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Thanks Toots, But maybe later.
5 years ago
Hello again fellow FA Artists, Writers, Musicians, Crafters, Other creative type persons and Friends.
Thursday last week, I decided to see if I could take the local bus down town and visit the Target store where I get my Prescriptions filled, and do a little sightseeing. My first stop was the local Supermarket to pick up my Monthly Donut for "Breakfast" and enjoy it while I waited for the #10 Bus to take me East. Perhaps I was a bit too excited in seeing things getting back to a state close to "Normal," but the first indication that there were still flaws in the COVID 19 Pandemic recovery effort was that the plain glazed donut I bought was extremely stale. -Completely inedible! I ended up tossing it in the trash, and regretting that I didn't buy a bottled water to wash that awful taste out of my mouth with. The trip to Target was without incident, and I spent several hours just cruising the sales floors looking for things to use at the house. I lucked out and found a single roll of paper towels, and much to my delight, I discovered a variable speed Moto Tool at a great price, plus it came with well over 200 accessories. I cruised the Toy sections almost all to myself, and noticed that the Lego, board games and Jigsaw Puzzle sections were pretty well cleaned out. I find it somewhat comforting in knowing folks are finding more "Tactile" ways to pass their time while in isolation, and of course constructing items from plastic building blocks or assembling large puzzles is often a good lead in, (Or "Gateway Hobby".) into building models or inventing things.
Once I got out of the Target zone I walked half the block West to Vroman's bookstore to see how they were doing as I had read on their website that they were open again to limited browsing. Now I had been waiting for the place to open again for these past three or so months, so I was excited with the prospects of just being able to enjoy an afternoon "Cruising the stacks" and of course finding interesting greeting cards or science toys in their upstairs sections. I was greeted... More like halted, at the entrance door and given a brief lecture on the new "Bookstore Etiquette" required of their patrons. Now since this was just a bit after 12:00 Noon, I seemed to be one of at least five or six other shoppers, which was okay by me, as it gave me a way to practice my "Social Distancing" more effectively. Most annoying and I believe difficult to enforce or practice was following the "Arthur Murray" path of stickers of arrows or footprints instructing patrons on where to stand as they waited in line to make their purchases or inquire about their orders from the help desks. Now I could understand at how this system would work best IF the store was packed with customers, but I found the signs instructing patrons with (Or without.) small children to keep the little ones from touching things to be a bit excessive. As a precaution I had my facemask on, plus my blue rubber gloves, but I'm actually more concerned about keeping others safe as opposed to furthering spread of the disease. Stopping the Virus in it's tracks is nearly impossible, or at least it takes a lot more than a few drops of hand sanitizer.
However, I felt rather uncomfortable, if not a bit insulted when I got lost trying to find the way out, and I started to inquire at the "Front" doors where to find the exit, and even before I could finish my sentence one of the clerks told me rather harshly to "GHO TO TH' FROONT UF TH' STOORE!" Now before this COVID 19 business all started, I had dealt with and seemed to be on friendly terms with the clerks at Vroman's, especially that Lady with the nice "Oxford" accent, but in that moment I was reduced to feeling like some stupid, disease laden Filth that had just wandered in from off the street. As I made my final exit, I decided I would not visit the place again until this COVID 19 Pandemic Panic has eased up a bit more. Now granted. I do understand that there is potential in that the Virus could be spread by mere contact, but sometimes there are others out there who are most likely weary of dealing with having to wear PPE in public and take the extra precautions to check the disease. However- This is no excuse for being rude.
Maybe Lamplighter Books Just a few blocks East of Vroman's might be open again. I consider this incident just another "Trip" along the Flagstone paved path to recovery. Until we know for certain that there will be a cure, and the rest of us need suffer no more, the road will still be an uneven one, full of little missteps along the way. Keep those those masks on in public, keep clean ones in close supply, and don't be afraid to wear clean rubber gloves in any retail environment. That way, one is not only protecting one's self, but it also helps protect the clerks that work there as well.
"Peace".
