Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Not much going on this weekend other than we did our occasional Costco run today to pick up household needs, and to head over to the garden to plant the several things we bought at Sloat Gardens the other day. I've been trying to keep up with my new habit of truly having a day off where I don't have to pile it up with several events, errands or whatever. Just do what needs doing and relax.

The storm, by the way, is that school is starting back up this coming week. As I've said before, our local high school is just a few short blocks away from my store, and over the last several years, five days a week and often twice a day, we'll get hit with thirty to forty noisy teenagers coming in to buy chicken tenders and sour gummies. It only lasts for about twenty minutes, but it's the most stressful part of the day, especially when we happen to be short-staffed. Each year I keep hoping that the next class will be a bit less obnoxious (and stop stealing) (and stop standing in the middle of the aisles in complete obliviousness), but we shall see. For a very brief time the school's principal kept them from coming over by citing the rule that they're not supposed to cross the major boulevard to get here. [They can always walk a few blocks in a different direction to a different shopping area to buy food.]

Alas, I'm not looking forward to it, but I'm going to try to keep an even calm about it.

So of course I can't let a day off go by without Doing Stuff That Needs Doing. Because I don't know how to slack off without feeling guilty about it, heh.

More pictures have been hung on the wall, and several have been put aside for storage as we're thinking of updating our art prints. We of course buy most of them from our local museums or ones we've visited in the last couple of years, and the old ones have started suffering from sun fade. A is currently looking at multiple museums' online shops, and we're also awaiting the re-opening of Ukiyo-e Heroes' website -- they do a lot of giclee prints of anime and sf/f characters in a feudal Japan style, and we already own a handful of them already. We'll be putting more pictures up tomorrow!

Also done today: two of three things I've been meaning to get rid of have now been gotten rid of! Thanks to FB Marketplace our moving boxes have been picked up by a few local Millennials that will be moving soon, and our old Dyson stick vacuum (which is around seventeen years old at this point, and it was a refurb when we got it) was also taken. Someone is picking up our old floor lamp tomorrow. This means we once again have more room in the garage, and the pile of Things to Donate is once again shrinking. I'll need to find the time to drop the four or five boxes going to Goodwill. I'd do it tomorrow but there's no rush.

Tomorrow is my second day off in a row (yay!) and A is doing a half-day, so after she signs off we'll be doing some grocery shopping, but that's about it!

Well, at least I did get to be lazy and lie in bed until 7am!

Wait, how is it the 18th already?? This is the problem with December, it always goes by way too quickly, especially when one's brain falls into a 'take each day as it comes' mindset instead of getting wrapped up in the busy holiday vibe. It's actually been kind of a quiet Q4 at work, though. There are certainly pockets of time where the customer line never ends, but it seems a little less chaotic this year. I know our numbers aren't quite as high as they were this time a few years back, but we're not exactly struggling either.

Anyhoo, I've basically been wrapping up any year-end business these last couple of days and plan to continue doing so until the end of the month. It's my own little way of keeping calm and unstressed, I suppose. I know I have two compilations to finish off -- one is technically a writing soundtrack for a future writing project, and the other is the end-of-year mixtape. Those are easy enough, and I don't think I have anything planned for the next couple of Sundays so perhaps I'll get them done then!

WHOOF. Those midshifts where I'm the delegated Front End Manager for the day are just...blerg. Sometimes they're fine, maybe a little boring, if the day is slow and there aren't all that many customers coming in. But last night was just EXHAUSTING. We were incredibly busy the entire time and I'm not entirely sure why, right up until I left at 8pm. Perhaps it was that the weather was lovely, or that people were coming in to avoid the inevitable Mother's Day rush coming this weekend, or whatever, I don't know.

Point being, I'm just very glad that I have today off and I refuse to get stressed out about anything at all. Do a few errands (drop stuff off at Goodwill and donate a few things to the local animal hospital, maybe do laundry later), do a bit of writing, and maybe watch the freshly minted new remaster of The Beatles movie Let It Be on Disney+. And that's about it.

One of the downsides to working the midshift on Wednesday is that I lose all track of time and forget to post here on the DW, and run out of time to write something for Walk in Silence. I don't feel guilty about missing a posting day now and again, but my brain sometimes does give me that wave of 'aaaah you skipped a day EVERYTHING IS RUINED' that I duly try to ignore. I mean, I'm using all that time to work on Theadia and maintaining a daily schedule on the 750Words site, which are currently just a bit more important to me at the moment.

Thankfully I have today off so I might just throw something together for Welcome to Bridgetown this afternoon. It's nice to have a day off midweek to get errands done and take my time doing what I want to do. I of course still wake up early out of habit, so that also gives me the morning to faff around a bit without any guilt! Heh.

If you haven't heard elsewhere already, as of 1 April I have now officially started the complete rewrite of Theadia! The tl;dr here is that I'm approaching it the same way I did in rewriting The Phoenix Effect as the Bridgetown Trilogy way back in the day because I feel its current version doesn't do the story justice. Will this too be a trilogy? A duology? A really long single book? Stay tuned!

