The single number one issue I have that makes my job unendurable is that I will never ever ever have a holiday off. Any kind of holiday. If there is a day that other people want off, I will not have it off. Day off requests are granted by seniority. I do not have seniority.

My parents have a long weekend at Memorial Day and are coming out to visit me. They have not visited me since July last year. I have not seen them at all since February this year. Ours is a close family, but we never get to see one another. It is more than a little sad.

So my folks are making the 300 mile drive to come see me. I put in as soon as I knew this, and requested off that weekend.

I finally heard back yesterday. I can have the Saturday off, but not the Sunday. Someone more senior to me is also being denied that Sunday off, because we just don't have enough staff to cover it.

The scheduler knows that I rarely request days off and still more rarely actually get them, and so when I do, it's because I really need them. But still.

So. My parents will be here Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I will be at work on Sunday from 11:30 until, well, maybe 2pm if it's dead, maybe 8 pm if it's busy, and there isn't any way of knowing. It depends on the whim of a manager.

So where should I send my folks during that time? I thought of having (e:zobar) take them on some kind of day trip out of town, but then I thought: what if they let me go after just two hours? And I come home, and they're off somewhere, so I end up bumming around alone?

I thought of a few things-- Niagara Falls, the Zoo, a ballgame if there's one going on-- but I'm open to suggestions. (Last time my folks came to town they caught the Naval Museum downtown-- the big ships in the water, which was a big hit with my historian parents-- and the Albright-Knox, which was a hit with my former-museum-curator mother.)
Anyone else have suggestions? My folks like outdoorsy stuff, history stuff, Mom likes baseball, both like architecture and art. They've both been to Niagara Falls in their lives but I don't know how recently. They'll have a car, and (e:zobar) to be their guide. And I may want to join them in the middle, but may not.

Ahh. Brief nap, chill-out session, rereading a story I like, and I feel better. It's raining now, which makes me happy-- it's a soft rain, and I just planted a bunch of plants-- all my peppers are out now, and the few zinneas I got to sprout, and if it weren't raining I'd worry about them wilting. Especially a couple of the peppers-- I should have separated them. I put four seeds in each big container, and they've been in there twelve weeks now. Several of them, only one or two of the seeds sprouted, and those were fine, but in a couple of them, all four came up, and I should have separated the survivors. Today they were an indistinguishable tangle of roots, and a couple of the plants may not survive having been separated. The tomatoes fared better, but then, it took them a shorter time to get this tall. (I started the peppers a couple of weeks before the tomatoes.)

I have writing to do but I am very tired, for some reason, and feel quite daunted by the prospect of the task.

But. New journal music, slightly mournful but upbeat: Billy Bragg, "A New England".
I don't want to change the world
I'm not looking for a new England
I'm just looking for another girl
goes the chorus, and I kind of empathise. There are so many things I object to so strongly in what is going on in the world today, things that are being done in our names without the slightest respect for our wishes. But I can't make my brain operate on that scale. I can barely cope with the individual-scaled issues that confront me; how can I even begin to grapple with the humankind-scaled issues?

Not to be overly serious. My favorite line of the song is this one:
I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only sattelites
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?
I wish, I wish, I wish you cared.

If you want a copy yourself, (e:zobar) taught me to use Gather this morning.
I love Billy Bragg's aesthetic. This is one of his solo songs, just him and an electric guitar. I was going to upload one of the ones he did with Wilco, but this one was easier to get. (The other one was in AAC format.) And this one's more apt to my mood.

Ah, yes. The number.
Gather #: 0720492001147722419

I have been waiting for two weeks now to get my next restaurant review set up. At this point, I have to do it today. It's due tomorrow.

Apparently the person at the restaurant who would approve such a thing is on an indefinite vacation. These people are so disinterested in whether they get a review that they've just kept putting us off until: you guessed it. I can't write a review this week.

Which means that a) the paper has a blank space, b) I'm off my schedule and now no longer will be published in the same issues as Z's biweekly column, and c) I'm sitting around on my ass having blocked out the time to go to the damn place today and now have a space of my own to fill.

Am I really feeling like writing them a good review?

"N, while a great place to eat, are inconsiderate and disinterested fucks who don't care about publicity and can't take care of a simple business matter in a reasonable fashion."

