Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving Day and feast with family and/or friends! I will be having some ham instead of turkey (Chris doesn't prefer turkey) and a few sides. It should be good eatin'! I also have the day off from work (we're closed) and it's a paid holiday! In fact, Friday is also a paid holiday, but we are open. We had a few customers who said they wished we were open on Thanksgiving Day and I just had to ignore the comment because there is no way I want to be at work on Thanksgiving! I will be working a full 40-hours this week so I get, basically, 16 extra hours of pay. The pay is nice, but the days off would have been nicer. I am perpetually tired this week and I think it's because of my 7-day week last week. I was good that week, but I'm just tired this week. Almost everyone else got 3 days off this week. I was one of two who didn't (the other person had all last week off, so it hardly counts!), but I guess that's what I get for being Assistant Manager and also us being short. Oh well. Maybe I'll take extra time off around Christmas. We'll see.

Anyway, I painted my nails for Thanksgiving. I used China Glaze Champagne Kisses (a little more pink in person and less gold), mostly, but did accent nails with SpaRitual Liquid Gold for the base. I haven't done nail art in a while and was going to do the turkeys on both hands, but decided doing the turkey on my right hand wasn't going to work out well (I'm right-handed) so I opted for the Pilgrim hat instead. (The nail art was done with various nubar nail art pens.) It was easier to do, but I still messed it up a little too. Oh well! I still like it for Thanksgiving! I think this weekend (next day off on Sat) I'll try a water marble...

On to movies...

Skyfall (Daniel Craig, Judi Dench) - It wasn't too bad. It showed the "softer" side of Bond with Dench's M, which I really liked. It showed their loyalty to each other. This was probably the best of the 3 Craig Bond films. It kind of had everything: emotion, action, nicely cinematic scenes, a crazy villain, etc. I liked the villain too since he was always just a little ahead of Bond/MI6. The Bond Girl had a sort of "rough" go in this movie, though...My one thing about the film is that Craig has 2 more Bond films to do and I'm kind of finished with him as Bond. It's not so much that I don't like him as Bond, but Craig is getting a little old to play Bond. So I hope they do the films sooner rather than later and I hope they play more along Skyfall's lines. They acknowledged his age in Skyfall and I appreciated that. It would be nice to see Bond back to his normal kick-butt/suave manner too, but to keep to the storytelling like Skyfall, which had depth. Grade: B+

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Steve Carell, Kiera Knightley) - Let me first say that I liked this film. It had a vulnerability to it, but when you sat down and thought about the film, you started to wonder about its rhythm or something. I don't know. There's just something slightly off about the film and, let's be honest, it does have a kind of depressing-happy end. I did like it overall, though, and it was an interesting movie about what do you do when the world is going to end and you know when it'll end. Seeing Carell and Knightley together was sort of weird, but it somehow worked for both their characters. Knightley's Penny is sort of the care-free one and Carell's Dodge was the one who wanted "the life," but somehow fell short in every way. They end up together on the road together to achieve their final goals before the world ends. I liked it, but it does sort of go from one thing to another, but also somehow worked for me. I don't know. I liked it, but it's not fantastic either. It was a good rental. Grade: B/B- (B, if you don't think about it too much...)

The Expendables 2 (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Chuck Norris, etc) - After recently watching the first one, I wanted to watch the 2nd one. I have to say, I'm glad I did. I actually liked the 2nd one more than the 1st one! There's actual laughs (intentional laughs) and the girl just wasn't a maiden in distress (she was smart and held her own). The story was a little more far-fetched and silly than the first movie (first one made a little more sense to their band of guys), but it's not like you expected Shakespeare or something in this either so I feel like the actual storyline is moot as long as the rest of it supports it and it does. There was still a lot of guns, explosions, knives, blood, etc, but it was much better this time and the story helped those explosions, knives, blood, etc along a little better. You also saw the "softer" side of the guys when "Billy the Kid" ends up dying. Chuck Norris in the film cracked me up, though. They definitely made his role to fit his enigma and they even got in a Chuck Norris joke, which really made me laugh (actually, almost every scene with Norris was my favorite). I could have lived without Schwarzenegger (*gag*), but I liked Bruce Willis. So, yeah, better than the first one, in my opinion, but it's still silly too. Grade: C+ (maybe a B- just because I really liked the Chuck Norris joke!)

With that...I'm off to read. Once again, a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I have a lot to be thankful for and it's always good to remember the good in our lives.

I survived!

*Pinches self* Did I really make it through a 7-day work week?! Really?! I seem to be here and not in a zombie state. I didn't maim, kill, throttle, or yell at anyone either. Huzzah! Granted, that doesn't mean *I* wasn't yelled at during the week, but at least I wasn't maimed, killed, or throttled.

I must say that working 7 days really isn't as bad as it sounds. Sure, no one in their right mind would work more than 5 if they could help it and, yes, I would rather work 6 over 7, but, mentally, by the time you get to 7-days, it sort of like "Eh. Okay." I find working 6, sometimes, is far worse mentally because it's just one extra day of work and you start to wind down on your 5th, as you normally would, so the 6th day is horrible to get through. When you work 7 (according to myself), you keep yourself going and never let yourself wind down because you know you have TWO extra days to get through. It's why I think I'm here blogging instead of passing out on my bed. Course, I may not be passing out because my body is really messed up with all the open/close repetition I had all week. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but it still wasn't enjoyable and I feel a little off in my sleep/normal pattern.

