Mixed grill

No, I didn't grill the apple. and no, it wasn't rotten. It was actually pretty good -- it just browned quickly because it was hot that day.

The post title, if you hadn't got it yet, just means that I have a few small things to talk about that have nothing to do with each other but are going to be served together anyway. A chacun son goût, as they say.

Well, as some say.

The French, mostly.

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First, then, I wanted to let you know that I'm not going to complain about working the late shift again because I'm not. I'm working a late meeting. Working late at all puts me in a bit of a mood no matter why I'm doing it, though. Probably goes back to working at some subway shop.  Late shifts there were brutal, and they generally only scheduled one person to close (I'd imagine that newer OH&S regs mean that they can't do that anymore. What a pity). Close the storefront, put all the food away, clean up everything... all by yourself. When you left depended on how much of a mess there was; not just from your shift, but from the whole day. It was just after university and I'd moved back in with my parents temporarily. After the first night that I didn't get in until two in the morning, they refused to let me drive myself home. Yep, I had to phone mommy and daddy for a ride, no matter how late it was, so that I wasn't walking down the alley to the parking lot alone. Thanks, both of you. I actually really appreciated that.

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Next, and probably should have been first, I have over a foot less hair than I did when I got up this morning. Yep, finally had it with the whole having to tie it back even at night thing. Erm, because otherwise it was so long that it would get caught under my armpits and wake me up when I rolled over. Seriously. So now I have a hairdo for the first time in well over two years. Possibly over three years. I can't really remember.

Speaking of remember, I'll have to remember how to use hair products again. And do something with my hair besides a ponytail (because I can't anymore. Yes, I really did get that much cut off). I always make myself a deal when I get my hair cut: it has to be down for at least two days. After two days it's usually driving me so bonkers that I have to pin it back, but two days starts... now.

Ok, maybe more like tomorrow morning.

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Last, I've (finally) finished up the 2% milk I had in the fridge. Good. I know that some of you are wondering why the finally and the good, but let me tell you, when you're not used to 2% it feels pretty much like you're drinking butterfat. I used to drink 2% as a kid, but then at some point -- I can't remember why now -- the doctor put me on skim instead.

And as soon as I said skim a lot of you went ewwww. I likely did at first too, but once you drink it for a while you find it way more refreshing and far less... coating, I guess. I genuinely like skim milk now. Dad usually buys 1% and obviously I'll drink that, but for myself it's skim all the way.

Until your neighbourhood grocery store decides to switch allegiances and suffers some unexpected supply shortages as a result. What do you do? Well, if you're me and you need milk for the meal you're making that night, you suck it up and buy the 2% that's about the only thing staring up at you from the milk aisle (I'm not counting the homo. And for those of you not Canadian, that's just short for homogenised whole milk. Doesn't stop the Americans from laughing at pictures of Canadian dairy sections, however. And don't get me started on Regina...).

The 2% is gone now.

Good.

Toys

Today's pointless photo almost sort of has something to do with anything (make your own English out of that statement). If you click on it you'll see a piece from an outdoor game board wedged in the crotch of an apple tree. The game board is well down the yard from the tree. I have no idea how the piece got to the tree. I doubt it would have been my nephews when they visited last year, because they would have had to've worked their way through quite a thicket of daylilies to get there. Maybe a crow or a magpie? I dunno, but it's kind of funny that I never noticed it until a couple of weeks ago.

Before I get on to toys proper, this video shows one of the easiest ways to make an office supply weapon. The bonus is, everything except for the pen is reusable so you're not even wasting anything. Well, time, I guess, but we all need stress relief now and then. I suppose I should have taken a picture of the one I made, but I'm too lazy to go get the camera just now.

Or joust now, which is what I typed. I guess I'm in a weapons mood.

Anyway, toys. As my two fans (and my nephews, for that matter) know, I have a lot of toys on my desk. Some I've been given, some I've bought on purpose to see what people play with, and some... oh, I don't even know why they're here. I'm a bit of a toy person, I think, because I'm a fidget. When I'm not actively doing something with my hands they're playing with something. One of my desk toys, maybe, a vegetable peeler that I forgot to take home, my jewellery, my hair; you get the idea. I was never good at the whole sitting quietly with my hands folded in my lap thing.

Do they still get little girls to do that? Stupidest thing ever to tell a child, as I recall. It just makes you want to fidget more.

