montane foragers

reading another book again.
this one is called Montane Foragers and is written by a professor at UCSB.
it's so far about high-altitude living and the effects on one's body who is native to that type of living, and those who migrate to the areas.
i believe he mostly focuses on andean cultures prior to european contact, but i think he uses tibet and stories of early spanish explorers to the andes to support his ideas.

a couple of interesting things:

1. it seems that natives have a greater amount of blood vessels than those living at sea level. (everyone knows this)
but there is an age range between 9 and 13 years where children can move from low altitudes to high altitudes and end up with the same physiology if they spend this whole crucial developmental period at higher elevations. adult migrants will never reach the potential that these natives or young migrants obtain.
the only difference for native dwellers and young migrants is that the native children have a much higher mortality rate because of the harsher living conditions. the young migrants are more prepared to face the tough environment.

2. there are some deadly high-altitude sicknesses. they effect either your heart or lungs. they create dizziness, nausea, and hallucinations. its onset can only be cured by returning to lower elevations or adding an increased oxygen flow to the body.
it tends to only present itself with a quick increase in elevation, and became more common after the advent of cars and planes, but was recorded to have caused a death on the Silk Road in Asia in the 5th Century.

3. according to the author and his sources, fatty foods don't have as much of a great taste as they do nearer to sea level (according to the author, high-altitude unless noted otherwise, is considered to be >2,500 meters/~8,200 feet).
and oddly enough, along with the less-enjoyable taste, fat doesn't metabolize as well in your body at high elevations as it does near sea level. absorbtion can be reduced as much as 48%. so when living at such altitudes, a high-carbohydrate diet is preferrable.
(side-thought: maybe that's why the andean people were the domesticators of a many variety of potatoes and potato-like tubers.)

4. many aspects of life are more difficult at high altitudes. pregnancies are generally at higher risk, and general working habits or travel can be up to 40% more difficult at higher elevations than at sea level. those not used to elevations have a decrease of up to 24% of their aerobic activity.
when doing wokr, for the same strenuous activity, acclimatized people can work at 40% of their maximum oxygen uptake whereas those new to the environment will use 60%.
fatigue will force more and often resting as well.


so the book so far is just focusing on biophysical aspects, but i'm sure the archaeology will come soon after this foundation is laid.
i'm glad he put this info in here, cuz it makes you realize that it's not only climate and geography, but also topography that can mold one's culture and lifestyle. and to a slight degree, genetics.

memorial

in memory of those who died to keep this nation functioning, i will now work for 12 hrs today to serve your offspring and relatives.

god bless america, or some shit.

no wait!
scratch that.
god bless the little man, so that others can enjoy their holidays.
3rd world countries included...

weddings

something about weddings makes single girls crazed.
something about weddings makes guys breathe easier.

yet,
all in all it was a damn good time.
apache has now been logged in the annals of our tradition.

congrats and thank you, dangie.

bridge

damn. that 20th ave pedestrian bridge is old!
see more of the same.

mean people suck

people suck.
and this is why:

you can't ever make everyone happy doing the same thing.

but first, a little background:

fred meyer has a store card called the "rewards" card that they just implemented on the first of the year.
the jury is out to whether its a good thing or not.
personally i hate it, others are excited to earn "points".
the whole idea is that you get 1% back of what you spend over 3 months in the form of a rebate check in the mail.
basically, the card is just a way to tell what people consume.
cuz shit. 1% of $500 is $5. whoopty-fuckin-doo. sign me up!

anyway.
i go in spurts where i either ask every customer if they have the card. and other times i don't bother asking.
a lot of the times i just profile.

but today.
i didn't ask an older man. and after the transaction, he goes to hand me the card.
you'd think that any reasonable person would realize that you'd have to get the card in before you're done paying, but actually, a lot of people don't.