Anyway, work itself wasn't too bad. I did feel like I was in the office a lot my last 2 days, but it wasn't all bad. The help that came in was very helpful, but one of our problem customers did cause us problems and I got yelled at in Farsi. That was fun. I had to threatened to call the cops too. Yeah. That was my Wednesday night and my Thursday (day 7) morning was involved with trying to come up with ways to communicate with her. I feel like we had some major breakthroughs, though. Then, on top of all that, today we had furniture after furniture donation and that means I have to price and put them out and we had a call out almost everyday and...*sigh* I'm glad it's finished! My only worry is that I had to deal with today like I was leaving the kids alone for 2 days. Only one Lead is left for the next two days and a Lead from another store. I had to make sure our Lead knew what to do for different situations and how to do some other things. Not to mention I had to show where phone numbers were in case something happened. Crazy, I tell you, crazy! Anyway, glad that's over with...I think. I still have that feeling of leaving the kids alone for 2 days...!

Life goes on...And what do I do to unwind? Catch up on my nail stuff! The indie polishes are making some awfully cute holiday polishes. Going to have to be careful what I want to buy and really recheck what I buy so I don't buy everything! I will say, though, that there are two things that nail polish has really made me aware of this past year: New York Fashion Week and Colors/Causes-Awareness Days. NYFW is especially popular with all the nail brands as they tend to do polishes for them. Zoya, in particular, tends to work with a fashion designer to make custom polishes. Some other brands lend their polishes for the runway and others bring new collections to showcase. Nail polish is a part of the make-up/fashion world! The bloggers really like to do blogger challenges and so on awareness/cause days, they all blog about the issue and do nail art or pick colors that coordinate. November 14th is World Diabetes Day (color for that is blue). November 8th was No H8 (anti-bullying and tolerance and tended towards purple). Of course Oct was Breast Cancer Awareness (lots of pink!). There's also Autism awareness (is that gray?) and lots of others. Who'd of thought nail polish would teach me about these different causes and their days to bring awareness of them.

With that...Movie!

Watched Moonrise Kingdom. It has an interesting adult cast (Bruce Willis, Billy Murray, Tilda Swinton, etc), but it's really about the two young stars. I'm still sort of baffled by the point of the movie, but I'm sure it has something to do about love and innocence...The two young stars end up running away with each other and are in love with each other. The town ends up running around trying to find them (they're 12 years old) and you find out they each have a sort of misunderstood persona about them. Their families and friends don't truly get them and they sometimes tend towards violence. They actually have a lot in common. I liked the feel of the film (set in the 1960's) and I enjoyed the acting. It's definitely a quirky independent film, but I liked it. I don't think it would be for everyone, though. There's something touching to see these two young people eloping (basically) and trying to be together while all these adults around them find it irrational and unaccepting. The kids don't see what's the problem since they're in love and simply want to be together. It's an unassuming film with its quirkiness, sometimes dry-quirky humor, and excellent pacing. I enjoyed it, but it's definitely not for everyone.  Grade: B

And now...I think I'll get back to reading. I've finished 2 books this week! I'm on to my 3rd. This does mean my TV shows have taken quite a hit, especially when I was gone in SoCal for 5 days. I have so many episodes to watch, I think I'll just wait till the winter break to catch up or something...

Welcome back to life...

...Ugh. Not to say that my week back to life has been horrible, but I'm day 2 into my 7-day streak of work and I realized yesterday that those 7-days go: open, close, open, close, open, close, open. NOT fun...Open to close is great, but close to open is not fun. I get 12 hours before I have to be back at work. On top of it, my manager is gone for, basically, 2 weeks so I get to man the store and people are being brought in to help cover open/close shifts and general help since the manager will be gone and one of our leads is gone. So leadership team? We're down half. *sigh* I have since warned all my fellow co-workers that if I'm cranky come Wednesday/Thursday, I have every reason to be! :)

I did forget to mention (not sure how that happened!) that I got an iPad mini! My dear parents (especially my dad) got me the iPad mini and it was decided it's an early Christmas present. Fine with me! I love it. I'm not sure if it's more because I went from an iPad 1 to the iPad mini or if I sincerely just love the size and capabilities of the mini. At any rate, I adore it. I still use my iPad 1 and will probably keep it for now, but I really like my iPad mini. It's especially fantastic how light it is. It doesn't fit in my hand (I've got girly hands...?), but it's easy to read with because it's so light and I love the retina display on it. Granted, those two latter things are probably due to my iPad 1 being, well, old, but I like my iPad too! I didn't ever realize it was slow till I got the mini...I actually might enjoy reading on my iPad instead of my iPhone for once...I can't tell you how many books I have read on my iPhone. I've read quite a few on my iPad (iPad is especially good for PDFs over the iPhone), but I probably read 5xs more books on my iPhone than my iPad for all sorts of reasons. The mini might just be the perfect compromise...

At any rate, I am reading a new book and I stopped reading for a while. I'm not going to reach my book goal I set. I just stopped reading and couldn't get into anything. Actually, before I left on my trip, I had another "didn't want to watch or read anything" week. I seem to have gotten out of that. I also stopped in at a B&N (I miss Borders...) and did a quick run around and wrote down book titles, so we'll see.

With that...On to movies! Two movies that are going to be deemed as "adult" movies, 1 family friendly and 1 sci-fi film. Eclectic week...

