On June 15th, 2010, the lives of my best friend, Sarah, and her husband, Aaron, were changed forever when they brought their new son, Caleb, into the world.

It was a Tuesday. I was working. And then the call came. All I remember is Aaron just glowing and grinning from ear to ear. I didn’t have to be in the same room as him to be able to tell that. He just sounded so excited and proud, and in turn, that made me excited, not only for my friends and their new little bundle of joy, but because there was going to be a new baby in my life as well. And I couldn’t have been happier!

Mike and I drove to the hospital right after work so we could see our nephew. I was so awestruck at how cute – and big! – he was. And of course, holding him for the first time was just amazing. He never cried, never even fussed. He was a perfect angel.

He’s almost three months old now, and I swear that little boy gets more handsome by the day. He’s just adorable, and I’m so blessed to have him in my life, as well as Sarah and Aaron.

Congratulations to the both of you!!! I love you!!!!! ♥ ♥ ♥

We decided to stop for dinner first, as most of us were starving by that time. A handful of french fries (the best I’ve had in a long time, even), two mozzarella sticks and two-thirds of a cheeseburger later, I was stuffed. For somebody who was starving…that meal filled me up. But in my defense, the burger was huge. Anyway, we did a little shopping after dinner. I don’t know whether I’m disappointed or proud of myself, as I didn’t buy anything. I had a couple of things in mind that I wanted to buy, but ended up empty-handed.

Sometime after dark, we stopped to watch this street performer named Wacky Chad. (Just for kicks, I looked him up on YouTube; there’s a bunch of videos, if you’re interested). He’s this unicyclist, pogo-stickist (yes, I know that’s not a word, lol) and juggler. He was pretty amusing. At one point, he was attempting a trick on the pogo stick, but missed and fell on his back…on concrete. I cringed. It looked painful. It sounded painful. I tweeted this, but to reiterate, you can watch people falling on concrete on YouTube or TV, and it looks bad, but it’s nothing compared to actually witnessing it. I felt kinda bad for him. You could tell he was trying not to look affected, but he did mention that his hip was hurting, and he was bleeding. But I have to give him props, as he got right back on and finished his show. Heh, for part of his show, he mentioned that he needed a twenty-something female to assist him. He started scouring the crowd, and I started ducking out of sight, lmao. He stopped at Alicia…and promptly started hitting on her. “Wow…you make Paris Hilton look like…” I forget what he said, but you get the idea. And, “if you were in the dictionary, you’d be under KA-BAM!” And, when she was exiting, he was all, “I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you go.” I thought Brian was gonna beat his ass, lol. Obviously he was joking, but even I have to say…it took it a little far. We stayed for the rest of his act, then headed back to the motel.

Somewhere around 11pm, we left to check out Lake George’s nightlife, which primarily meant bar-hopping, lol. We started with the club that [kind of] neighbored our motel. DJ Mike’s, I think it was called. 21+ with a $5 cover charge. The plan was to stay for a drink or two, then move on to the next place. …we ended up staying for at least two hours. Now, Mike doesn’t drink at all, and I rarely do, but as Alicia offered to buy me one, I couldn’t turn her down. (Well, I could’ve but, one drink? Yeah.) But that was my one and only for the night. As the night progressed, Alicia was gone, Kevin…well, let’s just say Brian had to practically carry him to his seat – which he then fell over- and Brian, who drank more than anyone, was also the most normal; guess it holds it better. The only actual reason why we left was because we kinda, sorta got kicked out due to Brian’s “dirty dancing.” I still don’t understand how dancefloor grinding gets you kicked out, but a group of girls making provocative gestures with a giant, blow-up penis is perfectly okay?!

Anyway, we left, looking for the next place to go. Ended up at the only open pizza place. And let’s face it – who doesn’t love 2am pizza? Chilled there for awhile, then headed back to the room.

For the next hour or so, a lot of shenanigans went on: Alicia wanted to play a game, Kevin passed out, Brian locked Alicia out…it just went on and on. Eventually he let her back in, and all was quiet for a good thirty minutes, then Alicia pops in and goes, “no, seriously, do you guys wanna play a game?” LMAO it was just so random. And so much fun.

Fell asleep somewhere around 4am, and only woke up when I heard the door open. I immediately woke Mike up and was like, “somebody just opened the door!” but we discovered that Kevin wasn’t in his bed, so that was a relief. Went back to sleep and again woke up to a knock on the door. Housekeeping was there to kick us out. (I sense a theme here…) We were all still sleeping. Oops. But we were out within half an hour.