so i tell him that i need that before he pays.
(here it comes, hissy fit)
so he goes,
"you know what? you can take this card and shove it."
then he throws the card and his receipt at me saying that the cashiers never bother to ask him about the card. (which very well may be true, but what can i do about it? i guess ask, but i forgot in his case. i was pretty good the rest of the day, before and after).

so that guy leaves, and time passes.
i get just about everyone's card. i did miss this one woman's cuz i was too busy talking to her. whoops.

then comes this other man:

i ring him up. i put the red tote at the back of the checkstand.
i ask, "do you have a fred meyer card?"

no response.
i ask again.
still no response.

i ask about five times, before the guy looks at his watch and says,
"oh. would you look at the time?"

ok. so he's ignoring my question.
buttfucker.

so i tell him, "you know, if you'd just tell me 'no,' i'd leave you alone."
cuz he's probably had one of those peppy cashiers try to "sell" him on the idea of having the card. i just ask him so i don't get cards thrown at me later.

he doesn't say anything.
still being an asshole.

so when people act like this, i presume that it gives me a bit of a right to be an asshole back, within reason.

so the guy's doing debit. and on the debit machine it asks many times if that's the correct total.

so, the ball's in his court, the guy has to press more buttons to get out of the store. i sit there and wait.

after a while, i say, "i don't know about you, but i could stand here all day."
(feels nice to not be informed, huh asshole?)

eventually he figures out what i mean and presses the necessary buttons and leaves.

i did not thank him. he almost thanked me, but decided not to when i extended the cold shoulder.

i don't know what it is. but that guy bugged me way fucking more than that asshole that threw the card at me. that i can handle, cuz the guy was just a dumbass, but i guess this guy was purposely being a prick.

but what's weird (and maybe this is why), is that i was in the wrong on the first guy, so there was nothing i could do about it, and the second guy, that was all him.

i don't know.

but that goes to show you,
you're damn if you do, and you're damned if you don't
...ask about the fred meyer card.

so i guess to satiate the fred meyer customers, i need to know who wants me to ask and who doesn't. which basically goes back to what i've been trying to do all along and we've seen how successful that was.

there's always going to be some prick that doesn't get along with you even though you've done nothing wrong.
if i had handled each of those given situations in the opposite manner, each would have been happy. but how the fuck am i to know that?

that's why i say, "fuck 'em."

g-pa

ah, man, grandpa!
you're like a little brother.

you don't really mean to, but you say shit that gets me in trouble!

yesterday irene and her husband geoff came over after one of irene's many doctor appts.
this time she's on bed rest for good. she got cracked down on. so this was her last hurrah.

she invited g-pa and i to the kirkland farmer's market.
seems like an ideal place for ol' Boo, our dog.

and let me give you a little background about our dog. i guess you don't really need to know, but it always gets a good response when i tell people she's a lab/chihuahua mix. who fucked who? yeah. i don't know.

anyway. my parents don't trust this dog at ALL.
if she goes outside she MUST be on a leash. i have better faith in her.
i let her out yesterday without a leash and she ran up to grandpa and geoff who were in the driveway. she got a good petting from geoff and then made her way on over to our frontyard where she proceeded to plop herself down on the grass and roll around a bit.

to keep Boo full of excitement, we took her to the farmer's market. walked around, had some hot dogs and left.
today, Boo didn't eat her breakfast. so, my dad, after initally hearing first about Boo's escapade outside, infuriated. asked if Boo ate anything yesterday, other than her usual food.
he said that i gave her a little bit of hot dog, and "before i could say that i gave her some too, your dad was on the war path. so watch out."

thanks gramps.
not only did you tell them shit that they didn't need to know, you ratted me out.
granted the latter is more acceptable, but still.
i'm more peeved that you told him she was unleashed.
you know they don't want to hear that!
you just have nobody else to tell about the excitement of your day and you tell them everything.
i guess i understand, but i'm still annoyed.
is this what having a little brother is like?