Rock of Ages (Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, etc) - It was okay. The music was interesting. The acting was okay. It kind of reminded me of a happier ending version and a little more silly version of Country Strong with Gwyneth Paltrow. I guess Hough wasn't really a protegee type, but it's still the young, cute couple who both want to sing and they adore some big star and, yaddy, yaddy. Boneta's character was probably more the protegee type. It's just a little sillier and a happier ending than Country Strong. I liked it, but it didn't "wow" me or anything. Grade: C

Arthur Christmas (voices: James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, etc) - Technically, this is a 2011 movie. I adore McAvoy. I have seen him in a good portion of his latest films (from Narnia to present) and I've liked him in everything he's been in (even if it's an animation film!). This is his 2nd animation film he voiced and I liked it! I enjoyed the voice cast (I adore Hugh Laurie too) and I liked the film. It was a pleasant film to watch and it touched me. It's fun, exciting, and also speaks to the excitement of Christmas for children. Sure, the kids believe in Santa (Arthur is the current Santa's youngest son), but it was more about remembering the magic of Christmas and not letting the presents and "process" we get into for Christmas ruin the magic of Christmas. The entire story revolves around them trying to deliver a present to a kid before she woke up. I liked it. It was also funny because it spoke about changing traditions. So the letter to Santa in the beginning is all scientific and how presents are now delivered is heavily based on technology (reindeer? Who needs reindeer?). I liked it. I might watch it again in December. I will say that the animation is excellent too. It's not the "realistic animation," but I thought it was good. Grade: A-

Prometheus (Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender) - Going to be up front and say I have not watched any of the Alien movies; therefore, I can't accurately say one way or another how good it is in comparison of the Alien movies. In addition, I feel at a slight disadvantage because I watched it (it's not that scary...I actually found it more "gross" at points and, even then, not that often) and then went, "It wasn't so bad, but what's the fuss?" It felt a little disjointed to me. I wonder if that's how people feel if they watched Star Wars Episodes 1-3 first before 4-6. I mean, after you've watched 4-6, you kind of have a "point" to have 1-3 and you look out for those tidbits of canon to help fill in the gaps. This one felt like it might have been better to have watched Alien first and THEN Prometheus because it was kind of like "Really? That's it. I watched all that for the last 5 minutes to figure out where Alien came from?". So, I feel like I'm missing some canon significance for the movie that I would have been like "Ooh!" if I had watched Alien first. Oh well. At any rate, the movie wasn't bad or anything. The acting was good. I liked Fassbender and Rapace. I knew going in that the team was doomed, but not sure how. I just didn't get the fuss, I guess... Grade: C

Magic Mike (Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, etc) - Okay, you're thinking, "Why in the world did she watch that?" I was curious! To be honest, other than the gyrating and a couple of scenes in thongs, there's not a whole lot to fuss about. You probably see just as much male skin in any other movie. There are a few scenes of bare female breasts, but, really, not as much as people sometimes think. I will say that after watching the dance scenes all I could think was, "Really? There are women and men who like watching the opposite dance like this? It's so boring..." To say the least, I was only "half" watching it as I was nail polish browsing...The story was kind of interesting. Sure, the kid is brought in, but it's really about Tatum and the kid's sister's relationship and how she, ultimately, gets him out of the gig and encourages him to reach his goals another way. The kid, unfortunately, is more-or-less lost to the life. So, yeah. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, overall. Would I recommend it? Not really. Grade: C

With that...80 movies! Yay! Feasibly...I think the rest of the year's movies will be Skyfall, Hobbit, and Les Mis in theater; I might surprise myself and see Twilight in theater, but Anna Karenina for sure is a rental next year. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Moonrise Kingdom, Expendables 2, and Lawless will be rentals. Might be more, but I can't see the movie rentals past the first week of December. Might watch Hope Springs and, if I'm desperate, maybe Stolen (Nicolas Cage...Why do I want to torture myself?!). So that's 7 films for sure. I'm pretty sure I can push it to 10 given I can't see the last 3 weeks of December movie rentals and Twilight might sneak in. I actually think I might watch this Twilight on DVD, which will be the first one I haven't seen in theater and it's kind of fitting since, pretty much, this part of the movie is also the part of the book I never finished (I skimmed, read reviews, etc, so I know what happens). We'll see. :) So...Maybe 90 movies for the year! Not bad, but it also makes me want to try to reach 100 next year and that's just...scary...to think about!

With that...Should go to bed since I have to open tomorrow. Ugh.

2012 Breeders' Cup

What a fun 5-days off from work! It has been well worth all the money spent to come down and I really enjoyed my 5 days away from work. Do I have to go back?

I'm not even sure where to start. It was great to see the family in San Clemente and see the new house. Seeing family is always good. The weekend highlight (no offense to anyone) was the Breeders' Cup, though. It was excellent weather. I don't think anyone could have asked for better. It was sunny, small breeze, and low 80's. I went with Tori and we got there about an hour later than we wanted because we went to the San Gabriel Nail Supply store that was about 15 minutes away from the track. It was like a time warp in there! It did not feel like we were in there for an hour. Yes, we bought some polish, but we won't discuss how much. I will say that their polishes are cheaper than buying them retail. OPI go for about $8 and they sold them for $5.25. China Glaze were about 50% off (around $3) and some were only $2 (Misa, which are really hard to find). It was a lot of fun. They didn't have all the new collections, but they had a fair amount. It was fun! I've been to one other nail supply place in San Jose and they are fun to shop in! I will say the fumes started getting to me towards the end, but it wasn't too bad. Huge store in San Gabriel!

