Memorial Day

 Memorial Day is here.

I work.  Nothing new there.  I've gained 3.3 pounds so far and more ounces might be added today because food will be available at work.  Today, barbecue chicken is the main course, until they run out.  Then they will switch to hamburgers and hot dogs.  I'll eat either.  Honestly, I'm not one of those people who sees grilled chicken as being better than burgers and dogs.  It's all food and while each might taste different, my stomach is not that refined to really care.

One thing that is missing is the baked goods.  Usually there were trays of cookies, a large assortment which truly pleased the grazer in me.  Cookies don't seem to be on the menu.  They had small bags of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies yesterday.  They were not what I was looking for.

Sales wise:  except for our Garden Department, we're tanking.

An update on the audiobook.  My narrator has the holiday off, but will return to the studio tomorrow. He's up to chapter 24 and expects to have the book completely recorded by the end of Wednesday, at which point he will begin editing.  

My honeysuckle is beginning to bloom.  I love the scent of honeysuckle.

And, being that it is a holiday, very little news is being generated for public consumption, so sit back and enjoy the quiet for a while.

The Very Big Stick

 Well, it's Friday.  That means absolutely nothing to me.  While my weekly schedule covers days, those days have no names.  One is the same as the other.  For someone who likes to have his life fairly well organized, this is a pisser.  Routines organize, and routines require specificity.  The only things specific in my life are the hours I work: 10:30 - 7:00.  Time off is not guaranteed.  I work with an associate who is almost daily requesting days off - he's trying to write his own schedule.  As you might guess, he is also a Republican and a supporter of The Big Lie.

Anyway, my new phone arrived yesterday.  It took me about an hour to set it up since this was the first time I've ever gone through the whole process by myself.  I picked the Pixel up at the store and the clerk took care of the activation.  Last night it was just me.  The only thing that didn't copy over were my apps, everything else, notes, pictures, videos, transferred smoothly.  While the sim card in the old phone no longer works, there's nothing wrong with the phone itself, so it has now become my permanent alarm clock.

And, of course, It's honeysuckle time.

So, Liar #45's blog died... How painful that must be to know his MAGA base didn't sign up.  I suspect the just don't like to read... or can't.  

And he's still beating the drum for The Big Lie.  Republicans all across the country and spewing that falsehood.  They need to.  I was reading this morning that we should expect phony audits to reach a fever pitch this summer.  So many lies.  They are so desperate to dictate and control.  These dumb shits don't understand they are playing with fire... and they are going to get burned.  I read in the Washington Post that if a Republican candidate doesn't shriek wildly about the audits, he / she will die in the primaries.  America is watching.  These dumb shits don't understand, we, the Centrists, the Independents, the Progressives out number them greatly.  And we have a very big stick.  We also have no problem with using it to beat the crap out of them.

Honey... look

Well, it's Monday, my 5th day out of 6 scheduled work days.  Will I make it through tomorrow?  And complete all 6?  Hhhmmm.
I ordered some hostas for the shady area under the river birch, they arrive today.  I was going to buy some at work but they sold out... go figure.
My left knee is sore, must have twisted it the wrong way coming down off of a ladder.  I had to get 3 boxes of Lash flat tile spacers for a customer yesterday.  He returned them later, evidently he didn't know what he wanted.
A bit about my writing.  For those who don't know, I live in Central Pennsylvania, which is actually the tip of the so called Bible Belt.  Being Ultra Conservative, I found I needed to drive down to Giovanni's Room in  Philadelphia if I wanted to buy books with gay characters.  Then came Amazon.  It was great.  No more 2.5 hour drives to buy a couple of paperbacks.  And then something bizarre happened, a number of authors started using their initial rather than their given names.  You know, like I.T. Lucas, and S.J. Hines (as an example).  Being the inquisitive person I am, I Googled these authors and discovered they were actually women.  That's right, women were writing gay books with gay protagonists, not lesbian, mind you... gay.  They still are, though now they no longer strictly use initials in their 'nom de plumes,' you know?  Now they're Sloane... or Casey.  What these authors are really doing is writing female protagonists with a female point of view and just giving them men's names, like Gary, or Frank, or Tom.  I've always had a problem with this; I'm white so I can't write from a black perspective, or a Latino perspective, and I am definitely male and therefore cannot write from a female perspective.  I'm not saying that what they write is bad, these authors sell a lot of books.  However, this is one of the reasons I started writing again, to provide an alternative that is truer than a fictitious 'nom de plume.'
Anyway, my honeysuckle's in full bloom.

 

On the right hand, side you can see my neighbor's stairway leading to the top of the hill behind our houses.

And then there's Honeysuckle

Here it is Monday and I'm on my 4th day of work  I work tomorrow, have 2 days off, work 3 and then there's vacation.  I can not wait.
The weather here was cold and shitty.  Our temp topped off at around 66 F - mostly rainy,  misty and overcast.  Not the type of weather you would normally expect in June.
I saw where the Idiot Jerk's toy lawyer Rudi Gazuti farted out some nonsense about how the President can pretty much do what ever he wants - sort of like a dictator.  He can end any investigation he wants, pardon anybody, even himself, should he feel the need... oh, except pardoning himself just might lead to impeachment.  However, once he's impeached he becomes fair game.  So, why would Rudi float this?  Most likely because he sees it as a test balloon.  If he feels enough people agree with him, well then the Idiot Jerk is going to fire and pardon at his own shit stained discretion.  You know?  If he feels he's getting a positive result then actual impeachment might not happen.  This selfish president, and selfish party, could care less about the country.  Tearing it to shreds means nothing as long as they are in charge.
Anyway, besides having tons of roses, I have honeysuckle spreading over the back fence as well.  Two complete different fragrances:  roses and honeysuckle.  One is full and rich, the other light and airy, the sweet and sour of the perfume world.  Here's a pic of mine.

I can't wait for the whole fence to be covered. 

Honeysuckle and Idiots

We had a customer come in while we were having our paint sale;e and purchase 8 five gallon buckets of paint.  When he learned that, being as busy as we were at that time, tinting them would take at least 2 hours he put them on what is known as a 'will call.'  This is when a customer buys a product and gives you a specific date he wants to pick up his purchase.  We do this quite often.  With this customer, however, the clerk at the Service Desk pretty much screwed it all up.
You see, this clerk didn't ask for a specific date, he just keyed this order in for pick up on 6/13.  Even though the customer gave the clerk specific paint chip, no colors were listed on the order.  This past Tuesday, this same clerk, called the customer and told him his paint was ready.  So the customer shows up last night and nobody knows if the paint has been pulled, or, if it was pulled, was it even tinted. And this clerk closed out the order without putting any notes in the system.  Now these 8 five gallon buckets total around $1200, and I didn't want to tint 8 more buckets only to find out the order had already been tinted.  This is really bad customer service.  I ended up tinting 2 of the buckets, the customer will pick the rest up tomorrow.  And this morning, when I go into work, I'm going to have a long talk with this clerk's manager.
On the bright side, the honeysuckle drooping over the back fence is in bloom.

You can see a bit of the fence towards the bottom

I've always liked honeysuckle, of course it does bring bees, but then I have dogs, and the dogs try and eat the bees because... well, they don't know they're bees, just little things floating in the air.