Didja miss me??

I've been doing a temp job at the Atlanta Merchandise Mart for the last 8 days. And today I'm cleaning the house, doing laundry and preparing to start the Cooking Wench job. Never a dull moment!

Gift Mart
I had another fun time at the Gift Mart. I was just waiting on customers, but it's fun talking to people from all over the world, seeing what people are buying and that they are buying. We had some really good days. The Gift Mart is where the store owners go to buy merchandise to sell to the customers. You know, the really useful stuff such as votive candle holders, wind chimes, garden gnomes, wooden ducks and moose and the like. Fall and Christmas stuff were really big. The buyers buy for Christmas '07, but the stuff won't be available to ship until July 1. I can't plan tomorrow or next weekend, much less next Christmas! Stuff they bought last summer won't be on display until this spring, so watch out for blue and brown stuff. Those are the big colors for the spring. Earthy jewel tones (gold, olive green, brown, orange, red) will be big in the Fall. Now won't you sleep better knowing that?
I met some really cool people, like the ladies from Salt Lake City. They were a trip, laughing and giggling and generally having a good time. They were buying some seashore-type stuff ( in Salt Lake?!) and they bought a carved pink flamingo. She said there was a flamingo that had escaped from the zoo and hung out around Salt Lake. He was named him Pink Floyd.
There were the ladies with lovely Irish accents from Barbados. Born and raised on Barbados. The taller one, Angela, had a profile very reminescent of my late aunt Liz. She was a hoot! You get her going about politics and she won't stop! She said she actually confronted the former parish priest about a comment he made at church. Good for her!
There was the lady from Central Florida who had owned a gift shop with her husband, but she didn't/couldn't be that involved with the every day operations, just the buying. She was a Type-A personality, so not being involved was killing her. When they bought the shop they were a couple, now they aren't, so there is just a bit of animosity. Their community has a fund raiser every Christmas where decorators decorate some Christmas trees and the public pays to come see them. She, a decorator, finally got invited, but the invitation was sent to the store, not her. So her Ex didn't tell her, but let the employees do the decorating. This woman (the buyer) was doing a Christmas room at the store and the merchandise kept disappearing and she couldn't figure out why. She had planned on sending out a 2-sided flier to her 20,000 customers with all the Christmas items featured, but when she found out what her ex had done, she changed the flier to advertise all Christmas merchandise was now 40% off and on the other side, she advertised the store for sale. Never underestimate the power of a woman scorned.

What's Happened in the News?
I watched Bush give his speech about Iraq, and I have to say, I think he's doing the only thing we can do. We have to hit them hard, but we also have to make the Iraqi's take over. They must take the lead and we will support them, but then we have to Leave! This can't be an open-ended plan. I don't see a democracy taking hold, there is too much fighting between the tribes, but that is none of our business. Get the basic structure set up and go home. We can't change a culture in a few years.

Dekalb has a new police chief, a guy that was fired from the job in Dallas, not someone the search comittee suggested. How much worse can it get? The police force is already under investigation for killing so many bad guys (unreasonably, IMHO. They are called Bad Guys for a reason!) . I guess when it becomes illegal to be a White Person in Dekalb county, I'll leave.

Lynn Turner is going to trial for killing her boyfriend with anti-freeze. Folks, if you're going to kill a spouse, do it differently than you killed the last one. Most people are smarter than you and will see a pattern.

51% of women are single. For once, I've been ahead of the trend!


More to come...
As things happen, I'll be posting. Thanks for taking the time to read. You're opinions are welcome but if you have to start calling me names, don't bother, I won't read them. As my Dad says 'Opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one.'