CafeChatNoir

To see if FB has decided to stop beign a bitch or not.

I am not anti-makeup at all. It’s more that I’m a bit lazy. While at least 75% of the time I at least have mascara on, I also have no compunctions about going out and about sans makeup. I don’t consider it the end of the world for anyone to see me au natural as far as my face goes. It is what it is, and while I am fighting age as much as I can, the wrinkles and such that are there are the scars of battle as far as I’m concerned.

If I’m just heading up to the pub – well, hells bells, I’m there to check in on the chickadees and catch the late showing of SportsCenter and/or a West Coast game. I certainly don’t give a crap about anything other than snagging a Guinness and some sports, and how I look ain’t gonna enter the equation.

Tonight I headed up to wish a friend a Happy Birthday and catch some playoff hockey. Little did I know that my inattention to making myself look appealing to the opposite sex would make me a lesbian.

No makeup, not just because of laziness, but also because I don’t want to put anything on my face that would make the pollen stick to it any faster than it would already. (It’s killing me this year – I’ve found the only solution is washing my face multiple times a day.) My trusty 501 button-fly jeans – cause they fit and are comfy and they worked better w/the shirt I was wearing – a kickass long sleeved tie dye t-shirt, made even more fun by the fact that the DynCorp name is embroidered on it. It’s fun to have a hippie shirt that was provided by the military industrial complex. That and you’re not going to wear a long sleeved t-shirt with a pair of flair leg jeans – you wear it with straight cut jeans. I do have an eye for what goes together, dammit. Oh, and my Teva sandals – because it’s warm enough to not wear my Timberlands anymore.

In talking w/ an (very distant) acquaintance this evening, he said something about being a lesbian, and I started howling with laughter. It then went something like this:
“Wait, you are a lesbian, aren’t you?”
“No, not at all. I dig the guys.” (I chose not to go into the studies I have heard indicating latent or overt bisexual tendencies of 60% to 80% of all women. I didn’t have the cash on hand to pull the cool Han Solo tossing money on the bar and saying “Sorry ’bout the mess” move when his head exploded. And no, I can’t find the citation at the moment.)

But according to him, I gave off a big time lesbian vibe. He claimed it was attitude and the outfit – I can only assume he’s not used to women forgetting to fawn over his pretty face & empty head. (His lady friends did soundly lambaste him over the idea that no makeup = lesbian.)

But yes, I’m sure a little more eye makeup will fix that. Then I’ll just be that bitchy girl with makeup who isn’t into him.

There’s more to talk about from the Williamsburg trip to come, but it’s all happily rattling about in my head and it will go to paper (or electrons) soon enough.

It was a really lovely little break from routine and I loved every minute of it, but coming home was just as lovely. I pulled up in front of the house and as I got the cooler of little bro’s petsitting payment of BBQ out I looked up and saw a barking and bouncing dog in the window. How great is that? Hell, when I was married I didn’t get that kind of reception when I had to go out of town.

Inside, once I got past the bouncing and kissyness of the MoxleyDog, Carmen was next in line. She seemed slightly befuddled, as if she wasn’t quite sure how long I’d been gone. But I got an, “Hey! You weren’t here, but you’re here now! Let me show you the MOST AWESOME THING!” And then she went and lounged on the super awesome cat table that appeared as soon as I’d left on Wednesday night. (This is also known as the laptop table.)

It took a little bit of calling about the house to locate the LilyMonster. I found her in the center hall, and she was angry. It went something like this… “You LEFT me! You went away, and had fun and—-MOOOOOOOMMMMMMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and she came running down the hall meowing at the top of her lungs and headbutted me with her Evinrude outboard motor purr.

Sometimes the best part of checking out for a few days is finding out you were missed when you return. Narcissistic? Quite possibly so. Heartwarming? Most definitely so.

Grey, cool and drizzly day today. Discovered the one thing I do not have in my car is an umbrella, but at least my windbreaker has a hood. Good day for doing a lot of walking without roasting. Headed out the door, said good morning to the horse and sheep and headed down the street to Bassett Hall.