Rrgh. I know I'll get over it, and write a positive review, because I have no choice really, but come the fuck on. Free publicity isn't even worth being courteous and professional about?

It makes me wish I had even the slightest say in where I get to review.

I'm blogging the trip to the Finger Lakes on Livejournal but only briefly (mostly, as is my specialty, I'm rambling about other things)-- (e:zobar) wrote about it thoroughly enough here. (e:zobar,50)
But I'm posting the photos here, because I am determined to learn how to do so. Here we go!

Crap, 100k limit? That's tiny! Well, I'll try again.
Captions below images.


Bully Hill vineyards, with Z in foreground, a bit windswept.

A decorative railing at Bully Hill, made of railroad ties and other metal.

The entrance to Watkins Glen's hike of the waterfalls.

Inside the Glen, a view of the walkway along the waterfalls.

Along the glen, a staircase on the trail, leading back down to the glen.

At the suspension bridge over the glen, Z helpfully alters the sign.

I took this picture for my baby sister, who is fascinated by mosses. (She is studying natural resources but really wants to specialize in plants, specifically mosses. I am not making this up.)

A red eft. My friend Abbie and I used to hunt these all summer, and she kept some in a terrarium. They are cute and very dumb.

A view along the glen.

The trail crosses under the cascade here. It freaked me right out.

Scenery, from the moving car: I think this is Keuka Lake. It's goddamned gorgeous.

I just spent like $140 on food, but that's good, as I hadn't been grocery shopping in ages and now I'm caught up. Wegman's, Spar's, and Jim's mean that now I have Everything.

So by the way, I'm this food columnist, right? Right. Ostensibly. I gotta harass the editor to, you know, set up my next review so I have something to write about, and I've been trying to set this up for almost two weeks now, so, I'm getting a little tired of that, but someday it will fall into place. Right? Pff. Anyhow.

I want to do more than restaurant reviews. I want to write about all the great food Buffalo has. I was discussing this with the Spar's girl (whose name I am sorry to say I don't know)-- I said, there should be a Sausage Festival or something, and y'all should go head to head to demonstrate whose are best. She agreed, and rattled off without pausing about six places that always said they had the best Italian sausages.

She then admitted that she sometimes does covert ops-- they'll send her down the street to Wegman's to look at what prices they have on various items, and she always has to put her ponytail over the Spar's logo on her shirt, and make sure she doesn't look suspicious, because apparently Wegman's is on the lookout for that sort of thing. So she can't write anything down. She also admitted that the "guys" had gone to check out Budwey's-- "They have a pretty good selection," she said, and then went on to caution me about the chicken sausages there. "Chicken sausages have to be precooked," she said, "or they go off right away." Budwey's has raw chicken sausages, which can be dangerous. Spar's offers two chicken sausages (hot and mild), pre-cooked, and they'll be bringing out a third (spinach and cheese) in response to demand. "These, you don't have to eat or freeze right away," she said. I asked why chicken was suddenly so popular, and she had an answer I hadn't expected: "Moslems," she said. "One of our employees is one, a Bosnian refugee." Apparently the Black Rock neighborhood they service is home to a large number of displaced persons from the former Yugoslavia, many of whom are Moslem. "They come here for our beef, and turkey," and she pointed out their cold cuts selection. The store's logo is a cheerful pig, and many of their sausages are the traditional pork, but they also carry a wide range of European grocery items, and she said that the Yugoslavians like those as well, "to make them feel like home."

I bought my usuals-- their spicy pepperettes [dried sausages, good for snacking], their landjager / jagerwurst "hunter sausages" [smoked, non-refrigerated, excellent for taking on trips], a dozen slices of their incredibly-good bacon, three of their German bratwurst with beer, and three of their chorizos. I admitted that I'd had a Budwey's chorizo last night. "It was okay," I said, "but yours are better. In fact, the best in Buffalo!"
She grinned, and pointed at the plaque. "I can't wait to show this to all our regulars," she said. Thursday and Friday are Spar's busiest days-- in the winter, those are the days to buy food there. I hadn't expected to get more than the dried sausages today, but she said during the "grillin' season" they tend to stock the store more often, because business volume goes up.

