Multiply 365 Day 211 - Lives of quiet desperation

 

It's weird how some things happen. It would have been very easy this morning to just get up and bitch about day #7 in a row at work (it ended up being a 10am-5:30pm shift). Especially when I overslept and didn't get to do what I wanted to this morning, that being get up early and catch sunrise on Mt Washington. It is one thing that, for all of my years in Pittsburgh, I have never done. Sure I have been up there, some pics of my trips up there have even made the page, but it is one thing to just go up there and click pics, the view is certainly photogenic enough, but it is another to see the sun come up over Pittsburgh, cracking the horizon in the distance. And the weather was more than cooperative, it was almost completely clear out when I headed out to work at 9am, which just made my failure to get up early even greater.

The big reason why I would have had to get up so early is that to get there I most likely would have had to walk, the buses don't run that early and I am not paying for a cab just to take a picture or two. And the length of the walk isn't that bad, it takes about an hour and change, depending on how good my legs feel when it comes time to actually climbing Mt Washington.

But since I woke up too late none of that was an issue. Instead it was just me going to the bus stop (I still missed “Meet the Press”) and riding into town to work on another project that Ed wanted done. He wanted all of the shelves in the basement straightened up, as well as another order tagged and ready to put on the shelves. While our usual supplier, Sledd, has tags for the merchandise they send us, the independent outfits Ed will sometimes order from do not, so before we can put any of their merchandise on the floor we have to using a pricing gun on each and every piece, and during his vacation we got an order of about $500 worth of such merchandise, but before I could begin pricing it I needed to know just what those prices would be, which I learned on Friday.

So I had plenty on my plate as it were, seeing as how Saturday was spent catching up on invoices that Amy failed to do when she worked in the office. I had thought I was all caught up on that nonsense but Friday afternoon came with another stack of twelve that were not done from back in May. Oh joy. By Saturday afternoon I had gotten those done, as well as two more dairy invoices, a Coke invoice, and three more Sledd invoices and had the order done for Monday, but I hadn't tackled the pricing issue yet. So that was the big plan for today. And all went relatively well. There was a surprise visit from Dee, she had said she might come in on Sunday but some events that happened Friday led me to believe that it wasn't a carved in stone sort of thing. But she was there getting a head start on her paperwork for the coming week. Not that we talked a whole lot, we both had plenty on our plates to do so being all social and chummy wasn't part of today's scheduled events.

I think I have most everything ticketed, there are a couple of items that I need prices for, some I will have to call Sledd and get prices, others I will have to run by Ed, the shelving down stairs is reorganized in such a fashion that we have space again because everything is just thrown about the place in a scatter shot manner, and I even got to put a few items into the system. So I would call it a relatively good day on the productivity scale, if nothing else.

But as much as I would like to complain on day 7 of a working 13 days straight (provided another Sunday project doesn't pop up next week), on my walk home I was reminded of how lucky I have it right now. I got off my bus on the corner of 5^th Avenue and Atwood Street. Atwood is one of the many streets that run parallel to my street (McKee Place) though the two are separated by about two blocks. The thing about Atwood Street is there are many restaurants and a couple of stores along it, and I wanted to stop by Rite Aid and grab a gallon of tea for when I got home. So I quickly poke my head in there and get my necessities (I also bought toilet paper) and started the walk down Atwood towards my apartment. Along Atwood you will find a couple of Asian grocery stores, and restaurants that serve all of the following; Cuban, Thai, Japanese, Indian, Mexican, Tex Mex, Pizza and Vegetarian. Basically just about anything one could want to eat can be found on that street. But the problem I noticed was when I approached the Mexican restaurant, Mi Ranchito. I have never been inside there, at least in its Mexican incarnation, I visited there once when it was selling French food (Simply French) where I had my first taste of duck and while it was okay, it isn't something I can ever say I craved again after having it. But I have often walked my, checked out the menu on the front and thought to myself this might be a nice place to go with someone, should such an occasion ever occur.

On the sidewalk outside the restaurant was one of those small little A frame signs, this one of the chalkboard variety and written on it were three words “Tacos, Tacos, Tacos”. Now if I am in a Mexican frame of mind (and not the bastardized version of Mexican food offered in the states) I am not sure that pushing tacos is the way to get me. But maybe it is just me, maybe tacos are the way to go. Unless you are making them in the parking lot. That's right, as I passed the A frame sign and walked past the restaurant, in the parking lot were two gentlemen under an awning with a portable flat top grill and some condiment bottles selling tacos. And I just got sad. I couldn't imagine how bad business must be inside that the solution to all of their financial problems would be to sell tacos in the parking lot. At the very best maybe you get some foot traffic that walks by that otherwise wouldn't have given you any money at all, but at worst to are just stealing from the business inside by selling items outside, and no doubt cheaper items to boot, after all how much will you pay for a parking lot taco? Perhaps I am wrong, maybe business is booming so much (though there were no cars in the lot when I went by) that the place is packed and they have to sell food outside just to keep everyone happy, but more than likely business is so bad that this is the best idea they could come up with to make any money at all. I pity the people that work there, that have to rely on the success of a grill in the parking lot in order to get a paycheck, or the owner who has relegated himself to this type of idea just to keep the lights on. Makes my problems seem pale by comparison.