Arriving at the track that "late" (3 hours after the gate opened at 8am) meant we parked in the boondocks, but it wasn't too bad. We walked in and it was crazy! I didn't realize they had brought in some of the food trucks of LA in (Tastes of LA). They also had some of the horse rescues there and tents of merchandise and a Zenyatta merchandise tent. Not to me to mention 55,123 people were there that day. We didn't buy seat tickets, but it wasn't too bad and there were seats around if we were inclined to sit. It took a little adjusting to figure out where things were and where we were allowed to go. The paddock was closed off, which is a little bit of a bummer, but with all the family members of everyone wanting in to see the horse in the paddock and all the people, I can see why it was blocked off. The paddock was FULL of people. It was PACKED. I usually like watching the horses get saddled and then walking around the paddock, but it was too crazy. So we went to the track to watch the races and try to find a spot while everyone was at the paddock. One nice thing is there's a kind of migration in horse racing of people going to the paddock to see the horses and then walking to the track to watch the race and then back again. It's basically what kills the time between races (about 30 min). Before the race ends, the next horses are entering the saddling area to get saddled. So sometimes you sometimes have to sacrifice what good views or something to get to somewhere else (or just be quick to leave and enter).

Anyway, we missed the 4th race, which was the first BC race, to get orientated, but we did see the National Anthem get sung. I say "see" because the PA system had issues so we didn't get to hear it all. Really? Big event like this and the PA malfunctions...oh well. I found the Zenyatta merchandise tent. So many things I wanted and held back! I got the new t-shirt and a tote bag, but I wanted the new poster (actually 2 new posters), the mini pewter that was sold out online, and the black tote bag, but they were expensive and I knew I wanted some BC souvenirs too. I ended up with 2 BC shirts. I found a really cute one after I found the typical venue one (location, logo, year). I wanted a sweatshirt, but the sweatshirt I wanted they either sold out of or didn't bring to the location. It's available on-line (I was stalking the on-line store before I went), but I don't know if I want to spend the cost for shipping so now I'm debating whether to get it or wait to see if it'll still be available when they do the discount. I think discounts tend to be the final, final stuff and that is usually the really expensive stuff left. We'll see!

After that, we went and watched the 5th race. We watched a few them. We had a good spot near the finish line. Nice thing about Santa Anita is the grandstand blocks the sun so the grandstand and apron are all in the shade, which was nice. The races were good. It's amazing to see that many good horses compete against each other. I've only see one Grade 1 race up to that point and these races were all top notch with top notch horses. It was crazy and especially hard to figure out who you wanted to win. Normally I can pick horses based on pedigree, odds, jockey, owner, and trainer, but these required some studying because they all were accomplished horses so you needed to look at works and past races. Past races isn't just looking to see if they won, but where they placed, by how much, the race distance, who placed or won, the race fractions, etc. It's time consuming! It's also not what I'm used to either. It made me feel like a real handicapper. I didn't so much do any predictions on Sat, but I tried before the day and it was definitely time consuming. I can see why the Daily Racing Form is important to have.

After a few races, we wandered around and then decided to go to the infield. I've never been in an infield of a racetrack before. It's huge! I knew you could bring lawn chairs for the infield, but figured they'd fill up quickly. Not quite the case! There's this huge area in the back of it that looks like the size of a soccer field. It's lower than the rest. Looks like they might have dug it out to be a lake (lots of tracks have lakes in the center), but grassed it in instead. Outside of that, there were areas to sit on the "rim". There was also the main area that had a big playground for kids, 2 fountains, bathroom, betting windows, mini-BC stores, food, and the jumbo screens too. I know some days they even have a petting zoo back there. It's a really nice area! It was like being at a park, but it's in the center of a racetrack. People had blankets, small coolers, chairs, and one had a radio. We wandered far out away from everyone and decided to watch the races from the back. It was hard to hear the PA system, but it wasn't a big deal since I could read/watch the races at home afterwards. We also couldn't see the start for some races or the finishes for any of them, but it was okay. I could see the horses with only the fence and the inside dirt track between me and them. It also was a really nice day so between races we laid in the grass and enjoyed the weather. When a race started, we got up and went to the fence. I really enjoyed it and it was a nice little reprieve from the nuttiness at the grandstand (so many smokers, downside of the the racetrack). You could also hear the horses hooves hitting the ground it was that quiet out there. I tried getting video of it, but the dumb plane and helicopters kept coming by right then. So I heard it the first time and not the 2 next times. Grrrr.

After that, we went back to watch the Classic from the grandstand. Mostly, I wanted to get photos of the buglers, which I hadn't done, yet. That took a little work because I wasn't sure exactly where they'd be so I asked the guy at the head of the Clubhouse entrance. He was nice and said he'd let me go across to see if I could get a photo (I didn't get told I was in the wrong place for once! Yay!). Turns out, as I was waiting over there, I couldn't get actually to the spot I wanted because there was another person to bypass, that they were on the other side to do the call to post so I had to run back around and try to find a spot. Unfortunately, that was around the time Tony Bennett arrived to sing "Best is Yet to Come." So it was PACKED where I was. I missed the very first few seconds of the call to post, but not too much. Usually, the buglers do some other song piece afterwards, but Bennett sang in lieu of that. The song was sort of the "theme song" for this year's Breeders' Cup (it was in all the advertisements and the "slogan"). I watched the last race from my spot (the $5 million Classic) and that's when my camera was running low on battery and I got fuzzy photos. Oh well. I got to see it in person at least!