Anyway (again), I have a whole 'nother subset of toys that appear a little more grown up. On the surface at least. I was playing with them last night, but to a purpose. Yeah, anyone who's been reading this blather for any length of time can guess that I'm talking about art supplies. This time of year I get an almost unbearable desire to go to the art store. It's all those back to school ads, you see. I love stationery, and have since I was a kid. Yep, weird and I know it. It's just that having all those fresh new pencils and pens and binders and glue (I, um, come from the generation of rubber cement, remember. Rubber cement was fun) was always such a good time.

Hey, I already said weird. Shut up, world.

Anyway (the third), as I got past school and had a sadly-admitted lower need for stationery, I transferred the urge to art supplies instead. Art supplies? Definitely fun. And it used to be that I'd always find myself cruising the art stores -- heck, even the department stores -- in late August looking for something to play with.

Not this year.

Sigh.

I don't need anything right now.

Sorry, I'll speak up. I will grudgingly acknowledge that I don't really need anything just at the moment. I can always make an excuse for paper, yes, and I could replace some cheap brushes with one or two better ones, but I can't honestly admit that it needs to happen right now.

No promises about a month from now.

Ah well, I'm sure I can find another toy to satisfy me in the meantime, even if it's something silly like Kinder Surprise.

A girl's got to get her fidget out somehow, after all.



Oh, and I'll post last night's effort on the other blog after this. It was for work, so I guess it wasn't really playing.





It was playing.

Your annual Emmys blah

But first, today's sunflower companion. That's a harvestman. When I was a kid we called them daddy longlegs, but I've since found out that there's an actual spider called a daddy longlegs. To keep from getting the two confused I've tried to use the term harvestman for the non-spider one.

This is why scientific names are better (or at least less confusing) than common ones, but I doubt we'll all be speaking pseudolatin anytime soon.

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Ok, the Emmys. First, a confession. I sort of watched the Emmys. They were on, and I occasionally paid a little bit of attention, but I was also doing other things. With that caveat, then, here's my summary:

Blah.

They were blah. Seth Meyers? Nice but kind of blah. Production values? Ok, but sort of blah. Fashions? Honestly, mostly blah. There were one or two wtfs, as there always is, and maybe a couple of standouts (although it's always entertaining to go to the internet fashion lists the next day and see one person's wtf be the next person's ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!! I don't think even differing opinion could have saved Lena Dunham, though), but mostly it was indifferent. Gentlemen, I will say that it was nice to see so many bow ties. I say this every awards show, but if you wear a straight tie with evening dress, it's not making a fashion statement. It's wearing a shiny suit with an inappropriate tie, is all.

I do have a couple of non-blah comments, of course. To the bulleted list, then.

• Weird Al's thing was awful. And that's coming form someone who likes Weird Al a lot.
• In a three-hour-long awards show, please can we cut the improv? Ricky Gervais, no one cares about your no-win monologue. Jimmy Kimmel? We get it. Matthew McConaughey is a movie person. There may have been funny bits, but fer Whomever's sake get on with it.
• Academy? Watch some new frigging (well, not literally frigging. Unless you want to, I suppose) television, already. Three consecutive wins, five consecutive wins, eighth nomination... all of this indicates that voters just choose names that they recognise instead of trying to figure out who the new people are and seeing if they're any good. Sad, really.
• This will probably surprise people, but I thought that the Robin Williams tribute was... inappropriate. Yes, he was beloved. Yes, his death was a recent shock. But singling one person out in the In Memoriam is always uncomfortable. To me, at least. The business lost some really big names this year. They were also beloved, and I'm sure that their families would have appreciated more than a picture. Do it for one person, do it for all... or don't do it AT all, I figure.

Anyway, I need to get back to work now. And this was actually a post for a change. Congratulations, me.



Next time maybe wear a bow tie?

Pointless I don't know. Something.

Doesn't it look kind of like they're grieving?

Well, maybe you have to use your imagination.





Like, really, really hard...

Yeah, I have nothing. At least this is almost sort of a post, though. Anyone sick of my periodic disappearances yet?



I didn't think so. Ah well. Enjoy the picture, if nothing else.

Pointless photo theme of the week:

 This was going to be a post, but Dad's hamster-driven computer is taking intermittent coffee breaks this morning. Rather than lose a lengthy (if pointless) blather, then, I'll just introduce this week's theme. It's All Sunflowers, All The Time, folks.

Or at least until the pictures run out.

Read this as: there's not too much going on in the garden so I took sunflower shots.

Today? Bee. Top one, arrival. Bottom one, getting down to business.

