*As background for this story, realize that I work at a non-profit resale store.  We accept donations of clothing, item and money.  The clothing and items we resell or recycle, using the profits to do things like feeding the unfed, housing the homeless, helping people find employment and childcare, that kind of thing.  And no, it’s not Goodwill, so our CEO doesn’t drive a Jag and wear a Rolex.*

For every jackass, there’s .5 people who are pretty much ok.

Yesterday, the ratio reversed: there was one jackass, and 2 pretty cool people.

First, the Jackass.  There are times when a homeless person will come in and say, “It’s raining. All I have is these beat up tennies.  Can you help?” And even though our stores aren’t the place you go for direct help usually (we have a main office for that), our managers can say Hell yeah, and get them a pair of boots right off the rack.

Jackass decided that he needed new shoes. And apparently new underwear.  I’m extrapolating from the facts: I found an old pair of scrungy shoes tucked way under a clothing rack.  And in one of the shoes, his used underwear.

Did I mention that our company gives out vouchers by the dozens for people to get clothes and shoes?  And it’s not hard to get them?  yeah.  Awesome.

So anyway, I was a little disgruntled and disappointed with Human Beings  in general. But then came in Awesome Person #1.

Awesome Person #1 came up to the register with 3 umbrellas.  I made a joke about how she’d need all three to get to her car – the rain and wind was crazy.  She said, only one is for me.  I gave mine away to a homeless person today, and thought it was a good idea to have some spares.

Awesome.  She’s buying multiple umbrellas in order to give them away to umbrella-less (and roofless) persons.  Not spending a ton, just doing something really considerate and nice.

Awesome Person #2 came in a couple hours later.  She walked up with a $20 bill and said, “I’d like to donate this to the holiday food drive on behalf of my cat.  She doesn’t like people to go hungry.  She’s not going to share, mind you – she’s a cat, after all, not a saint – but she doesn’t want them hungry.”

So I thanked her profusely and pulled out the square of paper with the turkey printed on it, showing her that we put the name of the person who donated on it to put on the wall.  She has me write her cats name on there, then says, “I have two cats.” and pulls out another $20.  So on behalf of Cloe and Fluffy, she donated a total of $40.  The suggested donation for this food drive is $1.  Awesome.

Because of these two Awesome People, I’m feeling a little better about Human Beings today.  Of course, I’ll find out that they were actually space aliens disguised as elderly ladies, testing us to see if we are worthy of existence ..but  I’ll take it.  And maybe, because I have the cat lady two gold stars on each of her turkey pictures, they’ll let me live.

Actually, no.  Sometimes the lead singer had a hat on.

We went to see The Slants and Men Without Hats the other night.   It was an eventful day – I went to work, went home, picked up a couple kids, got stuck in traffic, got there in plenty of time, had the guy in line give us his spare ticket (score!  we were short one), got seats behind the sound guys, watched a great show, got pictures of my daughter with The Slants, got autographs, left, got stuck in traffic, got home at 2:18ayem.   Then got up at 7ayem to go to work.

But it was fun.  And worth it.  The kids had an awesome time, the traffic accident didn’t involve us, and all is well.  I have video of The Slants portion of the concert, but you can’t really see anything.  But you can hear it, by god, yes indeed.

Overall, it was a great concert.  It was put together by a band called Massive Moth…but I have to say, sandwiched in between The Slants and Mw/oH, they kind of got lost.  The kids wanted to dance, and they weren’t very dance-able.  The Slants opened strong and put on a great show.  Men w/o Hats…well, I couldn’t see much, but I what I could hear was impressive.  They’ve changed over the years, but not for the worse.  They did not disappoint.  And they were smart – they saved “the song” for last.  Well, second to last – there was an encore song.
Oh – and the played SOS by Abba.  HA!  It was great.

The enclosure I made for the pigeon.

I know I shouldn’t be ungrateful. It’s the thought that counts, right? And they say that when cats bring you dead animals, they are showing affection. Right?
Sometimes, I get gifts like these:

Snakes

Filberts

and best of all, I got two of these so far this month.

I know it’s hard to believe, but I did get something better. I got this:

That’s a lap quilt made for me by my mother-in-law. Er, step-mother-in-law. Um…ex-step-mother-in-law. Anyway. My daughter’s grandmother. Step-grandmother.

Ugh. It doesn’t matter. She’s an awesome lady, and is doing the best grandmothering she can from a state far away. I can’t wait to take a nap now.

Well, I sort of got away from that job I hated. I moved to the same job at another location. Well, at least I’ll be working alone and my commute was shorted by more than half.

But that’s not what today is about. Today is about Echo Bazaar.

Echo Bazaar is like a card game/choose your own adventure game, only they never run out of cards. I’ve never played a card-based RPG before, so I don’t know how it compares, but this is pretty fun. and not a little addicting.

It’s sort of steampunk themed, but maybe actually gaslight is more the proper term.

Here is an example of what happens. I drew a card, and it gave me two options.

I’m going to take the easy route and just take the cat.

What can I do with a boxed cat? No idea, but I’m sure it will be…interesting.

Oh, awesome. I was given the option of freeing the cat or passing it on. Being the crazy cat lady that I am, I decide to free it, with mixed results.

Ah well, maybe the cat will do me a good turn later. You know…cats do that…(yeah, right).

At the moment, I only have one associate on there, but who knows? Maybe I’ll convince some of my SL friends to hop on. It’s not very time consuming, can be played in spurts lasting a few minutes at a time. It’s turned-based, so there’s no worry about anything going wrong while you’re gone. I won’t lie – it does have its unsavory moments. This morning, I lost a coin flip and had to eat a live rat. I wonder if it was the same rat I mugged yesterday, in order to steal his tools and escape my cell? Hmm…that’d be some kind of odd poetic justice.