Pet Peeves

One of my biggest pet peeves is parents who don't parent.

Case and point: Today I went to Subway for lunch. In front of me was a father and his two children who had to be around 6 or 7 yrs old. While he was telling the sandwich maker what to put on each sub, his children proceeded to climb onto the approximately 2 inch ledge and lay on the sneeze-guard glass while hanging onto to the top of the afore mentioned glass.
(see small wooden ledge in picture below)

What did the father say to these children? Nothing. I waited to see if the employee had anything to say like, "The health department requires the you do not lean over the top of the glass," or how about "the protective glass was not engineered to withhold the weight of 2 children and if they fall off that 2 inch ledge we cannot be held responsible for any injuries." NOPE, no one said a thing. Seriously, if you are not going to pay attention to your children....DO NOT HAVE ANY.

Karma

I have decided there is no such thing as karma...there can't be. Why???

1) My Boss
As I have mentioned I work in a small restaurant. The man who has owned this place for the last 30 years and runs a cater business with it too, is Archie Bunker incarnate. I have witnessed many comments that would bring civilized 21st century people to their knees. This man will smoke while cooking. Karma???? NO WAY, he's never been caught fudging a date, smoking on line or anything else.

2) The other boss.
When this one manages, he thinks he knows EVERYTHING. Although he has NEVER worked in a restaurant, waited tables, or bar tended, he thinks he knows whats best. He will yell at people when he's frustrated and totally PMS's all the time. Karma????? NO WAY, the owners LOVE him, the rest of us cannot stand him.

3) I waitress.
I have a BA and I can't find a better job, I get yelled at work and I have to serve people all day without a break. Nuff said.

Nature

I actually got a chance to get out and use my camera and I thought I would share some of my pictures.

Not sure of this is one tree or 2 that grew together. Pretty cool.

The Host

I just finished reading The Host by Stephenie Meyer and it was great. It was a little hard to get into at first, but as it progressed it got better and better.

This is a book about aliens who are invading the earth. It is a little different than what you may expect. The aliens are implanted into the human bodies where they then take over and make the "owner" of the body disappear. We begin the book with a special soul (alien) called Wanderer, because she has lived on 8 different planets but hasn't found where she belongs yet. They have implanted her into a very strong willed human called Melanie. Instead of Melanie giving in and letting the soul take over, she fights back by yelling at Wanderer and playing back some very strong memories.

Melanie tries to win Wanderer over and talks her into finding her brother and boyfriend. Wanderer knows and feels everything that Melanie does and eventually she falls for Jared, Melanie's boyfriend.

This is a sci-fi novel, but of a different sort. It really comes down to a story about love, and what we would do for the ones who are important to us. It's about who you are as a person. The characters are deep and complex, some of whom I hated when I first read about them then later came to love. By the end of the book I was crying I was so emotionally involved. I think it is easily one of my top 10 favorite books of all time.

I give it a 5 out of 5. I couldn't put it down!!!

Wicked Game

Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready is a book about saving vampires who work as DJ's at a radio station. Ciara Griffin is trying to turn over a new leaf and leave conning behind her. She applies for a real job at a radio station as an assistant marketing intern. The station, WMMP, is dying and a rival company, Skywave, is trying to buy it out. Ciara is there to bring in fresh blood (heh heh) and ideas to save the station.

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Ciara learns that the reason the DJ's are so good at playing songs from certain time periods is because they are vampires who are stuck in the time that they became un-dead. They are unable to learn new things or move on, but unlike other vampires they are not fading away because they are able to do what they love. At first she thinks its a cruel joke on her but soon realizes that they really are vampires and that it may be the very thing that could save the station. Hiding the truth in plain sight.

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Falling back on her conning days, she come up with the con of the century. She changes the name of the station to WVMP and launches a major and most popular campaign. Is is enough to save the station from the buy-out? And what about the mysteriously handsome DJ Shane? Is she falling for him, can she fall for him?