Spar's European Sausages, voted the Best in Buffalo, is located on Amherst St. right near the intersection with Grant " >(MAP TO: ). It's right down the street from the Amherst St. Wegman's, and we've been going there for longer than we've lived in Buffalo. They also offer, on a limited basis, some really good German potato salad, and other rotating specialties. Nothing beats their sausages on the grill. And if you can't get there often, stock up-- their sausages freeze well, and you can just pull them out and throw them on the grill while it warms up to defrost them. The ultimate convenience dinner-- i don't get why people buy fast food.



In other news entirely, it looks like (e:zobar) and I will be at the Century again tonight to watch the Sabres game, because we don't have a TV and want to see the game. So if anybody is interested... the Century's right down on Pearl St., just off Chippewa. " >(MAP TO: )

Two things in this post.

1) A question. Z and I have not had a day off together in many moons. We have not left Buffalo in as many moons. So this week, to celebrate (not happily) the end of my part-time schedule, I got (e:zobar) to take Friday off, so we can go somewhere Thurs. night and stay over and do something cool all day and then get me home in time for work Saturday morning (at 11 am).

So where should we go? Toronto? Stratford Festival? The Finger Lakes? Southern Ontario? Ohio? Pennsylvania? I'm looking for suggestions. It can't be anything that would require a lot of planning and reservations, because we're going there THIS Friday.


2) The Best of Buffalo party. How cool was that? It was free food, brought to you by the best restaurants in Buffalo.
It was free music, brought to you by the best jazz band and the best choir in Buffalo.
It was free etertainment, brought to you by one of the best djs in Buffalo (actually I'm not sure who he was; someone one of the video guys knew). I felt very chic because I owned at least two of the CDs he had in heavy rotation (Portishead's Dummy, which my new journal music is from, and Sublime's self-titled album), and he was scratching like a mofo-- he had a really neat rig but I won't go into the details here.
And they had the game on in the background, of course! Z and the video guys were in the back room, and they had the projector set up with a switcher-thing so that they could easily transfer among three different feeds at varying levels of transparency. The slide show displaying the results of the voting (in case you missed the announcements) had squares chroma-keyed into the background so that they could put live video feeds into those corners-- for a while they had the game going on in those corners, with the slides made slightly transparent over the top so that you could follow the action all the way across the screen.
But throughout the game they had the thing set up so that when it went to commercials, they'd put the slideshow or a live video feed on instead of the commercials.

Babik was playing during much of the game, and they get super-extra-awesome bonus points for being such good sports about it. They didn't care that everyone was watching the game-- they were watching it too! And after one of the goals they stopped, and the violinist played the "charge!" thing. How awesome is that?

The fact that the Sabres won only made it that much more awesome.

(e:zobar) has a pair of these travel coffee mugs that he got at his first job. They've got the company logo emblazoned on them, and are the oldskool sort of travel mugs you don't see nowadays: wide base, narrow top, all ceramic. The brand name, on the bottom, is "Hotjo", with a long-mark over the "o" which I don't know how to write in code.
I brewed a whole pot of coffee just now, and it all fit into the Hotjo, so I'm drinking the whole thing. Undoubtedly, merriment will ensue.

Our coffee pot is another funny story, for another time. Meanwhile, I am preoccupied.

1) Best of Buffalo party is tonight. Everyone should come. Babik will be performing, as will the Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus. There will be free food. There will be all kinds of wacky video shit going on, if all goes well. And you know, Artvoice is cool, and stuff.
If you have not picked up an issue of Best of Buffalo you should, and you should turn to page 14, and you should read my review, and you should write to editorial@artvoice.com and say "dang that's a great food review", and you should go to Tru-Teas and have a cup of tea and say "that review in Artvoice was so good".
Not that I'm, like, shamelessly self-promoting or anything. But for serious, the mooncake is to die for.

2) Tax refunds just arrived. I am using mine to pay off one of my student loans. I just think that would be a good idea. Z has no concrete plans for his. Now, I've never been the mercenary-bitch type (would I have supported him last year while he was finishing his degree and looking for a job if I were?) but I think he really ought to buy me something, something shiny maybe, just because, you know, boys should buy their girlfriends shiny things from time to time, and also in the coming-up-on-four-years we've been together, he's never bought me flowers or jewelry. So it's just a thought. He remains unconvinced.
So this is a poll of sorts.
Buying your girlfriend shiny things:
1) Worth your trouble?
2) Not worth your trouble?

