Golly, What A...Night?

It has been so miserably hot in the plant these last two days, and I know it sounds cliche, but it's true.  It's not the heat.  It's the humidity.  It was getting up to 91 at my work station, but it felt like the air was absolutely clinging to me.  

To make matters worse, I think my little window unit in my bedroom has kicked the bucket.  It's not cooling and I don't hear the compressor cycling on and off.  I'm not mad, though.  It's nine years old and I've worked it hard since I got it.  And before you ask, yes, maybe it could be repaired, but honestly, it's cheaper just to buy a new one than buy the part then pay someone to install it.  I'll look at Walmart tomorrow and see if they have any in stock, but I may wait a week or two to buy one.  At least until after this next cold spell. 

Speaking of, I talked to Supervisor Green Jeans about the possibility of frost, and he said he hopes it doesn't.  His tomatoes are still inside, but he's got corn in the ground.  He said he might buy a bunch of visqueen and cover his whole field. 

But I digress...

As I was saying, it's been so muggy I came home and turned on my central air for no other reason than to get the humidity down a bit in my house.  I was so miserable last night, I didn't get much sleep.  

Well, and I was watching the Weather.  It was quite a night.  Several of the meteorologists and storm chasers I follow have said there were 728 warnings issued, and that included both tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings.   One of them posted this graphic, of just the tornado warnings. 

And this was all of the watches and warnings from yesterday. 

So, since most of you follow the same weather watchers that I do, I won't spend a lot of time on this, because I'm sure you already know what I'm telling you anyway.  

In other news, I got a picture of that weed I've been pulling up here lately-- the stringy stuff with the circles of leaves around the stems. 

Google thinks it's Galium aparine, sometimes known as sticky weed or stickywilly.  The description seems right, and even though it's supposedly edible and has medicinal uses, I don't like it and don't want it in my yard.  It also causes skin irritation in some people...like me.  Next year, I'm going to be on the watch for it and try to catch it early, before it spreads so much. 

In work news, there I was at work just a working away.  A couple of the other braziers were talking. I could hear them, but wasn’t really paying attention.  One was old school, and the other has been out there less than a year.

Suddenly the old school brazer called across the way to me, “Becky, when was the last time we got a bonus? It’s been about ten years, hasn’t it?”

I thought for a moment and said, “It was the first year Nadir came, sooooo 2016. Yeah, right about ten years.”

Nadir was the name of the director of operations who put an end to our employee incentive bonuses when he came.  He said that if it were up to him, we wouldn't even be getting a bonus his first year, but the home office in Dallas had already funded it.  He said we didn't deserve bonuses.  Someone in my meeting asked him why we didn't deserve a bonus if we met the criteria for getting one, and he snapped, "Because you don't!"  He never did explain why we didn't, but that was the end of us getting an employee bonus. 

I relayed all of this information and the new brazer said with an air of shock and disbelief, "Then how do they show employee appreciation????"

I laughed and replied, "Well, first they'd have to appreciate us!"  I then told her we used to get a monthly attendance bonus, equal to a day's pay, but they cut that out, too.  Now we only get 2 hours extra vacation time for every month of perfect attendance, but that's valued at less than $40 for most of us. 

And we started talking about all of the COVID relief money the government had been giving to industries and such, and she was telling us all that her job had been giving them, and it was quite a bit.  I said that we got a can of Lysol and a bottle of hand sanitizer.  A few months later, they handed out brown paper sacks with three masks and a stick of gum in it.  A few weeks after that, they gave us another can of Lysol and bottle of hand sanitizer, and that was it for our COVID relief.  

Speculation is that that relief money is what our Director of Operations at the time was embezzling.  Not Nadir.  They'd already gotten rid of him.  It was the next one, and one of the engineers or IT guys, I don't really know.  

On a similar note, we might have Saturday off, if we can get our numbers up.  The production side is off, and I was remarking that I remember the good old days when being 8 hours ahead of the lines was the goal.  My coworker said, "I know, right?  I don't even know what they expect from us any more.  I really don't."

All I could do was shake my head, because I didn't have an answer for her. 