old time Seattle

greenlake circa 1896.
there's a lot more of those old Seattle photos.

nip-high

did me some kung fu today.
i'm starting to put my set together.
its going nicely. i had some doubts earlier, but today it was looking good.
the set's called Gung Ji Fuk Fu Kyun. (check out the illustrations under 'sets & techniques'. i'm on the 11th line.)
arturo just calls it Gung Ji. i'm down with that.
i think it basically means 'taming the tiger in an 'I' pattern'.
it's got a few tiger claw moves in it. badass.

then when we were done with that, i went downstairs to the pool where 70 middle schoolers were overflowing the pool.
there were spots on the pool deck that were about 3 inches deep.
the drains couldn't hang.

i helped the two lifeguards out a bit by actually watching the pool for once, then arturo and i went to lunch at that Pancho Villa mexican restaurant on lake city way and 85th-ish.
we had some tacos.
it was kinda cool. arturo spoke spanish to the waitor dude, so i followed suit.
i understood everything that went down.
i'm ready for mexico and south america.... or something.

got home just in time to get my shit together for work.
i sweet-talked my boss who let me go outside and push carts with another guy my age. that was some good times.
lately if i parcel i have to do it solo. not cool.

then i get home, a bit wet but still excited for noah and megan's party.
i hear its an old-people themed party so i get my big-ass pants out and my trusty belt. i grab a flanel, tuck it into my big-ass pants and cinch the belt up tight just under my nips.
i grab my dad's indiana jones-looking hat and fly out the door to the party.
i show up and... no one's dressed up but noah.
and he looks more grown-up than old.
well fuck.
oh well.
i got a solitary laugh.
the pants and hat eventually came off, and i looked rather uncouth throughout the rest of the party.
oh well.
most of the people i knew, the others work with noah and i'll never see them again.

after a depressing bout with alcohol i came home and am listening to chris rock's standup.
"i'ma learn! i don't wanna toss salad."
..."i prefer syrup".

the crudest things in life can always cheer me up.
the most retarded things get me down.

oh. and its finally in written word.
florida denied my ass.
better luck next year....

the only good thing is that the union rep should get me my journeyman pay tomorrow.

the other bad news is that i didn't have a day off since last saturday for dan's bachelor party. and i don't get another day off until dan's wedding on saturday.
that's a solid 14 days.
oh well.
thank god for dan. otherwise i wouldn't get days off.
but it's not like i have anything better to do anyway.

journeyman

oh. btw.
it's been confirmed today that i should have journeyman status.
my boss tried to feed me some bullshit, but i called the rep who called me back and said that she'll call the store monday and tell them what's up.
ha! fuckers.
you can only stick it to me for so long.

one hour

worked at the pool today.
i was up at the front desk talking to clement when this (india) indian comes in.
he's a usual. there almost everyday.
but he's kinda a buzzkill.
he's the guy that always tells me i should stop playing with the kids.
i can see it with kickball, cuz the ball really doesn't go in any sort of predicted pattern.
but about a week ago i was playing catch with a kid with a small, rubber football. he was in the pool, i was on the deck.
it was rare that either of us missed a throw, but the guy still warned us that we shouldn't throw the ball around. "it might hit someone."
yeah right. we'd stop throwing and wait until the person was out of the way.
he's just a killjoy.
i didn't figure out how much until today.

so today.
as i already told you, i was talking to clement by the front door.
so the indian guy comes in chewing on something.
looked sandwich-y.
so i just quip, "you're eating. now you can't swim for an hour."

the guy takes a few steps, turns and says:

"i came here to swim, why would you tell me that?"

"it was just a joke."

he walks off and goes into the locker room. with only enough time to probably put down his stuff, he comes back out:

"what did you tell me? that i shouldn't swim for an hour. that's not funny at all. how is that funny?"

