Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Wednesday, July 10
Nice and slow at the hotel this morning…I had everything done and folios delivered by 0040, good for a nite with lots of folios to deliver, and the only reason it took that long was because I did some of my usual farting around online and there was a room service tray to take back to the restaurant…The only people I saw were the friends of our maid Ruby, whose reservations Q had canceled and whom I had to make a new reservation for…They were waiting for me when I got back from delivering folios and they wanted to extend for another night…During busy seasons extending stays can sometimes be problematic because you are not automatically entitled to extend your stay…If we don’t have rooms, you have to leave because those with reservations take precedence, but this is a slow summer everywhere so it was no problem to extend their stay.
I hung out near the front desk when the Halliburton boys started wandering in around 0330 for morning muster because I wanted to see if I could spot the neanderthal who uses 73 hazelnut creamers in his morning coffee, but no dice, he must be on his week off because creamer usage amongst the guys was normal…Half & half topped the leaderboard today, with six uses.
In other creamer news, I put some hazelnut creamer in my morning oatmeal…Recall the retailer didn’t have any of my fave flavored low-sugar oatmeal – which doesn’t taste that great, honestly – so I rolled with some instant regular stuff…For extra flavor I bought some packets of a nut/cranberry mix to throw in…This was a good idea but, as usual, I didn’t put enough water in and I don’t like oatmeal that is too dry and I was about to add some more water in and the creamer was right there in the coffee room and before you can say “Sparrow is a maniac” there was some creamer in my oatmeal…It was pretty good, too.
More Halliburton fun this morning…The tall guy with gray hair came by and informed me he was moving from 129 to 227…This will surprise you, but there was nothing on this at the front desk…His name wasn’t on 129s registration card however, and this must be considered a modest upset, his name was on 227s registration card, along with two others…I read the names off and he said one was on days off and the other worked night shift, so there was no reason not to give him a key to the room he was already registered to.
At the retailer our online order came in, after a day’s delay…I got some of my fave mouthwash, plus a one gallon canteen…We’ve had one in the past and I forget what happened to it, but these puppies are great, because The Wife and I will drink most of it and you can fill a fourth of it up, stick in the freezer the nite before, and have cold water all day …Four-quart canteens are also hard to find…Despite the 21st century offering access to every shopping outlet on the planet, I was (still) only able to find one brand and not many stores sold them and the retailer had the best price, twelve bucks or so…It’s pretty good quality – it’s the brand we had before – but it’s not the first-class gear I was ready to blow some jack on.
Moderately busy at the VSO today…Jack stopped by on his way out with Dave to take Dave to his doctor’s appointment in the big city…Jack will rake in a $51 stipend – not too much, really, but enough to pay for a couple of meals – and we will reimburse his gas, too…This is paid for by a state grant so naturally there’s a form to fill out, which he picked up….I give the form to Stanko because he has the checkbook, and he mails it to them.
Then in the afternoon, a rather nice gentleman named Tim comes in…Tim is a licensed practitioner of Oriental medicine (OM) and has just been approved, after a lengthy process, to provide care to veterans at VA expense…He was, frankly, looking to drum up some trade.
A fine line…I am not a PR agency, I am employed by the county to be of service to veterans and not to herald local businesses…I can’t come out and say “wow, go here”…However, in the spirit of being useful to veterans, I can write in my Friday website update a blurb about the latest VA-approved provider in-town, because that is useful information for a veteran…I will emphasize, of course, that you can’t merely walk in, receive service, and send the bill to the VA…They won’t pay it…You must have a referral from the VA but those are, supposedly, easier to get now.
He is not an MD, but he does have the usual diplomas and board certifications you might expect an OM practitioner to have, and I have some modest knowledge in some far eastern elements and we had a very nice chat…I did tell him about reading something in a book about China written by a Frenchman about how one theory is acupuncture works as an anesthetic is because the initial discomfort draws the complete attention of your nervous system and ignores other pain, like incisions and organ removals…He laffed at it and noted that while he wasn’t the all-knowing in this matter, he did tend to doubt it.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: As usual, there was no sleep to report on Wednesday.
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.
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