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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life… 

Thursday, February 9
Had some fun with Heathre the Housekeeping Manager today…We had an 11am supervisor/manager meeting, which Araceli used to issue us assignments for conducting a simulated QA inspection…Heathre and I were assigned some maintenance and housekeeping stuff, so we headed off to the facilities building.

Dan was in the engineering office taking some training, so we pestered him with the items, stuff like is work being tracked liked it should and are these reports being generated and logs being filled out…They were, too, which gave Maintenance a perfect score, tho I deducted a couple of points simply for Dan being Dan.

Then we went and checked the Pak and Play log…Pak and Plays are, more or less, cribs that sit on the floor, and the houseman are supposed to log in when they take one to a room and when it is brought, not to mention noting that its been cleaned and is still in good repair.

This log was not up-to-date, obliging Heathre to deduct points from her own department…What is almost interesting as on the table where the log is kept there was a turned-over wine glass, a fork, and some salt and pepper…For reasons I am not entirely prepared to explain, this reminded of the POW/MIA table you see at Legion functions…They vary, but generally include a plate and a glass with perhaps some salt and a lemon, among other things.

I told Heathre about this, and made some lame joke about how this could be the Missing/Cancelled Guest table, honoring guests who couldn’t make it for their stay. This was not a Line of the Year candidate and got the half-smile, half-chuckle it deserved.

Then we went to actually inspect the Pak and Plays themselves…They were a pain in the neck, frankly, and I don’t think we ever got one completely opened, and closing them was a pain, too, tho we declared all of them fit for duty…Heather thought I’d’ve been more help with these, but I told her I never bothered to reproduce and have no clue how these work…She does have kids, tho, so I don’t know what her excuse was.

Had a funny line with a guest, too…I went in at 5am today and he stumbled in about 30 minutes later…An older gentleman, the kind who have been stopping by a lobby early in the morning to say hi at hotels since time immemorial.

Anyway, he was in the mood to chat about our new president and he was wailing away about this and that and preface one rant by saying “45 men have been president…”.

Well, that is not true…I held a finger up and, Upset of the Year, he stopped talking.

Uh, Sir, 44 men have been president…Grover Cleveland served non-consecutive terms…

He looked at me like I had 22 heads for a second before pointing at me and saying I was right!!!…It’s generally useless knowledge like this that, perhaps, explains why it took me so long to find a mate.

It was family dinner night at the local diner tonight…Me, The Wife, Sir Allan, Her Majesty and her visiting shipmate…I had my usual Stromboli while Sir Allan had its cousin, the calzone…I’m still not entirely sure what the difference is, tho Sir Allan declared one was rolled, the other folded.

Anyway, Sir Allan ate his differently than I ate mine, preferring to eat the ends first…I don’t see the point to this, starting in on the middle sections first…I noted this.

You know, the ends are mainly crust, taking up valuable stomach space from the tasty center.

Sir Allan considered the matter at length, before dismissing it…He resumed eating his calzone one end first, then working his way down.

When we go home we played a game that involves putting an implement and mouth and reading some zany phrase off a card that your teammates have to guess…A correct guess gets you a point.

This was the most bizarre experience of my life…I am not making that up…The sole purpose of the game is to make everyone look like a dolt…It was pretty fun, tho I spent too much time wondering exactly who the hell thought this diversion up…I mean, someone had to think up the idea of putting something in your mouth and trying to talk and someone had to approve it for development…

The instructions for the implement were funny, too…The last one was “Take it out of your mouth when your turn is over” which with three ex-US Navy sailors there led to some pretty funny lines because, well, you know, humor like that is what sailors specialize in.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.

It was inspired by the 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life… 

Tuesday, February 7
Went to the next county with Sir Allan today…Recall there’s a really good meat shop there, and Allan was interested in going there…Not because we need anymore meet in the house – we don’t, we have enough to feed the crew of a small frigate – but because they have an awful lot of sauces and seasonings and a grill guru like Sir Allan needs his options…All told, he spent almost $50 in seasonings and whatnot, most of which he’s taking home with him.