Tomorrow?

I'm guessing something to do with a sunflower. And maybe an actual blather, depending on how busy work is. For now, though, just enjoy the bee.



'Cause that's all there is, you see.

Bye.

Something

O spider I see in the vanity sink,
they say that you've been there two days.
I think you should probably find your way out
or someone will flush you away.

I 'spose if the sides are too steep for escape
You're likely in need of some help.
Yeah, I'll grab a cup and then scoot you up top,
but next time please do this yourself.

 NO, I HAVE NOT LOST MY MIND. It's just Bad Poetry Day. And apparently copyrighted for profit, according to that link. Kinda figures, doesn't it? And yes, I wrote a poem about a spider (which I really did save this morning, to no one's surprise who's ever read this blog. It was a European House Spider. How sad is it that I knew the scientific name without even looking it up? Anyway, I let it go so that it could keep eating things in the basement. Incidentally, I do understand if people are creeped out by this particular species. Long legs, very scurry-y... they're harmless, though. Um -- what was I saying before I started on this?) and accompanied it with picture of fish. It wouldn't have been pointless otherwise, would it?

Just for fun, I put a modified version of the first line of my bad poem through this poetry generator a few times and got this:

Spider in the bathroom sink
While I sit all alone singin the blues........
though i never knew what was in the flue.
Grey souls, Grey shoes I've even got grey blues.

Deep, man. Deep.

I actually have been a bit of a poetry writer over the years, but this is the first one I've written in I don't know how long. It's like most of my hobbies, really. I'll go totally gangbusters on something (poetry, knitting, needlework, I-bet-some-of-you-are-expecting-me-to-say-doodling-but-I've-never-really-given-that-up) for a while -- sometimes years -- and then completely drop it for sometimes years. I'm pretty cyclical, though. Hobbies never seem to totally go away, and the return is easily triggered. Say a person (ok, me) hasn't knitted for a while, and then notices that the homemade dish cloth is getting ratty. Well, you take out the cotton yarn and the needles and you whip up a quick dish cloth. Then you think about the fact that you haven't made a new toque for a while and get out the patterns. Then you find yourself frequenting the yarn aisle looking for something that would do for a fuzzy but not too fuzzy throw...

And then you get tired of knitting and remember that you probably still have some embossing paper hanging around here somewhere.

I'm a natural born dabbler, I guess. It's good for my job, though. I can do a little bit of a lot of things, and when you're trying to think of programming ideas that can be handy.

Anyway, lunch time now. If you're at all interested in my poems from back when I was regularly writing (some good, some ok, some definitely a good fit for Bad Poetry Day) there's a few at this link from the other blog. And just for fun, here's a last word from the poetry generator. First line's mine. The rest? The universe, I suppose:

Cows, cows
End this charade now, disguise not your battered soul.
I see her now!!!! 
The shock of never rips through my soul.

Pointless photo of the yet another evening shift:

It's an insect. On a house. Because sometimes you just gotta be an insect on a house.

Or should that be sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug? Ah well, whichever.

So, yeah. Covering another evening shift. The short staffing this summer has made things interesting, and not in a good way. It's not that there's anything wrong with the evening shift; it's just that I'm not used to working it. It seems wrong in my brain. Like it's past my bedtime or something.

Ah well.

Again.

I don't really have anything. Again. What I do have is a desk full of slightly weird things. I stopped at a grocery store on the way here to pick up some lunch? dinner? why isn't there a brunch word for mid-afternoon, anyway? Where was I? Oh yeah. I stopped at a store and kind of got distracted. The plan was lupper (or whatever) and maybe a snack. What I ended up with was peaches, mixed nuts, the aforementioned meal-thingy, chocolate toffees, tic tacs, and lychees.


Well, you certainly can't resist the lychees when they're right at the front door, can you?

Or maybe you can, but I can't.

I remember the first time that I had lychees fairly vividly, actually. It was when they were pretty much new to mainstream grocery stores here, and obviously the one I was in wasn't having any luck getting most people to try the weird-looking things. I mean, at the time if your typical Alberta WASP had heard of lychees at all, they were something you got in a can filled with overly-sweet syrup. This store was so desperate to move the non-moving produce that they'd stationed a poor teenaged staffer at the lychees, offering samples and showing people how to peel them. I had one. It was good. I bought some. And I've kept buying them.

Sometimes marketing works all too well. But at least lychees are mostly good for you.

I think.

