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trickykittyI came home Monday from work to arrive at the same time as the roommate. I pulled out my house key to unlock the door, but it wasn't working for some reason. When I realized why it wasn't working, I stopped to look at her a moment and then said, "Well, I guess I gave [2nd job] my house key by accident instead of the building key, since they're shaped the same, and now you can guess why I had to give them back the key."
While I was on vacation last week, they talked a lot with the accountant and the company that runs the invoice processing system that they use and supposedly figured out how to make everything much faster than how I was processing it and also decided to outsource a good chunk of the work I was doing to the accountant's office. When I arrived Monday morning, I was told, "Understand, I'm not letting you go, and I'll happily write a letter of recommendation, but I have essentially eliminated your job position." I really hate corporate backstabbing doublespeak, especially when it's used incorrectly.
I already predicted about an 80-85% chance this was going to happen, and a 95% chance it would happen within the month. I debated bringing my iced coffee in from the car with me or leaving it out there because I might not be all that long. Given the heat, I decided that if I wasn't being let go, I really didn't want to have to make the trip back out to my car to retrieve it. Yeah, it was the heat that made up my mind, not the chance that I would still be working there.
I still have 1st job, so I'm good, although highly peeved, as is everyone that helped start get that place running only to be thrown to the curb. I was basically the last person standing. I was hoping for a little bit longer with the extra income, if for no other reason than to more or less cover the expenses I incurred from the vacation. However, the week or two right before going on vacation were noticeably taxing on my mental health in regards to that 2nd job. I was starting to snap at people, and that's never good. It's probably for the best.
I other news, I had a Friday birthday (6/29) which involved working both jobs, drinking a fish (not my best moment in life), riding a couple rides at Six Flags, and then helping my overheated roommate get home. The next day (6/30) I spent with a couple friends at an estate sale, a nice lunch, and a parking lot incident in which a person opened their car door into my car with such force and such perfect timing as I was pulling into the parking space that their door wedged itself between the front quarter panel and my door. I actually had to back up an inch or two in order to get it unwedged. Then I couldn't open my door more than a couple inches, so I had to crawl over the center console to get out of my car. The driver/owner of that car refused to exchange insurance information with me, so we had to involve the police, and she still insists her passenger's door was already open when I entered the parking space, and stated so quite argumentatively with my insurance rep, so that's now gone into subrogation. The next day, Sunday 7/1, I spent with another friend going to lunch, an antique mall, and two different ice cream places. Because she drives so much for work and wasn't too embarrassed by it, I still drove us in my new car, despite having to crawl across the center console every single time I needed in or out of the car.
Keep in mind, this was the brand new car that I just bought at the end of May. I'd had it for just over a month. This was about the same amount of time I had with my previous car when the carport fell on it due to the weight of a foot-plus of snow.
Monday 7/2 arrived and I went to 2nd job in the morning, dropped off my car at the collision shop and picked up the rental during my usual lunch drive, and drove to primary job. I had not thought about it being a holiday week (July 4th), and the only rental they had available was a Nissan Armada, which really is like driving around a flotilla - that thing is HUGE. Saturday 7/14 finally arrived and Mom and I went to pick up the rental vehicle we already reserved for the trip, a Dodge Grand Caravan, much smaller and better suited as a 7-passenger vacation-mobile over the Armada. We took back the Armada and had lunch, then I went home to pack for vacation.
2AM arrived and I woke up to head to my parents' place. I got there at 3 as planned, but we still didn't start driving until closer to 3:45. As we were just about to enter the highway, someone remembered something that we had to go back and get. As we were getting onto the highway the second time Little Bit remembered he forgot his headphones, but I wouldn't go back for those. Mom had an extra pair and both Mom and I also had earbuds he could use, and I could probably pick up a new pair of headphones along the way if need be.
It was a 12-hour drive plus stops, and we arrived at the hotel at around 8pm. We had breakfast at Strawn's Eat Shop in Shreveport, smoothies at a Tropical Smoothie Cafe in a gas station in Jackson, MS, and dinner at a place called Cook Out after checking in at the hotel.
We were VERY impressed with the bustling Strawn's in Shreveport, and I highly recommend it if you're ever in the area. We could tell it's also a local favorite. The place had a few folks when we arrived, and the larger, expanded area of the space seemed too big for a little diner, but as we were eating many locals came in, lots of hugs and how-dos, and the place was packed when we left. Our waitress was phenomenal and Little Bit gave her a hug when we were leaving, as he's wont to do, and she told me how wonderful that was of him.