We also went to a hardware store, and the grocery store in town…Before we pulled out Sir Allan noted this had the makings of a pretty good guy trip.

– A butcher shop and a hardware store…Can’t get any more manly than that…
– Maybe there’s a strip joint out there, too!!!
– I don’t think we want to go to a strip joint in the next county… 

Good point.

We had to go to the hardware store because Sir Allan was repairing the screen door and that thingamajig on the stop that regulates opening and closing came off…It came off when the door was being repaired because there was a hitch in it, which is a Sparrow Technical Term (STT) for you had to lift it a bit when closing it before it would catch on the latch.

The big news is we switched coffee brands!!!…I am not making that up!!!We had been rolling with a leading national brand, but while in the next county I stopped at the grocery store there to see if they had their house brand breakfast blend, which is really good, one of my faves…The Wife doesn’t like it, but she wasn’t there for consultations.

Sir Allan was, tho, and he suggested Chock Full O’ Nuts…I looked at him…His opinion carries weight with me, so I said sure and immediately authorized the brewing of an afternoon pot of coffee to test drive it…It was really good, too, tho you can never really tell until the first morning pot is down the hatch.

Had a pretty good workout, my first in a couple of weeks…Recall last week I had the fitness test on Tuesday and fitness test recovery on Wednesday, so I didn’t pump any iron…Today I got a regular workout in, plus some cardio and even sat in the sauna for a while before heading to the hot tubs for my soak.

We have yet another visitor!!!…Cheyenne, a friend of Her Majesty’s from the Navy came is coming in later tonight, well after I will have retired…She is flying in to the big city and taking the shuttle into town and Her Majesty and Allan will pick her up…I suppose as a proper host I should probably wait up, but The Wife will be up to welcome her.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.

It was inspired by the 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life… 

Monday, February 6
Look, I’m a professional…I do NOT mix food with, say, insecticides…Or put anything heavier than a loaf of bread on top of eggs…Sometimes, tho, a customer will tell me just to pile it all in a bag simply to save bags…Today one said it was OK to put some baloney in with some motor oil.

Good gravy…I’ll do whatever you want, altho I still maintain the environment can handle the extra bag it would have taken to separate the motor oil from the food stuffs.

Scott from the resort came thru my line today, as he does from time to time…He had his usual case of Mt Dew, which should probably last him for the drive home, plus an awful lot of chocolate…There was a large bar, plus some smaller bags of M&Ms, a box of chocolate cake mix, plus a can chocolate frosting…I know Valentine’s Day is coming up, but it’s still over a week away and this was awful lot of chocolate, even when you consider Scott is 40 and his wife is in her early 20’s, hubba-hubba.

It’s something to throw at the wife when I get home…Got to keep her happy so I can get my car fixed.

This was funny because Scott’s car/truck always needs fixing…He’s pretty handy and could probably get it purring like a kitten over the weekend, but he’s the type who’s never truly happy unless he’s fussing with his car.

I’m pretty tired by the time the Monday retailer shift rolls around, frankly, and today during a lull in Hour 2 I was considering options for my break…It was the classic conundrum: the rather comfortable chairs are in the second floor breakroom, up a flight of stairs, which require walking up to get to…The first-floor break room has lousy chairs, but it does have the advantage of not having to scale stairs to get to it…In the end, I managed to crawl my way up the stairs because a comfy chair sounded worth the effort it took to get to it and I actually ended up falling asleep for a bit, and I was bit late reporting back to the trenches, altho Sir Thomas didn’t say anything because the 15-minute break rule here couldn’t be more broken if they issued prizes for non-compliance.

It’s been kinda slow lately, and there hasn’t been a decent Bachelor Purchase of the Night in ages, meaning it’s been a while since I’ve been able to trot out the old fave “are-these-snacks-or-is-this-a-meal-plan” line…I did get off a funny tonight, tho.

It came with these couple of guys were checking out…I advised them to have a good night, which one guy indicated might be a challenge.