Isn't everything in the produce section good for you?



Ah well. Again. Back to work for me. And probably some lychees, because that mesh bag ain't staying closed all night, I can tell you.





I'm pretty sure that everything in the produce section is good for you...

Pointless spider on a flower of the day:

Wait a minute. Who am I to say that the spider is pointless? It may be having a very pointed life for all I know.

It is on a flower, though.

Probably the reason why this group of spiders is sometimes called the Flower Spiders. That's my guess, anyway.

Speaking of guessing, who's already guessed that I have nothing?

It's one of the hazards of posting at work, I suppose. Work happens, and then when there's time to blog you have that moment of wait. I think I may need a topic. Does anyone have a topic?

I don't have a topic.

I do have a rock in a cage around my neck. Well, the chain's around my neck, really. The rock in a cage is hanging from the chain. The chain and the rock are both in this post -- today's rock is the one on the upper right. Leopard skin jasper. And why am I telling you this? Sadly, and Whomever help me, I'm in the mood to buy rocks again.

This time I blame the shopping channel. Yeah, I've been watching jewellery shows again, and for the most part they've been laughable. It always puts me in the I prefer real mindset, unfortunately, and that makes me think of what other rocks I might like to have dangling from my neck.

I don't need any more rocks just now. And I really should do my best to convince myself not to stop at the rock shop on my way back from Dad's on Tuesday. Can you tell that it's probably not going to work?

I can't help it. I like neat rocks, and they're kind of fun at work.

Speaking of which...



I'll try to have an actual topic tomorrow. That's not a promise, but it's also not a rock. You know, for what it's worth.

Probably not as much as a rock.

[/silliness]





Oh, and just because I can, pointless earworm of the day.

Zombified

It's orange daylily time!

And in other news, it was 31C in my apartment when I left this morning. This morning, mind. After a night of open window and fan constantly running.

31C. No wonder I slept like crap. Or, rather, I didn't sleep. Nodded off a bit, maybe, but no sleep worth mentioning. What I did do was play with the 3DS, read some philosophy (you know you're desperate when), and watch a couple of things on my dvr. They say that when you can't sleep you should do something for a little while instead of getting frustrated about not sleeping, but for me that can be all freaking night.

And of course I had planetarium this morning. Perfect.

Ah well, sleep will happen. Eventually. I'm assuming.





I wonder if it'll be 35C by the time I get home...

Pointless photo of the day:

I've actually been kind of busy (as you can guess since I'm posting this time of day), so this is all that you're getting.

Remind me to tell you what's neat about this snail, though.

And about learning new mouses.



Done now. Bye.

Tea, and a note about cats

It's a very rainy day here, which I suppose goes well with our hailstorm last night. I was at the mall -- or just getting ready to leave the mall -- when that happened. I waited until the hail slowed down, but I needed to get home so I went to the car while it was still pouring. I got totally soaked, and yes, there were a couple of stares (especially because I didn't run). My only answer? I work at a nature centre. Wet isn't exactly a big deal.

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And now, on to the reason for the post title. First, tea, since I mentioned it first and all. I've finally gotten around to trying the last of the free tea samples that came with my June order. Caramel Corn. I'd been dreading it. I've tried it now, though, and I'm about to say something that I never thought I'd say about this company:

What were they thinking?

It's awful. That's a first for me. It's just well and truly awful.

Ah well. At least it was free. Back to the good stuff for me now.

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So. Cats.

Is anyone out there wondering why you're being treated to an old photo of our long-gone cats? Well, it's like this. These were the second-era cats, to my reckoning. The first-era cats were the ones we grew up with. Scruffy, Twerpie (I'm assuming that we kids named her, but I can't remember for sure), Candy, Taffy... there were one or two others, but I'm having a senior moment right now. Candy, an admittedly not very bright Siamese, was particularly my cat. To the point where she waited until I was back home before she died of old age and liver failure (ever see a jaundiced cat? It's kind of a weird thing).

What I'm calling the second-era cats were the ones my parents got when they did the empty-nester thing and got more pets after a while of having none. There was the dog (Rikki), and shortly afterwards Max and Penny, who you see above not helping me with the laundry. If you use the search bar above you can find lots of posts about the two of them, since I'm usually short on blather material.

And why am I bringing all of this up? Well, according to my father we're about to enter Era Three.



Yep. He's getting a kitten.

It'll be a week or two before he gets it since they're still with their mom, and at the moment it's supposed to be just one cat, but no doubt I'll keep you posted as to whether one cat magically turns into two by the time he takes delivery.