We left the track afterwards and headed to the mall to get dinner and see a friend while the parking lot cleared out. It was sort of like playing human frogger...Luckily the parking lot was pretty packed with cars trying to leave, but cars were packing out, merging, etc. It was a little scary sometimes! We also had to find a hole in the fence because the parking lots for the mall and the track boarder each other, but there's a fence to delineate between the two (also probably to keep track people from parking at the mall). We found a hole and grabbed dinner with one of my Leaky Cauldron friends. It was fun to chit chat and nice to eat and relax. I got a root beer float, which was nice! After that, we headed back down to San Diego for shopping fun and relaxation!

I took lots of photos, but had certain things I wanted photos of. I got them all! Some are better photos than others, though. LoL My camera died at the very last race and I was rushing to get photos so I wasn't making sure they were focused. Oops. Oh well. I did get my normal stuff: Paddock, track view, bugler(s), horses running (start, finish), carriage horses, and heading to the track/parading. For this day...In particular, I got the Zenyatta statue! Yay! Also got the Breeders Cup statue too.

Tori and I want to go again next year! We want to buy seats, dress up, and wear fun hats. There's also the possibility if we wanted, that we could just go to the infield with lawn chairs (bring some snacks/drinks too!). I tell you, it was really relaxing being out there. It's a whole other experience and just as fun. The apron, I didn't realize, also was allowed chairs, which are probably some of the better seats to have. You can bring a chair and sit there and you're super close to the track. For some reason I thought the apron wasn't allowed chairs. It would require you to arrive as early as possible to get an apron seat, but the infield has lots of space. I definitely would sit near the back, though, because the hedges for the home stretch sort of block the view. There are no hedges in the back stretch to block the view. 

At any rate, it was a lot of fun!

Here are all my photos: 2012 Breeders' Cup Photos/Videos

There are just a couple of videos. My nails for the BC are also there at the end.

I'll update with a few movies later in the week. Returning to work today (Tues) was okay. I had to clean-up a few places, but apparently it was far worse while I was gone and it really wasn't too bad. We were also short staffed a lot the past week. One of my co-workers has pneumonia and another got sick. Ugh! Oh well. I work 2 days, take a day off, and then work 7 days and start back on a normal week (2 days off and then 5 days). My vacation will well make-up for the 7 days and also temporary manager status while my manager is off at another store for a week and a lead gone AND temp leads helping out. Oh yeah, I need to remember my happy vacation to get me through the next 2 weeks!

With that...I'm off!

Human decency?

Working at any job will have you come face-to-face with difficult people. Most times you bite your lip, hold your attitude, and bear it through as best you can while trying to make the person as happy as possible. Sometimes these "difficult people" come in at bad moments for yourself and are simply high maintenance and require a lot energy to handle (e.g., people who want 2 items in this bag, 3 in this bag, and make sure you double-bag one of the bags). Occasionally, you have a person who doesn't speak English as his/her first language and you have a language barrier and they become difficult because they don't understand. Other times, they generally are difficult to work with and you can't please them no matter what you do (e.g., people who want said items to be bagged in such a way, but you don't do it correctly so they want you to do it again). And then, from time to time, they are sour-minded people who find the world is out to get them and, thus, must treat everyone in a negative manner to make themselves feel better or, in general, they just are rude and intolerable with a chip on their shoulder and feel like they can treat you badly for whatever reason. I'm sure there are more types of difficult people, but mine generally come down to the aforementioned four: 1) I'm tired, 2) language barrier, 3) they're simply picky, or 4) they have a serious attitude issue no matter what.

My questions, though, are why is it that difficult people are the ones who get to act out and get away with it? Why is it deemed "not okay" to be difficult, rude, obnoxious, etc, but we as a society still tip-toe around these people? Why can't we just hit them upside the head and tell them to snap out of it and stop being rude? Why is it when someone sees a portion of a moment with the difficult person (especially if it happens often) does it make you seem like the bad person when you look like you're running out of patience?

I suppose all the answers really come down to confrontation (re: don't like it) and tolerance (re: being the bigger person or accepting it), but they're still fair questions. Why can't I tell a customer to exit the premises without helping them if they're being difficult beyond the realm of tolerance? Okay, so everyone's tolerance levels are different and what is deemed "difficult" is different than someone else's, but, you know, there is a general "level" that most people can agree to. Honestly, where has human decency gone?

I suppose the question to that is: Has there ever been a moment we can say human decency existed on a general level? We as a society do change (e.g., perception of women and African-Americans) and hindsight is 20-20, but you wish there's at least a general level that we can be civil to each other. Unfortunately, apparently that doesn't really exist on a macro-level. Sure, maybe on a micro-level (i.e., person-to-person) it does exist. I'm courteous to my neighbors. I'm helpful to the elderly on the street. Yet, when it comes down to it, how often does it crop up that we question human decency?

This is all mostly just rhetorical thoughts bouncing around my head and you're probably wondering where this all came from. Let's just say that I have had a very (make that a double-underline) trying week (thank goodness tomorrow is my Friday!). What's happening to the world?!