All I'm saying is, it's usually worth your trouble, I'd say. One way or another.

Last year he used his tax refund to buy himself a scooter, and I used mine to, well, pay bills. (I'm not very good at buying myself presents either.)


3) I think I'll change my journal music again. *ponders* Now that I know how it's fun! But I sort of have a lot of music and am not sure what "goes" best. I think... hmm... For the moment, I'll leave it at this one. This is "The Beauty Spot / The Maid Behind The Barrel", a medley of reels by the incomparable Danu, a traditional Irish band that played Rockwell Hall last month.

(*grumble* the U in Danu is supposed to have an acute mark over it and apparently that sort of markup isn't allowed in this text field. Pardon my innaccuracies.)

I did something whlie at work and now my left ankle is killing me. This is a problem because I have two very trying eight-hour shifts ahead of me, and we're perpetually understaffed and overworked at weekends, and I'm tired.
This is pre-emptive karma, you realize. I'd been planning on calling in sick on Monday, because I want to go to the Best of Buffalo party that night (you all should be there! Free food, performances, and neat video-stuff by (e:zobar)'s cool coworkers.) I would have asked for the day off, but by the time I realized what day it was, it was too late to request the day. And if we request a day and don't get it, then we're subject to stiff penalties if we call in that day. Which just serves to make matters stupider and less-sensible between management and workers, because of course if management fails to get us off a day we requested off they get no penalties at all... etcetera, etcetera.

So now my ankle is killing me but I can't call off three days in a row. My best hope is to gimp around as best I can for two days so that on the third day they'll not be surprised or mad if I just call in already.

But I didn't come here to post just so I could whine about my leg. I also came here to whine about the weather.
I'm psyched that it's finally raining. I planted all kinds of stuff and it needs rain and it just ain't right that there's been so little rain this year. But now?
There's supposed to be a frost tonight!
Grrr. My tomatoes will die if I don't cover them up. And of course, tonight is the one night in months that I have plans to go out until late, so I won't be home and in any state to think of coming up with ways to protect plants from frost. Great.

In the past I've just chucked blankets over the garden beds. I guess I'll do that, except the tomatoes are fragile and I should probably surround them with plant stakes to keep the blankets' weight from breaking them. Hm... yes, I should plan this out now so when I come home (with any luck) drunk and cheerful tonight, I can just do it and go right to bed.

Guh! I was feeling clever for having updated my journal music, but I just managed to accidentally post a blank blog, so, eh, I guess I'm not all that smart.

Music is called "Love Farewell"; it's a track off an out-of-print LP entitled "Songs and Music of the Redcoats" (Argo records, 1971) that my dad often listened to when I was a child. My parents are history fiends, and met via the flurry of historical re-enactments around the Bicentennial of the American Revolution, so... This song I haven't been able to date precisely, but most of the tracks on that album are from either the late 18th or late 19th centuries (a lot of them are Napoleonic era). It's short, so even if you don't like it...

Anyhow. On to the purpose of the journal.

Waiting for the promised thunderstorm. We're supposed to finally get rain today, so I have been busy all morning.
I got up at 8 and finished preparing the soil, did one last-minute garden bed expansion, and planted the tomatoes, beans, some more peas, and one of the pepper plants before I decided to wait on planting the rest of them. I'd scheduled them for two weeks from now anyway! But an early start can't hurt, if there's no frost... The tomatoes are a bit of a gamble.

I'm excited about the garden, officially now.

I'm so far behind on the flowerbeds, though. There's so much work to do on them, and I just can't... summon... the energy...
I'm proud of myself for managing what I did, given how much my back hurt yesterday at work. I filled out an accident report, which seems to have done the usual voodoo trick: If I say it's nothing and don't fill out the form, then there are always complications and I'm in pain later. (Witness: my hand, which I bruised in January and which now hurts me every time it rains or I type too much.) If I do fill out the form, then it's always better the next day. (Witness: the three times I've slipped and fallen and bruised my knees, which never hurt later.) My back hurts now, but I rather think that's because of the heavy digging...

