Lots and lots of stuff running through my head tonight as my vacation gets underway.

I just thought that I was busy this week -- today, I was extremely busy at work. When I first walked into the department before anyone else had arrived it looked as if a Ralph Lauren (the bastard) truck exploded in our department. Apparently, Ralph Lauren has a new line of home items out and we are going to be carrying them. From the looks of it, we bought out the factory. I hope it goes over better than the Calvin Klein crap has. All I know is CAKE PLATES ARE GOING TO BIG and small, for that matter. We have multiple sizes from 6" in diameter all the way up to 12" in diameter. WTF? Who bakes cakes anymore? There was so much stuff I didn't have time to even peak in the boxes.

Although it is no longer my job to mess around with processing a truck load of merchandise, I felt sorry for the people who were coming in to open the department and I hauled about 6 or 7 overly full cart loads to the stock room. I took all the unboxed (bubble packed/cardboard packed), place settings and CAKE PLATES!!!! to the stock room. Have I mentioned that CAKE PLATES ARE GOING TO BE HUGE? Perhaps you get one free with everything you buy. I don't know, but I'm thinking the buyers just don't care anymore and are just ordering shit so that they to have something to do.

OK, after about 45 minutes of that, I sat down at my desk and the store opened.
Immediately, there were brides there to be registered and last minute shoppers -- practically in their wedding attire -- waiting to be helped. Before I knew it, it was 2:00 pm and I my mouth was so dry from talking so much. All my brides (and grooms) were nice and fun. I enjoyed helping them so much. But, hey, it was way past time for lunch. I've never missed a meal in my life and I'm not about to start now. I treated myself to a what I expected to be a nice little lunch at the Fox Sports Grill.

My thinking was that I could sit in a nice quiet place, read something and enjoy a big salad. I ordered some sort of salad -- the "Chop Chop Salad" to be exact. Here's the listing from the menu: Oven-Roasted Turkey Breast, Chopped Romaine, Black Olives, Carrots, Red Cabbage, Tomatoes, Danish Blue Cheese and Crisp Salami. Tossed in Our Italian Vinaigrette.

It was awful. Not only were there brown bits in the lettuce (blech!) there was some sort of artificial meat on the salad. I think this might have been some sort of bacon product, but it tasted sort of like what I imagine smoked mud would taste like and had the consistency of chewing gum. (Maybe this was the *ahem* "crisp" salami? I saw nary a carrot, tomato or blue cheese, Danish or otherwise. The next big surprise was the big old hunk of cornbread that was perching on the side of the bowl (the bowl was in actuality a pasta bowl pretending to be a salad bowl). The cornbread looked tasty and I thought that would be a nice contrast to the salad. OMG, it was the most vile stuff I have ever put in my mouth (and there have been some vile things in there, OK). This was no ordinary down-home yellow cornbread. It was some sort of sweet (and I mean really, really sweet) cornbread. Or maybe it was yellow cake? I'm not sure. But it absolutely did not compliment the smoked mud and brown lettuce salad. Did I mention that the salad was in such little bitty pieces that it was really impossible to spear anything with your fork? This was a very frustrating meal. Upon almost finishing the salad, I decided that maybe if I took a piece from the bottom of the cornbread/yellow cake that it might not be as sweet because upon closer inspection I noticed the top of the cornbread/yellow cake it looked as if it might be sprinkled with sugar crystals. No such luck. The bottom was just as awful as the top and I actually had to fish a piece of smoked mud from the bowl to get the sweet taste out of my mouth.

Goodness, I think I just wrote a restaurant review. You read it here first -- avoid the Fox Sports Grill for salads at the Houston Galleria.

Back to work and apparently there was all sorts of drama while I was gone. Thank God, I missed it. Something about customers raising holy hell because they can't read a sign. I tried to stay out of it.

So, I finally get to come home and I immediately went to sleep on my magic sofa. Had a two hour nap. That'll screw up my sleep patterns for sure. And now, here I am.

Although, I did between the nap and here, I did get a call from Charlotte. She won't be able to go with me on Monday because I, like the doofus that I am, misfigured her work schedule. Rats! I'll have to go Home Alone! But we are going to get together next Sunday and Monday. No telling what kind of trouble we will get in to. I miss her so much. Last summer we took a spur of the moment trip across Texas and had a blast. In three days we drove over 1000 miles and saw some of the most beautiful parts of this state. We ate at funky little diners and stayed in cheap motels. It was so much fun and I hope we can do something like that again soon.