Well give it a good try, that’s all we ask…

Finally got around to checking my numbers at the end of the shift: 91 customers, $3,985 worth of product moved, an average of $43 and change per customer…These numbers blow, frankly, but I can only help those who come thru my line…I can’t crap customers.

When I got home dinner was waiting…The Wife, Her Majesty and Sir Allan all tagged team on dinner, which featured crock-potted elk, a salad and Her Majesty’s famous Brussel sprouts, which feature bacon and parmesan cheese…Of course, you could serve me an encyclopedia featuring bacon and parmesan cheese and I’d like it, but it’s still very good.

Sir Allan also has a turkey soaking in brine for smoking and preparation tomorrow.

Afterwards, we played a card game…Her Majesty won, which was funny because she and I were battling it out for last about a third of the way thru…Sir Allan was leading big early, but started sucking hind tit the last two-thirds of the way, while The Wife played well the whole way but finished second.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.

It was inspired by the 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Sunday, February 5
Boy, it was tough going on 880am this morning, as my fave farm station from the next state was, again, in a pitched battle with the Navajo station from down south and the religious station from the coast…This meant the cowboy poet was in and out…Too bad, too, because I leave a few minutes earlier on Sunday mornings so I can hear the cowboy poet, despite the fact I am neither a cowboy nor a poet…As near as I could tell he was talking about being on the road for a spell and leaving his family to care for the ranch, but I don’t know.

I left it on, tho…Even tho I couldn’t really hear him, it was nice to know the cowboy was there…As sometimes happens, by the time Russ and Laurie came on with Hymns From the Heartland the station was coming in pretty good…At the bottom of the hour Russ does the weather and the news, too…On really bad weather days, they’ll have the church closings, altho that doesn’t happen too often…The weather has to be pretty bad to close church in the heartland.

At the retailer, we were getting updates on the Super Bowl from, of all people, Abdul, who’s from Senegal, of all places…The girls, Steph and Aubrey, couldn’t be bothered, and Art chose to pass the time chatting about his amateur pitching career…It turns out he’s still annoyed, 50 years later, by some hapless guy named Sandy who had the nerve to have a small strike zone.

When the Falcons were up big Abdul dutifully counseled patience because, as he noted, the game wasn’t over, a point that seemed inspired when he announced it was 28-28…I didn’t really care, but I stopped at a bar on the way home to watch the overtime session.

Boy, I thought there would be some people stocking up for parties when I got there but no…Even the bachelors weren’t purchasing anything decent, with one guy coming thru with a water filter and some chicken noodle soup…My goodness, I thought, I don’t want to go to your party…You’re even duller me, and I’m spending the game working at the retailer.

I was walking to the back to clock in when I saw Dan-o, his kid Danny, and Scott in line in electronics…They had just come from a hard day working at the resort and were still in uniform.

Christ, what is this, the line for the soup kitchen???

That got some chuckles…I don’t think it will be a Line of the Year candidate but still it’s not too bad, the kind of Guy Humor ol’ Sparrow can be counted on to deliver in Guy Situations.

I spent most the day in the trenches…I did ten minute so of training because after I completed on module it said my next one wouldn’t be available for seven days…I don’t understand that, either.

As you might expect, it was dead slow…With the game on everybody was staying home, except old ladies and foreigners from other countries who couldn’t tell this Sunday apart from last Sunday or even yesterday.

What’s funny about having Anyssa at the front desk is she is as Mexican as a siesta, but she doesn’t hable much Espanol…I am not making that up!!!…Her Spanish is only slightly better than mine, and mine is limited to yo tampoco and mas o menos.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.

It was inspired by the 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Saturday, February 4
I walk back into the back office this morning and Zach, the kid with really good hair, is sitting on a chair.

Zach, I’m growing my hair out…I’ve got some exciting things planned!
I know!!!…I can tell!!!