"well i guess it's not."

so the guy went in did his thing, and went to the hot tub.
a bit later i went out to check on things.
i was going to unlock the door to the sauna like i usually do around that time,
and here comes the guy again!
he was in the hot tub, but he got out to confront me when i was minding my own business.

"i came here to relax, so i don't want any grief from you."

now, the guy is indian, as i have mentioned, so i give him the benefit of the doubt. maybe he hadn't heard of the wives' tale:
"don't swim for an hour after you eat."

so i try to ask him, "haven't you ever heard of the saying...."

"i don't want to hear it! now leave me alone or i'll fill out a complaint about you."

"fill out a complaint?! FINE. GO AHEAD!! fill one out NOW."

"I WILL.... tomorrow..."

and with that we parted ways.
him with his stick up his ass, and me with my newly-resurrected bitterness toward the world.

i still think he's never heard the saying. and that's fine.
but i do think he's a total asshole for not even hearing me out.
something that was a total misunderstanding turned rotten just because someone refused to listen.

talk about a cultural clash. and a blatant case of bigotry.
show a little bit of fucking understanding.
and if you have heard the saying, then seriously, FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE.
if you came to relax, you're sure going about it the wrong way.
you should either let a JOKE slide off your back, or maybe go find a fucking hole to shelter yourself from the hideously cheerful world around you.

three times to confront me with something that was in no way offensive is a bit obsessive. he seriously does need to relax.

he stayed til closing and i thought we were going to have another encounter when i was putting on the tarps. but luckily he got out just as i was putting the one on in his lane.
it was past 9:30 so it was time for him to get his ass out.
luckily there was an older guy helping me put the tarps on too, so he would have had to bitch us both out.
i'm lucky he was there tonight.

FFM

so i figured out that the dates are 10/30/02 - 10/22/04,
which is, of course, under two years.

i tried to talk to the payroll people to see what they could do, but they deferred me to my boss.
i went to talk to him, and he said that the new contract would make it so i would still need more apprentice hours and that i'd still be at the same payscale that they started me out with.

i told him i didn't accept his answer and that i have more calling to do.
screw him. maybe he actually doesn't know any better.

so i went home and called the union. they confirmed that if i came back with the same job, that i am entitled to the same pay.
the only bad news is, is that i only get 60 days of backpay. not the 200 or so that i worked there already.
but either way, i'm happy with regaining journeyman status.
i'll fight for that shit.

the guy i talked to gave me my store rep's #.
she's out-and-about so i'll have to wait for her stupid call back.
so once that happens, hopefully the change will be made within a few days.
FFM.

i guess that's why you have a union. your bosses try to fuck you over.
they did a decent job of it so far.

fsu

so the dude from Florida State told me on may 6th that he'd send me a hardcopy of my status within two weeks.
tomorrow/today (20th) will make it two weeks.

maybe monday i'll bitch at him if it hasn't arrived.

i got home tonight and i felt so unfulfilled.
i've been at home all day, i kinda wanted to go out, but to do that i'd have to go to seattle.
i feel like grandpa.

irene's been bed-ridden for a few days starting today.
6 weeks left til her kid pops out.
6 weeks left til i go to alaska.

retribution

well. i went to fred's today and figured out my most recent hire date was 10/22/2004.
so now i just have to figure out when i left.
leanora had the great idea of looking through my blog to find out.
so i knew it was right around my bday in 2002.
i found where i was bitching about getting fired:

10.30.2002
and the moral of the story is:
if you work at fred meyer, dont ever shop there.
or else you'll get your ass fired....again.

so that'll be just about a week short of 2 years.
eat that bitches.
hopefully it'll fly, and hopefully i'll get backpay.
2 grand - tax.
maybe i shouldn't get my hopes up.

union,
please step up for once...

