Saturday, February 13, 2021

New Jersey On Ice

Got such a late start this morning, I had breakfast while working on writing. Richard and Gene are evenly matched, as swordsmen and as captains. Gene's still angry with Richard for his betrayal. Richard, for his part, regrets letting Goodson dump Gene overboard...but not taking Gene's treasure for his own. When Gene asks Richard how he got so good on a sword and on a ship, he tells Gene he learned everything he knows from watching him.

Broke at 11 to get ready for work. Clouds hung low over Hillcrest and it remained cold, but it wasn't wet or snowy, or even windy. I still had a hard time finding an Uber driver. It took 20 minutes for them to arrive. Thankfully, I called for one early enough that I still got to work on time.

If you've seen the weather reports today, you can probably guess that the Acme was a total madhouse, especially early in the afternoon. We're only supposed to get freezing rain, sleet, and regular old rain from this round, but that was still enough to make people want to buy food. There's the holiday weekend and tomorrow being Valentine's Day, too. Thankfully, I had help outside with the carts for most of the day. Other than sweeping once when the other bagger went on lunch and bringing in trash, I was outside with the carts. 

The freezing rain finally started around 3 PM. It wasn't really bad at first...but the longer it continued, the icier everything got. I had to dodge several patches of ice on the otherwise-heavily salted parking lot. Thankfully, though I slipped a few times, I never fell. 

Did my grocery shopping as quickly as possible after work. Mostly needed milk, which I'm almost out of. Found boxes of orange clove herbal tea and After Eight Dinner Mints on clearance. Grabbed three salad bowls for dinner later this week. Restocked oranges, bananas, cereal, peanut butter, black beans, and yogurt. 

Not happy with my schedule next week. In good news, two days off and no early days. Trouble is, I'm still working very long hours...and next Saturday is an 8 and 1/2 hour day. Three people went on vacation, the bagger who got sick earlier this week took leave, and there's still many people out to avoid the virus.

As soon as I finished, I tried to get through to Uber. And kept trying. And trying. I tried for 20 minutes and could not get a driver. It either would say "error" and not go through, or no cars would appear as available. One of my co-workers tried calling cabs, and none of them could pick me up, either. There was no one willing to brave the storm.

Ended up hitching a ride with a co-worker, a sweet college student who lives in the Audubon Park development across the street from the Acme with her family and knew Oaklyn well enough to get me home. Even she had trouble when we got out. Her car was so thickly coated with ice, she ended up calling her mom to help her scrape it off. She also did grocery shopping tonight; I put her cart in the corral, only to finally slip and fall after I finished! I was more amused than hurt. I pushed carts all afternoon and only slipped a bit.

Thankfully, the roads were perfectly fine. There's a ton of salt leftover from our last two or three storms. As I discovered at work, it's the untreated curbs and sidewalks that are a problem. I had to get out of her car very gingerly, but I did manage to get myself and my groceries into my apartment with no trouble besides a little slipping.

Put on Super Password while I quickly got organized and had a snack. Patricia Klous and Orson Bean were the celebrities on the 1985 episode I saw. Orson got his contestant to the bonus round, but even his brain filled with trivia couldn't figure out words for two of the Super Passwords. 

Finished the night watching A Monster In Paris on Pluto TV. I go further into this French animated romance in tonight's Musical Dreams Movie Review. 

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