On the other hand, we were very unimpressed and disappointed with the Cook Out location in Morrow, GA. They got our order all confused, the cheese quesadillas included some sort of pepper (jalapeno maybe?), and the food was otherwise meh. My hamburger "cheddar style" was missing the hamburger patty, my mom's chicken sandwich "club style" was missing the lettuce and tomato, which seemed to have been put onto my non-patty burger, and the double order of quesadillas were wrapped together, so we thought we were missing one of those as well when we first got everything out of the bag. Bossman at my regular job highly recommended Checkers, but we never made it to one of them, and now I wish that had been our first meal instead of the Cook Out up the street from the hotel. I'm trying not to hold it against the chain as a whole for what otherwise might have just been a one-off bad dining experience, but it was enough for us to not consider them for any other meals during the trip.
After getting back to the hotel Mom couldn't find her insulin and thought she left it back at the house. She called Dad to see if he could overnight it to her, but he couldn't find it, and we eventually found it in one of the coolers. She just didn't remember she had already packed it in there. Her mind is getting like that nowadays, and quite often. She misplaced a few things during the trip.
Each morning Mom, Little Bit, and I had breakfast in the hotel while the older boys slept in and gave us a hard time when we eventually woke them. Fucking teenagers. We never once made it back to the hotel in time for their evening Kickback dinner, which included two free adult drinks each for Mom and me - damn. The boys still got in daily evening swimming and popcorn.
Monday 7/9 - Went to Stone Mountain Park, Rode the Duck, took the Skylift to the top of the granite mountain and hung out there for a bit, had lunch back at the base of the mountain, explored the dinosaurs and played in the Dinotorium, perused the mountain memorial hall, the boys did the climbing wall a couple times and I did the ropes course to the second level when they were ready to go back to the hotel and swim, thus interrupting my climb, because I'm a nice aunt that gives in when they are pathetically sitting on a bench doing nothing instead of joining me on a ropes course. Wieners.
Tuesday 7/10 - Did nothing that morning, had a late lunch at Cracker Barrel, spent the late afternoon at the Georgia Aquarium, had sushi for dinner at a fancy Uptown-Downtown restaurant. I liked how the aquarium is laid out like a wheel with spokes going out to each of the various attractions so you can pick and chose your path at will and revisit areas whenever. By contrast, the Dallas World Aquarium is completely linear, forcing you along a predetermined path through everything, and making it pretty impossible to revisit an area if you want later.
Wednesday 7/11 - Six Flags, got there later than hoped, a few hours later Little Bit got heat stress and threw up and had to go the the infirmary while the two older boys were at Hurricane Harbor, and when I texted them he was sick and ready to go back to the hotel they were too, only saw about 1/3 of Six Flags.
Thursday 7/12 - Bodies The Exhibition late morning, did not get to go to the Center for Pupperty Arts as I'd hoped, California Pizza Co for lunch, World of Coca-Cola Museum for afternoon, boys swam at hotel while Mom and I went to Olive Garden for dinner.
Despite my every effort, the boys were also not interested in hitting the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum outside Birmingham, AL, either to or from Georgia. I figured they would eat it up, but nope, not one of them was interested.
Friday 7/13 - The boys were joking about us dying on our way home because it was Friday The 13th. Planned to leave by 11am, left eventually some time after that, probably close to noon. Stopped at McDonald's in Jackson for late lunch/early dinner, saw a HUGE accident that closed the east-bound I-20 lanes and saw cars backed up for a few miles and pulled over to turn their engines off, keeping in mind they're stuck in the middle of stopped traffic in the middle of nowhere in ~95+ degree heat. Avoided an accident ourselves when one boy was about to take a wrong exit, noticed mistake and tried to swerve back onto other lanes where other cars were, then got back into his lane just in time to avoid the freeway split. We got him back onto the correct freeway and exchanged drivers a few miles up at a gas station (it was time to swap out drivers anyway).
I sneezed and then had miserable allergies about 10min after crossing into Texas. I'm allergic to my home state.
Hit Buc-ee's in Terrell, TX, at around midnight. Bought allergy medicine and got a gigantic bug bite (probably an ant, I hope?) between my toes from their parking lot. Got eldest's friend home at around 2am. Got myself home at around 3:30am and discovered my house keys were still at my parents' house and I couldn't reach any of the roommates by phone and didn't want to start knocking on windows. Eldest was still awake playing on his Xbox (fucking teenagers), so he found the keys, I drove back over there, eventually unpacked my bathroom bag, and finally got to sleep in my own bed at around 5am.
Saturday 7/14 - I had alarm set for 11am, and while talking with roommate noticed the clock in kitchen read 10am, so I only got about 5 hrs of sleep. The tablet I use as an alarm hadn't changed time like the phone does automatically, so I had an extra hour to talk about the trip with roommates. Made it to Mom's to take back the rental, then we drove down to south Arlington, had lunch, and then went to my job to pick up my fixed car, which I had made arrangements to be dropped off there the previous day after it was ready. Drove home, said hi to the gaming group, proceeded to die in my bed again for another few hours.