FFM

called the union today.
found out two things.

one:
i have been eligible for benefits since february.
they didn't send me any paperwork though because they somehow didn't have my address on file.
don't they kinda check for and acquire that around your hire date?
so now they have to mail me a piece of paper with my address on it so i can sign it and mail it back to them so they can get all my shit together.

damn. before they used to be all procative about it.
sending me everything that i didn't even need at the time.
now i guess they're passively hoping that people won't look into it.
i guess it worked on me.
took me almost 4 months to do anything about it.

two:
i also called about why i was bumped down two pay scales.
come to find out the cut off point is two years.
before that, you keep journeyman, after that, you get screwed.
so when i got rehired, i told them that i'd been gone for "about two years".
little did i know how important my specificity should have been.
doing a little digging, i found out that i "left" lake city fred meyer in november 2002, and was rehired in october 2004 just prior to my birthday.
that shit is less than two years!
even if only by a couple of weeks!
so maybe this thing will come to fruition and i'll get back to journeyman.
it's still in the works. i'm going to check with time and attendance tomorrow to get the exact dates of fire and hire.
i asked the union guy if that's too knit-picky and he said no.
so that's cool.
i wonder if i'd get backpay.
if i did, with my week's work, before tax i'd rake in about 2 grand.
not too bad for a week's work.
i hope it happens.
i'd be slightly less bitter toward one of the jobs i hate.

but! just today fred meyer upgraded their registers so that you no longer have to fill out your check. all you have to do is sign in and the machine does the rest.
other than for the novelty i don't really advise that you try it.
it seems to take just as long as if you'd do it by hand.
but it is kinda cool how it takes the check face-down, franks it on the back, sucks it back into the register, flips it around, prints, and spits the check back out face up.
crazy shit.
but let's please keep this modern miracle for the use of tards and gerrys* only.
thank you.

*geriatrics

ucsb

i'm realizing that it's once again time to get my shit together in order to have it ready for the next, next school year.
(didn't i just do this shit?)

i was looking at the faculty of ucsb, and i realized that there are two people there that i'm really interested in:
aldenderfer and schreiber.

that would be awesome if i could go to school down there.
i'd live with my uncle who's only about a 15 minute drive away from the school.
i was going to apply here last year, but i missed the deadline because the date i took the GRE's was too late to get everything in to them.

i may take the GRE's over again.
maybe this time i'll study.
i always thought studying kinda doesn't prove your true intellengence, but everyone does it, which skews the average, and i guess i need to study anyway.
i haven't done a lot of that math since like 8th grade.
i just need a refresher.

so yeah. if i get in with them, i won't have to spend assloads of money to get to south america, just a single assload.

something new to look forward to...

i'm also thinking of revamping my resume for after i get back in august.
FFM.
it's getting hard to hang.
i've got a degree and all these numbnuts are making more than me while doing less work.

busy

busy fucking weekend.
the mariners were awesome... if only for one night.
actually they ended up 2/3 against boston, so not bad.
but their first game kicked ass.

saturday was packed with moving and showing a friend a good time.
seemingly amidy and i both had our booby quota for the weekend.

went to bed at 6:30 am on sunday.
got up around 10 and took advantage of REI's sale.
i bought a new thermarest.
my old one has a slow leak.
i thought since i'd need to go a month on the thing i should get a new one.
came back and slept a bit more from 1 - 430.
til i had to get up to get some dinner before work.
i got there and they conned me into staying til closing.
good times.
i go back again tomorrow at 10.
my week is a lot easier this week as opposed to last week even though i don't get a day off.
maybe next week i'll get one.

origins

i finally finished that Settlement of the Americas book.
dillehay opened my eyes even moreso to the possibility of people predating the Clovis expansion into the New World.
in fact, he's so matter of fact about it that you eventually take it as a truth.

there are many sites in south america that predate or existed around Clovis time in south america.
some stone tool assemblages were so different that it's hard to see a north american connection.

so what dillehay proposes (i think. i don't think i came up with this on my own) is that the clovis were a late-coming migration movement across beringia.
strangely burials aren't common with these people and even less common in sites that predate clovis.

