Excellent work, Laura. Gold star!

Today is hard - having a lot of shoulder pain, which is kicking off tooth pain, and just found out that some friends who moved from Utah to Washington when we did are relocating to Orlando end of next month. Yes, being in the same time zone as your employer is useful, and 20 minutes from WDW is not bad, but -!

Amy, I feel like for the past many years since I moved here, it's been great because generally people have been only moving TO the area....but I definitely feel like the tide has turned recently and now people are moving away. Which is something I don't miss from DC (where everyone seemed to only be there for a few years)

Hope that my son isn't in total misery today. Last night he had fever, chills, nausea, headache, and was generally miserable. He hadn't taken anything because he hadn't eaten all day and didn't want to take something on an empty stomach. Amazingly he didn't tell me it was all my fault for making him take a vaccine. I'm going to have some comfort food delivered later today. It is 45 minutes each way to visit him so I'm going to not do that today. He only said the GF was nauseous. She had worked all day after her shot while he called in. Sigh.

Why... didn't he just eat something? Nevermind, I know there probably isn't a satisfactory answer. Sigh indeed.

Speaking of my dad, my mom is worried he may have been exposed to COVID-19 at his class reunion because of some symptoms he finally complained about last night. You'd hope a bunch of 70-year-olds would be vaccinated, but I'm 100% sure it wasn't required to attend and he wouldn't have thought to ask. Ain't nobody wearing masks where I've been in Michigan and Indiana even though 50-60% of people should be according to vaccination rates. Hopefully we can convince him to get tested so the rest of us know if we need to get tested, too.

Laura I hope your son feels better, M had a really strong reaction to the 2nd dose of the vaccine but I was just achey.

I was checking the little update notices for work that scrolls through the scheduling website. I seem to be the only one besides the managers that does this and it means I learn about things before most people. And work is giving, and work is taking away...and making questionable decisions.

They are reducing the return period from 180 days to 90 days, which is still reasonable but long time customers are going to flip out about this. Especially the ones who like to wait and then bring all their returns from purchases from the last 4 months in and do them at one time.

And we are going to have Kids Fest on July 31. This Saturday! We haven't had time to advertise this, so I don't know how many people are going to show up. Last Kids Fest there was music (competing with the overhead music, and it's near the mall entrance so the mall music as well) and food and other stuff.

This may be why they added an hour to everyone's schedule this Saturday, I don't know. It's not at every store, just 10 stores, including ours.

The good news is a change to the employee purchase policy

Today I learned that Febreeze fabric de-odorizer is very effective at cutting through grease caked on a George Foreman grill. Far more effective than the water in a similarly colored squeeze bottle that I thought I was spritzing on the grill would have been, in fact. Not as effective at getting the grill food-ready before dinner, however.

Gonna do a quick meara -

meara (hi!), the friends who are moving were part of a close group back in Salt Lake, and the only people here who knew two other members who went back to Ireland in December of '15. I really miss my monthly dinners with Jenn, had while Jim and Mark were off teaching, with large glasses of wine and really terrible movies to mock. A couple of days ago she posted photos of the dining room in the house they've been restoring, with mentions of the parties in West Valley and how much she missed the friends who'd been there, and I had to close the tab for a minute.

Laura, bodies are wacky. I'm sorry that your son is feeling so dreadful; hopefully the food will help.

shrift, argh, people, WHY. May he see reason, get a test, and may it be negative.

askye, that sounds like a lot. I wish you calm in negotiating all of it.

So if this tooth proves to be nothing - my dentist can see me at 2 - this weekend I'm maybe driving out to Boise with my best friend, to fetch their eldest offspring home from their summer job with the Idaho Conservation Corps trail crews. Friend is in the very early planning stages of a move - she's realized that getting her doctorate matters to her, and she has an ally with tenure in the UC system. I love her, I want her to have what she needs, I had my messy emotions about it all over Bev (sorry, Bev).

Matt, oh dear.

Matt, that does seem like good information to have...and a really unfortunate way to acquire it.