Hey Richard!

Why can't matches play baseball?

I forgot to add

I also like sweeping Michael's. I get to push a big push broom up and down all the aisles and it's really satisfying and fun. The pile of junk I collect by the end is amazing. Usually lots of leaves, flowers, punch outs to hang things on the pegs, sparkles, feathers, grapevine, cardboard and even dust.

For Your Needs Away From Home

Many people ask me if I like Michael's. I think my tendency to ramble will take over if I stay with essay form so here's a list of what I like and don't about working at Michael's.

My department is the following things: silk flowers, yarn, wedding, Easter eggs, embroidery, latch hook, baskets, candles, silk hanging baskets, St. Patrick's Day, foam cut-out crafts, and I'm still supposed to keep the leftover Valentine's Day stuff clean on the clearance rack.

Don'ts

• Avoiding management. I don't like this for two reasons a) because I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing and I like to know what I'm supposed to be doing and b) I'm supposed to become a manager -- and I can't avoid myself.
• Hours. I work from mid-afternoon til nine usually. Which is kind of a pain because I have to miss choir practice and singing at the nursing home, and I like those things a lot.
• Petty corporate rules -- like the "cashier compliance log." Everything at Michael's come from Irving, TX. Occasionally, when I get to work my time card is missing. It's in a binder where my mistakes are pointed out to me in no uncertain terms. I have to sign the form (not initial it and not date it) and then I'm allowed to sign in for my shift. This may be a fine system but I got in trouble for not circling the phone number (when I wrote in down by hand) on a check. This was my first day on the register and that was my only problem.
• The fake pollen on the silk flowers generates very real sneezes
• "I'm looking for a round container, you hang it on the wall and it's in blue packaging. I need to know where that is. Now." People get angry when I don't know where stuff is.

Do's

• Wearing an apron. The novelty has worn off a bit, but I still like the fact that I'm instantly identified as a part of something. I'm expected to know things and be polite and professional. In the orientation for the first job I ever had they made us all take turns walking around the room wearing a cape. Just to get the idea that being at work is acting. You have to act interested and act like the right kind of employee. An apron is kind of the same thing -- it helps me take a job that I mostly don't like and reminds me to do right.
• Wrapping things in paper at the checkout counter. I think it's neat that some lowly cashier (me) gets to "permanently" determine how that item (frame, mug, vase, etc.) will be protected. Whenever I buy something that has been wrapped, I always try to re-wrap it the way it was wrapped originally. Especially if it's a gift. It's just nice to keep the folds in the same place.
• Price tag gun. 'nuf said.
• Helping people, and hearing their stories. I can't remember anything in particular but the next point is a pretty standard example.
• The nutty people that I meet. I met a lady with a 15 foot tree that she decorates for each season in Victorian style. I helped her pick out the Easter eggs she would use this year.

I am not getting as many hours as I want and I'm not so sure they are actually going to make me the manager they said they were -- there's a sign out front saying that they are hiring another one! But I'm working really hard at being cheerful and Mrs. Paul (kirker) has offered me some part time work as sort of a personal assistant as she runs the, several, family businesses. I will probalby learn payroll, and I'm going to learn to paint end o' this week. She would only probably want me about two days per week, but I think that could be really fun and I know it'll be really helpful.

Look What I Can Do!

I can knit.

The other day I found a kit for ages 8 and up "Learn to Knit Your Own Teddy Bear". So I thought I'd give it a try. It was really fun. Every day I work in a different aisle restocking things and everyday I feel like doing a different crafy thing. Next I'll try embroidering some pillow cases.

I want to get buttons for the eyes, but it came with adhesive felt so I stuck them on.

He's sitting on my rocking chair.

You Must Be A Homeschooler If...

At my job I have to put my belongings in a sort of locker. I was given a Master combination lock and the number code. I was not told how to use it.

Since I never went to high school or even Jr. high, I didn't know how to use this lock. So I feel and, I'm sure, look like an idiot as I focus really hard and turn the dial in many more circles than I need to. Even now, if I loose focus and think about what I'm going to get out, or what I'm going to do next, I get distracted and mess it up. So I pay attention and I feel like a little kid.

