Path to Nowhere

There's an old brick path, mostly overgrown, that follows alongside the length of my building. Everything was in bloom and colorful at the height of spring when I took this. Lots of pretty colors!

Back to Life As Usual

I actually can't remember if I've already posted this one, but I don't think so. And even if I did, I'm putting it up now anyway.

I'm glad to be back here, somehow over the last year it's become home to me. It's nice to be free again, and away from the oppressiveness that is my family. I know, they mean well, it's just that they come across as, well, somewhat condescending and superior. Maybe because they're all successful and I'm not? At least, not yet. Right now I'm content to just wait and see what happens with my life while they're all on the fast track to career and family. I'm still exploring my options (actually trying to decide just what those options are) while both my siblings chose a path right out of school and stuck to it, doing fairly well. I know that traditionally the youngest is supposed to be the black sheep of the family, and I guess I'm playing my part well because I'm definitely not the golden child. I'm far from being a troublemaker, or even terribly unusual, I'm just not quite normal enough to fit in easily.

My family likes normal.

Wisconsin Miserable

I'm back in Wisconsin again; this time because my sister is in town. She flew in for the week to visit our brother as well as the aunt, uncle, and cousins that live nearby. I drove up yesterday, even though I was just here two months ago, because I haven't seen my sister for more than a year. Of course, now that I've been here a full day I'm remembering why I don't like spending time with my family. They more than anyone else make me revert instantaneously back into the spoiled, selfish, childish 5-year-old I once was. Somehow any growing up that I've done disappears and I turn back into the little brat I used to be. I don't like that person, and while I've (for the most part) managed to rid myself of her, she comes back as soon as I'm back with my family and I'm helpless to do anything about it. I guess I'm just not a big enough person to swallow my pride and grow up. It happened today, yet again. Darn it! I think that being 24 is really only a number. I still have a lot of growing up to do.

Cat Amid Clutter

Okay, I admit it: I'm not the neatest person in the world. I'm actually rather a slob. At least at home--everywhere else I tend to be rather neat and organized. I think I'm kind of pathologically messy at home because I'm living on my own for the first time ever, in my own apartment with no roommates and now I'm completely free for the first time to live how I want. While growing up my room was always by far the messiest in the house (except maybe for my brother's), since my mother is a total clean freak. Our entire house was always completely spotless, you-could-eat-off-the-floors clean. And my mother ruled in a heavy-fisted manner. It was her way or nothing. There was no other option. So I think that in some subconscious way being messy was my way of rebelling against her iron rule. The thing is, now that I have the freedom to live however I like, with no judgment from anyone, I should be getting over it. But somehow I'm not. When I had a roommate I felt like I had to do my part and keep the apartment neat and clean--or at least somewhat neat and clean. But now? I'm just too lazy.

Workplace Drama

On a slightly more entertaining but somewhat awkward level, I'm now officially hated by someone. And surprisingly, other than being fairly amused and a little uncomfortable with it, I really could care less. That's an improvement, trust me. A year ago the thought that someone didn't like me, much less professed to hate me, would have caused me to completely flip out. I used to be one of those people that always had to be nice, to have people love me and would go to crazy lengths to achieve that and obsess about it endlessly. Now I just kind of smile and shrug and go on with my work. Because yes, it is someone at work (of course, it would have to be since I don't know anyone else in this town other than coworkers). It's this FNG who has been catering with us recently. Sorry, that's not very polite. It's this new guy who has been catering with us recently. It's kind of a long complicated story that would require a lot of explanations b/c none of you internet readers are familiar with the situation at my work, so I'll just stick to the bare bones of the facts.

We hired this new guy, who I thought was supposed to be for catering only b/c we're always shorthanded with that (no one wants to do it; it's long hours, hard work, and very little pay) so when he was assigned to help us with it I wasn't surprised. Only I have to claim my share of the blame for the clusterfudge we've now found ourselves in. My boss kind of believes in throwing people straight into the fire when it comes to catering. Training is provided on the job, if at all. Now catering events tend to be incredibly busy and completely crazy, keeping us running the entire time--which is not exactly the best time to have to stop and explain stuff to a newbie. Also I'm not very good at training new people and explaining things. My instructions tend to either sound like abrupt orders or tentative suggestions.