But yeah, that's been on my mind these last couple of days, and I'm excited about that. I've been ensuring I have a good stretch of time to focus solely on it, just like before. It's kind of an exercise to see if the process that was so successful previously could be repeated here, I suppose. Right now there hasn't been all that much divergence other than rephrasing a few passages and pulling out some of the chaff, but I'm fully expecting that to happen soon enough, once I start elaborating on some of the subplots and introducing more of the characters.

Other than that, I have today off, so I'm hoping to get a lot done after I do some of my morning errands like playing with the cats and grocery shopping!

Today's our last day of vacation, and I'm already looking forward to getting back into the swing of things come tomorrow. As much as I've enjoyed the mental and physical slowdown to recharge my batteries, I'm more than ready to get moving again. These days off helped me rethink the way I approach my Current Day Job day. Aside from the stressful moments -- which to be honest aren't even close to unhealthy as the bank job's were -- I truly enjoy being there. As I've said in the past, my one concern as of late was wasting so much time on social media during my breaks, and wanting to break that habit once and for all.

There are different ways I can approach it, and one I'm planning to do is the one I used to get myself to quit smoking ages ago: 'let's see how long I can go without doing [x]'. Something as simple as reverse psychology works for me on occasion, so why not try it here? Let's see how long I can go without screwing around on my phone. Let's step outside for a few minutes. Let's bring in one of my Publisher's Weeklys that I'm desperately falling behind on and read that instead. Whatever works.

I'm also happy that this week's upcoming schedule is one I can handle easily. Opening tomorrow, followed by two midshifts (tiring but not exactly stressful if I play them right), followed by a day off, and ending the week with two bookkeeper-opens. I do like a steady schedule instead of a wonky one, so I'm hoping that this one becomes the norm, or at least close to it. [Now, I'm expecting the coworker who broke his foot to be returning sometime this month which may relieve me of one of the midshifts, but we'll see.] 

In the meantime, it's Sunday which means it's also laundry day and PC cleaning day, so that's pretty much the only other things I need to do.





Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

 Before I begin, can I just say that I find the validation process for this site is hilarious? I mean, it's a normal "click on all the picture of hockey players to prove you're not a bot" thing, but it occurs to me that the pictures used are AI-generated. This means that said hockey players might have three arms or be playing with five sticks and bending themselves in directions that human spines aren't meant to go in. Heh!

Anyway! Happened to have today off so A and I went for one of our favorite walks around the neighborhood, heading up to a great coffee shop near Golden Gate Park then walking back through the park itself. A good couple of miles there and back with sights to see and pictures to take! I have to say that the Day Job has definitely helped me get back in shape, what with all the walking and standing I do six to eight hours a day.

Did a lot of house cleaning upon our return home, doing some intensive vacuuming (including those hard to reach bits where the carpet meets the walls) (and several days' worth of shedded cat hair, of course). I'd have done laundry as well, but I've been told by our landlord that a major fix is being done on the machine downstairs and will be out of commission until next week. Which means I'll most likely need to slip out to the local laundromat and do it tomorrow morning before my afternoon work shift. Which really isn't a problem, considering I usually spend the time doing some reading and enjoying some coffee from next door.

And the writing? Well, it's getting there. In small spurts lately, but it's getting there.

 Finally made good on my promise to get my haircut today at the finally-reopened Supercuts on Fillmore. It's still long, just past shoulder length, but the dead- and split-ends are finally gone! I'm cursed with having extremely straight and fine hair so I can't really shape it in any way as gravity will eventually take over. On the other hand, I'm blessed with a full head of it even at my age, so I'm fine with that trade-off. Still, I spent a bit of change getting a trim and some spray that will hopefully keep it healthy.

And while I was out, I went to the vet's office across the street from the Supercuts to set up an appointment later this week to get a wellness check done for Jules and Cali. They're not going to be happy about it, but it's gotta be done sooner or later. As I write this they're both here in Spare Oom having their afternoon naps, unaware of their fate a few days from now...heh.

Anything else? I'm still behind on getting work done on MU4, but I'm slowly catching up. Just have to stop screwing around and get to work!

I do love that for the most part I have Sundays off, because I can sleep in (as much as our cats will let us), and it's a day when I can just chill, catch up with mundane errands and go out to brunch. Which is exactly what I did! A bit of vacuuming, a run to Target to stock up on a few household things, and otherwise not being stressed out over anything at all.

The last couple of days at the Day Job have been a bit busy but not nearly as chaotic as T-Day and the day before it. From what I've been told, it should be rather unexciting for a few more weeks until people start shopping for Christmas feasts. There hasn't been any holiday music playing in the store as of yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it starts soon.

I did not get around to making any new mixtapes these last couple of days, but perhaps I might remedy that in the next few days when I fill out the last couple of half-made playlists and perhaps make a couple of new ones. I'm kind of embarrassed that I've been so lazy about them this year!

Other than that, not much else to report...hope everyone has a good week ahead!