This is the house that was owned by the Rockefellers and they would come and stay a couple times a year during the restoration/reconstruction of Colonial Williamsburg. (Well, and after too, as Mrs Rockefeller adored the place.) They’ve kept the interior the same as when they owned it, so rather than being particularly colonial in it’s decor, you get to see how Mrs Rockefeller chose to decorate everything. When they died, the kids donated the house and contents to the historical society. The gal doing the tour talked about how great it was that they donated all the contents of the house – I suspect there was a teeny-tiny bit of, “If we give it to the historical society, we don’t have to figure out where else to put all this stuff.”

Then into the Historic Area and Tarpley’s Store to start off. Will be returning to shop tomorrow. :)

On to R. Charleton’s Coffeehouse. Not a veiled version of Starbucks. It’s a recent reconstruction, has a dining room where people would read or talk or play games, and was also used for organized dinners. THen the actual coffee area with little tables & chairs and such where the coffee, tea or chocolate was actually served. The folks working these two areas were in character, and in the coffee area, we had a gentleman (whose character name name escapes me now) who was in the House of Burgesses and told us of some issues he was having with his older sister. Seems she left the Church of England, became a Baptist and refused to go to court to get a license to do so, and as such she was then fined 5 shillings a month for failure to attend church. He then says, “And guess who has to pay the fine?” I replied, “That’s what little brothers are for.” His response: “I see you know my sister.”

Then finally off to yet another room where we could actually get some of the aforementioned coffee or chocolate. (I assume the Health Department has something to do with the location of the samples.) Got some chocolate – OMG, sooo good. Dark chocolate with some cinammon and nutmeg and perfect for a rainy day.

Then to the Raleigh bakeshop for a ham biscuit and a Kings Arms Tavern ginger ale – both quite good. Then to the silversmith – little restraint needed, as most of the jewelry I love there, I already have. (Dad bought my Mom a lot of stuff there over the years.) The milliner cracked me up. Two ladies working on a dress, talking about types of dresses and such and I look over in the cabinet at a shelf filled with bolts of fabric to spy one bolt of leopard print fabric…

Across the street to the Blacksmith. Still awesome. They were knocking away at something and there were sparks and fire and all that fun stuff that makes it great.

Print Shop & Bindery – I love both of these. Did you know it takes 60-90 minutes to set a page of type?

Then I wandered down to the Courthouse. If the gentleman giving the talks had a script, he through it out the window about 10 minutes after arriving for work today. He was just talking about anything and everything as people came and went – while I was there, we hit on the court system, bail/bond system, education, oligarchys vs monarchies vs democracies and how they can all lead to tyranny, the fact that humans are flawed and therefore government will always be flawed, and that lawyers were pretty much dirt cheap back in the day and everyone could afford one. Would have loved to stay all day just to see where else the conversation went.

THen down the street to the Getty House. I’m not 100% sure if this is a restoration recently opened to the public or a reconstruction, but it was neat. This is one of the only homes open that was owned by a middle class resident of the time. He was a silversmith, but it seems that times were very good for him up until the war as there was some fairly expensive joinery work in the house, as well as a harpsichord for his daughters. As the guide said, he was certainly showing off a bit when he had the house built.

Wandered down to the Governor’s Palace and went through the gardens (still gorgeous) and the maze (still get lost) and then the house tour. I still love that you walk in and the entry hall is covered in weaponry. (Pretty much all of which were stolen from that hallway during the war. It would seem no one had considered keeping them in an armory of any sort…) There was one of the most squirrley guides there I have ever encountered (thankfully not ours.) As we walked through the main hall getting ready to go upstairs, there is a room off to the side, and I was standing next to it, so I poked my head in to look around and she literally hissed at me and said, “You can see it when you come back downstairs!” And I swear, she skittered off like Gollum in a colonial dress. (The room wasn’t off limits, either.)

I then went down to the Randolph house, and that had to be the best exhibit/house/talk all day. It was the house of the Speaker of the House of Burgesses and his wife. It wasn’t so much about the house itself (though they did hit on architecture and decor and all) but what it took to run the house – 27 slaves. For two people.

In the past, slavery has been acknowledged in the exhibits, but not much beyond that – this was much more thorough and incredibly fascinating. (And a bit mind bending – can you imagine being one of the slaves that would stand at the ready in the dining room listening to debates about breaking away from England and hearing the phrase, “We will not be slaves to the King!”?) Eight of their slaves left to join Cornwallis in the war, having been promised freedom in exchange for their fighting. (No one seems to have an answer for how a third party could promise freedom to them, especially if he wasn’t buying them and then granting their freedom. Apparently the promise was enough.)

