Today's rambling: A bad day turned good
Written on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2002 at 7:43 p.m.
while feeling a bit

I suddenly find myself feeling very tired. At least I'm in a good mood, though; if I was still in the mood I'd been in earlier today, I wouldn't be here at all right now. On the Internet, that is. My mood wasn't so bad that I wanted to off myself or something.

Today was Geoff's birthday, and when I greeted him this morning, he said he was trying to forget about it. "I'm in a whole new demographic now," he announced with feigned pride. "The 35-54 demographic!"

Anyway, there was a whole lot of other retardedness going on today. The store is apparently over hours, and so lots of people (including Mom) were sent home early. Ben got sent home as soon as he came in, and so today and tomorrow he gets to take a mini vacation. Tomorrow starts C-SOP (or however it's spelled), which is a whole bunch of people coming in and rearranging everything. They redid the whole store awhile ago, but they left the frozen food and dairy sections alone. Until now. Tomorrow and Thursday, they'll completely rearrange frozen, and then at some point they're going to rearrange the dairy aisle. Geoff's pretty much going to be by himself with this whole thing tomorrow and Thursday, so the anticipation of that put him in a not-so-good mood.

Having some empathic qualities, his bad mood immediately sunk me into one. So much so that even Debbie stopped talking to me! Frank came over at one point and started complaining because Kay wanted him to make a deli announcement.

"F- that!" he exclaimed to Debbie and me. "I can hardly talk as it is!"

"Well, you're talking enough right now by complaining about it," I observed, not realizing until I saw his face how completely snarky I'd just sounded. I mean, it was the complete truth, but I shouldn't have said it! He told me he'd ignore that because he knew I was in a bad mood, but I figured he was probably ticked off at me.

I ended up talking to Geoff later, because he sounded like his usual self...but I soon found out how wrong I was. "I guess I shouldn't come by to ask you about lunch," I remarked, chuckling. He agreed that it probably wouldn't be a good idea, and so I left feeling no better than I had before.

Not even twenty minutes later, I looked up to see him walking into the bakery department. "Are you planning on taking a break at some point today?" he asked me.

Grinning teasingly, I shot back, "I thought you were too busy to take a break." He proceeded to explain that he'd just stepped back and decided he didn't care anymore, and so we decided to go on lunch around one-thirty.

Well. Jason, Debbie, and I somehow managed to finish EVERYTHING--including the setups--a little before one (well, Debbie left at noon, but yeah, she helped), so we cleaned up, and Jason said we could just leave. Evan was supposed to be in at one, but Jason was just going to tell Evan's mother that he wouldn't be needed for the rest of the week. He left the department, though. I was in the process of cleaning one of the sinks when Geoff came over, and so I told him about how I was done, but did he still...Oh! Forgot that part, hehe..

Mom, on her way out the door, asked Geoff if he wanted to go up to Johnny's tonight. I probably wouldn't have had the courage to ask him, because of his mood, but Mom's fearless like that. ;) Anyway, he said sure, he wanted to go, so that leads me back up to where I was before...

I asked if he still wanted to go up to Johnny's and he said yeah, but if I was done now, I'd end up having to wait like 3 hours. "Do you want to just do this another night?"

"No."

I assured him that I didn't mind waiting, because it gives me a chance to talk to folks, and I guess that appeased him, hehe...So I shooed him off to get some food while I finished up the sink...But as I was shooing, who should walk in but Evan!!

"Oh no! Jason was supposed to send him back home!"

Talked to Jason on the phone, Geoff and I went back on lunch (he pretty much expects me to walk back with him now, whereas even a little while ago we would just meet back in the break room)...but I guess Jason didn't want to call Evan's parents or anything. So he gave the kid a box of cookie dough to set up, and LEFT! Heh. It took Evan around 2 hours (I think) to get it all set up. I don't want to know where he had his hands during that time, with no one to watch him, because he has a tendency to sneeze or blow his nose, and then just keep working without washing his hands. If someone's keeping an eye on him, they can make him go wash and put on a new pair of gloves, but with no supervision...Yeah, don't eat our cookies for a little while folks, okay?

Leroy came back while Geoff and I were there, and joked that wherever one of us was, the other was there too. "They're going out, but they're hiding it from us," he informed the other people in the room. :P

Blah blah, I waited around, Geoff and I wandered up to Johnny's...I thought Kirsten was going to come up when she got off work, because she said she probably would. Found out once we got up there that Ernie would be joining us, but this time I was sitting in the middle, so I wouldn't be excluded. There was one seat between me and Karen (yeah, she was up there when we got there), so when Ernie came in, he sat there. At first, I was kinda like, "Ohhh, I don't want Karen to be there!" but she ended up getting into a heated discussion with Ernie, so that left Geoff and I all to ourselves. ;)

A few beers later, Ernie was getting louder and rather 'touchy-feely', as Kirsten put it. Not that he was doing anything really inappropriate, but he said something to me and then..hrmm, how to explain this, hehe...It was a similar thing to just patting a person on the back, but instead he was rubbing my back. I didn't want to just say 'he was rubbing my back', because then it sounds more like foreplay. *giggles* He did that twice, and I swear later he was looking a little lower than he should have. At least, last time I checked, my breasts had nothing interesting to say. ;)

Thankfully, it was almost time to go. A few of Geoff's friends were going to be at his house around 7 to take him out to dinner, so I called Mom at 6 and asked if she'd come pick me up. Geoff had offered to drive me home, but I felt bad, making him go all that way. Karen bought the three of us drinks...I tried telling them I didn't want one, but she murmured to the bar tender to make me a mudslide, so I ended up having one of those. :P As Geoff and I were starting to walk out (my apron and hat were in his car), Karen jumped out of her seat and intercepted me.

"Did I do good?" she asked, grinning. I assume she was referring to keeping Ernie occupied, but she could've been talking about the mudslide. Either way, I grinned and nodded, then we hugged and she kissed my cheek. Geoff joked, "Do it again," so she kissed HIS cheek instead, hehe...

He and I sat out in his car, waiting for Mom to arrive, and when she did, I gave him a 'half hug'...I was SO close to kissing his cheek, but I wimped out (mostly because of the fact that Mom was there). I think we have another outing planned for Thursday...fingers crossed that it'll actually work out! Kirsten might actually go to this one.

I was talking to her online when I got home, and I said, "Kirsten, you skipped out on us!" So here was her reply:

"amber, i know this sounds gay but i wanted you to spend geoffs birthday with him......you are leaving for school soon..."

^_____________^

Yeah, so I got the warm fuzzies. Hehe...It was just such a nice sentiment! 'Course, that last bit could be construed to mean, "I'll have him the whole time you're gone," but she likes Keith too much, so I think I'm safe. ;)

When I first started writing this entry, I got an email notice from Barnes & Noble.com, telling me that they'd just shipped my CD (the one I ordered yesterday for Geoff). Does that mean it'll be here tomorrow? I selected next-day delivery, hehe...Oo, I HOPE it gets here tomorrow, because then I'll be able to give it to him on Thursday!! I'm off tomorrow, so of course I'll be waiting around, hehe... ;)

I'm all excited about whether or not Lola got the job. I even text-messaged her phone before going up to Johnny's, but I guess her cell phone's not on, or maybe she's bummed out and doesn't want to talk... : Then again, I don't even know if they tell you right after the interview whether or not you've gotten the job! I just hope she did, so she can save up money and come visit me! *grins teasingly* Seriously, though, enough money to come over, and then we could visit Clarion so she could decide if it's friendly enough... ;) Yeah, it would be completely business. *giggles*