Sunday 7/15 - I think I was starting to get back to normal. Of course, then Monday morning happened, and that takes you back to the beginning of this post. And round, and round we go.
While I was on vacation last week, they talked a lot with the accountant and the company that runs the invoice processing system that they use and supposedly figured out how to make everything much faster than how I was processing it and also decided to outsource a good chunk of the work I was doing to the accountant's office. When I arrived Monday morning, I was told, "Understand, I'm not letting you go, and I'll happily write a letter of recommendation, but I have essentially eliminated your job position." I really hate corporate backstabbing doublespeak, especially when it's used incorrectly.
I already predicted about an 80-85% chance this was going to happen, and a 95% chance it would happen within the month. I debated bringing my iced coffee in from the car with me or leaving it out there because I might not be all that long. Given the heat, I decided that if I wasn't being let go, I really didn't want to have to make the trip back out to my car to retrieve it. Yeah, it was the heat that made up my mind, not the chance that I would still be working there.
I still have 1st job, so I'm good, although highly peeved, as is everyone that helped start get that place running only to be thrown to the curb. I was basically the last person standing. I was hoping for a little bit longer with the extra income, if for no other reason than to more or less cover the expenses I incurred from the vacation. However, the week or two right before going on vacation were noticeably taxing on my mental health in regards to that 2nd job. I was starting to snap at people, and that's never good. It's probably for the best.
I other news, I had a Friday birthday (6/29) which involved working both jobs, drinking a fish (not my best moment in life), riding a couple rides at Six Flags, and then helping my overheated roommate get home. The next day (6/30) I spent with a couple friends at an estate sale, a nice lunch, and a parking lot incident in which a person opened their car door into my car with such force and such perfect timing as I was pulling into the parking space that their door wedged itself between the front quarter panel and my door. I actually had to back up an inch or two in order to get it unwedged. Then I couldn't open my door more than a couple inches, so I had to crawl over the center console to get out of my car. The driver/owner of that car refused to exchange insurance information with me, so we had to involve the police, and she still insists her passenger's door was already open when I entered the parking space, and stated so quite argumentatively with my insurance rep, so that's now gone into subrogation. The next day, Sunday 7/1, I spent with another friend going to lunch, an antique mall, and two different ice cream places. Because she drives so much for work and wasn't too embarrassed by it, I still drove us in my new car, despite having to crawl across the center console every single time I needed in or out of the car.
Keep in mind, this was the brand new car that I just bought at the end of May. I'd had it for just over a month. This was about the same amount of time I had with my previous car when the carport fell on it due to the weight of a foot-plus of snow.
Monday 7/2 arrived and I went to 2nd job in the morning, dropped off my car at the collision shop and picked up the rental during my usual lunch drive, and drove to primary job. I had not thought about it being a holiday week (July 4th), and the only rental they had available was a Nissan Armada, which really is like driving around a flotilla - that thing is HUGE. Saturday 7/14 finally arrived and Mom and I went to pick up the rental vehicle we already reserved for the trip, a Dodge Grand Caravan, much smaller and better suited as a 7-passenger vacation-mobile over the Armada. We took back the Armada and had lunch, then I went home to pack for vacation.
2AM arrived and I woke up to head to my parents' place. I got there at 3 as planned, but we still didn't start driving until closer to 3:45. As we were just about to enter the highway, someone remembered something that we had to go back and get. As we were getting onto the highway the second time Little Bit remembered he forgot his headphones, but I wouldn't go back for those. Mom had an extra pair and both Mom and I also had earbuds he could use, and I could probably pick up a new pair of headphones along the way if need be.
It was a 12-hour drive plus stops, and we arrived at the hotel at around 8pm. We had breakfast at Strawn's Eat Shop in Shreveport, smoothies at a Tropical Smoothie Cafe in a gas station in Jackson, MS, and dinner at a place called Cook Out after checking in at the hotel.
We were VERY impressed with the bustling Strawn's in Shreveport, and I highly recommend it if you're ever in the area. We could tell it's also a local favorite. The place had a few folks when we arrived, and the larger, expanded area of the space seemed too big for a little diner, but as we were eating many locals came in, lots of hugs and how-dos, and the place was packed when we left. Our waitress was phenomenal and Little Bit gave her a hug when we were leaving, as he's wont to do, and she told me how wonderful that was of him.
On the other hand, we were very unimpressed and disappointed with the Cook Out location in Morrow, GA. They got our order all confused, the cheese quesadillas included some sort of pepper (jalapeno maybe?), and the food was otherwise meh. My hamburger "cheddar style" was missing the hamburger patty, my mom's chicken sandwich "club style" was missing the lettuce and tomato, which seemed to have been put onto my non-patty burger, and the double order of quesadillas were wrapped together, so we thought we were missing one of those as well when we first got everything out of the bag. Bossman at my regular job highly recommended Checkers, but we never made it to one of them, and now I wish that had been our first meal instead of the Cook Out up the street from the hotel. I'm trying not to hold it against the chain as a whole for what otherwise might have just been a one-off bad dining experience, but it was enough for us to not consider them for any other meals during the trip.