Honestly, I'm kind of looking forward to it. It's been odd to be petless. Oh, I should explain that since I can't have pets in my apartment any pets Dad has automatically become mine in my brain. Except the fish. Fish aren't pets. They're decor.






Anyway, you'll be hearing more as it goes. And seeing more. My two fans know that I'm always looking for subject matter, and a kitten is good enough subject matter that I may even stop being pointless for a tiny little while.

Not long enough to turn the blog into a pumpkin, of course. We can't have that. Even for a kitten.





Oh, and Happy World Cat Day. 10 points for being appropriate, Dee, if not quite pointless.

Things on flowers

Well, I've been working (at work? Seriously?) and I haven't had time to think of a blather. Plus, I have a malfunctioning mouse. You never know how much you depend on mouse technology until your mouse develops an evil plan of its own, really. Ah well, Wheat's picking me up a new one on his way back from lunch. In the meantime I'm going to use the mouse and the work as an excuse to just give you a brief pictorial essay entitled (as you may have guessed already) Things On Flowers:

 Bee on Veronica. I've been trying for more years than I care to admit to get one of these that wasn't either completely fuzzy or completely overexposed (as it were). Bees move quickly.

Spider on Sunflower. Come on, you had to know that there would be a spider. In this case, the white Goldenrod Spider on the petals to the right. There was also a yellow Goldenrod Spider on the same plant, but I never got a decent shot of it. Goldenrod Spiders can change from white to yellow depending on the flower that they're on. Apparently those two couldn't make up their minds to match.

And here, Bee on Sunflower. I suppose that was pretty obvious, though.

That'll do it for this addition of Things on Flowers, otherwise known as I Have A Few Words For This Bloody Mouse. Seriously, if you knew how long it took to do even just this much, you'd be impressed that you're getting a post at all.

I certainly am.



Later.

More about food. Then lunch.

Chickadee? Not food. Not for me, anyway. It was, however, ticked off at me because I was standing between it and the bird feeder, so I guess it sort of fits.

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My Dad gave me a bit bit of a surprise when I got in yesterday. Coming into his kitchen I noticed an open package of Indian spicy chickpea snacks (labelled Masala chani, if anyone's looking for some spicy chickpeas). I thought to myself that he picked them up by mistake and now that he'd tried them they'll just sit until they need to be thrown out. Nope, wrong. Turns out that a recently re-branded grocery store in town (was an Extra Foods, now a No Frills. Still, all Loblaws all the time...) has an Indian snack section and he decided to try a couple. On purpose. And he likes them. Will wonders never cease, as they say. Mind you, I don't know what he'll think of the Bheri puri when he tries it.

Things have changed a lot around here since I was a kid. I grew up in a food culture that basically hadn't changed much since the fifties. Meat, potatoes, slightly overcooked pasta... and it should say something that my favourite dish at the local Chinese restaurant was pineapple chicken balls. Westernised Cantonese food was as daring as we got in those days around here. Even the pizzas didn't get past the excitement of pepperoni.

It's conceivable that I might have stayed that way if I'd never gone to the great cultural stewpot. Um, that'd be university, for those who didn't follow. Unless you spent your entire time eating at the rez dining hall or living on ramen (even ramen was a new thing to me, to be honest), you can't help but experience at least a few new things when you move from a small town to a big university. In my case, my best friend was Chinese and her family owned a restaurant. For anyone who doesn't know, that's one of the best ways to experience the things that aren't on the menu. When I'd go to a Chinese place with her we never even saw menus. She'd just order. I didn't know most of the time what we were having until it got to the table. Sometimes I didn't know even then until she'd explain it to me. That's how I found out that it wasn't all about deep-fried battered things, plum sauce, and "special" fried rice (it was always white rice with her. I have to admit, though, that I'll still order fried rice much of the time. I just like it). Did you know that there are actually spicy Chinese dishes? It sounds weird, but it was a new thing for me back then. Nowadays you find a lot more of it on the actual menus, but we're talking nearly thirty (sigh) years ago and things have changed.

Lots of things have changed. There's so much more variety out there, and more people are accepting it. It's not just the food we eat and the food THEY eat anymore, and I think it's fantastic. I wouldn't have imagined myself enjoying curries and being a regular sushi eater, but I am. When the girls at work ordered Chinese food and it was deep-fried battered things and plum sauce, I was honestly a little disappointed. And I even put a little heat in my own cooking, especially when you compare it to what I grew up with.

