Head injuries

William tripped on his grandmother’s foot today, so I arrived to find him squirming while she tried to hold an ice pack on his head.  Once he had sat still as long as he could, his mom got him a Tylenol, and he instantly exclaimed, “Mama, I like this!”  Well he went on about it so much, that Avery decided she wanted some, too. 

When she was told no, she waited a minute, then insisted, “I hurt my head!” 

Of course, that wasn’t going to work either, so she tried whining about her toe.  I watched as William picked up a giant building block, walked up, and tapped her on the head, then announced, “Avie needs medicine now.”

I mean, I guess it was rather nice of him.  He was trying to help her attain the medicine.  And he didn’t hit her hard, so clearly he wasn’t trying to HURT her.

One man’s trash is another girl’s bed.

Tonight, not wanting to be home alone in my creepy old noisy house, I went over to Bob’s apartment to hang out with him, Stephen, David, and Eric. Stephen warned me on the way over that I would get to see the new present they had for Bob.

Having never been to Bob’s apartment, they had to point it out to me: a large black couch that now huddles next to the two beige-green-brown couches. Apparently Stephen saw it on the side of the road up the street and called David and Eric, demanding they come help him. So they lugged this couch two blocks to the apartment complex, then up a flight of stairs and into Bob’s apartment. Luckily, I arrived in time to watch Stephen attempt to clean it for viewing.

Upon removing the cushions, we made the lucky find of two mismatched socks, an old plastic popper toy, and thirteen cents. Oh, a couple live somethings. Crickets, I’m assuming and hoping. Once Stephen had weeded everything out, he vaccuumed the thing rather awkwardly, then arranged a couple throw pillows on it. David decided to give it the crash test: running and leaping onto the couch only to groan and roll off. The cushions have a very low firmness rating, so if you jump onto it, you basically land on the beams.

About that time, Bob got home and instantly went off about how he had spent the entire drive home trying to figure out what his present could be, and his ideas had ranged everywhere from taking the trash out to a hot hooker. Stephen chose that moment to motion to the couch — which had me sitting on it. Ta da! A couch and a hot . . . me.

Regardless of its shady origins, and ignoring the fact that Stephen didn’t actually do anything with the bugs that were in it, I sat on the couch to watch a movie and was comfortable enough to fall asleep, so it passed the snooze test!

One reason I still work for Starbucks.

My coworkers rock my face off. They do things like bring my chips and queso just because they love me, or make my chicken spaghetti for dinner, or special order me a small shirt because everyone else took them and the mediums come down past my knees.

When I waited tables at Don Pablo’s in high school, I made some excellent friends, a couple of whom I’m still in contact with. Occasioanlly after work I would go eat with some of them, or we’d all go be on a team at Laserquest, or we’d go to Pockets and shoot pool. It was fun.

But my fellow baristas at Central & 183 are some of my best friends, and I love that we do silly things like live at our store even when we aren’t working, lay out by the pool and talk about relationships, or go to the nearby park on Wednesday evenings and play volleyball.

That’s right. Volleyball. Can we play? No, not really. A couple times we can get a good volley going. Last week there was a tournament against another store, during which one of my coworkers (Oliver!) wore a speedo, but I unfortunately opted out and later regretted it. So I went last night, and even though it was just a ragtag group of us playing in the heat of the evening, it was fun.

My days of playing on a team are clearly over by my inability to serve very well at all, and my height is an issue when playing with 6′4″ boys (Nadir!). Haley and I were the only girls present, but saw nothing inappropriate when all the boys stripped their shirts off for a game of skins vs. skins. Granted, a couple of us went swimming afterwards, but I think a lot of it was just a way for us to cut loose together out of the work environment and do things that aren’t exactly crossing the line, per se, but are not typical behavior among coworkers. I got to show off my nose piercing; Damien (an asst. manager) let his communist tattoo show.

All in all, definitely a fun evening. Swimming afterwards was nice and lowkey. I’m glad I went and I shall be going again, particularly since the tennis games I had multiple times a week in the beginning of summer have fallen by the wayside. The only downside of the day, really, was that I kinda messed my pinky up somehow . . .

