Friday, April 04, 2014

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

I got up at 5AM to join Rose for yoga. The phone rang at 5:30, as I was sipping my tea and eating a muffin. Yes, it was Rose. No, she couldn't go to yoga. She sounded terrible on the phone. Turns out she got a really bad cold (probably the same one my stepfather got) and wasn't up for much of anything. It was all right. If you're sick, you're sick. I finished my muffin and my tea and listened to the rest of the Sleepless In Seattle soundtrack, then went back to bed. I tossed and turned for an hour before passing out somewhere around 7.

I didn't get up until 9:30. It's a good thing I didn't really have a whole lot planned for today anyway. The big thing was grocery shopping. I didn't need a lot of things, but I did need some things that were expensive, like grapefruit (which went up to 2 for $3.00 after being a dollar each all winter), ground turkey, eggs, and whole wheat flour. Restocked canned pineapple, lamb chops, dryer sheets, buttermilk, and bananas. The dollar fish fillets were on sale, and I grabbed a can of salmon for a quick meal this week. I found Easter For Max & Ruby in the seasonal section and decided that would be my treat to myself.

When I got  home, I put everything away and made lamb chops with salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing for lunch while running Doc McStuffins. Doc continues to administer aid and hugs to toys with boo-boos or broken parts, now with the help of her purple "mobile clinic." The clinic was first introduced when Doc wanted to help a wind-up mouse in the park, but didn't have any of her tools on her.

Ironically, despite the build up about the mobile clinic on the front cover, only two other stories made use of Doc's office-on-wheels. In "Doc to the Rescue," Doc and her staff find a Dress-Up Daisy fashion doll stuck in a tree. Daisy keeps panicking, until Doc and the others arrive and remind her of the importance of remaining calm during an emergency. And in "Don't Knock the Noggin," a guy friend's motorcycle stunt man toy loses his helmet and gets a bump that loosens his computer chips. While Doc fixes him, the others look for his lost helmet and encourage him to keep it on at all times.

The remaining stories stuck closer to home. "Run Down Race Car" has Doc teaching her brother's remote control car Ricardo the importance of recharging - whether a toy recharges their batteries or a human gets the sleep they need. A father-son jack in the box duo appear in two episodes where the son worries about his dad when his winder is bent, and then the son gets nervous when Doc wants to figure out why he can't pop out like he should. Ronda, a remote-control rescue helicopter, also appeared in two episodes. In the first, Doc's brother Donnie and Rhonda's owner Luca accidentally crashes her into a sticker bush. While Doc's doctor mom removes a splinter from Luca's hand, Doc tries to figure out why Ronda can't fly. Ronda has rotor problems in the second when her rotors crack after rescuing Stuffy and have to be glued together. She's upset that she can't do her job and rescue toys...until she discovers that leading a rescue is just as important.

It rained lightly on my way to go grocery shopping, but by the time I went to work, it was just cloudy and cool. That didn't stop the crowds from coming. We were steady-to-busy all night. It's the beginning of the month, plus April is a big month for birthdays and spring events. The weather did no one's mood any favors. People were grouchy and grumpy all night. I was happy when the manager said she'd send my relief elsewhere and I was able to shut down with no problems.

I'm not as happy with my schedule. In good news, the latest I work next week is 7, and the only long shift is Monday. In annoying news, I don't have another day off until next Friday, and it's the only day off next week! Not only are we in the last month of our vacation cycle and people are still using up their remaining time, but the college kids are all going into their finals weeks. Things should slow down a bit once we get into May and the kids are out of school and our vacation cycle starts over.

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