The lecture was neither apologetic nor harsh – quite matter of fact about the whole thing, and while it was simply how things were done, it did pretty much suck for a lot of people. I had less trouble with the slavery issue than I had trying to wrap my head around the idea of needing 27 people to tend to a house with 2 residents. (This was just for the house – a house that isn’t a whole lot larger than my own house.) While the ameneties we have today would require less people to be sure, it still seems a ton of people to me. As I said, “With 27 people, my house would be clean in an hour and then I’d have no idea what else to have anyone work on.” I know they have a ton of documentation on the slaves that were owned by the Randolphs – I should do some poking about and see if they have descriptions of what they all did. Going through the myraid of tasks required to run a house, I can still only come up with 18 people at the most.

The day also left me with the question of – why on earth would any wealthy woman get married in that period? Men pretty much all married up, because whatever their wives had became theirs the minute they said “I do.” When Mr Randolph died, his wife got everything and didn’t remarry – well, no shit, I certainly wouldn’t either if it meant losing everything I had, especially if it included a nice house with several acres and three plantations. Same with Christiana Campbell – her husband died and she was able to buy and open the tavern in her own name – and did not remarry as she liked what she had going.

Great day followed up by a great hockey game!!

Tomorrow, hit the stuff I missed today, and Kings Arms Tavern for dinner.

Got to the hotel (a place whose name I recognized, the photos on the website I recognized, but when I arrived I realized I have absolutely NO recollection of actually staying here) dumped my stuff, hit the Visitor’s Center (missed the last showing of Story of a Patriot) drove around a while to orient myself, only to repeatedly realize I had no idea where I was.

When I asked my brother if he remembered the place where we stayed down here when we were kids, we agreed it was the Patrick Henry Inn. He mentioned that it was right next to the historic district, just cross the street and follow the split rail fence. I didn’t remember that at all, but he seemed to remember it quite clearly.

Then I was driving down Lafayette and saw the place where I *know* we stayed on multiple occasions, which of course begged the question – where the hell was I going? Got to the hotel, recognized it, but couldn’t remember ever actually staying here. And there is a huge field right across the street WITH HORSIES!!!! I think I’d remember that. Maybe the rest of the family came down and I was somewhere else. But it is just a block from the historic district, so it’s all good.

Went over and visited with the horses while killing time before dinner. I wish people didn’t look at me strangely when I talk to animals. We were having a lovely time, thankyouverymuch.

Then off to dinner at Christiana Campbell’s Tavern. Walking distance is a lovely thing. Saw SHEEP!!! in the field next to the horses on the way over. (Again, stop looking at me that way!) Didn’t get lost, despite the fact that it is only a block and a half away, I am shit with navigation, so I was pleased. Haven’t been there in at least 20 years. They seem to have updated the menu, and are heavily seafood now, but it was all awesome. Sweet potato muffins, sherried crab stew, SPOON BREAD!!!!!!!, beef tenderloin & salmon, and a port for dessert. “Ms. Campbell” came in the dining room for a bit with a short history lesson, which was cool, and then a minstrel came in for a few minutes. (Thankfully only a few minutes.) You can never find an olive loaf when you really need one.

I wish I was, I really do. But I am quite the homebody that takes great comfort in her ruts & routines. For every seemingly impetuous move I’ve made in my life, I assure you, there was a multitude of hand-wringing and soul searching and spreadsheets invovled in the process.

This is a habit made worse of late by grandma & her issues – because I couldn’t fathom up and taking off for a couple days while she was burning up the phone lines 24/7. Not because my brother couldn’t handle it, but there was no way in hell I’d hand that bit of hell off to someone else so I could go goof off. (For not being Catholic or Jewish, I have the guilt thing really mastered.)

But, now that we’ve got another local, able and willing body on the grandma situation (sounds sterile, but I don’t know another good way to put it) I FINALLY feel like I can skip out of town for a few days without feeling like I’ve dumped everything on my brother. (Or on the wonderful caregivers, since they have figured out how to split their time, so no one is getting smothered.)

And off I go. Tomorrow I am heading a couple hours south to Williamsburg to mainline some history. A trip I have been talking about since March. Of last year. But last night, I said, “Dammit, I’m going to Williamsburg for a few days!!!”`

The last time I said, “I can go do something fun and just enjoy it with no worries!” was March of 2007 when I went to the Philly Flower Show.