Anyway, if we do have Saturday off, I was thinking I might try to mow my front yard, depending on what time the storms are supposed to get here.  So far, they've all been well to the north of us, but the ones Saturday might reach this far south.  

I'd thought about running up to Batesville, since they are still remodeling our Walmart and I can't find anything, but after checking the forecast, I think I'll just hunker down here. 

But knowing the plant, they'll make us work just because they can.  

Mystery Solved

I think I finally solved the mystery of the weirdly pooling yarn.  I'd picked up a skein from the freebies box at the Oxford Fiber Festival back in January, and just assumed it was the same as the Red Heart Mexicana.  It didn't have a ball band, but it looked the same.  

When I caked up the yarn from Oxford, it was in two parts.  It was a partial skein after all, and it wouldn't be a problem.  I know how to join yarn.  The problem came when I tried to join this small ball, which was left over from a skein of Red Heart Mexicana I'd bought.  

As it happens, the yarn I got in Oxford isn't the same.  I have no idea what it was, but it's not the Mexicana.  The part I'd knit with the small ball was the only little section that wasn't pooling the same way, so I ripped back and took that yarn out.  I joined the rest of the yarn I got from Oxford, and am back to chugging away and the yarn is pooling just like I wanted it to. So, that mystery is solved, except that I have no idea what this yarn it.  Oh well, it's going to make an interesting hat for someone. 

In other news, my purple deadnettle is dying back, which is sad, but look!  My clover is coming out!  

If it were up to me, my whole back yard would be covered in white clover.  That's good for the bees, the deer, and it's good for the soil.  Plus, it's less I have to mow.  Also, my daisy fleabane is starting to bloom.

 I'm so glad to see this stuff coming back after that guy skint my yard last year.  There is one I've been pulling up that I didn't take a photo of.  I don't know what it is, but I don't like it and don't want it in my yard.  If I think about it, I'll take a picture next time I'm able to.  

The weather is supposed to be pretty bad for the rest of the week.  I've got Ryan's livestream on the TV and there was a huge tornado that hit Lake City, Arkansas, and Cape Girardeau, MO is under a PDS warning as I type this.  That one is concerning, because that's near where my friend Peggy lives.  I'm sure she's already in her basement...

Then there is the storm that is about to hit Memphis....where my friend Leann lives.  Well, in a town just outside of Memphis, I mean.  

This is going to be a long night for people in those places... 

A Grandbaby!

I had a completely different post planned for you today.  I was going to tell you about my dentist appointment, and my clean bill of dental health.  And I was going to tell you about how the hygienist told me a story of how she touched a snake for the first time in her life -- it was a friend's pet snake-- and she said it felt like a nut sack, and how I laughed so hard she had to stop cleaning my teeth.  And how she said, "I don't know why things like that pop into my head, but they do, so I said it." 

Then I was going to tell you how I'd intended to start reading Taliesin, by Stephen R. Lawhead, but changed my mind when I found the first book of the Edge Of Collapse series marked down, so I bought and started it instead. 

This is one Brennan had recommended, but I felt it was a bit too expensive for an e-book.  However, I managed to catch it 60% off and got it cheap.  It's pretty good so far, but I don't know if I can handle a seven book series.  

Then I was going to tell you about how I overheard a coworker in the bathroom talking about how my Stalker keeps trying to look down her shirt.  I was in the stall, and she was talking to someone else.  She kept calling Stalker "Wild Bill" and the other person didn't know who she meant, then she said, "You know, The Warden's best friend!"  That's when the other person got it.  

And I was going to explain that The Big Man Up Front's new blog name will be The Warden, since he seems to be trying to turn the plant into a prison, and I was going to tell you that I got so completely caught up in thinking about that conversation that I forgot to put my gloves and armguards on until I got all the way back to my brazing stand, and had to go back to the bathroom to get them. 

Buuuut, just before I sat down to blog, my sister texted me and said my oldest nephew and his wife are expecting a baby!  It's due August 15, and are going to find out if it's a girl or boy this weekend.  I told her to let me know as soon as possible so I can start knitting.  

If it's a girl, I already have a dress finished, except for sewing on the buttons.  If it's a boy, I'll have to start from scratch.  

Even if it's a girl, I'll probably do a sweater and hat as well, since they do live in Alaska.  