The first event he helped with was even busier than usual because the guests showed up an hour early and we were NOT prepared. So New Guy (NG from now on) didn't really have much training, simply b/c we were too busy to provide it, as it's often easier to just do stuff ourselves rather than have to stop and tell someone else to do it (especially if they don't know how).

His next assigned event was helping me to cater a HUGE graduation party with like 150 guests. Two caterers for 150 people? Yeah, right. And New Guy started disappearing. I'd be running back and forth, look around, and NG would be nowhere. That started to irk me a little, as I was literally being run off my feet. As soon as I refilled drinks, the food would be gone. I'd refill the food, start to pick up plates, and the drinks would be gone again. I'd refill drinks, and they would be out of glasses. You get the picture. Meanwhile, I'd dash into the back room (sometimes referred to as the ballroom kitchen), and NG would be standing there with his hands in his pockets, doing nothing. I mean, I get that he's new, but some things are just kind of obvious. They're called eyes. Use them! And partly it was my fault because I'm not very good at telling people what to do, and then I just got irritated and didn't want to tell him to do stuff b/c I didn't think I'd be very nice about it. So another girl from the kitchen who was supposed to be getting off duty ended up coming over and helping me out instead, while NG either stood around or disappeared some more. So finally this other girl kind of lost her temper and yelled at him, telling him to get to work. She would tell him to go pick up plates, he'd go out once and load up, put them in the back room, and then disappear again. We literally had to tell him every time to go do something. This continued all night.

Then on Saturday night we had another huge wedding reception; it was just me, NG, and another girl, we'll call her Charity. Basically, again, same thing happened. I'd even had a little talk with NG prior to the event starting, telling him the basic idea of what needs to be done, and told him NOT to pull the disappearing thing again. Of course that was pointless. He pulled the same routine all over again, sticking me and Charity with most of the work except when we specifically told him to do something or he got to show off how strong and cool he was was by either carrying something heavy and showcasing his muscles or standing around with his hands in his pockets looking suave and mature. That was sarcasm in case you missed it. I had come in an hour early to make sure everything was done and I sent Charity home early since she had to be in at 7 the next morning; of course, NG had already asked if he could go home so I said fine, since pretty much everything was done, and as he left he muttered something about his feet hurting him. Poor baby. Needless to say, I was the last out of there again.

Then the next day all three of us were working regular shifts in the kitchen, and Charity and I were finishing up in the ballroom most of the day, including cleaning up some stuff that NG did wrong and therefore making more work for us. He has a problem with just going ahead and doing stuff that he doesn't know how to do, instead of asking how to do it, which means he does it wrong and we have to clean up after him. Sometimes even after I've told him how to do it right.

Anyways, at one point I was alone over in the ballroom b/c Charity had gone back over to the kitchen to help out, and suddenly she comes storming into the back room fuming over something. Eventually she tells me that NG had told E, another guy who works with us, that Charity and I are lazy bitches and he hates us. Uhhhhh.......okay. We're lazy? We actually do our work plus his work b/c he's never there, and WE'RE lazy? He probably only hates us because we make him work, which apparently he doesn't like. When he and I catered the grad party and were cleaning up afterwards, he kept asking if he could go. I'd say no, b/c we weren't done yet. Then when I finally did say he could go, as he left I heard him mutter under his breath, "Thank God". Clearly that boy needs to toughen up. He hasn't even worked a hard shift yet. Wait til he spends 14 hours running off his feet, able to sit down maybe 15 minutes out of those 14 hours, and those are just a minute here and there adding up to the 15 minutes total. THEN your feet will hurt. GRRR!!! At the time I was just amused, but now I'm starting to get annoyed! He'd better watch out--I might be a forgive-and-forget-type person, but some of my coworkers are revenge-and-retribution-type people, and he's starting to piss them off some too. They WILL make him miserable if he continues in this vein.