Three years is much too long to go without a little break from reality.*

But I’m finally being SMART and doing it. So, if there is any particular Colonial Williamsburg souvenir you’re looking for, let me know – I’ll try my best to get it for you. :)

*Yes, we’ve gone to the beach, but the call forwarding & grandma’s issues came along for the ride. I was that idiot on the beach answering my cell phone.

I love PFCU. I’ve never had any significant problems with them, and when anything has gone wrong, they have fixed it straightaway. But I recently opened a second checking account and damn if it hasn’t been complete comedy of errors.

Last month, I opened a second checking account online for the Avon stuff. Seemed simple enough, website said it wouldn’t be active until they got the signature card back.

Well, within a day things went sideways. Unbeknownst to me, the debit card from my main checking account had been attached to the new checking account, which had a whopping $25 in it to start off. And a charge went through from a couple days earlier, meant for the main checking account, hit the new account, threw it to a negative balance which then triggered a $30 late fee… (Mind you, the new account was supposed to be attached to my TSC account for overdraft, which has no fee when used.)

At this point, I’d not even gotten the signature card in the mail to return.

Get on the phone, get the debit card re-attached to the main account, got the overdraft charges reversed, and they assured me that the account was in fact now also attached to the TCS account for any accidental overdrafts.

Got the signature card, filled it out and took it to the branch for delivery. Teller looked it over to make sure that everything was filled out properly, confirmed I wanted checks and a debit card and I went along my merry way.

As of the end of last week, I’d still not gotten the checks or the debit card for the account. Called this morning to see what the delay was.

They don’t have the signature card. The one I dropped off in person. OH MY GOD ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????

To my credit, I didn’t freak out on the nice lady on the phone. My reaction was something along the lines of, “Um, well. OK then. So, why don’t I go back to the branch and fill out another one and watch them enter it into the system?” She seemed genuinely releived that I didn’t freak out, so I feel like I’ve done my good deed for the day by not going postal on some poor gal in the call center.

So, I’m off to the bank again.

I can’t think of any other reason for her ability to suddenly become an octopus and hide from me in near plain sight.

The dog was in the entry hall barking at “something important!!!” and I looked around, even under a very low shelf that he was eyeing and saw nothing. Coaxed the dog back to the living room, which lasted about 3 minutes.

Then, “BARK, BARK, BARK!!!” Back to the entry hall. Looked under the low shelf again, saw nothing. Stood up and suddenly Lily comes sliding out from under the damn shelf. She does impress me.

My only other concern this evening is whether or not I will come downstairs to a destroyed kitchen and a collection of glass beer steins in a pile of shards on the floor. There was a small flying insect bopping about earlier tonight, and Carmen was hell bent to get it. (I said when I adopted her, “Big ears, good mouser!” We have no mice, so insects it is.) Donald whacked said bug out of business, but being the time of year when windows are open, I am sure there will be other little flying critters about, and I have to wonder what destruction will come about from her zealousness.

ETA: And there was a moth on the ceiling. I wouldn’t have noticed had Carmen not jumped on the back of a chair and stared quite intently at it. Apparently I am way too tolerant of small flying things.

Researchers have determined that our brains are set up to handle two things at once, but not more.

I can’t say I’m surprised to hear it – I can multitask, but I’m not truly spectacular at it by any means.

Now, that we have this information, do you think folks will slow down a bit and just attempt to do one thing at a time?

Yeah, probably not. We’ll continue to try to do 10 things at once and wonder why we’re tired, harried, stressed trainwrecks of human beings.

But, I am going to take inspiration from this article and go watch the second period of the hockey game, and maybe add some cat snuggling into the mix. But no more than that. :)

I am incredibly grateful that the kittens first reaction to meeting Moxley was to scramble over my human barrier and look him in the eye as if to say, “Oh hi! What’s your name?” Despite the fact that he barks at them and has made it his personal mission to keep them away from doors, they think he is the bees knees. They also really think that he was provided as part of the forever home package of food bowls, litter boxes and comfy furniture – I doubt they’ll ever really get the fact that he was here first and that he is patiently putting up with their antics.