Found a place serving breakfast until noon, so we stopped there before heading home. All in all, it was an amazing time; definitely need to do it again, for longer.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

I’ve had issues off and on with my job for as long as I’ve had it. Some days are good, some are crappy. Isn’t everyone’s job like that? (If you say no, I wanna know where you work, lol.) This week in particular has sent me right over the edge.

I had two mods this week – deodorant and shaving. Both were changing around quite a bit, in addition to fixtures being removed, shelves being put in, etc. I knew they were going to take me all week, starting Monday and ending Friday. Maybe less time, depending what else had to be done each day.

So I get to work Monday and am told absolutely no mods on a Monday. Funny, seeing as how two other associates were overnight this week doing theirs. It’s okay for them, but not for me? Fine. I’ll overlook that. Tuesday comes. I’m told the freight in the back comes before the mods. That took most of the day. Eventually I asked my ZMS when my mods were supposed to get done. She says “good question” and has to get with my assistant manager on that. Okay, fine. Exit Tuesday, enter Wednesday. My assistant tells me I’ll be working six hours, going home to rest, then coming back in overnight with the aforementioned associates to do my mods. So I’m not even being asked my opinion on this; I’m being told I have no choice… even though they’re supposed to give you twenty-four hours notice on such matters. Now, I don’t drive. So that would require Mike to take me home at lunch, and also take me back that night. But how do I get home in the morning? I was told to take the bus. I won’t get into that discussion. Luckily, I ended up not having to stick to that plan.

I was able to start my shaving mod late Wednesday, finally. My deodorant mod was done that night, which I am grateful for, don’t get me wrong. Came in this morning (Thursday) to find most of it completed, save for four shelves. It took me two hours to finish that and deal with the overstock, deleted and miscellaneous freight that was left for me. Finally I was able to get back to my shaving mod. Got less than I wanted to done on that, so I’ll have to finish it tomorrow.

Now, I was told mods were considered late after three days. Keep this in mind, as it will be important to this rant later. Back to my mod, I was trying to get it done quickly so that it wasn’t late (today would have been day three). Because of that, I was only changing broken fast track, not all of them. I also wasn’t cleaning the shelves. My ZMS “yelled” at me for that. So I started cleaning and changing all the fast track, even though, in my opinion, not all of them needed it.

Fast forward to an hour before I went home. I was pulled into the office for a “conversation.” I thought I was being coached for sure, but it really was just a conversation. One that pissed me off. I was told I rely on Mike too much; that I either need to get my liscense or learn the bus schedule. Excuse me?! That’s out of line to tell somebody. Especially when they don’t know my situation. We can’t afford a second car. So that leaves me the bus or taking a taxi. Are they gonna pay for these transportation modes? Money is tight; but that’s not an excuse.

I was told I have a negative attitude. I was told my department is horrendous. Labels are missing, warehouse labels are stuck right to the front of the fast track, etc. This is none of my doing. But I’m in charge; I fix it. Personally, I think the overnight stockers doing these things should be addressed, but that would make sense.

I was told that “oh, you can work overnights, you just don’t want to.” No, actually, I can’t. Those hours aren’t in my availability, and they’re real sticklers about working your schedule. Except when it’s convienent for them, I guess. What really pissed me off is that this came from my ZMS, and when she had my position (in a different department, before she moved up), she hated working overnight. And if she absolutely had to, she wanted to do the entire week, not just one day, as working days, a night or two, then back to days, threw her body off. Yet it’s okay for me to do that?

Speaking of overnights, she was kind of annoyed that again, the aforementioned two associates, were working overnight, because that meant she had to do their price changes, etc. Yet she suddenly changed her mind and decided it would be okay for me? Hypocritical, no? So then I was told ALL mods (at least big ones) would be done overnights from now on. But just for me and my pad, not everyone. Whatever. Remember that “three-days-or-it’s-late” mod deal? I asked about that, as I was told late mods were cause for coaching. (Although, in the past, they could be a month late and nobody cared. But I digress.) My assistant said it’s just THEIR policy, that technically, we have five days to complete mods… Just like I thought. The system says five days, not three. It’s just a freaking “rule” management made up, but we’re expected to follow it? Wonder if they can get in trouble for that…?

All that said, I’m no longer “allowed” to be negative. No more attitude. Just do what they tell me without complaining. I’m told they’ll hire me people (I’ve been hearing this for ages…). So we’ll see how it goes from here. I’m pretty sure I had more to say, but I’m all out of sorts, lol. Thanks for reading all of that, if you did. <3