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This book was so funny and original. I found myself laughing out loud many times. For example she sees one of the DJ's sipping what she thinks is cranapple juice through a straw.---"He sees me looking at him and grins, his gums a rich red. Oh. It's not cranapple juice. The butterflies in my stomach vomit on each other's wings." (pg 81) This other has something in her writings that I have been looking for, a plot and rich humor. That being said, it is a vampire book so there is some icky parts and some sexy parts. Not harlequin romance, fire in loins and grinding parts or heaving bossom's, but a romp in the bed so to speak. They even have a web-site up http://www.wvmpradio.com/ that has songs from each vampire and their stories too.

Ciara has a MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/ciarawvmp. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to more of Ciara's escapades!

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I give it a 5 out of 5

Restaurant crap

I work at a mom and pop type of restaurant. This place operates by its own rules. Let me tell you, honestly, if you as the public, had any idea what goes on in a place like this you would be surprised. Personally, I think only people who have no self esteem or self respect end up working there and we really need some kind of intervention. A support group...something.

I'm not sure how prevalent this type of business is....but let me fill you in. The servers get yelled at. A lot. About anything and everything. We have a chicken sandwich that has bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato and on a special bun. I have been yelled at for ordering that for a customer who wanted it without the bacon and on a different bun. Why did I get yelled at? Because that's not on the menu. Are you kidding me? We get yelled at if we drop or God forbid, break something. Someone accidentally knocked over some plastic cups... and it was loud. All the other servers were like..."way to go goof off."..."nice going Jane." Jane tries to laugh them off, the owner comes out and says to Jane, "don't laugh, it makes you look stupid."

I cringe when someone asks for something special, cause I know I gonna get yelled at. I am afraid to make any kind of mistake cause I will be called stupid. Not to my face, but I have heard the owner say it about others...a lot.

Any other servers out there? Anyone understand?

Adam

I have read a couple of books by Ted Dekker but Adam is, I think, my favorite. If you like Stephen King you will love this book.

Adam is a book about Eve, a serial killer who is killing young "innocent" women without touching them. These women are dying every 28 days and Daniel is the one who's trying to stop him. Daniel is an FBI behavioral psychologist and so obsessed with catching Eve it has ended his marriage to Heather. As the book opens, they have found a girl that fits Eve's MO and she is still alive. The investigative team must get her to a hospital to treat her so they can find out more about Eve, what he looks like. As they are loading her into the van, they see someone coming down the road. Its nighttime and they can't really see him, but Daniel knows it is Eve coming to take back his victim. He gets out of the van to take him and Eve shoots Daniel.

Daniel is dead 20 minutes when they finally resuscitate him. The girl is gone, but this time they have a victim who knows what Eve looks like, Daniel, only he can't remember anything. The most important information that can close this case is locked inside his mind and the only way to get to it may be to kill him again. When he finds out Eve has captured his next victim and it is Heather, will Daniel take his life to save her?

This was a great book. I couldn't put it down. Dekker is a Christian author but it isn't in your face. He presents things and allows the reader to take from it what they want.

He built characters that are flawed and complex and I was completely drawn in.

I give this book a 5 out of 5.

The Gingerbread Girl

I recently listened to The Gingerbread Girl by Stephen King. This is a story about a woman, Em, who has recently lost her baby girl to SIDS and has taken up running as a way of dealing with it. Or maybe it's her way of running away from it. Em's husband doesn't understand her obsession and pushes her away. She has comforted her husband and doesn't understand his unwillingness to be there for her. Em decides to go to Florida and stay at her dad's conch shack on a very secluded area of Vermillion Key, to get away and clear her mind.

In Florida, Em continues her running, and one day she stops to talk to the old man who runs the booth at the bridge. They talk about the few people who live there and he tells her of Pickering. Pickering is a rich man who brings his young "nieces" down to his place and always brings them back home on his boat. As Em is running home she looks in on Pickering and sees something disturbing. As she goes in for a closer look, she realizes that her next run, if she gets it, will be the one for her life.

This book was a short one, a little ick, much suspense, nothing "supernatural". This was a book about resilience and letting go. About finding a purpose in and of yourself.

I give it a 3 1/2 out of 5.