Thursday last week, I decided to see if I could take the local bus down town and visit the Target store where I get my Prescriptions filled, and do a little sightseeing. My first stop was the local Supermarket to pick up my Monthly Donut for "Breakfast" and enjoy it while I waited for the #10 Bus to take me East. Perhaps I was a bit too excited in seeing things getting back to a state close to "Normal," but the first indication that there were still flaws in the COVID 19 Pandemic recovery effort was that the plain glazed donut I bought was extremely stale. -Completely inedible! I ended up tossing it in the trash, and regretting that I didn't buy a bottled water to wash that awful taste out of my mouth with. The trip to Target was without incident, and I spent several hours just cruising the sales floors looking for things to use at the house. I lucked out and found a single roll of paper towels, and much to my delight, I discovered a variable speed Moto Tool at a great price, plus it came with well over 200 accessories. I cruised the Toy sections almost all to myself, and noticed that the Lego, board games and Jigsaw Puzzle sections were pretty well cleaned out. I find it somewhat comforting in knowing folks are finding more "Tactile" ways to pass their time while in isolation, and of course constructing items from plastic building blocks or assembling large puzzles is often a good lead in, (Or "Gateway Hobby".) into building models or inventing things.
Once I got out of the Target zone I walked half the block West to Vroman's bookstore to see how they were doing as I had read on their website that they were open again to limited browsing. Now I had been waiting for the place to open again for these past three or so months, so I was excited with the prospects of just being able to enjoy an afternoon "Cruising the stacks" and of course finding interesting greeting cards or science toys in their upstairs sections. I was greeted... More like halted, at the entrance door and given a brief lecture on the new "Bookstore Etiquette" required of their patrons. Now since this was just a bit after 12:00 Noon, I seemed to be one of at least five or six other shoppers, which was okay by me, as it gave me a way to practice my "Social Distancing" more effectively. Most annoying and I believe difficult to enforce or practice was following the "Arthur Murray" path of stickers of arrows or footprints instructing patrons on where to stand as they waited in line to make their purchases or inquire about their orders from the help desks. Now I could understand at how this system would work best IF the store was packed with customers, but I found the signs instructing patrons with (Or without.) small children to keep the little ones from touching things to be a bit excessive. As a precaution I had my facemask on, plus my blue rubber gloves, but I'm actually more concerned about keeping others safe as opposed to furthering spread of the disease. Stopping the Virus in it's tracks is nearly impossible, or at least it takes a lot more than a few drops of hand sanitizer.
However, I felt rather uncomfortable, if not a bit insulted when I got lost trying to find the way out, and I started to inquire at the "Front" doors where to find the exit, and even before I could finish my sentence one of the clerks told me rather harshly to "GHO TO TH' FROONT UF TH' STOORE!" Now before this COVID 19 business all started, I had dealt with and seemed to be on friendly terms with the clerks at Vroman's, especially that Lady with the nice "Oxford" accent, but in that moment I was reduced to feeling like some stupid, disease laden Filth that had just wandered in from off the street. As I made my final exit, I decided I would not visit the place again until this COVID 19 Pandemic Panic has eased up a bit more. Now granted. I do understand that there is potential in that the Virus could be spread by mere contact, but sometimes there are others out there who are most likely weary of dealing with having to wear PPE in public and take the extra precautions to check the disease. However- This is no excuse for being rude.
Maybe Lamplighter Books Just a few blocks East of Vroman's might be open again. I consider this incident just another "Trip" along the Flagstone paved path to recovery. Until we know for certain that there will be a cure, and the rest of us need suffer no more, the road will still be an uneven one, full of little missteps along the way. Keep those those masks on in public, keep clean ones in close supply, and don't be afraid to wear clean rubber gloves in any retail environment. That way, one is not only protecting one's self, but it also helps protect the clerks that work there as well.
"Peace".
Interesting! I found that Everclear which is like what? 100% proof Ethanol, is not only a great "Booster", but it works wonders for cleaning out the print heads in my ink jet printers. I wouldn't mind keeping a bottle of the stuff around for small, quick. clean up jobs, but the stuff just doesn't keep long around here. (Some say it's due to evaporation.)
