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money at the bakery, then the chocolatier, then the fancy cheese merchant was at least I'm supporting small local businesses. And I get to that part of Cleveland Heights maybe twice a year, so it's not like I'm there every week buying a bunch of treats for myself.

Thanks, hun! I *did* opt out of going to a local festival last weekend, and I was thinking I might go to the Guardians' last game of the regular season today but ultimately decided not to (it helps that it's been raining on and off all day--I'm not sure if they'll even get the game in).

To answer your question about my job, yes, I'm still looking. This job doesn't pay my bills; thanks to extra work due to a co-worker's illness this month and Dad's extra generous (as always) birthday check, I didn't need to use my savings this month but I will have to next month, especially since I opt to pay my car insurance twice a year rather than monthly (they tack on $3/month if you pay monthly, or at least that was the policy a decade or more ago when I switched to twice yearly payments). I'm grateful to have Medicaid but would like a job that includes better health insurance. And lately it's the little things that have been bothering me. Things like the parking. Or the fact that the people with a business upstairs have a sewer problem and haven't gotten it taken care of, so for literal weeks, the shop has stunk like a much used toilet. The store manager is the very definition of a micro-manager, and as much as I get praised (and I *do* get praised, a lot, in part because I'm a good worker and in part because the bar is pretty low), I get yelled at for stupid things. One example: one day, and one day only, I forgot to push in my chair after getting up from my 15 minute break. Our "breakroom" is just a table pushed against a back wall in a TINY room in the back and yes, not pushing in the chair makes it tougher to navigate the small space. But I got a lecture on how dangerous it is to leave the chair out like I did. Once. I mean, it wasn't right for me to do but...I was a supervisor at the bindery for years and one of my basic tenets of managing was to wait and see if the thing an employee did wrong was a one-off or a habit and not say anything unless it was a habit.

Other things that annoy me: I still don't have anything remotely resembling a set schedule. For three weeks, I worked Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, off Friday, then worked Saturday. I don't love working Saturday but it wouldn't be right to be in retail, in a store that's open 7 days a week, and not work at least one weekend day, so it's fine. Then of course this week, when I was anticipating having Monday off and was glad because I'd scheduled a dental appointment 6 months ago for this past Monday...I'm scheduled for Monday (I was able to reschedule my routine cleaning for tomorrow). Next week, Sis is in town from Thursday through the following Monday. She's got things to do--her HS class is having a joint 70th birthday party (how fun is that?)--but I was thinking at least I'd be off Friday and Sunday. But no, I'm working Friday. AND...I'm participating, along with bff, in a craft show Saturday October 12. At the time I agreed to the show, the work schedule wasn't out yet. I went in the next morning and asked for that day off...SM had already made the schedule and I was on it, of course. I asked about changing it...she said she "didn't have the power", that she'd "have to run it by the regional manager"...bull 💩 SM brags about how she runs "her" store and can do whatever she wants...and oh, does does it not matter that in two months, I've already covered twice for a sick employee and once, on a Sunday no less, for an employee who was attending a concert Saturday night and apparently didn't think she could get her act together in time to come to work at noon the following day?

And on top of all that, the Chico's I work at is a smaller store, run more like an upscale boutique than a "regular" Chico's, so there's a lot more fawning over customers, a lot more individual attention, and a lot more picking out outfits for them rather than either letting them choose or simply pointing in the right direction when they come in and ask for "x" that they'd seen online or in the catalog. And I'm not really comfortable with that, especially when a customer doesn't give me even the smallest clue as to what they might like. Not even a color or colors sometimes.

Whew...didn't mean to turn my reply into a rant--sorry! And I don't want to give the impression that I'm miserable at the job because I'm not. I don't love it but I don't hate it either. Honestly, I think it would be a great job a dozen years from now, when I'm on Social Security and Medicare and SM is either retired or possibly--forgive the indelicacy--dead from either excessive hours at work (she's single, no family, no hobbies, no interests...the store is literally her life and she's there 6 days a week) or stress.