My hair currently does not look very good…It is not short anymore, but it isn’t long enough to comb yet, either…It’s in hair limbo and I have no clue what I am going to do with it…There isn’t a whole lot on top, but the current fantasy is to grow it out long and full in the back while combing the top back, properly gelled, of course…In order for this to happen my hair would have to display certain qualities it didn’t have the last time I had it grown out, so I will probably end up cutting it short again, especially if I get hired at the Sheriff’s Office.

In other hair news, the anti-gray coloring I’ve been applying every hour on the hour hasn’t shown any results yet.

Zach was key in Jesus’ really funny line today at lunch…There was a potluck today in the Facilities building, and some of the food was stored in a unit…Zach went and inspected the unit, thought the food was left by a guest – lots of guests apparently leave food prepared for a potluck laying around after they leave – and tossed it…This didn’t ruin the potluck, but it did make a dent in the amount of food available.

Anyway, Jesus and I are sitting in the breakroom giving each other crap and Zach walks in…The topic of the trashed potluck food comes out and Zach makes a joke about it while Jesus says the maids are really pissed and I said whomever was responsible should probably watch out then Jesus looks quizzically at Zach and says, with perfect timing and delivery asks:

Is your name Zach???

I told Jesus it was probably his funniest line ever, not that he has a lot of them, but you know.

Anyssa is back at the front desk and I am glad to have her…She is not pregnant anymore, of course, however she does breast feed her girl and she said her lunches are a little longer than usual because she pumps milk during this time and, also, she sometimes goes to lunch on short notice because she doesn’t want to go until she’s “full” which marks the first time as a supervisor I’ve had to coordinate lunch breaks with a lactation schedule.

Very dull at the retailer. I did some training and spent an hour on Aisle 5. There isn’t even a cheap baloney and macaroni and cheese purchase to report.

The Wife is still sickies and her son Sir Allan, reports for a visit tomorrow…He’s a pretty good cook and we have 500 pounds of meat – elk, antelope, cow and perhaps even some road kill in there – ready for him to to smoke and BBQ, two of his favorite pastimes.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.

It was inspired by the 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Friday, February 3
I started thinking about Valentine’s Day plans today…It’s in a couple of weeks, give or take, and it’s on a Tuesday, which means The Wife and I both have the day off.

Our first Valentine’s Day I went all out. We had been dating about a month or so and I splurged, taking her to Lawry’s in Sin City…For the uninitiated, Lawry’s makes about the best prime rib the planet offers, tho I realize this is subjective and, also, that not everyone has had the prime rib ol’ Sparrow makes on Christmas Day.

Anyway, we’ve been pretty low-key for Valentines after that, and The Wife dismissed my plans for going out of town as “impractical”…So were going to the next county…We’ll get a not-too-sleazy room and there is a good Italian restaurant there and it will be a pretty good Valentine’s Day night.

Like they did for our District meeting last fall, the Legion state office is farting around with our spring meeting coming up in April…We had scheduled it for April 29 at our small town post, but Department is, again, interested in going to the District 13 meeting and our meeting (we’re District 14) on the same day.

Crap…District 13 meets about three-and-a-half hours from here, making it impractical to host for us to host the meeting…So I’m trying to get Post 74, the closest post to District 13 and the host of our last two district meetings, to host this one, too…It would be on the same date and in the afternoon, probably, though we could start it in the morning and have the state officers close out the meeting.

If they are unwilling, or unable, to host perhaps one of us could have our meeting on Friday night, but that is as impractical as a Sunday meeting is unpopular.

Today was Leah’s last day at the resort…I am sad to see her go…She was very pleasant to get along and did her job exceedingly well…She is actually transferring to another property the company owns here in town, and I kept telling her I was going find regulation or procedure to prevent it and keep her here, but I wasn’t able to.

We got off easy…Anyssa is transferring back to the front desk from housekeeping…Long-time readers of this crap may recall Anyssa was working the front desk when I started there, on loan from housekeeping because she was pregnant…She went back to housekeeping when she dropped the kid, and now wants back in…This is good because it is hard to find people in general here and doubly tough in the middle of ski season…In fact, we only had one applicant when we had an ad up and that applicant was not particularly qualified, except for having a heartbeat.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.