On that note, I am fiercely hungry. Later!

Duh. The whole purpose of coming here was that I was going to blog that I'd met (e:jenks) at the airport bar! I was at the Landmark on Sunday, by coincidence-- I was scheduled for All-Stars and someone called in-- and was running around like an idiot because of all these damn Chicago delays-- what is up with Chicago lately? Uh-- and Chicago delays are the worst because the United gate that's mostly flights there is DIRECTLY across from the bar so the very moment a delay is announced the entire contents of the plane just turn around and come straight into the bar, en masse, with no possibility of thinking of heading to another bar or maybe stopping for a coffee or magazine on the way.
But I digress.
So the place was a war zone when I got there because Whipple can't do a dish and also everyone and their mother wants margaritas because some clever idiot put up a poster of one, and as all bartenders know the humble margarita is just about the #1 Ass-Pain Drink (salt, two liquors, a cordial, a mixer, ice, blended maybe, ugh, gag me).
So the place is covered in lime and sour mix and we have no fresh limes left and there's no salt and there's no glasses and Whipple's running into me and life is pain and I'm having awful cramps and mostly, I wish I were dead.

Several hours of this pass and I'm starting to catch up and feel human, and there's this girl sitting at the corner of the bar-- the corner around which I have to fling myself every time I go from my drink-making-station to the floor where all my tables are. Finally I pause, and notice her looking at me.

"Do you... have a journal online?" she asks.

One of those questions that can fill you with dread. I've had that Livejournal for three years now and while I never quite regret writing things I do, I occasionally wish I had said them differently. (*cough*Jackdaw*cough*) So there's a long pause as I think: "Fuck. Fuck. Did I post any nude pictures of myself?"
Finally I answer: "...Yes?"
"Are you Dragonlady?"
"Yes." A pause. "Elmwoodstrip?" I'm trying to decide if the girl is familiar.
"Elmwoodstrip. I'm (e:jenks)."
"Ahh!" It clicks. Yes, she resembles her picture. Although, she's much less, well, people are usually more three-dimensional than their photos, so, well, sometimes... I'm astonished she recognized me. Her photo is a way better photo of her than mine is of me, and yet, I had no inkling. But then, I'm bad wth faces.
I admit I don't know enough people on here yet that I can totally keep up with everyone's blogs, but for some reason I read hers a lot, so I really do know who she is.
She's delayed enroute to Chicago, and I can only add to the misery, I'm afraid-- most of my customers are trying to get to Chicago and they're all telling me dire, dire things about the planes. But at least, you know, um, we all have the shared consolation of overpriced beer?

Ah Buffalo.

Another funny chance sighting, unrelated to (e:peeps), of course, but funny:
Last night I was at Landmark again, the late server, and I was cleaning up and getting ready to leave the bartender to deal with the place on her own-- it being late. A blond Canadian girl was sitting at the bar waiting for her ride to arrive from Toronto. She was funny, and charming, the kind of girl who can talk about anything to anyone, and the bartender was complimenting her on her great coat, a striking black knee-length thing with white piping. I stayed and talked a few moments-- this girl could have charmed a wooden post, and was all smiles.
I couldn't remember but I was pretty sure I'd had her for a customer before-- but then, I do see a lot of people. And an amazing number of them are at their most outgoing-- they're among strangers, and drinking, and will most likely never be in this place with these people again. Some of them will say anything.

I got home, tired, and (e:zobar) had no plans for dinner, and I couldn't think of anything. "Let's go out." So we went to someplace that would be open at 9:30 on a Monday night: Kosta's.
While sitting eating our gyros and drinking our red wine (ok, so, yes, I have odd food combo craving choices), a girl came into the diner. "Can I use your bathroom?"
She was wearing a striking black knee-length coat with white piping.
I had just finished telling Z about the girl at the bar who could talk to anybody, like, that moment.
She came back out of the bathroom and strode purposefully past us, out the door. Blond curly hair, black leather purse with silver fittings: the very same girl. But no smiles, no charm, no talking-to-a-post-- all purpose, all tiredness, all accumulated stress.
There was a car waiting outside for her. She got in and they drove off to Toronto. Obviously her ride had showed up eventually. I have to remember to tell the bartender.