Oh wait, did you think it was MY grandbaby?  No such luck...Cody did tell me he wanted to start some seeds in his new greenhouse, so I'll have some grand-plants, I guess...

And Finley, the grand-cat.  

The Hard Days

I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know we made it through the storms all right last night.  It got loud for a bit, but nothing severe came through here, though it got pretty bad up north. 

I'd been watching Ryan on the TV, and Reed on my computer when along about 8:00, I decided to turn it all off and go watch Ryan's stream in bed on my Kindle.  I'd dozed off a couple of times, but when my brain -- even in my sleep -- heard him mention Tunica, I turned his stream off and turned on the local meteorologist's livestream.  

Then promptly fell asleep again.  Until the storms came... 

By the time they got here, sometime around 3:45, all of the storm chasers had ended their streams. Ryan, Reed, Max Velocity… all of them.  

Even local meteorologist Matt Laubhan had apparently gone home and gone to bed.  I pulled up the stream and it was just the radar, and nobody was there talking about it. 

They only one here was the cat...

Outside my bedroom door...

Yowling, and yowling, and yowling...

I finally got up and let her in, and got back into bed.  She jumped up onto the bed with me and I patted the mattress and said, "Come lay down here."  She did, for about ten seconds. 

Then she got up, promptly walked over to my nightstand, and knocked everything off of it.

Brat.

Alas, because I'd fallen asleep, I missed this gem:

That's our Matt.  

After a seemingly interminable day at work, I came home to find my new T-shirt from the Till Valhalla Project had arrived. 

I'd ordered a hoodie, but accidentally ordered the wrong size, so I returned it for a store credit.   They didn't have any hoodies left, so I got a t-shirt instead.  I had a bit left on my credit, so I tossed in a key chain as well. 

That's about all I have for today.  I've got more to talk about, but I think I'm going to go to bed a little early to make up for the sleep I lost last night in the storms.   I'll tell you about pulling weeds in my yard tomorrow. 

Good night.

Well, Poop

I figured out why my yarn was pooling so weirdly.  I'd gotten all the way to the crown decreases, and discovered I didn't have 80 stitches on the needles.  I only had 79.  

\

It took me several tries, but I finally found the dropped stitch...all the way back in the ribbing.  Just past the ribbing, rather, but it had run through the ribbing.  I thought for a minute about leaving it, but decided that my sailors weren't going to get a defective hat.  I thought for a minute about trying to hook the dropped stitch up with a crochet hook, but that usually ends up being more trouble than it's worth, and messes with the tension.  

After mulling it over for a moment, I did what any perfectionistic process knitter would do.  I ripped the whole thing out and started over.  It'll give me something to do while waiting for the weather to get here tonight. 

And because life, the universe, and everything can't give us a moment to breathe, we get to do it all over again on Wednesday.  

I know this is brief, but I need the screen to watch the weather.  I've got Ryan on the TV, Reed on the Kindle, and I want to put Jaden on the computer, and probably Dave on the phone. 

Sniff*  My dad would be so proud...

Spoiler Alert

I finished my most recent book, Wizard Of Most Wicked Ways, this afternoon.   I'm going to give a bit of a review of it at the end of this post, but I wanted to give you a spoiler alert first.  It'll be a somewhat predictable spoiler, but still...this is your warning.  

But where should you stop reading if you want to avoid it?  When you get to the picture of the book cover.  I'll do the review after that -- the spoilery part at least.  I will say, however, I've thoroughly enjoyed this series, and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes the fantasy/magic genre. 

My other book, Ship Of Brides, isn't going quite as well.  It's not a bad book, but it isn't holding my interest all that well.  Still, I'm halfway through, so I'll keep plugging away at it.  I think I'll also start re-reading The Pendragon Cycle, by Stephen R. Lawhead.  

In other news, they've decided we need to have morning meetings with our group leader or supervisor at work every day.  We used to have them but had stopped years ago.  Probably because there really isn't that much to say in them after a while.  I mean, there are only so many times you can go over the same old safety rules, and only so many ways to say do your job.  