his theory is that the climate has a lot to do with erasing cultural remnants.
melting glaciers just before the clovis came into the new world covered up a lot of living sites and midden left behind by the people that predate the clovis.
he considers the possibility of an initial wave of migrating people as far as 20,000 years ago.
although there isn't much archaeological data to support this.
but what i also enjoy is the fact that dillehay doesn't fully give the original migrants' nationality as siberian or mongoloid.
he's open to the suggestion that there could have been multiple waves from various sources: europe, africa, and southeast asia, japan, and oceania, along with the most common progenetors previously mentioned.

he mentions (vaguely) about mtDna sequences that native americans have that are only found elsewhere in europe (he's talking about the X mtDNA, but he didn't mention it by name). then he also mentioned Kennewick man whose cranial morphology neither resembled a mongoloid nor a modern-day native american. i believe it was something closer to someone from the south pacific.
however, this is only one sample, and doesn't fully reflect the span of differences of the people in america 9,000 years ago.
however, there were other differences in south america, where western cranial samples were more robust and eastern samples were more gracile. maybe a product of their environment(?) but maybe also different origins.

there are archeaologists in south america that have found sites that date to 40,000 years ago and another to even 300,000 years ago in brazil.
interestingly enough. 40,000 is about the rise of the neandertal. 300,000 is beyond the scope of modern human beings. Homo sapiens were around, but not in the "advanced/evolved" form that you see today.
but the dates given here seem kinda sketchy. even if they were done in 1987 which is somewhat resent, there's just something that doesn't want me to accept these dates. maybe it's that the record that dillehay puts down doesn't show from where the sample was taken and what the sample was.
also, beyond 40,000 years, C14 dating goes to crap and other methods like potassium-thorium dating are required.

but there you have it.
the point he tries to get across here is that migration isn't a single solid instance, but probably a flow of many different peoples at many different times.
even in the near past wars and migration have changed the people inhabiting a given area. what sticks in my head the most are the people of the near east and mediterranean.
in the "beginning", these homeboys were white-ass-white.
enter muslims.
now in spain, italy, greece, and turkey you have people with darker complexions. all thanks to a little friendly jihad or crusade.
but who could predict that a little religious skirmish changed the face of damn-near everyone living around the mediterranean.
it's the same around the world: africa, india, polynesia, southeast asia. everywhere.
give a few centuries or a millenia and things dramatically change.
so how do you get it straight?
fuck if i know.
dig deeper....

food

hm. my appetite has been so weird lately.
kinda lacking actually.
its not even like the diet that i did for a very long time:
where i only ate one large meal a day.
now i'm just eating one or two fairly small snacks a day.
maybe its just a phaze.

i'm also watching this thing on the history channel about the anasazi indians.
the one in mesa verde that made those cliff dwellings.

the narrator is throwing out the question of why people would do such a thing.
hm. well. let's see.
for one. protection.
and the other, water condenses on the cliffside, which is very convenient given the fact that there's no perennial streams in the area.

so like any semi-intellegent people, wouldn't you protect a necessary resource by doing something like living damn-near atop it?

i mean, shit.
people think that these people were so docile/peaceful, but successful populations always overgrow, and by the time people came to live in these dwellings, in the 1300's, it was a fairly comparable mentality of that in europe:
castles.
defend yourself with a fatty wall or precipice.
the maori of new zealand were doing this at roughly the same time too with their pa.

seems like anyone facing the loss of a dwindling, limited resource reacts in much the same way. be it land, water, food, or raw materials for a given technological advancement.

hopefully by the end of this show the narrator will come to somewhat of a similar conclusion.
...at least the part that these people were defending a resource.