Twice in the last couple of weeks we've had customers come in with a chip on their shoulder from the get-go (difficult person #4 in my earlier list). One lady, for no apparent reason, was really rude to a co-worker (no fault of the co-workers). On top of it, she was a really picky person (difficult person #3). I had to deal with her later and you couldn't even make small talk without her trying to chew my head off and then bagging was difficult nonstop (one in each bag, tie the bag - no, wait, I want to tie it myself - place them gently in the bigger bag, etc). I at least had a heads up about her so I was trying to play it down, but I guess she had a little bit of a cussing episode before I got to her. Then, today, Oh.My.Gosh. The guy threatened a co-worker bodily harm (BEYOND the "normal" realms of difficult person #4)! Who does that?! All over a $20 return! He came in fuming too. The manager got it calmed down (did the return, despite our policy) and then the situation was blown up again. It was like verbal abuse the names he called my co-worker (not the manager) and then threatened us. Yeah, not cool. I hope he never comes back and what are we supposed to do? Act cool and get him out of the store as quickly as possible, while the rest of the shoppers are fidgeting (practically) because of the confrontation (who wants to shop with a guy like that in-store?!). Goodness. Human decency, people, HUMAN DECENCY.

And our favorite difficult person #2 who has been coming in each and every day for the last 1.5 weeks or so. We're pretty much all convinced that she DOES understand English, but plays dumb to try and get us to work around her (to be fair, I KNOW she understood me MUCH better several months ago). At first, we were all nice (she used to come in every few weeks before the recent everyday situation) and she'd come in with her daughter or husband and it wasn't too bad. Lately, it's been bad and VERY bad. Bad to the point of making customers uncomfortable because we sound like we're being mean and/or rude to this older lady who (to them) doesn't understand English. We're not being mean. We're not being rude. Yes, we're being firm with her over our store policies, but it's because she's taken advantage of us enough the past week and we're tired of dealing with it (not to mention we have very long conversations over the same thing everyday...). We've even had customers (a regular) get herself involved because she thought she could help. Yeah, it doesn't. We all basically want to run away when we see her come in, it's that bad. One day she wouldn't leave after I said "no" to her a bazillion times and we threatened to call the cops if she didn't take "no" for an answer and leave (she knows what "no" means for sure and suddenly understood what "calling the cops" meant too). Funny enough, the next customers to come up made a joke of it (it made us all laugh) and they asked how often she came in so they understood why we weren't being nicer or more lenient, but most people don't know the situation. So, in a lot of eyes, I feel like we're seen as the mean guys because we're holding to our policies because this lady keeps taking advantage of us. We're a charity, people, we're nice, but you can't try and take advantage of us everyday and get away with it! Where's the human decency in this situation?!

Truly, no one likes difficult people. I get that. I get that they exist in the world too, but WHY do they need to come around me?! *sigh* As I said, it's been a rough week with difficult people (especially our favorite customer who doesn't speak English...). Ironically enough, I was dealing with the lady who doesn't speak English (another round (after my earlier round) of explaining the same thing that we explain everyday...) and had to go up to the register with her when the whole ordeal of the beyond difficult guy was happening. So the manager and assistant manager were BOTH busy with difficult people, albeit totally different levels. In addition, I had a customer waiting for me to help her, furniture arrived, etc. It was a crazy half hour. After both difficult people left, we had a customer standing in line after the whole thing and I apologized to her profusely and rang her up. Luckily, she was a really nice lady and we actually started talking about Borders, but...man.

I feel so embarrassed to have people like that in-store. It's like you want to tell every customer in-store during the situation that you really are nice people, there aren't these difficult people in-store, generally, and your shopping experience will usually be pleasant! I think the stigma with Goodwill also doesn't help the situation either. Being at a place like Goodwill means people are friendly to you (it's like a neighborhood establishment/family feel with the regulars compared to Borders when you felt all stiff even if they were regulars), but it also means people can think of your store as being "cheap" or "dirty" or has "crazy people" frequent it (won't deny the crazy people, but Borders had crazy people too!). So, yeah.

Difficult people? By far. Human decency? Not so much from them. I'm just glad my week is almost finished. I'm not sure I can take anymore difficult people and the odds of our favorite non-English speaker coming in tomorrow is quite high. Hopefully it's just her and no one else...

In another line of human decency, today I saw a dog get picked up by animal control. It broke my heart. The dog was so friendly that the initial cop on the scene (there were 2 and they were arresting some guy - not sure if the dog was his or not) walked up to it and the dog immediately wanted to be petted and then wanted to play. It was funny because the dog had a crazy minute of running around a nearby tree. I have no clue what led it on, but it was funny. The dog was so happy and really pretty (Shepard-collie mix maybe?). Apparently, it was initially tied up to the tree it was running around because the animal control person (after putting a noose-like leash on the dog) went back and dug around and came up with what looked like a leash (as the cop had the dog). I hope someone didn't tie the dog up and leave it there. I (mostly) hope that the guy who got arrested owned the dog just because at least the dog wasn't abandoned on purpose...It might have been the case too because the animal control person went and talked to the guy through the window of the cop car afterwards. The guy didn't look seriously in trouble, but they did pat him down, cuff him, and went through his belongings and then some other cop showed up in a "community services" truck. No clue. It was weird, but I hope the dog is okay.

With that...

[/rant] ;)

October is Halloween!