I'm sorry, that turned from a simple explanation to a full-on rant, which I hadn't intended. But it did make me feel better :)

Double Sided

I'm actually feeling pretty good tonight. Not that I've really been that bad, but there's just been some philosophical soul-searching going on, which obviously leads to some ups and downs. I had both yesterday and today off from work, which was definitely a nice break. I don't often get two days off in a row--in fact, it happens so rarely that when it does occur I feel like I don't know what to do with myself for two whole days!

Maybe it's because right now I'm drinking a beer and watching Colbert? He's always pretty entertaining. Or maybe it's because I actually got my laundry done today, which I've needed to do for like a month. I was starting to run out of clean clothes :) As you can probably tell, I'm not very domestic. Or maybe it's because last night I was carrying on two simultaneous conversations online with two different friends. It's always nice to feel popular. Plus one of them was one of my best and oldest friends and talking to her always makes me happy. And I have another friend's visit to look forward in less than two weeks, so that also put me in a good mood.

However, these reminders also have down side. I don't realize just how lonely I am until I talk to one of my friends, and then it kind of blindsides me. I have no life; I get up, go to work, come home, go to sleep, get up and start all over again. That's it. My diversions purely come from occasional trips to Wal-Mart and the library. Yeah, that's life in a small town for you. There are occasional things that I could do, but that I don't want to do by myself. Now that my roommate's gone, I don't really have anyone to hang with if I want to go to the park, or to a festival, or just out for a walk. And my ipod is missing, so I'm even less inclined to go for a walk or to the gym, which would kill time and get me outdoors and healthier. I think I'm alone too much. I talk to my cats.

I need to get out more.

Ruby Tuesday

This week I actually went out looking for red, and surprise! I found it under my very nose, at work! This is the lineup of various drink machines in the ballroom kitchen where we do most of our catering. The red one is one of the three spigots on the giant coffee maker we have back there. And just FYI, that coffee maker is possessed. It hates me. It keeps breaking down--as soon as we fix one problem, another one manifests itself. Coffee Satan's latest foible was to keep overflowing when we tried to make coffee, so that there would be a deluge of water coming out of it in several spots, completely soaking the floor and everything around it while we frantically scrambled to find bowls and pitchers to catch the water in, then of course stopping as soon as the water-catchers are all in place. Well, we fixed that and shortly after, instead of overflowing water, it started overflowing coffee. Then we fixed that, and so far nothing else has gone wrong with it.

Although our little coffee maker has started occasionally leaking when we use it.

[sigh]

You just can't win.



See more Ruby Tuesday entries here.

Monochrome Reflections

Another monochromatic image from several weeks ago while walking downtown. Have I mentioned that I have a thing about reflections?

See my fellow monochromatic maniacs at Monochrome Weekly Theme. Enjoy!

Rain in Amber

Okay, first it must be said: I LOVE this picture!

I've gotten in the habit of carrying my camera around with me, even to work, and as I was leaving last night I stepped out the back door of the building and saw the picnic table just outside in the alley where the many smokers take their breaks. It had started gently raining shortly before, and as soon as I saw the table I was struck by how the light was reflected in the raindrops. Without moving a step I dug my camera out of my bag, rested my arm on the dumpster next to me, and managed to take a great shot of the rain and the light on the picnic table using only ambient light. The first one was a little blurry, but luckily the second one turned out amazingly well! Yay for great cameras!

Ruby Tuesday

This is officially my first Ruby Tuesday entry...I hope you like it!


I know, it's really not terribly red, but apparently I have taken very few pictures with any red in them and I'm fairly partial to this shot. I like all the bright primary colors in it, and the way the green grass is poking out of the blanket of snow. It's winter with spring peeking through.

See other Ruby Tuesday entries from around the world here.

Light In Shadow

I know this is a little late, but here is my Monochromatic Monday post. Check out others at Monochromatic Weekly Theme.