Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Well, the great news is that A. is coming back on Wednesday! Yay! Although I'm sure I won't see her for a few days after she gets back as she'll be sleeping until the following Monday. Heh. Still, I did relatively well in her absence, eating healthy for the most part and keeping the place clean. Did some more cleaning today because why not. And it's still early in the afternoon, so maybe I can get some online shopping done as well.

In other exciting news, I should be getting a new router from AT&T tomorrow so our internet will be both faster and we'll have a much bigger data plan (for about the same amount as we're paying now, apparently), which will really help both of us, since we both work from home and use the internets quite a bit. Going to get that up and running after my work day is done, of course.

In writing news, The Persistence of Memories is now FINALLY available in trade paperback on Amazon! Yay! It took me long enough. And now that Book 2 is out of the way, I can finally work on The Balance of Light. The line-edit is done for that one, so all I need to do is start going through the ebook and trade versions. I'm thinking this one will probably see the light of day in January by the looks of it, but we shall see.

As for holidays...Thanksgiving was quiet but enjoyable. Bought myself some turkey tenderloins and cooked both of them up for dinner. Had one then and I'm having one for dinner tonight with a salad. Nothing too exciting there. But yes, it's now time for me to do Christmas shopping, so I will most likely continue with my normal route of ordering most everything online and then mailing it out. And yes, I've been hearing Christmas tunage in the stores over the last few weeks. It kind of crept up on me this year, as I've been too distracted with the writing projects! I usually buy at least one Christmas album a year, so I'm curious to see which one I'll pick this year. Maybe a classic, or maybe a new release!

Hope everyone's having a good weekend! :)

As usual, I find myself stuck at work on Black Friday. Somehow I've never found myself that far up on the professional totem pole where I can actually take days around a holiday off. Not that I'm complaining at this point, mind you...I work at home now, so I'm safely ensconced in Spare Oom, listening to my music and letting the day pass.

I gave up the Fourth Quarter Madness back in 2005, when I quit Yankee Candle to move down to New Jersey to live with emmalyon. Since then, I've gotten stuck in the office (or in this case, at home) on the Friday after Thanksgiving and the day before Christmas. The stress isn't nearly as bad, considering I'm no longer lugging boxes or fielding customer questions. It's been replaced by the ennui of working in an office that's open while all its clients are out of office. We're that office that's open "just in case something happens". The upside is that more often than not, it's a quiet (if slow) day and I get to catch up on other things. The downside is that I'm sort-of chained to the chair until 4pm, as this current job doesn't have half-days.

I think the first time I actually worked on a holiday was in 1988 when I worked at the local radio station, WCAT, back when it was AM-only. The station had been run via satellite feed by then, so all I had to do was sit around and ensure the commercials kicked off. As I didn't have my license at the time, my Dad would drop me off and pick me up a few hours later. This wasn't too stressful, just the station manager watching over me like a hawk and calling if I was a half-second off on the cues I had to hit. Other than that, I used the time to get homework done, do some reading, or talk with my friends on the phone. That Christmas was pretty quiet, so I was able to kick back and play some music on the monitors, and even snuck in a play of Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" over the air. I'd do pretty much the same when I worked there in 1995 into 1996.

I know I worked on the days surrounding the three holidays (T-Day, Christmas and New Years Eve) in the last few years I was in Boston. With few exceptions, I pretty much took the weekend off and headed home to be with family, but I'd work a day or so before and after the holiday. I remember on New Years Eve in 1993 and 1994 I had to work, and I'd try to get home as quickly as I could so I could catch the end-of-year countdown on WFNX (some traditions die hard).

The HMV years were of course my introduction to working high-volume retail in Q4. For four years straight I'd work on Black Friday, Christmas Eve, and New Years Eve. I didn't really mind it here, even it did get crazy--part of it was because I'd be hiding up back, preparing the constant flow of product coming in, or I'd be one of the register jockeys (I was a fast ringer, so I'd get the lines cleared pretty quickly), or I'd be offering my music trivia nerdiness out on the floor. Like I've said before--despite the occasional frustrations, it was one of my favorite jobs, even on the major retail holidays.

I'd also work on those surrounding days at Yankee. Those days would get insane for various reasons--ten hour days starting at 4AM six days a week, lack of storage space, a huge volume coming down the delivery shutes, shortages of workers--but with the shipping department, you kind of get numb to the actual job itself. The mechanical side of your brain focuses solely on building safe pallets of product to be shrinkwrapped, stored, and put onto the trucks, but the social side of your brain would end up going elsewhere. Despite the stress, we'd all laugh and talk and joke. There were a few blowups and firings, but for the most part we got the job done the best we could.

So yeah...at 41, I'm not in the least bothered by the fact that I still have to work on Black Friday, or Christmas Eve, or New Years Eve. I kind of expect it, really. If I can manage to get the days off, I will of course try for it, but I don't expect that to happen.


That said, I don't mind shopping on those days either. Maybe it's that I have a high tolerance/patience level for it, but it's never completely bothered me to be in a crowded mall or a store like Target during the busiest time of the year. Sure, there's the usual idiot in the parking lot, or the clueless goober taking up the entire aisle, or the impatient lady in the checkout line repeatedly sighing quite audibly, but you know--it's a small price to pay. I think it might be that I like being surrounded by people even if I'm not connecting with them at all. Even the music doesn't bother me all that much (with very few exceptions).

It's part of the festive atmosphere, and I enjoy that.

Up at my usual early time here, as somehow I still need to work today. The good thing is that one of the managers has decided that working from home until the end of the year will somewhat alleviate our stress, so I'm sitting here in Spare Oom, reading the internets and waiting for my shift to start. I'm hoping that today's dead (read: hoping we won't have any emails/calls from clients who have left things until the absolute last minute and are having a meltdown because of it). This is not only so I can have a slow, relaxing day, but that I can actually get somewhat caught up. What with most of my team out sick or on vacation this week, it's been one hell of a screwy couple of days. I'm hoping we can sign off early and I can use the rest of this day for winding down and not doing much of anything except relaxing.

Also thankfully, as noted yesterday, my family's package has finally arrived at our door after being in limbo Narnia for just over a week, which means that aside from the DELIVERY FAIL of one of my Aunt-in-Law's presents, we have everything. You know, in retrospect even the delivery of the fam's package was weird--the US Mail guy buzzed our door repeatedly and animatedly, and when I answered he let me know a package was downstairs in an almost creepily happy sort of voice. I never saw the driver, so now I'm wondering if that was Tumnus dropping it off or something...

All that said...things are good here out in the Richmond. Emm's got the day off and will be doing some last-minute food shopping up in Laurel Village. All the presents are wrapped and technically under the tree (our tiny tree's on top of a desk and the presents are on the floor underneath). It would not surprise me if my boss let us out a little early, just to spread the holiday cheer. Despite my backed-up workload, I wouldn't say no.


Hope everyone has a great Christmas Eve...stay warm, have fun, and enjoy yourselves! :)

Heard it at the sushi boat place today while having lunch:




Now I don't feel so bad about getting in the holiday spirit so early. :)