It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Wednesday, December 13
Blue/orange…Times two…The consistency continues.
Recall Mark wasn’t in last week, but the week off didn’t change his philosophy for accenting his Cash Drawer Spreadsheets (CDSS): it was steady as she goes with blue ink for his signature and orange highlighter for the day, date, time, amounts, and the slash thru his name.
Mark and I shared a laff, too…A couple, actually…First off, I was standing at the right station logging in when I turned to face Mark and reported that because the hotel’s Christmas party was at 1600 on a goddamned Tuesday we wouldn’t be there because we would be sleeping.
– This means I won’t be able to sit next to you and Jill.
This is newsworthy because we’ve shared a table the past couple of years and Mark nodded, feigning sadness, which was pretty funny…Then the classic Sparrow pause.
– You two still gonna go???
Mark scratched his beard…Then his tone became serious.
– I don’t know…Jill and I will have to talk it over….
Then there was some paperwork on the back office desk, apparently a manifest (or whatever you call it) for some item that was being sent back to a manufacturer by a guest…The items were controlled by the US government and were listed as a wall plate, control card, and receiver…We stood there looking at it, with Mark looking over our shoulder.
– What should we do with it???
Our tone was significant; Mark shrugged.
– I don’t know…Put it in the AGM’s box???
That sounded reasonable…Push it upstairs is generally trusty advice…We looked at the AGM’s box and it was stuffed like a Christmas goose.
– I don’t see why not…He doesn’t appear to have too much else going on…
The big news is we brought our own coffee in from home, our preferred donut shop knockoff from the retailer…We really don’t have any complaint with the hotel’s European blend, but it’s pretty caffeinated and we really don’t need to be ready to go build an overpass halfway thru the second cup…Measuring it out isn’t a problem, either as regular and longtime readers of this crap know that we’ve had to steal those really large coffee packs from the restaurant on occasion and we know that three-quarters of a morning coffee service (MCS) cup produces a good pot of coffee…Thing is, tho, it turns out the donut shop knockoff isn’t a whole hell of a lot less caffeinated then the European blend, but we don’t go to sleep until Wednesday evening, anyway, so what the hell.
There was light action at the veterans service office (VSO) today…The big question regarding Paige and her taking over from Paula at the front desk is whether she would be up to the challenge of handling the immense chat requirements posed by Liz when she breezes in on the days she is not working from home…Judging by the results today, ol’ Paiger will be more than up to the challenge, as they prattled away like old friends.
Liz dropped by the office, too, to talk about Scott, a friend of ours from the timeshare days who is also a client…Recall, his grandfather-in-law died last year and we filed a pension claim for his wife (we also presented his wife with our national colors at his funeral) and the last we saw Scott he said they hadn’t heard anything…Well, this is because it turns out Scott and his family are not living with grandma anymore and some research in the VA System shows her claim was approved over the summer…His kids are living with relatives in the next county and Scott and his wife are living out of their car.
Christ…And with the cold here…In September we contacted VOA on Scott’s behalf adn Jose indicated he had tried to contact them but he didn’t get back and we got the wheels going to make this a thing again…We’ve dealt with this enuff not to feel too guilty about wearing two pinky rings and blowing over a grand on the suede shearling jacket and Liz noted we work hard for what we make, but still…You want to invite them to stay with you but hell, that could lead to anything.
Liz stayed for a decent chat, too…She said she started painting and showed me some pics of some Christmas cards she’d done and they were nice, uncomplicated, tho with enuff color to make them interesting, just like Liz herself.
(By the by, we came this close to noting that Sparrow, Inc, had an opening for Fine Dining Companion…We hadn’t even considered it until Liz started moving some hair behind both ears, but we’ve been thru this before: she’s dismissed all attempts for a second date and we’ve spotted the trend and taken the hint.
The weekly state VSO Zoom meeting was pretty dry…The first half was a discussion of the requirement that county VSOs work at least 1,000 hours per year…It’s important because not meeting this requirement means you will lose your VA certification as well as counties not getting their partial reimbursement for having a VSO…This requirement – codified in federal law – has been causing angst in the rural counties – some of which are smaller than this one – where the VSO may not work the required 20 hours a week…There’s really no wiggle room here, tho: federal law is federal law and you can either comply with it or you can comply with it.
The second half was a meeting of the state association of county VSOs, which we are not members of, but we stuck around anyway.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: As usual for Wednesday, there is not any sleep to report today.
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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 19th-century British novel of the same name.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!