This morning, at the end of the meeting, Group Leader Shark said, "Have a blessed day," and I raised my hand and said, "If I'm going to have a blessed day, I need to go back home!"  Alas, that was not an option for me, but yesterday Substitute Supervisor did the meeting and at one point had said, "If you don't feel up to working, just don't even come."

So Demi-god stayed home today. 

And finally, since I can't remember what else it was I wanted to tell you, I'll get right in to the book review, and again, this is your final warning.  Stop reading here if you don't want to run up on a spoiler. For those of you who don't want to read the book review, good night.  I'm going to go watch another episode of The Crown.  

Laters. 

 And now for the spoiler part of my book review. 

The series revolves around a boy named Owein Mansel, who died at the age of 12, and somehow managed to embed his soul into a house on a lonely island off of the coast of Rhode Island, where his family had lived.  

Sometime later, during the Victorian Age, his great great great...I don't know how many greats...nephew Merritt Fernsby inherits the house and moves into it setting off a chain of events during which Owein's soul is transferred to a dog, then finally into the body of another boy who had drowned at the age of 14.  Throughout the series, he is pursued by an evil magician named Silas Hogwood who above all craves power.  

In this fourth book, the inevitable showdown between Owein and Silas finally happens, there on the island.  There is an epic battle magic battle and just when you expect huge climax, you read: 

Silas Hogwood passed away. 

It's a bit of a letdown after all of that buildup.  I'm no author, but I'd have expected something more along the lines of:  With a defiant shriek of rage and hatred, the soul of Silas Hogwood was shattered and ripped from this world, never to return.  Finally, it was over. 

Other than that, the series was very good, and I'd highly recommend it. 

It's Alive!!

It's alive!  

OK, it's not really alive, but it seems like it sometimes, because it gets absolutely everywhere.  It's so thick on the back window of my car that I can hardly see out of it.  Yes, I'm talking about the dreaded pollen. 

We're expecting more severe weather tomorrow, so I went ahead and brought my chair and table inside this afternoon, and they are both covered in pollen.  

And other stuff, but we won't talk about that.  But you can see how thick it is here. 

 I'll have to give them a good washing before I sit in them again.  Oh, and I bought a citronella candle this afternoon, so maybe I can sit out there without the skeeters chomping on me.   It won't be tomorrow, though, because as I said, we're expecting severe weather this weekend. 

I'd leave it outside, but there is that chance of hail.  I don't want my new chairs to be pulverized by egg sized balls of ice. 

They are still re-arranging our Walmart, by the way, so I got in and got out as quickly as I could.  I didn't even get some of the stuff I wanted, because I couldn't find it.   I was already aggravated because right before quitting time, they brought an entire buggy full of headers back from the line that had been brazed wrong. 

By second shift.  

First they said we'd only have to pull the bad legs out, and they'd make second shift re-make them, but about 10 minutes until 2:00, they told us we would have to stay over and braze the order up.  We weren't happy, but with all of us working together, we got the entire 188 order done, plus an 8 piece that had also been done wrong. 

I still say they should have made second shift re-do the order, because how are they going to learn accountability if we're constantly cleaning up their mess?  I was also aggravated because they expect us to work our butts off for a company that treats us like garbage.  

Oh, did I not tell you the latest?  As of yesterday, we are now required to raise our hands and ask permission to go to the bathroom.  How demeaning is that?

Or as my coworker quipped, "I'm just Inmate 12345 here."  

*No, that's not her real employee ID number.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, Inmate 54321 is going to go knit a bit before I have to report back to prison in the morning. 

Laters...

All Done!

 I got out this afternoon and finally got the last of those daffodil bulbs planted.  I don't know if they'll grow, but at least they're in the ground.  I think they might come up next year, because almost all of them were putting out little green leaves.  We're supposed to get a good rain Saturday to water them in well, so fingers crossed.

When I was done with that, I dug up a few more clumps of garlic, but I think I want to wait until I can get some topsoil to fill in the divots before I dig any more.  It's going to be a long process, I recognize that.  But I'm going to keep at it until it's done.   

In other news, the hummingbirds are definitely back --  or at least passing through.  I haven't seen one yet, but I've had to re-fill the front feeder and will have to re-fill the back one probably tomorrow.  Oh, and on a similar note, it's been warm enough that I've been letting the cat stay outside at night.   Don't worry, she's got shelter if she needs it, and I put a little bowl of food out in case she gets hungry.  