fucking nuts

somehow i go to work and i get called into the manager's office...
fired again? suprisingly, no.
but somehow i am involved and got questioned over some sort of scandal.
i have only an inkling of an idea of what's going on.
i'm so in the dark.
and now i'm getting accused of being "childish"
and i haven't done a damn thing other than going to work and doing my job.
fuck drama. i hate it.
in my perfect world, shit would go down one day and be forgotten about by the next.

finally

i'm finally pretty sure florida denied me.
i went through a professor and i finally got an answer.
i'll know for sure within two weeks, they say.

also. Crystal makes some damn good pico de gallo.
fuck school. i'll go to mexico or south america.

fu

a taiwanese mother-son team, a 7-year-old russian boy, and a white boy all being taught kung fu by a mexican.
it don't get no weirder than that.

bad day

today was a bad day.
and not even because it was monday.
and not even because i had to work 12 hrs.

i need to preface myself by saying that when i was rehired with fred meyer that they bumped me down 2 pay scales simply because i had been away from the company for 2 years.
so this is about a 4 dollar difference.
i have to re-earn two jumps back up to be where i was two years ago.

so when i get hired they tell me that it'll take 600 hours to gain each step.
so at 20 hrs a week, i figured that i'd easily get my first raise by june 15th.
so i go to the computer and find out that i still have 400-and-some hours to go!
now with 6 weeks to go til june 15th, i should only have something like 120 hrs to go. what is this bullshit?!

the woman who hired me was in the room, so i asked her why it said i still had 400+ hrs. but she's always got her head up her ass when it comes to shit that she should know. so she was no help.
but someone threw out that maybe its actually 1,000 hrs per raise instead of 600 since there was just recently that change in contracts if you were hired after a certain date.

so even though i was quoted at 600, can they still fuck me over and make me work til 1,000 just because i probably don't have it in writing?
what assholes. especially since they already dicked me over once by bumping me down TWO pay scales. if it was only one, i could push on through the remaining 400 hrs.

FFM.

then at my other job, the pool cat Boomer was disturbed by a 3-year-old girl and scratched her chin.
now, it could have been any kid, i imagine, but it just so happened to be the kid whose parents baby them to death.
when rob is trying to teach them to swim, the parents stand at the poolside (and the dad actually sometimes gets in) while the other parents sit back.
every five minutes the parents take their kids (the girl has a brother) out of the pool and console them for having it so rough in the pool.

fucking great. i have to deal with psycho mom. so Boomer is an outdoor cat and does look kinda dirty, but not totally mangy.
he also has no tags or collar. so that is kinda sketchy.
but the mom goes on and on about how the cat might have rabies and shit like that.
i told her that the cat has hung out other times and acts like a normal cat.
she didn't like that response. she throws back shit like, "still, he's a dirty cat."
her bawling daughter picks up on this and goes, "NO CATS, MOMMY! I WANNA GO HOME! DIRTY CAT!"
eventually she was still bawling and muttered, "my owwie dissappeared mommy." but she kept crying.
so i really don't know what the mom wanted my co-worker at the desk and i to do.
she wanted to talk to our boss, but elisa (co-worker) and i both knew how that goes: they never answer. they don't like dealing with anything. they're highly non-confrontational.
so after elisa told rob about it because he let the cat in, and he responded by doing dick, all i could do was to offer to get the cat outside.
the mom wasn't at all thankful, cuz as far as she was concerned, it should have never been in there.

so i go to pick up Boomer. which i never do. i always let him move on his own volition. he always walks himself to the back door to be let out, or to the weight room door, or to the lobby door.
so i go to pick him up, and he must have been agitated enough by his previous encounter that he scratched my face, right below my right eye.
actually, not only right below my right eye, but he also scratched my eye, the little fucker.
luckily though, it wasn't on the pupil or cornea, just on the white part.
it kinda stings a little bit. so do the three claw marks just under my eye.
all are barely visible though, unless you're looking.

