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Sudden realization: We’re getting married one month from today. That’s right, folks. November 20th has been chosen. We don’t have a definite time yet, but we’re aiming for about 6 p.m. Vegas time. That should offer most of our family the chance to watch it. (It’ll be Saturday evening in the Midwest, Friday morning in Australia.) Final details will be posted the day before when we actually confirm the time with the chapel. For now, you can go ahead and bookmark the Internet streaming site.Edited to add: Here’s our address for anybody that needs it. And even those of you that think you have it should re-check it, because we moved a year ago and you might have it wrong and eventually you’ll do something silly like send us an invitation to your wedding addressed to the wrong SUBURB. (*cough* Like my sister. *cough*)

Kris and Rodd
1/4 Moorgate Street
Chippendale NSW 2008
Australia

• Customers who just don’t get it. “Is this yarn on sale?” “Yes, they’re all on sale.” “Well, is this one on sale?” “Yes, that one’s on sale too. They’re all on sale.” “Even this one? This one right here’s on sale?” Yes, that’s what ALL means. It means F**KING EVERYTHING. Good grief.
• Customers who have no friends. “Does this color look good on me?” “Yes, it looks fine.” “Really? Where do you think I could wear it? Day or evening?” I am not a personal shopper. Find some friends or grow a spine.
• Customers who can’t do simple estimating math problems. “How much is this kit?” “Well, it’s normally $53.20, so with the 30% discount you’re going to save about fifteen bucks or so.” “But can you tell me EXACTLY?” Why, are you going to pay in PENNIES or something?
• Customers who think that they deserve special service. “This tapestry has a hole in it. Can I get a discount?” “It’s already 50% off.” “I mean an ADDITIONAL discount.” “Ma’am, that’s WHY it’s 50% off.” “But I’m in here all the time, and I spent a lot of money, and I know the owner’s dad, and the last time I was here he gave me one for eighty dollars…” That’s usually when I start gauging how fast I’d need to run to fatally impale myself on a tapestry stand.

Good Things:
– We finally got our television fixed, and it cost way less than we expected! Turns out that the explosion was just from the power supply, not the picture tube as we’d feared.

– My computer is finally on its way! I can’t wait to get it.

– My laptop is fixed! Adrian at AppleCentre Broadway really came through for me. The monitor’s been replaced and a new 40GB hard drive is installed. I can’t believe I now have two computers! That’s more than the Snook!

– I found my Halloween costume! God bless The Costume Shop. (And God damn ABC Costumes, none of whose dresses would even go over my arms. As Snookums later consoled me: “That’s because they were all made for drug-addled NIDA skanks.”) Now I just have to figure out how to duct-tape my boobs up near my chin.

Thanks to Kath & Kim, I can now knit a gumnut bonnet with wattle pompom. How cute is that? Too bad Joey and Kurt (Snookums’s nephew) are too old to wear then. (Link courtesy of Mary-Helen.)

Wow. Some guy from Wolcottville, Indiana (where I grew up) started a bison ranch! I’m trying to remember if I ever met Pete Cook. The name sounds really familiar.

Check out my signage.
No, that’s not a euphemism. Katherine visited the shop Monday and took a picture of the wool section, and lo and behold, there’s one of the many, many signs I created! (Once it became known that I know my way around Illustrator, I got handed the task of designing all the sale signage.) That one is actually my favorite, because it just says: “Add to your stash. All knitting yarns 30% off.” For some reason those short imperative sentences really crack me up.

So I’ve had 48 hours to recuperate from my first Tapestry Craft sale experience… and I’m still a little wrecked. We ended up working til 3 a.m. Friday night setting things up, which meant I only had about three (crap) hours of sleep before heading back the next day. The old ladies were lined up six deep by the time the doors opened. It was a melee. It was a madhouse. It was like the footage they show on the news of women fighting each other at the annual Harrods sale. Surprisingly, I didn’t touch a cash register until the very end of the day. I spent every other second helping people in the wool section. We’d been worried that people wouldn’t buy much since it’s the end of the knitting season, but instead folks were walking out with hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. By lunchtime I realized that I needed real food (as opposed to the Diet Coke and Krispy Kremes I’d been subsisting on for the past 24 hours) so I headed next door to a coffeeshop. I ran into Helen and her boyfriend Clinton on the way so they joined me. That was nice. Thirty short minutes later I was back into the fray. We didn’t actually get the last customer out the door til nearly an hour after our official closing time. Even Albert the owner was amazed. (Apparently it was really weird to have a sale day that was full-on busy all day without any slow periods at all.) We ended up having our biggest sales total in shop history, which is pretty amazing. I just stood there dazed, looking at the knee-deep piles of wool on the floor and dreading the clean-up. Luckily everyone else was just as tired as me so we left it and went home. Since then I’ve pretty much been knitting, sleeping, and watching TV. Unfortunately, this is going to be the pattern for the next, oh, three weeks. Gahhhh…

A-ha! So this is why I’ve been getting dozens of idiotic tourists coming in the shop looking for knitted poncho patterns.

Holy crap. I’ve been at work for sixteen hours straight now…

Wow. Another Lakeland Laker has a weblog!