When I got up to get ready for prison--uh, I mean work -- this morning, I opened the door to let her in and there was a trash panda on my back porch!  We stared at each other for a minute, then I said, "You need to go on, Trash Panda, so I can get my cat inside."  He complied, and began walking away, when suddenly, out of nowhere, the cat rushed in and pretended she was chasing him off. 

"Oh, yeah, you're real brave when you have Mama backing you up!"  I said to her. 

That's about the most exciting thing that happened today, so here is a hat progress photo so there will be a thumbnail with this post. 

I've never seen this colorway pool like this, but I like it.  I wish I knew how I did it.  

I Didn’t Post

Oh, I intended to.  

Post, I mean.  Yesterday... but when I sat down at my computer, I realized all I was going to do was gripe about how bad it's gotten out at work.  I didn't want to put you through that, so I just went outside and sat in my chair in the cool of the evening.  

Until the mosquitoes found me and began snacking on me, that is.  Then I came inside and watched an episode of JAG, and went to bed.  And I dreamed about Admiral Chegwidden.  I guess that means I watch too much...

By the way, guess what I'm doing now...what I'm watching, rather....

So, anyway, I was sitting there in my chair and I realized, dadgum I've got a lot of wild garlic in my back yard.  

That's what all of that stuff is, and it occurred to me I probably ought to do something about it.   The only problem is, anything that might kill the garlic will also kill the stuff I want to keep -- the deadnettle, Hen bit, clover and the like.  So, there is only one thing to do.  

Dig it all up by hand.  Sigh...And right after work today, that's exactly what I started doing.  I planted a couple more rows of daffodil bulbs, then dug up a couple of clumps of the garlic.  It's going to take a while, and I may never get it all completely removed, but it's a start.  

In other news, weird stuff is going on at work, and I'm not talking about how horrible it's getting out there.  That's another post for another day.  Let me just say, when your turnover rate among new hires is in the 75-80% range, you've got serious problems.  No, this is something completely different.  

See, I was going around to the dispatcher's desk the other day to get a scrap ticket, only he was on the phone at the time.  I stood there patiently until he got off,  then he told me what the problem he was having was.  And that was that the schedule in the computer didn't match the printed one he had, and he didn't know what orders to release to the operators.  

He'd called the people up front, only they'd told him they hadn't changed anything. Apparently, there was a glitch and the computer was moving stuff around all by itself...

And all I could hear was 

And finally, it doesn't look like any more of my little seeds I planted are going to germinate, so sometime soon, I'm going to transfer them to slightly larger pots, then use my new pods to start some of those sunflower seeds I found. 

Or, I may buy some...and we'll just have to see how that goes. 

Here We Go Again

Hello?  Yes, I'd like to cancel my subscription to the storm of the week club, thank you.

I know, I know, but that's just the way it is during springtime in the South.  

You know what else it is during springtime in the South?  It's polleny.  So polleny.  Seriously, I was sitting in the chair in the back yard when the cat jumped up into my lap...and she was yellow.  The cat was yellow!  

There were even streaks of yellow in the parking lot at work.  I started to take a picture of it to show you, but I didn't.  Maybe tomorrow I will.  

Speaking of work, today started the new PPE policies, and there is always a silver lining.  This one is that the front office people are not coming out onto the shop floor nearly as much as they usually do.  Let's just hope that lasts.

In a strange twist of irony, the very first order I got this morning had one of the adapter tubes bent wrong.  Normally, I would just beat it into place with a hammer, but I was mad and after discussing it with the brazer who had the other half of the order, I just said, "We shouldn't have to struggle with this mess every day.  Just get the whole thing re-cut."  

So we did.  

Just last week, I was telling Uncle Supervisor that at some point, there has got to be accountability over in the tubing department.  They can't keep depending on their sub-brazers to sort out and re-order bad parts.  We'll never get ahead that way, especially if they lines start running like they should.  As it is, the only way we're keeping up now is because the lines are running so slowly.  If they were running full speed, there's no way we'd be able to keep up because all of the non-brazing stuff we have to do.  