Now, granted, a little heat. Not that I can't stand hotter; it's just that I like to taste my food rather than blow my brain up.

Did I mention Thai or Vietnamese yet? Not so much pho because I'm not really a soup person, but you don't have to go pho to have some great meals from those two cultures.



Aaanyway. Enough food talk, especially when I'm about to go upstairs and have a leftover hamburger for lunch. Tonight, though... oh, right. I'm planning to do some baking so I'll probably just buy a rotisserie chicken so that I have lunch meat for work. Nothing wrong with rotisserie chicken, though. After all, there was a time when even that was new to me. Later, folks.

Grazing

I sometimes think that my father figures that I only show up at his place this time of year to nibble on his yard. It's not true, really. I come to take pictures of things on flowers (those will be coming up in future posts, I promise. Or threaten) and do my laundry.

And to visit Dad, of course.

It is a bit of a pleasure for me, though, when things are to the state of casual harvest. It starts with the asparagus in spring (which I eat raw. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, but I'd recommend fresh from the garden rather than old from the grocery store). He
has a humongous plant that he never uses, so I eat what I can while I'm here and then the rest turns into a tree. It's been featured here before; just search asparagus tree. Many, many other people have, according to my google hits.

Anyway, here's a bit of what's ready, what's not, and what I forgot to take pictures of.

Apples (above) -- not ready, but soon. Waiting, waiting.

Grapes (left) -- this is an old photo. They're proper grape-sized now, but still not ready. The leaves have already started turning (sigh, August), which is why you're not getting today's shot.

Currants (forgot to take a picture; too busy eating) -- well, yeah, what I just typed.

Raspberries (left) -- so good. So very good. I probably ate a few too many.

Nanking cherries -- forgot to check, actually. I'll do that after I'm done here.

Saskatoons (below) -- peak season. And the photo's not great, but I couldn't retake it. The fruit somehow magically disappeared.

Into my mouth. I'm huge into saskatoons. And if you've never had one, they're vaguely blueberryish but better. Oh, but caveat: many sources say that they're sweeter in Western Canada because of our soil conditions, and an Easterner coworker of mine has confirmed that for me this year.

Well, that's the menu of the moment. Sorry for the weird formatting that's left the extra space between some of these photos, but Blogger's being stupid and won't let me put things where I want to. I know you probably don't even really care, but that sort of thing bugs me.

What to do about the annoyance?

Oh yeah, there's always the nanking cherries. Let's go look, shall we?

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Edited to say that I think I'm managed to kludge the screwed-up formatting from yesterday. Yes, it bothered me that much. Oh, and the nanking cherries are still a little tart. Probably another few days.

Pointless new photo of the day:

New this afternoon, even. And very pointless. If you really pay attention, though, you should see a dragonfly silhouetted on that branch. It's a meadowhawk.

The dragonfly, that is. Not the branch.

Oh, and meadowhawk. That's me being a helpful(ish) naturalist.

Yes, I'm at work again today, and all evening. It's a weird shift to work for someone who's used to being off at four o'clock. I make it to around seven and start wondering, in a perfectly whiny internal voice, when I can go hooome.

It reminds me a bit of being a grocery store cashier back in high school. Stores weren't open as late then as they are now, but we did have a later closing on Fridays. You'd get to about eight thirty or so and just pray that no one would come in so that you could do your closing at nine. You see, the store had a policy -- a silly one, as far as I'm concerned -- of letting anyone who came in last minute (even if last minute was one minute to closing) do their shopping. Yep, if some arsehole customer came in at 8:59 and 59 seconds and decided to do an hour's worth of wandering around the store, we all had to stay.

I guess I still don't want to be made to stay. I dread seeing someone come in last minute to the nature centre, even if they're just passing through the building to get to the walking trails.

Anyway, that's enough of me being a baby for tonight. I need to professionally blog for work now. Pictures, mostly, and hopefully somewhat to the point. The work blog's less tolerant of blather, after all.

Pointless photo of the day:

I need to take some new photos.

I also need to post more often, I guess. Not sure how this once a week thing started, but it's really hard to pick up the thread when you haven't bothered to think up any blather.

I haven't thought of any blather tonight, by the way. And I imagine that goes without saying at this point.

Ah well, maybe tomorrow I'll have something for the neglect-o-blog. No point in trying tonight when I'm so obviously blank.



That's sounding like a familiar song these days, isn't it?