Sunday, November 19
Nov. 20th, 2022 12:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Pleasant weather.
I managed to get up earlier than usual because there were several things that I really wanted to be able to do today. Not a lot of fun, but I'll live.
The main reason I got up "early" is that the craft center (which includes the pottery studio) had a craft sale, and today was the clean up day for it. I didn't volunteer for any of the other shifts, so I really wanted to be there for the clean up. That was in town at 1 pm. so I had to get up a few hours before that.
We made it, and it doesn't look like I sold anything. I was a little disappointed, but you gotta try.
I did see my at-one-time dog walking/horse riding friend, and we talked in snippets as we were putting things away. As usual, I left her with the open invitation to call me as my number hasn't changed.
Afterwards, we had a ton of errands. We went to the vet to pick up Jones's special food and Fatty's drug.
That was right beside the local cat shelter, which I have been meaning to visit, and make at least SOME kind of donation. They are the only one in a good-sized town, and there are SO MANY cats there right now. It turns out they were having an open house to celebrate their five year anniversary (before that, it was kind of a group of individuals working with the vet to take care of the cats, out of their own homes. Now they have a building and proper charitable status).
There were some real little sweethearts there, but we already have a pretty full house. We were at least happy to be able to help out a little, and were grateful that there was at least something being done to help them.
Then we got envelopes for my Christmas cards, tried to find those lights to go on the ends of extension cords so you know they are plugged in properly (but did not find them), went grocery shopping (and once again no cat food. I chided the customer service person, but of course it isn't her fault either).
We had sad, boring burritos (I don't even know how that is possible, since they have things that should taste like something, but together it is tasteless) at the depressing burrito place, because it is convenient and I can eat there.
The person assembling the burritos was pretty crusty, not at us, but at life. I got extra "veggie ground" on my burrito because it was the end of the package, and I said "Looks like I won", she responded "if you call that winning" (I guess, as in veggie ground sucks?). She could have been a character on a sit com.
Something about that place breaks the "fourth wall" where you are separate from the servers by your respective roles as consumer vs. service provider. In most places, you are polite to each other, but you don't much consider each other as people.
In this place, the people working there were all pretty obviously only there out of sheer desperation, and they themselves were not "employee of the month" material, the kid working to pay for a car or something. Nope. This was all about subsistence.
It certainly made me check my privilege.
Then we went back to the pottery studio, and it was still reasonably early. For the first time in a very long time, we were able to spend an evening together just throwing pottery and talking. What a wonderful thing to finally be able to do again together.
I threw some potentially interesting things, and trimmed up the items I threw last time. My husband got a nice big bowl that might make it.
Clean up was sure nice with help.
Then we came home and watched one episode of "The Expanse".
I learned that tomatoes are native to the Americas, so there was no such thing as tomato sauce in Italy until at least the 16th century.
(That makes sense, potatoes were also native to the Americas, thus no potatoes in Ireland or Britain until roughly the same time. Makes you wonder what they ate before then.)
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/tomato-italy-history/index.html
Pleasant weather.
I managed to get up earlier than usual because there were several things that I really wanted to be able to do today. Not a lot of fun, but I'll live.
The main reason I got up "early" is that the craft center (which includes the pottery studio) had a craft sale, and today was the clean up day for it. I didn't volunteer for any of the other shifts, so I really wanted to be there for the clean up. That was in town at 1 pm. so I had to get up a few hours before that.
We made it, and it doesn't look like I sold anything. I was a little disappointed, but you gotta try.
I did see my at-one-time dog walking/horse riding friend, and we talked in snippets as we were putting things away. As usual, I left her with the open invitation to call me as my number hasn't changed.
Afterwards, we had a ton of errands. We went to the vet to pick up Jones's special food and Fatty's drug.
That was right beside the local cat shelter, which I have been meaning to visit, and make at least SOME kind of donation. They are the only one in a good-sized town, and there are SO MANY cats there right now. It turns out they were having an open house to celebrate their five year anniversary (before that, it was kind of a group of individuals working with the vet to take care of the cats, out of their own homes. Now they have a building and proper charitable status).
There were some real little sweethearts there, but we already have a pretty full house. We were at least happy to be able to help out a little, and were grateful that there was at least something being done to help them.
Then we got envelopes for my Christmas cards, tried to find those lights to go on the ends of extension cords so you know they are plugged in properly (but did not find them), went grocery shopping (and once again no cat food. I chided the customer service person, but of course it isn't her fault either).
We had sad, boring burritos (I don't even know how that is possible, since they have things that should taste like something, but together it is tasteless) at the depressing burrito place, because it is convenient and I can eat there.
The person assembling the burritos was pretty crusty, not at us, but at life. I got extra "veggie ground" on my burrito because it was the end of the package, and I said "Looks like I won", she responded "if you call that winning" (I guess, as in veggie ground sucks?). She could have been a character on a sit com.
Something about that place breaks the "fourth wall" where you are separate from the servers by your respective roles as consumer vs. service provider. In most places, you are polite to each other, but you don't much consider each other as people.
In this place, the people working there were all pretty obviously only there out of sheer desperation, and they themselves were not "employee of the month" material, the kid working to pay for a car or something. Nope. This was all about subsistence.
It certainly made me check my privilege.
Then we went back to the pottery studio, and it was still reasonably early. For the first time in a very long time, we were able to spend an evening together just throwing pottery and talking. What a wonderful thing to finally be able to do again together.
I threw some potentially interesting things, and trimmed up the items I threw last time. My husband got a nice big bowl that might make it.
Clean up was sure nice with help.
Then we came home and watched one episode of "The Expanse".
I learned that tomatoes are native to the Americas, so there was no such thing as tomato sauce in Italy until at least the 16th century.
(That makes sense, potatoes were also native to the Americas, thus no potatoes in Ireland or Britain until roughly the same time. Makes you wonder what they ate before then.)
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/tomato-italy-history/index.html
no subject
Date: 2022-11-22 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-22 07:44 am (UTC)Then the rest was the mood of mild despair projected by the staff. The decor was blah but normal, and the franchise was in a peppy little strip mall that shouldn't have meant that it was so sad there.
I have eaten there twice now, and it was like that both times. Right now, since our pita place went under, it is about the only convenient food I can eat.