It just blows my mind that they're not even required to check their parts to make sure they're correct before they bend an entire order wrong.  But they're not.  They just make whatever and say if it's wrong, the brazers will re-order it.  That's no way to run a successful business. 

But that's their main problem.  They've got too many bosses out there who care more about being right than being successful.  Case in point:  about 6 years ago, a representative from the company we buy our brazing rod from came to the plant and the first thing he said was that we are using the wrong rod.  We don't need to be using a 5HP.   We should be using a 5%.  

Now, I know that doesn't mean anything to most of you, but just roll with it. 

However, the powers that be, because they don't want to listen to anyone and can't abide anyone telling them that they're wrong, said they didn't feel the need to switch.  So, six  years on, we're still using the wrong brazing rod.  Go figure...

OK, moving right along, my seed starting pods arrived.

I found some seeds I'd saved from one of the sunflowers I grew last year, so I think I'm going to plant those.  I'm not completely sure, but I think they came from one of the ones that doesn't grow super tall.  I really need to get better at labeling things.   Oh, well.  They'll be a surprise. 

And finally,  I cast on a new charity hat and it has started pooling in a really weird way. 

 I'd had a couple of small balls of this yarn, so I cast on with the smallest one for the ribbing, then when I joined the second one, it started pooling this way.  I was concerned about joining the third ball, but as you can see, the strange pooling pattern has continued.  

I wish I knew how I did that, because when I want it to pool, it doesn't.  Oh well, I like it, and I'm sure whichever sailor gets it will, too. 

At least, I hope so. 

Spring Storms

OK, first of all, I watched the Netflix documentary on the Joplin tornado, and while the footage of the storm was downright terrifying, all I could think was, “Of all the people affected by this storm, these were the best representatives of the town of Joplin, and indeed the state of Missouri they could find to interview?”   Seriously, they made the stereotypical Mississippian look good.  

Let's just say, don't watch it at work or in front of your children.  Yes, it was that bad.  

The one the guy did on Rolling Fork was so much better, if you can find a way to watch it.  I watched it on Mississippi Public Broadcasting, and I think you might be able to watch it on PBS at the link above.  I have the Passport, so I have access to more than just the free stuff, so I'm not completely sure. 

While we're on the subject, they've upgraded our risk for this evening from green to yellow, and I read that Reed is in Memphis for this one, 

so after enjoying a couple of cups of coffee by the fire this morning, 

I took the better part of valor and put everything back under cover for the duration.  In this case, it's the chance of hail I'm concerned about.  I don't want my new fire pit and chairs to be pulverized by falling balls of ice.  

I would really love to have a covered patio to put all of this stuff under so I don't have to worry about this type of thing.  Maybe someday...

After I'd gotten all of that squared away, I came inside and took a shower because between last night's fire and this morning's fire, I smelled pretty strongly of smoke.  Even though I'd moved the chair, the smoke followed me.  Ain't that always the way?  

Then I spent the rest of the day watching The Crown and Call The Midwife, and knitting.  I finished one charity hat, 

then I cast on another one while waiting for this evening's storms to arrive.   From what I can see, the worst is supposed to pass north of us, but it's weather.  

You can't ever tell. 

Saturday

I've been looking forward to this day all week.  

Saturday afternoon.  Nothing to do.  No clocks to watch.  

Freedom.  

Even Sunday can't compare, because I have to watch the clock...and wait to go back to work.  Dread going back to work...

But today...Saturday...it's all mine. 

It was such a beautiful day, even though we are expecting storms tomorrow, they aren't expected to be anything like last week's storms, so I went ahead and got the fire pit and other chair out of the shed and set them out in the back yard. 

I had a hard time finding a weed-free space big enough to put them in, so in the end, I had to sacrifice a patch of purple deadnettle, which I felt would be the best option because I have so much of it in the rest of the yard. 

I'm thinking later on, I might even start a little fire in the fire pit.  After it cools off a bit, of course.  It's too warm right now. 

