Be the animal you are.

It's 6:34 a.m. here: Good morning!
In Swahili––I asked a coworker from Kenya––Habari za asubuhi.

"Maybe you are related to President Obama," I said.
"No," he said, "his father was Luo, I am Kisii."

This guy is so nice. He's about my age and is part of a Federal program for hard-to-place senior workers--they work at the store but are paid by the program.
He is the opposite of Louisiana Laura, my favorite, whose place putting clothes on hangers he fills. I still quote her, "Groceries get much higher, we'll be eating squirrels."
She was like a raucous crow, and he is like a gentle songbird.
Their clothes-hanging skills are similarly lopsided though.

My coworkers' skills vary widely.
One is still asking, "Where does this go?" after a month.
Another says, "Should we rearrange this area?" after two days.

A couple inefficient volunteers help out in Housewares.
I fill carts with priced goods, they put them out--theoretically in the proper sections--on the sales floor. 
After they leave, I pick up after them---the slotted spoon in the Bath & Body section, a Christmas cookie jar in with Clocks.

Some volunteers, though, are splendidly efficient. "This pitcher would look better if I polished the silver." 

And she did, and it does:


I am having so much fun at work, and the different people are part of it, even the frustrating ones.

Yesterday I set up a blue and silver display. Why did I label the menorah? I guess in case gentiles didn't know...
I am the compulsive fact-checking editor of the world.

THESE are my favorites, of course:

I emailed the picture to Marz, saying I hadn't brought them home.

"Why not?" she wrote back. "They are clearly a bear vaudeville team on the level of Abbott and Costello."

So now I have to bring them home.
Marz will be here a couple nights for Thanksgiving. Yay! She'll be spending the day itself with friends--we'll have dinner on Wednesday.

I'm looking into desserts with no sweeteners except fruit or sweet-seeming spices like cinnamon. (Too many recipes that say they're 'sugar-free' use sweeteners that are just as sugary as sugar, like honey and maple syrup.)

This Pumpkin Apple Bake calls for coconut, apple, banana, cinnamon--with egg and cottage cheese. Called a "breakfast" bake, I think it'd be a good Thanksgiving dessert--like pumpkin cheesecake.

I'm not worrying about carbs, not at this point. Dropping white sugar is enough for now! It's a huge change for me.
I said, and it's true, that eating no added sugar is not about losing weight, it's about maintaining mobility. It's been three+ weeks, and I'm eating a lot of anything else I want, so I don't get cranky and cravey.  But even though I'm eating a lot, I lost 5 pounds. And of course that helps with mobility too.

I shouldn't be surprised: I know I would've eaten an entire carton of Tillamook peaches-and-cream ice cream the day after the US presidential Election. It's a big difference, not to.
I imagine my body will adjust to the new normal soon enough.

Meanwhile, I'm relieved that my strength has returned after a few weeks at the store, my knee righted itself, and I've had no more injuries. I've been lucky.

So, Marz is coming home in a couple weeks--and then again for a week at Xmas. She gets a month off college over winter holidays, but has to stay in Duluth for her job at the food co-op.

It's so neat to see her finishing her first semester.  She's displaying this quality I never developed: self-discipline. Impressive!
She hasn't missed a single class or skipped an assignment. She doesn't always like it, and this crash-course in Life in Duluth has been really hard, but she's done it.

It's not just about discipline though--it's how you see things.
I always saw going to class and doing the work as optional! LOL
Some is, but some of this is not good (helpful) vs bad (restrictive) behavior, it's different strengths.

The way I see it (simplistically), is that if we can stay aligned with our own personalities, we reap the rewards and we pay the price that suit us.
While if we follow someone else,
we pay an alien price and reap an alien reward.

Is there an Aesop Fable about this?
Like, a fox labors in a field and earns grain it cannot eat?
Or a rabbit learns to hunt and kills its own relative?

Moral: Be the animal you are.

Marz is choosing classes for next semester.
So many cool choices! I hadn't expected that in a smaller university--(there's something like 8,000 students at UM-Duluth vs 40k at the Twin Cities campus).
She's rolling on from Russian Empire into The Soviet Experiment--a class I'd love to take.
But my favorite she's taking is Journalism in Movies.
She doesn't know yet what the movies they'll watch, but they used All the President's Men as their ad.

What journalism movies can you think of?

I'd mentioned Spotlight recently--about the Boston Globe team uncovering the Catholic Church's sexual abuse of children.
What others...?

His Girl Friday, with Rosalind Russell & Cary Grant.
Citizen Kane.
Geez, there must be dozens, but I'm drawing a blank...

Oh, Capote, about researching and writing In Cold Blood-- the New Journalism.
Network. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

OK--it's a day off, and I'm going to meet JohnShk for coffee. He's bringing a copy of his just-[self]-published sci-fi/world building novel for me! He knows I don't love that genre, but I want a copy. It's very long. "You can use it as a door stop," he said.

Take good care of yourselves out there!