Here's how to work a combination lock, if anyone ever needs to know:
Step One: Turn the dial to the right, past the first number and then back to it.
Step Two: Turn the dial to the left, past the second number and then back around to it.
Step Three: Here's where it gets tricky. Turn the dial to the right again, but only to the number, not past it.
Step Four: Pull it open.

What I could not explain to Rachel...

I had a thought whilst I was making "pasta roni" for lunch. Why is Pasta/Rice -a-roni from San Fran? It's the San-Fran-Cis-Co Treat, right? Then I realized that immigrants must, at some point, have moved from Italy (?) to California. Then I wondered why they didn't stop in New York or why they didn't stay in Italy (or wherever, depending what immigrant group I mean). Then I thought: maybe it's just new places. Every place that's newly settled has vast ammounts of potential. Not only for the natives that are being settled, but also for the settlers. But why be a settler? What's the appeal?

This is a lot to think while the noodles were boiling, but I have found that if I try to do other things at the same time, I ruin it. Becuase it's so fast. So I stare at the noodles and think.

Then I thought that maybe the appeal is not really any particlular place, itself. But the fact that most places immigrants go to are "new" or at least "newer" than the place they are coming from. New York and San Fran both had the appeal of having not only fewer people to persecute the immigrants, but fewer people period.

Then the noodles were done and Rachel had to leave.

Right now I have to make more for leftovers for lunch/dinner at Michaels.

Procrastinators, Inc.

This is a place I waste a lot of time.

I wiki a lot of the answers, so at least I'm broadening my knowledge base...

funny thing happened...

on the way to some singing lessons

I didn't find this.

How did this get into print?!?

"In the bleaching beam of the headlights the pustulous road looked as eerie and alien as a moon landscape, at once close yet mysteriously remote and perpetual. Rolf was gazing through the windscreen with the fierce intensity of a rally driver, wrenching the wheel as each fresh obstruction sprang up from the darkness."

I am not making this up.

It's in the opening paragraph of chapter 24 in "The Children of Men" by the amazing P.D. James. The fantastic book has been made into a movie and a lot of my friends are talking about it. So I scrounged around town and found a used copy for $5 and read it. Huge waste of time.

A tiny part of me found the plot and/or "set up" compelling but most of me wanted to finish only so that I could stop. I was reading it in conflict. Why do I care how this ends? I can tell it's dopey, unbelievable and poor, sensationalistic writing -- but I read on. So many books are like this... horrible, but compelling. Bad, but I read them anyhow. The characters in this one are all either whiners, those who hope their high prinicples will make them martyrs, or two-dimensional dictators; or they change from one Type to the other very abruptly with very little warning from their past actions.

I don't want to hate it because I like books, I like holding them, reading them, shelving them, finding them, buying them, carrying them around, etc. But this one frustrated me. The hype and the unique story made me want to like it and I fought my distaste as I was reading, hoping it would all come together in the final chapters. Then the ending is sort of like she ran out of paper but had to turn it in anyway. She should have written "timed out" at the bottom of the last page. The story of universal sterility and a miracle child could have been really interesting -- even from an unchristian background (which I assume she is. But I could be wrong, she quoted the Book of Common Prayer...) -- but it fell flat. In all areas, plot, dialogue, pacing, ideology, scope, believability...

I liked the font it was printed in.

But I hear the story changes a bit in the movie. I've seen the trailer and people throw things at a subway train. That's not in the book. Maybe the changes are for the better.

"The Illusionist" v. "The Prestige"

They both came out about the same time, they are more or less set in the same time period and they are both movies about fantastically skillful (and famous) magicians.

But there the similarity ends.

I liked "The Illusionist." I didn't like the "The Prestige" so much. Both stories deceive the audience, but I didn't like the secret when it was false marriage and self maiming. On the other hand, I think it was a good story when the hidden plot was to save the girl and then live happily ever after.

I don't know, maybe I'm a shallow movie watcher, but I like movies that tell a good straight-forward story without a whole lot of "angst."

Like "Stranger Than Fiction" -- that's a fun movie.
And "Pursuit of Happyness."