I even tried to sit outside to write this blog post, but the sun is so bright I couldn't even see my computer screen, so I'm back inside for a bit.  By the way, I turned my Netflix account back on just to watch the documentary on the Joplin, MO tornado of 2011.  I had been so long since I turned it off that I had to create a whole new account.  I don't know how long I'll leave it on, but it will be long enough to finish watching The Crown.  I'd only see the first two seasons before I cut it off, so I'll probably just go back and start over. 

Same with Stranger Things.  I watched the first two seasons, then cut my Netflix off.  Of course, if we keep getting all of this overtime, I might just leave it on for a while.  

Since it was such a beautiful, sunny day, I put my seed tray with my three pitiful little seedlings out into the sunshine for about half an hour to start hardening them off.   

 I'm going to give the others one more week, then if nothing happens, I'll move the three that are growing to bigger pots, then knock all of this dirt out and start over.  I've ordered some hydroponic sponges from Amazon, and I'm going to try those to see if I get a better germination rate from them. 

I don't know what I'm going to plant, but it'll be something.  Maybe I'll follow Supervisor Green Jeans' lead and plant some tomatoes.  

Not 318 of them, but some.  

Now, if you'll be so kind as to excuse me, I've got some sitting to do. 

Outside.  

Laters. 

World Down Syndrome Day

For those of you who may not know, today is World Down Syndrome Day.  I have a coworker whose son has Down Syndrome, so every few years, her daughter -- who has a t-shirt business-- designs a new shirt for the occasion.    

Earlier this year my coworker and I were talking about getting new shirts, because it's been a minute, and I told her we want to have her son's name on the shirt to let everyone know who we're supporting.  Team Kel, that's what we want to be.  Unfortunately, she had something going on, and they didn't get the new shirts made.  I said, "It's OK.  We'll just wear the shirts we already have."  

When I got to work this morning, I told her, "I was going to make an announcement yesterday asking people to wear their shirts if they had one, but I got over there and started reading the post about the new PPE rules, and got so mad I completely forgot."

Yep, the new rules are pretty strict.  So much so, even the safety guy says they're over-reacting.  He said, "We want people to be safe, but you've got to have some common sense."  My thing is, if it's a safety issue, why did it take three decades for it to become such?  Wouldn't it have been a safety issue way back in 1992?  

The new rules go into effect Monday, and I'm hearing a lot of people are saying they're not coming back -- as in quitting.  I know when they took our insulated mugs away, about 40 people left the meeting and walked straight out the door.  I heard there were just as many who walked out on second shift.  

Seriously, I've never seen a company who works so hard at making their employees' hate their jobs.  It's getting unbearable, so much so, I was telling a coworker I might not make it to 65.  Walmart starts their employees at $17.50 per hour, so she might come into town one day and see me standing there saying, "Welcome to Walmart."  

Speaking of Walmart, I went after work and while I was there, I went into the garden center to see what they have in the way of live plants. The ones they had didn't look too sporty, so I didn't buy any.  I think the frost might have touched them.  I almost bought a packet of wildflower seeds to try to start in my little greenhouse, but I passed on that, too.  I'm still holding out hope -- probably in vain -- that more of my little bluebonnet seeds will germinate.  Right now, I've got two that have survived this far -- out of only five that germinated. 

 And one of my Bachelor's Button seeds is growing so far. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.  It's getting pretty discouraging that I plant and plant, and nothing ever grows.  

Supervisor Green Jeans stopped by my stand this afternoon and showed me his tomato seeds he'd started.  He's got a ton of them, and I can't even get wildflowers to grow.  I'm going to give these another week, and if nothing else grows, I'll plant something else.  

You know what they say about the definition of insanity.  I'm pretty sure I've crossed that line. 

First Day Of Spring

Happy first day of astronomical spring to those of you who celebrate it.  Me, I celebrate meteorological spring, because meteorology is better.  

Since we can't be normal in this country, on this the first day of spring, we are expecting a freeze tonight. I took a moment to bring in the few plants I had outside, though most of them were still in the house from last week's severe weather outbreak.  I left Marty Mac outside, but found a bit of leftover visqueen and covered him up.  

Venus Fly Traps can handle a frost, but it can damage newly forming leaves, so it's best to protect them.  