It was inspired by the 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Thursday, February 2
I did some research today and found there are age-based law enforcement fitness test standards…I don’t know whether or not the Sheriff’s Office used them, but there are some out there….For guys my age, I did very well in the pushups, OK in the situps and probably really lousy in the mile-and-a-half run…I don’t know for sure because I didn’t ask what my time was because if they’d’ve wanted me to know they would’ve told me…It’s kinda like the service, where you don’t go asking too many questions, which was why I didn’t go asking what the standards were in the first place.

Longtime readers of this crap may – or they may not – recall that last ski season at the resort we had no less than three presidential units that were OOC because of water damage…It was a fiasco…Ol’ Sparrow was charged with contacting those reservations in those units and advising their room probably would not be ready for them, to allow them to either accept a downgrade or cancel their reservation and stay somewhere else, or cancel their plans altogether. Not only was keeping track of all this pain in the keester, but not everyone took this news well.

Until Wednesday we had generally avoided this problem, but I came in today and lo and behold in my inbox was the news that two presidential units, one in Bldg 5 and one in Bldg 6 wee OOC because of water damage.

I talked to the guest in who had reserved the Bldg 6 presidential but who found himself in a penthouse unit instead…He was not pleased, and even threw the word ‘garbage’ around a couple of times, plainly trying to instigate an argument.

Well, I wasn’t biting, of course…I was relentlessly pleasant and he was too after a while…I told him the difference in points between the presidential and the penthouse units would, of course, be refunded, but he countered with a full refund, which I was not authorized to do…Unfortunately Alice the GM wasn’t around to make the decision, either, so we’ll see about tomorrow.

The good news is Thania said she will take charge of notifying guests about their units being OOC, which is OK with me.

It is now The Wife’s turn to be sickies…She is milking it for all it is worth, too, which she should, because she took good care of me when I was sickies recently…She’s already determined she is not going to work tomorrow and took some medicine and was sleeping soundly early…I even made her some chicken noodle soup.

The Stromboli I inhaled Tuesday after the fitness test notwithstanding,  my stomach is getting smaller because of all the healthy meals The Wife and Her Majesty make, and I can no longer finish the entire lunch The Wife sends with me to work…She sends an amount you would expect a growing boy like me to consume, but I was only good for half the chicken, peas and bell peppers she sent…This actually isn’t too bad, because I just put the unused half in the breakroom frig for lunch tomorrow.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.

It was inspired by the 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Wednesday, February 1
My offer to do the dinner dishes was accepted!!!

I am not making that up!!!…The Wife and I had just finished a disgustingly healthy meal of organic hamburger patties, an organic salad – except for maybe the leading national brand dressing – and some beans and regular readers of this crap know my offers to do the dishes are routinely dismissed because I’m pretty bad it cleaning anything.

Well, The Wife was beat and didn’t want to them…On the other hand, she despises leaving them overnight, so my offer was accepted…I did a pretty good job, too, and I don’t think anything will have to be re-washed, never a given with me.

Here’s the Sparrow Washing Procedure: first, I wet the sponge, then I put some dish soap on it…Then I rinse the item to be washed…I then make sure the sponge is within a few inches of the item while I make a wiping motion…Then I rinse the item off and, after checking for obvious food particles, place it in the rack.

As it turns out, I was able to get out of bed this morning…My legs were still plenty sore from Tuesday’s run, but they got less sore throughout the day…My goal of not leaving the house was not met, however…Late in the morning The Wife started making her usual noises about going to the next county for this and that and I like going along on these excursions…Of course, there is no reason to go to the next county and not go to the only decent Mexican joint in the tri-state area…Her Majesty joined us, too, and while nothing at the Mexican joint is organic, they did manage to eat fairly well, splitting a bean-and-cheese burrito and each enjoying a taco…I had my usual chorizo burrito and a quesadilla.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.

It was inspired by the 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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