dull winter sky

Photo taken and edited on my iPhone

Health food....

What IS it about dark chocolate with raspberry filling? Or dark chocolate with orange or orange liqueur filling? Mmmmmmm..... A fine reward for making it through Monday.

....on second thought....

After church yesterday, we were able to eat out at Damon's Grill--and watch several sporting events simultaneously. Then we went over to Giant Eagle to do our weekly marketing, like we do most Saturdays. However, even though it says OPEN 24 HOURS, we found that only applied to days when it's not a holiday. We got there an hour too late to do our shopping.

Some observations: while at Damon's I ordered a "chop salad, chopped fine". I had their chop salad once before and it was served as some items chopped up on top of a normal dinner salad, whose greens were not chopped any differently than any other salad. This would not be a big deal if I had never had a REAL chopped salad. I wouldn't have known the difference. This would not have been a big deal if I had not ordered it "chopped fine". The photo in the menu showed the chopped salad and, by golly, every bit of it was chopped fine in the photo. I asked the waitress if I had been served the CHOPPED salad and she said that was the way they made it. I told her it wasn't really chopped fine but her reply was "that's the way WE do it". Ok. Fair enough. I didn't want to argue with her, I just wanted my salad the way I had ordered it. Had I been her, I would have gladly returned it to the kitchen and chopped up the lettuce myself. The lesson here: LISTEN to my patients and try to provide them what THEY want (as long as it will be in their interest to do so!).

Since Giant Eagle was closed, I got to get groceries today. I went to another Giant Eagle, conveniently located near where I had other errands to run. Since I was flying solo, I decided to go to a checkstand with a clerk. I wondered where s/he was because I had 75% of the cart unloaded before they even showed up in the lane! Then she wouldn't begin to scan the items until I showed her my GE card....which she could have scanned at any point in the transaction. (Minus efficiency points). I'm a very bad customer because I used to be a very efficient checker in Alberston's in Irvine. I had grouped all the cold things together on the belt and asked her to keep them together. She was FAST! Then I looked at the end of the lane and saw that she wasn't bagging the groceries. I got the cart unloaded and zipped to the end of the checkstand and started bagging. Wouldn't you know it? She was mixing all the things together so that I had to wait for a cold item to fill out a partial bag before I could start the next bag. She then bagged the OJ--a cold item--all by itself. It was the only thing she put in a bag for the entire order. I was furious with her for her laziness and inefficiency. But on the way home, I had a second thought. (I tend to mull these incidents over because I see no excuse for not doing the job RIGHT--and to have the customer doing your job because you are inefficient is not right either). Since she was so inattentive and had not been in her checkstand when I got there, maybe she was having a problem that day. Maybe I made it worse for her. She never even said a word when she put my register tape down--not THANK YOU, not HAVE A GOOD ONE!, nothing. Maybe I was making HER day worse for her. On second thought, I could have been a better customer. Good thing to think about as I head into the new year. Some days it's just not all about me....

When I got home from "putting away Christmas" at the office this evening, there were only four more cupcakes left from the batch made yesterday afternoon. I guess the boys (who were at home, "putting away Christmas" here) got hungry! I will miss those bright red Waechtersbach Christmas tree plates and mugs. And the little white lights. *s i g h*

While making the cupcakes that Andrew had requested this weekend, I was struck by how many different browns there are in brown eggs. I think the shells are simple and striking "nested" (argh) together like this. As an aside, these are eggs that one of my patients delivers to my office for me and my staff. It's bad when I run out of the homegrown eggs and have to settle for the pale yokes of the Giant Eagle store-brand eggs....

So, now that my second post is in, I must remember that first photo is published at the bottom. That will help me with the chronology in future posts....

....and, so it begins.

Inspired by a holiday letter (received 6 days after said holiday, but oh, so worth the wait!), I decided to blog my life.

And, so it begins.

I expect that Chaos Maven will be a bit like a good bowl of chili: bits of this, a can of that, a sprinkle of something else, topped off with just the right amount of shreds or a dollop. With not a small touch of visual.

Art, thoughts, my boys, my retreat, just me and my stuff.

I'm on my rainy day way.