By the way, my French Tarragon is coming out, as is my peppermint, but so far, nothing else.  My sage and rosemary seem dot be doing fine, too, but no sign of life in the pepper plants.  They are perennials in their native habitats, but this may be too far north for them.  

While we're on the subject of weather,  check out how many air to ground lightning strikes were recorded from last weekend. 

You can't even see Mississippi through all of that.  On a similar note, The National Weather Service has confirmed that 18 tornadoes touched down on March 14 and 15 in Mississippi, including one EF-4, one EF-3, seven EF-2, seven EF-1, and two EF-0 tornadoes.

The one that hit Elliot was rated an EF-2.  The EF-4 and EF-3 both hit Taylortown.  Yes, both of them.  Their tracks are just a few miles apart.  Then there was the earthquake, which really isn't that much of a surprise given how close we are the the New Madrid Faultline.  Mississippi experiences more earthquakes than you might think.  

That's about all I have to talk about today.  There is a lot going on at work, but I don't really want to talk about it, because there is an ill wind blowing through the plant.  Whispers in the dark...

It's almost like they're looking for reasons to fire people.  The latest is that now we have to wear our gloves and arm guards at all times -- even to the bathroom and our lunch breaks.  Not only that, they're taking up all of the floor fans, because they say we don't need them -- not even when it hits 95 out there.  

If you ask me, the biggest problem out there is that there are too many bosses -- and too many people who aren't bosses, but want to be bosses, so they come out and try to boss people they've got no business bossing.  My stalker for example.  

Even when he was the brazing trainer, he seemed to think he was some sort of supervisor.  He even referred to himself as a supervisor.  Sometimes when we'd come in early, he'd come in too, claiming that he was there to make sure we were actually working and not just coming in and standing around. 

He's got a new job, by the way.   Nobody really knows what he's supposed to be doing, but he loves those kinds of jobs where he gets paid a lot of money to basically do nothing because he's lazy.  Back when he got demoted from being the brazing trainer, they put him over there with us sub-brazing.  He probably didn't do but about 50 headers per day.  We're supposed to do 200+.  I was constantly having to pull off of my work to bail him out because he'd get so far behind.

Then he got that job in the prototype shop, and they really didn't want him back there, either.  The job was supposed to go to the other applicant, but his supervisor refused to release him from his job on the assembly line.  So, they had to give it to Stalker, even though they didn't want to.   Word on the shop floor is that they wanted to get rid of him, and somehow, instead of getting fired, he got a promotion.

The buddy system protected him once again, the same way it did back when all of those women were bringing sexual harassment charges against him.   And there were a lot of them.  I know we joke about him being my stalker, but he's harassed a lot of women.  I've heard absolute horror stories from when he'd get women alone in that training center -- from asking explicitly detailed questions about how they like to have sex, all the way to threatening not to pass them if they didn't give him a little something first.  

Probably the most common complaint was that he'd lay right up on their backs as they were brazing, and I believe that because he did it to me.  Once. 

I can neither confirm nor deny that I may or may not in my enthusiasm to do my job well... accidentally elbowed him in the gut a couple of times.  

Accidentally, of course.  I would never do that on purpose.  But he learned to back his butt up. 

As I said before, he was turned in and multiple women came forward, but as I also said, he's protected by the buddy system, though I can't imagine why.  The only one who lost a job during that whole situation was the HR director who wanted to fire Stalker.  

Well, I did not mean to get off onto that tangent.  I'd intended to talk about something completely different, but that will have to wait, as I still need to practice my piano.  And I really need to do a piano related post anyway.  I'm thinking about doing a vlog.  

Maybe I will.  You never know. 

Protect Your Melon

So there I was, in the middle of a tornado warning, sitting in my bathroom wrapped up in an extra comforter with a pillow on my head. 

(Reenactment)

As I was eating my pudding -- because if I'm going to die in a tornado, I'm not going to do it with uneaten pudding in my house -- I said to myself, "Self, you really need to get a helmet to protect your melon."  

Because I can't go down to the local Walmart and get a bicycle helmet like a normal human being, I whipped out my phone, found what I wanted, and placed my order.  

Which arrived today. 

 Yep, that's right.  I am now the proud owner of an authentic replica WWII steel helmet.  

Because I gotta be me.