He's bringing me home lots of samples, too. Last week, I was almost ready to name my firstborn "Stone Cold Apple Pie," but then I tried the Mocha Brownie. Right now, there's half of an ice cream cake in my freezer. How am I supposed to keep my girlish figure with a fudge-dipped ice cream and chocolate cake layer cake sitting not 15 feet away, taunting me? FUDGE DIPPED, I tell you!

Oh, yeah, hi, I'm back.

***

As near as I can tell, Madison seems to exist in some sort of parallel dimension from absolutely everywhere else. NONE of my utilities would transfer, so I had to pay installation fees to all of these small local companies instead. I suppose I support that in principle, but it made moving a little more expensive than I was expecting. Charter Cable is the only one who would transfer my current account, but since the internet runs at a slightly different speed here (I don't get it either) our old hub won't work, and we must buy a router to both be online at the same time. Maybe that will get to happen this week. Until then, I can use Rijid's computer when he's not home and I'm feeling lazy, or carry the modem across the room when he's not using it.

***

I know there were many things I wanted to talk about. Give me a sec.

I'm at ze local library right now, with less than 10 minutes of internet time left. The move kinda sucked, but more about that some other time. My apt is still a seething pile o chaos, but more about that some other time. I might just be a fully certified (certifiable?) Fazolian Management Diva by Thurs, but more about that some other time.

Ah, yes.

1) The move kinda sucked. I thought a few carloads would be cheaper than renting a U-Haul. I was horribly, horribly wrong. Counting all the gas I bought, The Move probably cost about the same, and a U-Haul would have only involved ONE trip. A grand total of seven vehicles were packed. I ended up driving FIVE of them. Never again. I need to accept that I have too damn much stuff to move like a college student anymore.

CJ's truck (twice) was the scariest, because I couldn't see a damn thing, and the truck was in a lot worse shape than my lovely car. I can technically drive stick. Driving a rattly old pickup truck overcrammed to the point of NO rear visibility is something entirely different.

Rijid's car was the most stressful, because that was the trip George didn't stop crying long enough to breathe even, for two straight hours. Also, again with the visibility issue.

After all that, the second trip with my car was like some wonderful dream. No scary noises from vehicle or passengers. Also, by that point, there was little enough stuff that I actually got to enjoy rearview mirror technology again.

***

2) The apt is still a seething pile o chaos. Well, not so much, now. I'm down to just two bozes of "What the hell is this, why did I bring it, and what am I supposed to do with it now?" One of them is even in the way back of the closet. I might forget all about it till the next time I move.

Getting the bookshelves up was a big step in the right direction. Fully half (more, maybe, by weight) of my material possessions are books, and unpacking 12 boxes in a single afternoon really made me feel like I was accomplishing something. Of course, I don't know where anything is specifically, but bookshelves are much easier to search than piles of boxes.

One more thing about the apartment. I told people it was about the size of the Nekoosa apartment, and every time I said it, I got more depressed. I really didn't like Nekoosa, and by the time we moved, I HATED that apartment. Too damn small, and absolutely nowhere to go.

THe first time I saw this apartment, I almost freaked out. The "model apartment" they had shown us was Hans' old apartment, with the main area off to the left from the entrance. At first glance, our new apartment was laid out exactly like Nekoosa. Hallway, with bedroom at the end. Bathroom on the right, kitchen/living room to the left.

"Shit. I've made a HUGE mistake. I hated living here four years ago, maybe this apartment was what made D and me start to go wrong, I CAN'T live here again."

As the bedroom started to take shape, I got even more worried. I started with the bed right next to the door, specifically so it looked nothing like the Nekoosa bedroom, but Rijid pointed out how much saner it was to have the bed here, the one dresser right next to it, and the other dresser over here. Shit. This is now EXACTLY what my bedroom looked like four years ago.

There was no way to explain this without sounding like a crazy person, so I let it go. Then, I really looked at the room. It wasn't Nekoosa II after all. This room had an extra four feet of space in every direction. And the closet? Not merely largeish, but HUGE. A closet you could swing a cat in. (Not my cat, of course. But a mellow cat, or possibly a sedated cat, no problem.)

I looked at the rest of the apartment again. The hallway? Did NOT have a bathroom sink in it. (If you never saw the Nekoosa apartment, I can't possibly explain this. The bathroom just barely had room for a toilet and a bathtub. THe bathroom sink was in the hallway outside the bathroom. One of many things that annoyed me about that apartment.) Instead, the new hallway had room for a bookshelf or two. The bathroom has not only a sink, but also two medicine cabinets AND a tall towel storage cabinet. Sweet.

The new kitchen is I shit you not, six feet long by three feet across. That's a little irksome. Take the smallest kitchen you've ever seen, and divide it in half. But, the living room area feels about 1 1/2 times as big as the Nekoosa living room, and to be perfectly honest, I'm going to spend a lot more time there.

So, I'm not living in Bride of Nekoosa after all. I think the carpet is the same color, and the kitchen cabinets are the same kind, but there are enough differences so that my brain doesn't have to hurt.

***

3) I might just be a fully certified (certifiable?) Fazolian Management Diva by Thurs. Yup. It happened. Area Supervisor Man wasn't there to watch me screw up all sorts of things in the first hour, and consequently awarded me my very own set of keys and the combination to the safe. Goooo, me!

The schedule was made up for the next two weeks, with me always working with another manager. I derived a lot of comfort from believing that whether I was certified or not, I wouldn't have to be The Manager quite yet. 10 minutes after Mark left, they reworked the schedule. Friday night, I closed all by myself, and it was really scary.

Everything took an hour longer than it was supposed to, and of the three things that involve a call to the store manager, I failed three. Labor was way too high, my inventory bore no relation at all to what was supposed to be there, and one of the cashier's drawers was off by $10. Sunday night, my close would have been almost perfect, but I forgot to shut off one register before starting the reports, and the computer had a fit.

Today I opened solo. It all went really well, until I opened the doors for business. I won't make that mistake again. Right at 10:30, there were two drivethrough orders, and someone at the register. None of the cashiers were scheduled to show up till 11, and my cook was still on break. I had to take three orders and prepare an insane amount of food all by myself. One of the DT orders involved two pizzas, a sandwich, and three combination platters. By the time I had it all sorted out, there were three more people waiting at the register. "This job would be great, if it wasn't for the customers." The answer is obvious. Next time, don't unlock the doors. Get everything set up, and just chill for eight hours. I wonder how long I'd keep my job if I actually tried that.

***

I thought I was all done with reading stupid Fazolian propaganda, but I'm not quite. Somehow, I never actually took the final written test. It's scary, really, the stuff I don't know. (How do you make marinara sauce? (You don't, actually. I've never seen anyone making it, anyway. The magical buckets seem to refill themselves.) How do you check labor? (Um...go to the register, turn the key to Manager Mode, and follow the instructions.) What's the hold time on Breaded Chicken? (Now wait a minute. Why do I need to know this? I'm a manager. I have people who know stuff like that for me. I just stay out of their way.)

I actually have two test books. 75% of the questions are repeats, but that only makes the process more painful. "What is a guest? What is a customer?" Two questions later: "What is the difference between a guest and a customer?" And in the other book: "Explain the difference between a guest and a customer."

Overall, I think I like my job a little more than I did when there was an hour commute at either end of it, but the propaganda might still finish me off.

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