I got home tonight, gave Mox his good boy biscuit and went about my business. I looked over a few minutes later and Moxley was snuffling about on the rug for any crumbs and Lily was right next to him, looking for whatever he was looking for. (She is the chowhound of the two kitties.) As I watched, she then just did a kitty bodyslam on him and rolled over right under his nose. Not many other ways a cat can say, “I love and trust you!!” However, the look on Moxley’s face was, “Holy shit, pointy bits up!! Move away!!!!” But it was still very sweet.

Of the two cats, Carmen is the strong-but-silent one. She’s just not the talker that Lily is. (Lily loves to hear the sound of her own voice.) Of all the other creatures in the house that she can get mouthy with, she talks to the dog more than anyone else. And it’s not “Back up dog, or I will cut you!” – it’s more of a “Hey, Moxleyyyyyyyy, whatcha doing?” as she creeps up to headbutt him. (Which also has Mox at loose ends, especially given that Snoopy & Target weren’t really into physical contact with the pup.)

Hopefully with just a little more time he’ll realize that the cats aren’t really out to get him and the pointy bits only come out when he steps on them.

Which is something I really thought that the Coca Cola Corporation would have figured out after the New Coke debacle. (I was in Atlanta with my grandparents when this abomination came about, and it was BAD.)

Quite some time ago when I was living in Centreville, the QuikEMart had a cooler at the front of the store with glass bottle Coke. At the time, I didn’t really take much note of the fact that the label said “Refresco!” on it. I just saw glass bottle Coke and happily grabbed as many as I could carry and went along my merry way. And those Cokes were awesome.

At the time, I didn’t realize the formulations were different*, but DAYUM, it tasted like summer in Atlanta at my grandparents’ house way, way back in the day.

Today while walking through the soda section of Costco, out of the corner of my eye I saw the words, “Hecho en Mexico” – well, I damn near snapped my neck to see if it actually meant what I thought it did – glass bottle Mexican Coke w/cane sugar**. My happy suspicions confirmed, I tossed two cases into my cart (damn near giving myself a hernia in the process.)

Cans, plastic bottles, lighter bottles, etc, etc, have all be heralded as improvements. But really, there is nothing like a good glass bottle Coke in your hand on a hot day. It is designed to exquisitely fit in your hand and it has a perfect heft that cannot be reproduced by a plastic bottle or a can on any day of the week, plus it stays colder for longer than any other packaging. Add in real sugar instead of HCFS and you have a perfect pause that refreshes any day of the week.

Seriously, Coke, bring back lovely the 12 ounce contour glass bottle with real sugar for VERY wide release in the US. The fact that you have customers actively hunting for the import version of it should be a sign that it’s a greatly loved commodity in the US should be some sort of sign that there is some very real demand for it.

Sometimes it’s better to go back to your roots than try to make everything “better”.

*HFCS wasn’t really part of the day to day vocabulary at that point.
** I’d only heard of Mexican Coke showing up in SoCal Costcos – I’d not stumbled upon it in NoVa until now.

It was a brilliant plan that you and American Express had. I use my AmEx card, I get a Costco rebate voucher every year. It gets me in the door where I will proceed to be blinded by all things Costco and spend at least twice as much as the voucher is worth. Really, it’s a genius plan.

So, I marched into Costco today with my $152.57 voucher, loaded my cart with software, dry goods, batteries, dog biscuits and cases of glass bottle Mexican Coke*.

Not only did I not spend an extra $150 like you had so hoped, I got $1.67 in change at the checkout. HA! I WIN!!

*Hecho en Mexico are three beautiful words when it comes to Coca Cola.

Or maybe it’s just that freakishly hot week of weather we normally get right smack in the middle of spring just about every year.

Two days of 90 degrees, today is 80 degrees, it’s sunny, there is NO SNOW, and frankly, I don’t mind it a bit. (Though I do know that my allergy prone friends are in a bit of agony, but that is DC in spring.) Though it did throw me a little this morning, as I had read that today would be rainy & cool and instead I woke up to 80 and sunny, and discovered that the rain forecast has been pushed off to this evening. I’m not sure what it says about me that I can be thrown off by a change in the weather, but what can I say – I’d went to bed mentally prepped for a cool and rainy day!

Today’s challenge is seeing how close I can come to spending $152.57 at Costco. (Annual Costco cashback thing from my AmEx card.) I need Turbo Tax and AA batteries. The challenge of filling out that amount with things I actually *need* rather than just go “Oooh, good deal!” and then not spending another $300 on top of the $150. A challenge indeed. (And if nothing else, free lunch via samples!)