Oh, and my team lost. Both times.

I am sorry that I have more important things to remember.

So at work, we are encouraged to “memorize” people’s drinks. It’s supposed to make them welcome, and I’m sure it does, and the truth is that a lot of our regulars really do know a lot about our lives, and vice versa. And some of our regulars (Mohammed!) I dearly love.

However, just because some baristas know exactly what all nine modifiers on your daily beverage are, does not mean that I do. If I’m on drive through with Amy, I don’t even bother expediting (talking to people through the headsets); I just make drinks because she knows EVERYONE’s. Same with Jen in the cafe. Besides, I’m usually on bar anyways because I’m one of the fastest bar-ers; and proud of it!

Today I was on the register in the cafe, though. And no less than six times a regular customer would walk up to the register and just stare at me, or else hand me their card, already expecting me to have their drink rung up. At first I would say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know your drink,” but then I realized what am I apologizing for? Usually when I said it, they would say something along the lines of, “Oh, are you new?” No, sir, I’ve been working here longer than you’ve been coming here. But if you can’t even remember if you’ve ever seen me working in the store before, how in God’s name do you expect me to remember that every day you drink a triple grande extra hot two pump whole milk with whip two splenda and stirred caramel macchiato?

A wonderful regular guy came in, a middle-aged man who everyone recognized. I mean, I recognize him, but I don’t know his stupid drink. He walks up to the counter and, expecting the awkward pause, I blurt out, “I don’t know your drink.” He says that’s okay, he doesn’t expect me to, which makes me happy. I explain that I’m usually on bar so I don’t associate drinks with faces and he grins, “Oh, so you’re why my drink always tastes perfect then, huh?”

Sir, I think I love you.

I mean, it’s still an accomplishment.

I just spent the weekend at my grandparents, and came home earlier than I really had to on Sunday in order to get things done. Namely, to clean my room, order my subway pass for school, do laundry because I’m quickly running out of clothes, work on my writing and photography sites, hang out with some friends in the evening, paint the ugly pot I made, and work out.

Instead, I did this:

I had never made pies before. And unlike was planned, boyfriend extended his weekend doing work on his family’s property in East Texas. Which means both pies remain in my house. One has been frozen and will either be given to boyfriend or taken to work. The other has been halfway devoured. Only a quarter was me.

After I cleaned the goo off the right one (but of course not until AFTER I had taken the picture . . .. ): Apple-pie-making = success. Even without the nutmeg that remained hidden right in front of my face. Next attempt, coming soon to a blog post near you: cherry pie.

Oh, and I should probably do all that other stuff I meant to do yesterday. And didn’t do today, either.

I have a new lease on life

Okay, I don’t really, but I’ve been inspired lately to really put the time and effort into making this blog . . . something. I’m going to put funny stories up. I’m going to put work stories up. I’m going to put pictures up. Basically I’m just going to actually put STUFF up, since posting for the past two years has been sporadic at best.

My GOAL is to post daily (withtheexceptionofholidaysfinalsbaddayslongdaysandbusydays), which will probably mean a few posts a week. Which I can be happy with.

So . . . spread the word. She’s back y’all.

I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.

I should NEVER have had that conversation with Laurajane

Sunday, driving home from Longview, I wanted to stop at this rad flea market I had seen on the drive over there. I couldn’t find it, so instead I stopped at the Russel Stover Chocolate Factory Outlet and bought my weight in chocolate for $20.13. It was all in a HUGE bag riding shotgun with me. Afterwards, I got back on Hwy 20, where my cruising speed had been right at 80, because for most of the drive the speed limit is 70.

The cars were all driving aboud 40 which really annoyed me, so I pulled into the left lane and took off to get around them. I got up to about 75 then realized I was RIGHT BESIDE A STATE TROOPER. Of course I slowed down but not until I had already passed him, and of course he got behind me and flashed his lights.

So I pulled over on the side of the highway and he came around.

