11/30/1999

I woke this morning at 2:30ish, feeling something wasn’t quite right. I thought about it for a few minutes before I realized that the kitten wasn’t on my face (where she is wont to lay), arm, or back. I got up and looked for her in the bathroom and closet, and then checked the living room, kitchen, and dining room. Finally, since I wasn’t hearing yowls of kittenish rage to notify me that she was being eaten alive by one of the Boys, I went back to bed. "She’s exploring," I told myself. "She’ll be back when she’s done being nosy." I lay down, flung the covers over my legs, and looked down to see a half-asleep kitty rolling across the bed. When she came to a stop, she sat up and swayed back and forth, blinking sleepily up at me. I tucked her under my chin, and we both went back to sleep.

Today was quite uneventful at work, but busy nonetheless. I continued to organize – my cheap four-shelf metal bookcase arrived via Office Depot, providing space for me to pile the tons of 3-ring binders I have cluttering up my office. One of my bright ideas, at the beginning of this year, was to assign each receipt category a number, and put each receipt in a binder, labelled with it’s assigned number. So, category 1 is Checking, and receipt # 1/1 is the first deposit receipt of 1999, 1/2 is the second, and so on. What I failed to take into account is that we accumulate a shitload of receipts each year, so I have 3-ring binders all over the place, and my office ain’t that big. Maybe next year, I can talk the bosses into purchasing a scanner, so I can scan in each receipt, then toss the receipt itself. That sounds like I’m just begging for trouble, doesn’t it?

So after work, I had to get groceries instead of rushing home to be with my beloved Scrappy-doodle. I’ve been going to Bruno’s lately, because it’s half a mile from home, and it’s a pretty nice store. Their frozen vegetable selection just sucks, though. They never have brussels sprouts or asparagus; instead, they seem to have an entire aisle of chopped onions and green peppers. What’s up with that? Today, I went to Publix, which is a lot further away, but it’s worth the drive. Well-stocked shelves and the people who work there are so friendly it’s frightening. I was able to find everything on my list with no problem at all. There was a Bill Gates clone intent on buying up every single shrimp in the seafood section, and I didn’t feel like waiting around, so I guess I’ll be picking up my shrimp elsewhere this week. George Stephanopolous bagged my groceries, though, so that was a big plus. It was "look-alike day" at Publix today – the cashier looked an awful lot like Shelley.

The only thing I don’t like about Publix is that they insist on taking your groceries out to your car for you. I just hate that, from the stilted conversation I feel compelled to make with the bagger; to the stupid "Oh, this is me" I blurt out, pointing to my truck; to the way the bagger stands there trying to figure out whether to put the groceries in the cab, or in the back of the truck; to the way I flap my hands around and say "Oh, just put them in the back"; to the way I stand there, trying to figure out whether I’m supposed to help; to the way there’s only one bag left to be put in the back of the truck when I decide I should help, and the bagger and I grab it at the same time; to the way the bagger says "have a nice day!" while walking away, and obviously thinking to himself "what a freak."

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