Well, off to blind people with my insanely white legs – sorry world, I have to wear shorts today.

Dear Moxley,

I know things have been a touch more challenging since the WonderTwins showed up, and for the most part, you have done a spectacular job dealing with the youthful miscreants that are galloping about your home. (Trust me, I do see that look in your eyes every now and again that says, “You know, I thought it was perfectly nice when it was just you, me and the boy.”) You did so well with Snoopy & Target, but you had no idea that they were elderly, and you had no reason to believe that Lily & Carmen would be anything other than smaller versions of their predecessors, rather than the insane torties that they are. (Color us both surprised on the insane part.)

I know there are times that you love to bark at the cats simply for the immense joy of barking at the cats. I can give you a pass on that. That joy certainly doesn’t change because we have two relatively new kitties in the house. I also realize there are perfectly reasonable reasons to bark that have nothing to do with the feline interlopers.

However, I feel we need to have a refresher course over appropriate and inappropriate times to bark.

Appropriate times to bark:

– Cats getting up on the counter where they are not allowed. (Really, try it instead of just staring at them.)
– Cats trying to crawl into kitchen drawers where they may get stuck. (Again, this would be a huge help to me.)
– Squirrels. I have seen them throw things at you, and I understand.
– When you’re sitting at the back door and want to come in. Really. Give it a go. I don’t always see you in my peripheral vision from the couch and don’t realize you’re standing at the back door. A little vocalization in that situation wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Inappropriate times to bark:

– When anyone is in the bathroom and the cats are standing outside the door. They won’t kill us upon exit, I promise. This goes extra for guests in the bathroom.
– When one of the cats is lounging by the closed and locked front door. They can’t get out via the gap in the weatherstripping. They have never been, and will never be that small.
– When a houseguest wakes up before I do. You are bigger than the cats and can certainly muscle your way through the crowd to say good morning without making noise. Your barking makes our guests feel like they have inadvertently set off a doggie alarm clock by the simple act of waking up.
– When the cats are lounging on the floor in the middle of the kitchen.
– When the cats are lounging on the stairs.
– When the cats are drinking from the communal water dish.
– When you feel the cats are “in your way” despite the fact that you can easily step over or around them, given that you outweigh them by 2.7 to 4 times depending on the cat.

I will always be incredibly grateful for the fact that for the most part, you are a pretty darn quiet dog. It is what contributes greatly to your AwesomeDog status. But if you can do some rearranging of when you bark according to the guidelines above, that would be spectacular.

Much love and sloppy kisses,
The girl with the biscuits.

It was supposed to be a fairly boring day. Bank and then the grocery store. So simple.

Hit the new-to-me PFCU branch, hit the ATM machine, then went inside and dropped off a signature card for a new account. Grocery store, get Easter goodies, hit the checkout and open my wallet to get out my debit card.

It’s not there. @*!(*##(*@!!! Be thankful that I pulled cash out of the ATM machine, and check out. My mind is whirling at whether or not I am going to be able to get back the card assuming the machine ate it at the bank, and I didn’t drop it somewhere. Make my way to the car, unload the groceries and discover that I no longer have a wallet. At this point I look at the sky and yelled something along the lines of “Goddammit, Karma, you need to sit your ass down and take a breather!! You sent me grandma’s Alzheimers and I dealt with it! I WON. So stop screwing with me!”

As you might expect, this will get you some odd looks in a grocery store parking lot.

Back into the market where thankfully I had just left my wallet at the checkstand and not dropped it somewhere else. Get home, Avon order is here. Excellent – except that I have to unload groceries and call the bank to find out if I am SOL or if I can get the card back. Thank you PFCU for not having ATM machines that destroy captured cards. Back to the bank, get card.

Home again, break down Avon order, discover we will be having a houseguest this weekend, zip up to Glory Days to make deliveries and confuse the hell out of everyone as they normally never see me during daylight. Back home, breathe for about 5 minutes, collate catalogues and samples. Get rest of samples, demos and supplies slightly more organized.

Finally get things all settled, and find that the afternoon probably wouldn’t have felt like quite such a marathon had I not had the adrenaline rush of losing debit card, losing wallet, retrieving wallet and retrieving debit card.

I am also now realizing that I don’t think that I have eaten today, and I should probably do something about it.