After getting back to the hotel Mom couldn't find her insulin and thought she left it back at the house. She called Dad to see if he could overnight it to her, but he couldn't find it, and we eventually found it in one of the coolers. She just didn't remember she had already packed it in there. Her mind is getting like that nowadays, and quite often. She misplaced a few things during the trip.
Each morning Mom, Little Bit, and I had breakfast in the hotel while the older boys slept in and gave us a hard time when we eventually woke them. Fucking teenagers. We never once made it back to the hotel in time for their evening Kickback dinner, which included two free adult drinks each for Mom and me - damn. The boys still got in daily evening swimming and popcorn.
Monday 7/9 - Went to Stone Mountain Park, Rode the Duck, took the Skylift to the top of the granite mountain and hung out there for a bit, had lunch back at the base of the mountain, explored the dinosaurs and played in the Dinotorium, perused the mountain memorial hall, the boys did the climbing wall a couple times and I did the ropes course to the second level when they were ready to go back to the hotel and swim, thus interrupting my climb, because I'm a nice aunt that gives in when they are pathetically sitting on a bench doing nothing instead of joining me on a ropes course. Wieners.
Tuesday 7/10 - Did nothing that morning, had a late lunch at Cracker Barrel, spent the late afternoon at the Georgia Aquarium, had sushi for dinner at a fancy Uptown-Downtown restaurant. I liked how the aquarium is laid out like a wheel with spokes going out to each of the various attractions so you can pick and chose your path at will and revisit areas whenever. By contrast, the Dallas World Aquarium is completely linear, forcing you along a predetermined path through everything, and making it pretty impossible to revisit an area if you want later.
Wednesday 7/11 - Six Flags, got there later than hoped, a few hours later Little Bit got heat stress and threw up and had to go the the infirmary while the two older boys were at Hurricane Harbor, and when I texted them he was sick and ready to go back to the hotel they were too, only saw about 1/3 of Six Flags.
Thursday 7/12 - Bodies The Exhibition late morning, did not get to go to the Center for Pupperty Arts as I'd hoped, California Pizza Co for lunch, World of Coca-Cola Museum for afternoon, boys swam at hotel while Mom and I went to Olive Garden for dinner.
Despite my every effort, the boys were also not interested in hitting the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum outside Birmingham, AL, either to or from Georgia. I figured they would eat it up, but nope, not one of them was interested.
Friday 7/13 - The boys were joking about us dying on our way home because it was Friday The 13th. Planned to leave by 11am, left eventually some time after that, probably close to noon. Stopped at McDonald's in Jackson for late lunch/early dinner, saw a HUGE accident that closed the east-bound I-20 lanes and saw cars backed up for a few miles and pulled over to turn their engines off, keeping in mind they're stuck in the middle of stopped traffic in the middle of nowhere in ~95+ degree heat. Avoided an accident ourselves when one boy was about to take a wrong exit, noticed mistake and tried to swerve back onto other lanes where other cars were, then got back into his lane just in time to avoid the freeway split. We got him back onto the correct freeway and exchanged drivers a few miles up at a gas station (it was time to swap out drivers anyway).
I sneezed and then had miserable allergies about 10min after crossing into Texas. I'm allergic to my home state.
Hit Buc-ee's in Terrell, TX, at around midnight. Bought allergy medicine and got a gigantic bug bite (probably an ant, I hope?) between my toes from their parking lot. Got eldest's friend home at around 2am. Got myself home at around 3:30am and discovered my house keys were still at my parents' house and I couldn't reach any of the roommates by phone and didn't want to start knocking on windows. Eldest was still awake playing on his Xbox (fucking teenagers), so he found the keys, I drove back over there, eventually unpacked my bathroom bag, and finally got to sleep in my own bed at around 5am.
Saturday 7/14 - I had alarm set for 11am, and while talking with roommate noticed the clock in kitchen read 10am, so I only got about 5 hrs of sleep. The tablet I use as an alarm hadn't changed time like the phone does automatically, so I had an extra hour to talk about the trip with roommates. Made it to Mom's to take back the rental, then we drove down to south Arlington, had lunch, and then went to my job to pick up my fixed car, which I had made arrangements to be dropped off there the previous day after it was ready. Drove home, said hi to the gaming group, proceeded to die in my bed again for another few hours.
Sunday 7/15 - I think I was starting to get back to normal. Of course, then Monday morning happened, and that takes you back to the beginning of this post. And round, and round we go.