It took a few days (okay, it took a week), but I'm FINALLY into the Halloween spirit! Which is good since work is in FULL swing...I haven't thought this much about Halloween costumes and/or clothes since I was 16, probably (whenever my last trick-or-treat was...). It's really crazy to think about, especially since work wants us to be in some sort of little costume everyday. I'm rotating my hats, which get varying degrees of love or looks. One older man made a rude comment about my hat and then, ironically, 20 minutes later, the next comment on my hat was a compliment from an older guy. Figures! Can't please them all, but people typically like our little costumes. I have lowered my costume standards to 3 days of the week, though. Basically, it's the 3 days of potential walk-thrus by our regional boss and one of the criteria for the walk-thrus in Oct is whether employees are in costume. :P I don't think I'll fully dress-up, unless I can think of something easy to work in, but the hats are at least Halloween-y.

At any rate, I'm determined now to have some sort of Halloween-y nail polish on all month. I don't know if I've got enough to do it, but mixed in with some nail art, I should be able to get to the end of the month! It doesn't help that I blew through 3 polishes in the first week...Wasn't loving the application and was trying a new base method (Elmer's glue!), which all resulted in a lot of nail polish changes. I'm sure I can make the latter half of the  month! I didn't go *that* crazy over Halloween polishes, but I know I'm going to have trouble with the fall/winter/Christmas polishes...I'm really into browns lately (bad for fall colors!) and I'm gonna LOVE the Christmas and winter polishes (I want a red and white one that's supposed to be like holly; I want another one that's like snow; another one that's like ice/snow; one with stars; etc...Yeah, I've got an approaching problem...!). So, we'll see.

Anyway, Halloween manis haven't been anything really special, so I'll probably post pictures later if I do anything actually artsy...?

I found out tonight while watching Madagascar 3 that How to Train Your Dragon has a live performance! It's coming to San Jose the end of December (26-30). I want to go!! (Statement deserved two exclamation points!) It's one of my new favorite movies (I can't tell you how many times I've watched it or listened to the soundtrack, but it's been a LOT since it's come out on DVD). Based on reviews, it's not a theater performance, it's an arena performance so the actors are hard to see, but the dragons are supposed to be really cool looking (walk, breathe smoke, etc). It look pretty cool, which you can see some clips and photos on their webpage here. Tickets can get REALLY expensive if you buy the upgrades, but cheapos are a little less than $50 (including fees). That's not *too* bad. Now to find someone to go with me! Any takers? :P

With that...Moving on to movies.

Taken 2 (Liam Neeson) - Well, I can't say it was terrible, but I also can't say it was great either. It was SPOT ON to what I expected it to be: Great action scenes that comprise of most of the movie and the story will suffer for it. Yup, that's exactly what happened. Did I feel like I wasted my money seeing it in theater? No, but it's definitely not something most people need to see in theater and I would generally say people shouldn't see it in theater. Sure, the action scenes were pretty amazing and there's a great hand-to-hand combat scene, but the story was just laughable. I will say, there's one thing I took away from the movie: If you don't want to drive, learn to shoot. There's a semi-comical moment between him and his daughter about the driving vs the shooting. I will say that the end of the movie does lend itself to a possible 3rd one and I DEARLY hope that there is NOT a 3rd one. I mean, really, who's left to kidnap? His friend Sam? Possible (he did make a short appearance in the 2nd one), but I hope not. As much as I loved the first one (watch it about twice a year, if not more), just because the first one was good doesn't mean you have to make a second one. Grade: C

Dark Shadows (Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green) - I don't know anything about the TV show, but I was curious about the movie. It's okay. It's definitely got Tim Burton's mark on the film. The basic premise of the entire thing is that family is the important thing in life (from start to finish). Other than that, there's Green's character who feels slighted by Depp's character, keeps trying to get him to love her, keeps trying to kill off the girls he loves, and, lastly, destroy the family's good name. Yeah, that was pretty much it. Not my favorite Depp film. I mean, yes, Burton makes some odd films, but the story in this lacked or something. Grade: C-

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, etc) - I really enjoyed the film. Sure, the story isn't anything special or new, but how can you not enjoy a film with some of England's finest actors? It's a story about where they all are in their later-in-years life and how going to India and the Marigold Hotel change their lives after the almost 2 months most of them stay. It's also about not giving up on life and what it still has to offer you. I liked all their stories and how they intertwined them and also separated them. There are some characters more likeable than others (e.g., Penelope Wilton (who plays Isobel Crawley on Downton Abbey) plays a character who is not warm-and-fuzzy), but it was a good movie. I liked its generally gentle pace, its laughs here-and-there, and its well-acted characters. Grade: B/B+

Madagascar 3 - I don't think I watched Madagascar 2...If I did, it obviously didn't leave an impression on me at all. To say the least, I just watched it to watch it. It's cute. It's a Madagascar film. This time they're (still) trying to get back to New York and the zoo. They manage to get to Europe, but end up having an animal control person from France after them. To escape, they hitch a ride with a circus and try and get the circus signed for a tour in the U.S. They have to keep moving because the French lady is after them and always close on their tails. It's cute and the circus scene was fun. Not a whole lot to say really other than it was okay. Grade: B

With those...I am up to 76 movies this year! I will definitely watch over 80 movies this year. In theaters alone, I've got 3 or 4 more to watch. Rentals, maybe half a dozen (give or take my random ones!). So...Maybe I can do 90...I don't know. That seems like an awful lot! We'll see, though. :)

With that...Time to change the mani. This one is holding up well, but I'm tired of it.