then when rob has one class left, his adult swim class, he pulls himself over the lane line. and it snaps. he pays no attention to it.
now back when he did this once, i didn't mind having something to do and fixing it, but this is the 6th time that the lane lines have broken over the last month or two.
and rob didn't even bother to pull it to the other side so i could attach it.
so i left that shit there.
an odd sight. almost like a snake weaving its way through the pool.
but after a while, my boss did come in to give us our paychecks.
so i decided to half-assedly jimmy-rig the line back up, so if anyone climbs on it again, it'll go.

so all the time that the line was floating about, rob was giving his lessons in the only remaining lane. and immediately after i fixed it, he put two of his students over into the other lane.
what a fucking jackass.

immediately after my boss left, i went back to talk to elisa.
fuck it. i was done watching the pool.
it was only those 4 people in adult swim that rob had his immediate attention on, those two asian kids and their dad that swim there every-damn-day, and beard guy, who i can't really call beard guy anymore cuz he just shaved.
so i talked to elisa for 20 minutes or so til rob's class was done.

when i go back to the pool, rob comes up to me and informs me that the lane line had come undone again (just as i had planned when somebody's fatass would hang on it), and that he kinda reconnected it, but that i should re-do it.
he told me to ratchet the one side to give slack on the other and take a jumprope and tie it down.
fuck that. you could have done that, you ass!
i told him, "i'll get on that."
cuz at the moment i was picking up all the kickboards and noodles that he litters around the far edges of the pool just so i have to walk all the way back there to pick that crap up.
yeah... i'll get to it.
fuck that.
i hope it breaks when i'm not there, and one of the helpless girls are there that can't manage to do any sort of work while they're there other than homework.

i'm also bitter that i am asking for two fridays off. i haven't asked for a day off since guatemala, and i did get one off, and i'm paying that girl back by working her tuesday shift which i really can't work. and the shift i want off on friday the 13th, no one will/can do it.
yet these girls ask for their shifts off every other week and i usually cover them even though i don't want to.
i got a note asking that i work this saturday for one of them.
fuck that. until i see some reciprocation, i aint doing shit for no one.
you guys have brought me to my limit.

i'm done with both these fucking jobs.
i'm holding on to them til july, just cuz i can't get a job right before i leave for a month.
fuck those jobs.
i gotta gets me a real job.

dixie's

ah, i forgot/didn't have time to tell yall about my trip to dixie's.
in my first post i commented on how the very large woman at the register is much like a soup nazi.
unfortunately this time around, i was a victim of that personality.

we get up to order after maybe 15 minutes of waiting only to find out that they're out of pork and they're out of beef.
alls they gots left is chicken.
fuck.
but then as they're getting to my grandpa's order, the little old woman who looks like she might be that large woman's mom says the brisket is up.
so i go, "hey, could i get some of that?"
sure, the guy says.
so he slaps a hotdog into a bun and slops the brisket on top.
this confuses me.
because the only thing i saw on the menu with brisket was the beef brisket sandwich which in no way involves a hotdog.
so i figure it's the "520 special" which does have a hotdog.
so i tell the large lady that i got a "520 special" and a "405 north" which is what joan got--the chicken and a hotdog. i was paying for her.

but the woman goes, "no, that isn't a 520 special."
so the guy who dished it out helps me out and goes, "it's a 'dixie special'",
which i didn't even see on the menu.
so i tell the 400-pounder, "ok, sorry. it's a 'dixie special' and a '405 north'".
apparently she didn't like my confusion and she just stared at me.
she stared for upwards of 15 seconds.
it was enough time for me to turn to joan and whisper,
"what's going on, i don't get it"
then she finally repeats to me what i got and a total.
phew. made it out without too much trauma.
make sure you know what you want when you go.
but it's totally worth it once you get your food and go out and eat and meet the man.
his mississipi accent is very inviting and friendly.
he's like a black boomhower.
everyone's "babygirl" or "daddio".
i doubt he's ever had a displeased customer.
even when sometimes the line wraps around the building.