Journal Entry #13

Hey! Sorry I didn't post anything last week. It was a bit hectic with work and getting everything ready for school, but I'm back. Just an update, actually, is I've submitted my last little excerpt, The Lewis and Tolkien Library, in a contest on Inkitt. I fully expect no one will read my story, but why not? If you feel so inclined, I would really appreciate if you could drop by and read my story and vote for it. Or, if you don't want to do that, the story is also here on my blog. Scroll in the archive until you find The Lewis and Tolkien Library.
Here's the link to the contest: http://www.inkitt.com/wanderlust
And I definitely encourage you to read some of the other stories on this website. They are simply wonderful!

-Grace

Journal Entry #12

The weather near my house can change in an instant. One minute it can be sunny with clear blue skies, the next it can be overcast. Frequently there are two white tornadoes that blow through the house.
Their names are Leia and Tallie.
My two precious nieces whose presence I can judge based solely on the state of our sewing room. Code I-think-I'll-sweep-this-room means the white tornadoes are currently elsewhere. Code Where's-the-carpet means they are probably in close proximity and are about to dive on you from behind.
But I love the little trouble-makers more than I can express. They keep me humble and coffee-dependent.
When my sister was pregnant with Leia, we all watched them closely, routinely asking for updates and how she was feeling. Naturally we were excited and simply doted on Leia whenever we could.
When she was expecting Talia, we were still super excited, but figured we knew what we were dealing with this time and so tried to get my sister things she would really need or things we thought would be adorable on the new baby.
My sister and her husband are now expecting their third child, and honestly there's been way less hustle over this little one than with the other two. It may have something to do with how my sister barely looks pregnant, but seriously. The amount of fuss over this little one versus the other two are way out of proportion. It's not that we don't care or that we don't have anything to give, but what do you give a third child when his/her two older siblings have all of the bases covered (burp cloths, Desitin, Vaseline, diaper bag, Marvel/DC character clothes)?
I was just thinking that when the baby finally is born, I'll probably be like, "Holy shiitake mushrooms! There's a baby!" Poor kid's gonna feel like the lettuce smooshed in a giant sandwich.
I do wonder how things are going to change when the new baby arrives. Will it be massive chaos or business as usual?

-Grace

Journal Entry #11

I was going to tell you about my day, but it involved a lot of stuff about my workplace, telling you how we take people off register, counting in, counting out, the daily grind... and it occurred to me that the head honchos of my workplace are probably aware that I have a blog and would not appreciate me blabbing on the Internet about how we do things at the store. Which is a pity, because today was a pretty messed up day and it would have made a good story.
So I'll just give you the highlights.
My boss is on vacation this week. This is what happens when he vacates.
One of the other managers was trying to take the morning cashier off register. She walks back to the office to find one of the beneficiaries sitting in one of the chairs, and another employee is on the office phone.
Now, the beneficiaries aren't really allowed in the office, so she's like, "What are you doing in here? Is everything okay?" And he answers, "I'm having a seizure, I just need a few minutes." "Oh, so it's going to be that kind of day."
Yeah, the other employee on the office phone was actually talking to the paramedics, who were asking her about the guy having the seizure. Was he clammy? The guy didn't know what "clammy" meant. Try describing "clammy" real quick and that was sort of the scene in this tiny little office with four people crammed inside. The paramedics ended up wheeling a gurney all the way through the store, strapped the guy in -who by this point was fine again- and then drove him to who-knows-where.
That was this afternoon.
Over the course of the day, the manager would have to run to the bank before they closed, do a void on the register, talk to a customer, proceed to unpurposefully anger said customer, answer the phone while customer is still yelling at her, pretend she can hear the person on the other end of the line while babies are literally screaming in the store, transfer the call to the office, help with the truck that comes every day to bring more donations, and somewhere in there find time for lunch.
Yes. My poor co-worker had one heck of a day.

-Grace

Journal Entry #10

Hello everybody! I felt a jolt of excitement this week as I was thinking about what to post and realized, since this whole journal entry thing was pretty much about posting whatever was on my mind, I could talk about celebrities, too. So today I will be reverting back to one of my favorite type of posts: celebrity look-alikes! You may remember from a while back I did a whole slew of celebrity look-alikes, from Benedict Cumberbatch and Colin Morgan to Dina Meyer and Erin Richards.
For once I did not stumble upon this pairing on YouTube. I was actually watching regular T.V. when I first noticed the similarities.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Anna Maxwell Martin...

(Anna Maxwell Martin in BBC's The Bletchley Circle)

...and Shelly Cole.

(Shelly Cole)

 



You may recognize Miss Martin as Susan from The Bletchley Circle, Elizabeth Darcy in Death Comes to Pemberley, or Bessy Higgins in North and South.
Miss Cole, on the other hand, is someone I vividly remember from her days on Gilmore Girls as Connecticut's version of a Valley Girl, Madeline Lynn. She also guest starred on NCIS as a drug mule's junkie sister, as well as in the horror film Dark House.
I don't know if it's the general face-shape or if it's just the way they stare at you, but when I saw these lovely ladies, the similarities were abundant.
What do you think? Am I stretching it a bit here, or am I on to something?

Journal Entry #9

I will be the first to say how much I love living in the city. Born and raised amid the noise, the smells, the incredibly proud sports fans, my city is one of those places where I feel like I can go walk around and just watch the world.
But there are certain aspects of city-living that do rub me the wrong way.
I'm sure most of you have ridden a bus at some point in your life, school bus, city bus, trolley, they go along the streets to get you from point A to point G with brief stops at points B-C-D-E-F along the way. But the only thing the public has to go on about the buses is these little things called bus schedules. You know. Those references for when a specific bus will be at a specific location at a specific time. These schedules which are gloriously made available to the public serve as the only guide if people want to get to work but must coordinate the rest of their day around hen they have to catch the bus. So it comes as a nasty surprise when, occasionally, that specific bus is not where the schedule says it should be.
Yes, I know I sound like Amy Adams in Leap Year where everything has to happen on time or the world as we know it will end, but hear me out for a sec.
I received a call from my boss earlier today saying someone had called off and asked if I could cover for them. I told him I didn't have a car but that I could catch a bus at 1:00. 12:40 rolls around and I make my way to the bus stop, because I know from experience that the bus can sometimes arrive a whole ten minutes early. I like to give myself a large margin for error. But as I'm standing up there, the same two buses pass me twice on their route and I was just about go home or start walking to work when, lo and behold, my bus rolls onto my street twenty minutes late. I say again: twenty minutes late! If I were working full-time or even part-time instead of seasonal, that would be a write-up. Is this a problem anywhere else? Were school buses this unreliable? Because I know several people who depend on the bus system to get to and from work, and I'd be more than a little dubious if I had to constantly worry about whether I'm going to be late for work.
I've been riding the bus for a while, and it didn't take me long to realize that the time given on the bus schedule should include a ten minute fudge factor, but twenty minutes? To me that sounds like either laziness, incompetence, or negligence.

-Grace

Journal Entry #8

I just love the relationship between Peter Pan and Tinker Bell.
Although throughout most of the movie (and I am referring to the 1953 Disney animated version) Peter seems to take Tink for granted, when she saves him from the bomb and she's trapped in the rubble, you can really see and hear how much he cares for her, how devastated he would be if anything were to happen to her. I would like to strive for a relationship like that between two characters, where their love and loyalty to each other (especially as friends) is unmistakable.
That's all I wanted to say.

-Grace