Movie: 5-Year Engagement

Before my movie update, which is a little premature since I'm seeing Taken 2 tomorrow afternoon, life update.

Got my first peer review response back for my paper for the Aquarium. I've been torn the last week or 2 over whether I wanted a lot of information/help back or want them to side with my findings (mostly, lack of data). On the one hand, you want more information because you want more information, but that can also look like I didn't do my due diligence and was a sloppy researcher. Granted, it's nearly impossible to exhaust all sources of information, especially when I've got a language barrier, but you don't want to feel like you missed some obvious stuff! So, on the other hand, I want them to side with me because then it looks like my struggles and paper looks like I DID do my due diligence and I'm, basically, validated in my findings, but that's also kind of a bummer because you want more information! What a conundrum...My first response has been in agreement with me so that felt good. I feel like even if the others are like, "She missed this and this paper and why is this this way?" at least I had that one that was in agreement with me. I guess a balance of reviews would be nice in that regard. So, I feel somewhat good today. Still waiting for other responses, but at least one is out of the way and I can relax tonight (my Friday!).

Today, at work was absolutely exhausting. I actually took (if I was lucky) a 10 minute lunch (normally ours are half-hours) and skipped my last break. Skipping one break a day isn't that unusual (I've done it before, I'm the worst of everyone about that), but I usually, at least, take my full half-hour lunch! It was just crazy...I was running all over the place. I rarely had a minute where I was just standing around doing nothing. If it wasn't a store credit, it was paint being spilled on our floor (once again, I am thankful we don't have carpet...though, I admitted that I probably cleaned the store's floor more often than my own, which...what does that say about me and my housekeeping? LoL), or someone needing help with furniture, or furniture coming in, or whatever. It was just nuts. We also hired a new person this week and our new Lead is still learning how to do store credits and things like that so I was training and juggling things. I didn't even think to do inventory today, which is done on Thursdays. It totally escaped my mind it was so nuts for me. I can't even say that the store itself was busy and business was crazy. It was just all the people and things that came up that were nuts. It doesn't help when you have 2 regular high-maintenance customers that come in and monopolize quite a bit of my time. I at least knew their situations, which makes a world of difference, but it was still time consuming. I'm just glad work is over and it's my Friday! I NEED the weekend to recover from today!

In other stuff, not a whole lot is going on. I haven't done my nails since the last time. I can't wait till my right index nail grows out, though. Ugh. Thankfully my nails grow really fast, but still!

It's been a crazy TV watching week with Sunday and Monday such heavy days for me. Six shows on Sunday is a little crazy...Normally Sundays were kind of slow for me, but now it's my biggest day and Monday has 4! Thankfully, Tuesday has no shows...Course, Sundays I track 7 (Dexter is the 7th), but since I'm 2 seasons behind in Dexter, I need to catch up at some point. Monday's 4th show is Revolution, but I think I'm going to drop it. I don't seem to really want to watch the 2nd episode. I did like 666 Park Avenue, but it is a horror/drama and it was a little scary (says the person who does NOT like ANYTHING remotely scary). So we'll see how long I can keep with it, but it does grab you fairly early. It'll be a good show, if nothing else, to talk with my co-workers about. Elementary wasn't too bad, but it might be a little early to tell. So, if you take out Revolution and Dexter, I'm watching 18 shows a week...Project Runway ends soon and I'm not sure about Arrow. So, I could be at 16 or 17 shows soon. There's also Nashville to try out, which isn't included in the count! You realize 18 shows at about 45 minutes each is 13.5 hours of TV a week? Huh. Wonder what that says about me...

Anyway, on to the Five-Year Engagement with Jason Segal and Emily Blunt. Honestly, this movie felt like I spent 5 years watching it. I was expecting a comedy or rom-com and it was more of a dramedy (drama-comedy) and, I'm sorry, but it was a failed attempt. It was funny where it was meant to be funny, but, other than that, there weren't many laughs and the drama was REAL drama. Oh man...There were moments I just wanted to slap them to tell them to wake up or something! It was also 2 hours long and it was a LONG 2 hours to watch...There was abundant cussing and it made me laugh because even Chris goes, "Wow, there's a lot of cussing. I don't think you should be listening to this!" (I don't cuss, so lots of cussing around me becomes really apparent to people who know me.) It wasn't like every line or even most of the movie, but there were a few scenes (especially the times when they argue) that it's heavy cussing. Perhaps the funniest thing was when Blunt's character got shot in the knee with an arrow by their about 5-year-old niece. It was only funny because of Skyrim and the "took an arrow to the knee" jokes ("I used to be "blank," until I took an arrow in the knee"). I guess the whole principle with the movie is that couples will always have their disagreements and compromises, but as long as you are willing to work through them, you can make it as a couple? I don't know. I don't recommend it. Grade: D

Tomorrow I'm seeing Taken 2 and I'm excited to see it, but also don't have my hopes set high for the movie either. I'm sure it'll be a good action film, but don't expect much else. I am excited for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel coming out on RedBox in 1.5 weeks. I really want to see that. Not a whole left in the year to watch in theaters...There's maybe Breaking Dawn, Part II and for sure Hobbit and Les Mis. I guess that's better for the wallet! DVD rentals, there's a few. Since RedBox is on a delay, it's a little confusing when I will be able to access some movies. So we'll see!

With that...I'm trying to catch up with Burn Notice. I've got 6 more episodes to catch up! Not to mention I might paint my nails tonight (if I don't fall asleep...).