X-Files was good last night.
Really good. I just about hurt myself laughing at "Too much Star Trek" (if you've seen it, you know what I mean). I really would like to know if Reyes is the only one who remembers anything.
Two out of four weeks down at the temporary job. Not terribly difficult, though it has its challenging moments. I'm not sure how much I like working Saturday and Sunday, but having work days broken up into two and three day chunks (instead of five-and-two) certainly has a positive side.
Two out of four Harry Potter books down as well. Helps keep me sane.
To all my friends, I'm so behind in blog reading it's not funny. I hope all is well with all of you and I should be back to a more regular schedule in, oh, two weeks' time.
Wednesday, December 05, 2001
Sparked by Sheri's mention of last week's episode of the X-Files (and honouring the BlogBack author's request to not write novels in the comments :) ):
While I thought the cinematography was brilliant and the story was interesting, I thought the writing was for crap and the characterization was all wrong. We were all laughing out loud at the spew-fest, and I don't think that was the intention. The whole psychotic-but-brilliant doctor bit was all but ripping off Hannibal Lecter. I wish they would have taken the whole series out on a high note last season and not been so doggedly (no pun intended) determined to milk the cash cow for all it was worth. It's a bad sign to watch a show in the hopes that maybe the next ep will be better and not in breathless anticipation of what would undoubtedly kick ass.
That's all. :)
The initial terror of taking live calls has worn off -- now the terror is only of getting someone on the line who doesn't have a shred of common decency, spewing verbal abuse and insults to the anonymous operator on the other end of the line (as if somehow being anonymous makes it all right) because something didn't arrive as they expected or who-knows-why. (This didn't happen to me, but did happen to someone else I trained with, on her second day of work.) My only 'horror' story (and I put it in quotes because it wasn't really that bad, just an incidence of "whatever can go wrong, will") involves spending a pleasant hour and twenty minutes taking a very large order for an individual who is in the public eye (and that's all I'll say about that) and being accidentally disconnected upon an attempt at conference call to get payment information. I tried calling back many times, and in the end had to transfer the entire order to paper (not a print out, mind you, but by hand with pen) to four order sheets and then leave a message that someone would try to contact them for payment information. Of course, not before almost losing the entire thing to a computer flip-out.
I have gained a new respect for people taking orders for catalogs. If I had any advice for people calling to place an order with any catalog, I would say, let the operator direct the call. There is a certain procedure that we have to follow to get the order information, and with a room full of what seems like an ocean of other voices, adding more information to process before it is needed causes confusion... and could be a source of possible errors. Just my two cents.
Now, to indulge in the rest of my pb and banana sammich. Not much else has been going on besides working. I did see
Harry Potter a couple of weekends ago and loved it hugely, so am now reading the books. I'm just into #2. Bloody brilliant! *grin*
is
this just not enough…?