I believe you had mentioned "The Raven" before. Sadly, I noticed the brand new Wine Bar which opened at Vroman's late in January was all closed up and dark, along with the Newsstand and the Coffee shop. The Bookstore itself had quite a bit of it's upstairs selling space strategically blocked or roped off, with lots of rather unwelcoming, empty racks and shelves devoid of merchandise.
but we of course, have many of those who don't have fucks to give.
V.
Long way to go yet - and it's gonna be a bumpy ride!
It's antics like that which really make you have to wonder how much of this Andromeda Strain stuff is real, and how much of it is just political pissing contests. Mayor Addled's had a mad-on with Gov. Abbott and the state legislature ever since they enacted that property-tax cap that prevents Austin from jacking everyone's property taxes through the roof every year, and has been throwing "you're not the boss of me!" tantrums ever since. Ain't Texas politics fun? :-P (Forget "Dallas"; the real soap opera in this state is "Austin"!)
Fortunately, I live out in Williamson county, so I get to watch this soap opera unfold while safely beyond Mayor Addled's reach. :-D
The whole idea of the lock-downs and the masks wasn't to stop it - we can't - but to slow the bad cases to something the hospitals can handle.
What we really need is much better testing and more of it, including that 'already had and got over it' test.
We've a long road ahead of us.
Oh, and since you mentioned Arthur Murray (how many people remember him today?) I offer this: Modern Waltzes. And yes, I have it in my Les Baxter collection.
I even had one place fire me - only to call to say it was all just a 'misunderstanding' and they needed me back. There was much butt-hurt when I told them I only give people one chance to fire me. (Didn't hurt that I'd already lined up another job that paid a bit better. )
No, huh?
Seems the 'PC tech' they'd kept had wiped a customer's drive and the boss was trying to put it back together. Come to find out my canning was due to a lawyer firm claiming I had stole their MS Office disks. I laughed and pointed out that if I'd wanted said disks the boss had a set in his desk and we had tons of blank floppies. Second joke was while I had used some of the customer's disks they had been the Windows 3.11 disks - not Office. And third and most telling, that law office had over a dozen (that I saw) interns working there ...
A week later I had a job at Dell. One of their training sites was just a block from my old job, so one lunch I wandered over there and let my friends at the old place know what had happened. Just my luck my ex-boss and some of the front office walk by. I surprised the ex-boss by grabbing his hand and giving it a shake as I told him to say 'thank you' to whoever it was that got me fired as I now had a better job at much better pay that I would have missed if I'd still been working for them. The looks from some of the top brass was priceless.
The idiots called me three more times today. Same post. No thanks. Turned out my ex-boss (who was okay) had 'em call. Thanks but no thanks.
Next time they call tell them you'll have them up on harassment charges. No means NO - stop asking ...
(* "odd" only in that for most people outside of Texas, their image of our immigrant population tends to be tacos, tortillas, and Tejano music, Cinco de Mayo, and bilingual signs in English and Spanish. A lot of people are surprised to learn that we have a pretty heavy Asian population here, too, especially in the central part of the state; it's not unusual to find entire strip malls where all of the signage prominently features one or more Asian languages as well as English, there are entire grocery stores devoted solely to the Asian population with imported products from their home countries, and you can find Thai, Korean, and Vietnamese food just about everywhere.)
OH! But the stories I could tell you about some of the "Mindless Mass Consumers" I've encountered these past few months...
and then there was that terrible vandalizing last weekend, triggered by a few cops inquiring a known drug dealing suspect. next morning the inner city laid in shambles... police said the city authorities should have seen it coming.
ah, well. germany has their motherload of holes, too.
we have gotten rid of our war criminals a while ago, when it turned out so-and-so used to be a high officer in the SS, or any other position of power within the nazi system; so there are no leftover statues to take down.
Thank you also for answering my curiosity in a kindly manner, with the second part of your reply.
"We can't call it typewriter, that's a male noun!"
"Then... typewritress?"
at your service. :) it is how it is. also, it doesn't mean we don't have nazis in any shape or form, ourselves. I just wished they would also take care of leftie anarchists, as well. they are just as dangerous, really.
enough of that. if you feel like sharing and mulling story ideas you may drop me a line. :)