Chaos at work, Scrappy in flight, road-kill at the resturant, and Loko at the top

Well, last night I put in my first full shift at the new job.  It was neatly divided into four parts by breaks and lunch:  Utter chaos, steady to slow, can I take a nap, and somewhat steady.  It is still slow season, but holiday doom is fast approaching and, unlike my last job, they believe in getting people up to speed before throwing them in the deep end.

Of course, right off the bat, I can't find my name on the "where you go today" list, and my trainer puts me in a slow spot to start.  Then he sends me to another spot where all hell is breaking loose, and we spent the next hour fighting desperately to get to reasonable.  Along about lunchtime, my trainer learns that we couldn't find my name because the Maker Of Schedules decided to use my last name instead of my first this week.  The Land Of Chaos was where I was supposed to be from the start.

Next, I'm trying to text Laurie about the football games I am now missing, and noticed I was about out of minutes. (actually money, it's a pay-as-you-go, but you know what I mean).  In the midst of feverishly trying to text her to refill my phone at home, she sends me a text and wipes me out.

15 minutes after last break, third shift starts wandering in.  At that moment it was beyond dead, and we were wondering how everyone would stay busy till midnight.  Well, I found out that there were two answers to that.  Answer one was that shortly after they arrived, business picked up, and by the time it started dying off again it was 11:45.  Answer two was that once it died off, I looked around and saw I was the only one on 2nd shift still in the area.  After having been told many times to work till end-of-shift, I abandoned area at 11:58 only to find I was the very last one in the clock-out line.  Hmmm.

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Next I wanted to tell you a story about Scrappy the wonder-dog.  Thursday night and he's in the mood to play.  His usual way of expressing this is to get one of his "babies" (stuffed toys, generally no longer stuffed), proceed to the middle of the room to chew on it, look up at you as if you want the stupid thing, bark at you for wanting it until you acquiesce, then he brings it to you to pull/throw.  Well, this time, just prior to barking, he smelled something outside.  He jumps up and runs to the back door, looks out, runs back, grabbing the baby as he runs to the stairs.  I didn't see it, but he dropped the baby at the front door as he charged up the stairs.  Jumps up on our bed, barks at something, while I speculate on whether he'll bring the baby back down.  Charges back down, to the back door, and back to me.  I ask him why he left the baby upstairs.  He knows somewhere in his little pea brain that he didn't take it upstairs, but forgot where he dropped it, so now he thinks I have it.  He jumps up on me, sniffs me like I have a pocket full of doggie treats, even as I keep telling him I don't have anything.  Then it dawns on him where he left the baby, and he runs to front door and gets it (much to my surprise).  Tugs with me, then I pull it away, so he jumps up to stand on my lap.  I throw it into the dining area.  In the space of about a second and a half, he looks at it, rocks back on his hind legs, and launches off of me like Underdog flying off the Daily Bark or whatever that TV station was.  Grabs the baby, drops it off by Laurie, jumps up and sits next to me like nothing ever happened.  And you wonder why I call him Doofus all the time.

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Laurie ran out to get us a new seed bell, and got another feeder as well.  To say the least, they have been busy,

Of course, first pig to the trough was Mr. Chippy Munk.

Our latest guests, though, are a pair of what I identified (after about 45 minutes of looking) as red-brested Nuthatches.

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Finally, a little "Fun With News Stories" .  First I'll give you part of a headline that is unusual; then, the full headline, that will go a long way to explaining things; then, the first line of the article, which will make the whole thing crystal clear.

Partial headline:
"...restaurant shut down after road kill found in kitchen"

Full headline:

"Kentucky restaurant shut down after road kill found in kitchen"

First line of article:

"A Chinese restaurant in Kentucky has reportedly been forced to shut its doors after allegedly serving up roadkill."Apparently, a customer called the health department after watching them wheel in a garbage can with a box on top- trying and failing to hide the deer legs and tail sticking out.  Seems the owner's son found the unfortunate main course along I-75; and when questioned, the owner said  "they didn't know that they weren't allowed to” .  So what Chinese dish does dead deer get added to?

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Finally, Lokomotiv has notched 2 more wins, and both of them starred goalie Vitaly Kolesnik.  He posted a 1-0 shutout of Severstal on Friday, with the only goal being Stefan Kronwall's 4th just before the game's sixth minute.  Sunday it was Vityaz, and another shutout as Kolesnik pushed his shutout streak to 157 minutes and 56 seconds.  We weren't exactly lighting up the scoreboard either, and snapped a 100:45 scoreless streak of our own when Sergei Plotnikov got his first of the season at 6:36 of the third; Yegor Averin chipped in #4 with about a minute and a half to go to make it a 2-0 win.

Amazing as Kolesnik's streak is, the KHL is a low-scoring league, and his goals-against average is just 8th in the league, with two goalies under 1.50!  Still our 6 wins, 2 shootout wins, and 2-loss record puts us now first in the conference and tied for third behind Traktor (who is 8-2) and Sibir.  Next up is tuesday at Dinamo Minsk.