Officer: Good afternoon. I’m stopping you because the speed limit here is 65.
Me (honestly): Oh. I thought it was 70.
Officer: No ma’am. License? Do you have insurance on this car?
I dig for it while he asks where I”m coming from. I nervously tell him I’m headed home from my grandparents’ house and had just stopped at the Russel Stover.

I kid you not, he eyed my candy as if to make sure I was telling the truth, and I wondered if offering him a Whitman Sampler would get me out of a ticket.

He goes to check all my stuff, while I sit there wondering if there’s any kind of mark left from that time I kept Casey from getting arrested on our first date (haha, funny story, I’ll write it out later!) . . . he comes back, asks where I’m coming from, then just gave me a warning.

In hindsight, he couldn’t have given me a ticket. Even with the speed limit at 65, I was only going about eight miles over, and he didn’t hit me with radar; he just knew I was going faster than he was, but not by much. However, I appreciated the lack of a ticket, nonetheless. Of course, it RUINED the rest of my trip. No more screeching out Taylor Swift and Linkin Park at the top of my lungs.

Anyways, moral of the story: Never hold up the drive thru at work to talk to Laurajane and Nadir about how you’ve only ever been pulled over once. Especially not right before you take a roadtrip.

In which God tells me to shut up

So of course this has been a really, really sucky week. Breaking up with my boyfriend, which should NOT have happened, and then trying to work things out, not eating or sleeping or smiling because even though he’s agreed to give us a shot, I’m stressed out as all get up because everything still feels so unstable and up in the air. Okay, your Classic Heartbreak Act. I’m at the pool in the afternoon with Amy and Rob because Rob and I are going through VERY similar situations together. We actually are joking about eloping together, which would be pretty cool. But so me and him have a nice long conversation in the pool, and then he goes for a smoke so I’m lying out sunning with Amy, telling her how I used to be really bad about never calling anyone and then I got over that but went too far and now I call and text Casey waaaaaaay too much, mainly because he doesn’t ever call or text me anymore and I think I’m worried that we will basically drop off the face of the earth if I don’t keep communication going.

Anyways, I told her how the new rule I set for myself is that I am only allowed to call and text once a day unless he and I are in an active conversation. Sounds fair enough. However, the policy is new and it’s really, really hard for me to maintain it. I hadn’t called or texted yet today, and I was annoyed because yesterday was our two-month anniversary and I hadn’t gotten to see him because he had youth group, and he hadn’t even called or texted, and he was about to go on a weekend roadtrip with some friends . . . so I had my little spazz out. Anyways, I knew that I could not text or call him today because, as I explained to everyone I talked to, he knew that the day before had been our anniversary and that he was about to go out of town for three days, and if he still didn’t want to see me then there was nothing I could do for us. So he would call if he wanted to see me.

Nonetheless, I found myself wanting so badly to call and remind him. He’s a big boy; he doesn’t need reminding. This boy has made me go crazy, by the way, in all the bad ways, all the ways I always condemned in other girls. Well so 4:30 rolls around when he gets off work and I’m having to try SO HARD not to call him and just remind him that I have to work early the next morning, so if we’re going to see each other he should really call me early, and if he doesn’t want to see me he should just flat out say it . . .

I pull my phone out of my purse JUST TO SEE WHAT TIME IT WAS and there is melted gum ALL OVER my phone. I had spit my gum out in a receipt and stuck it in the same pocket as my phone, and the gum literally oozed everywhere. I tried to clean it off in the bathroom, but couldn’t get it very well. So talking on the phone or texting would mean getting gum all in my hair or nails.

Amy stuck her nose in the air and scolded, “That’s God telling you to put your phone away, Mama.”

What could I do? So I stuck it back in my bag. Swam. Got gas. Went home and finally cleaned it off with peanut butter (did you know that works? it really does. I remember as a kid, getting gum stuck in my leg hair, and my parents would use peanut butter. true story), and before I had even put the phone down, it rang. Casey inviting me over.

God – 59999999999
Me – 0