So Much To Do

OK, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything on anything, so I thought I’d start with an update on the house.

The past month has been relatively productive. During the first and last week of July I was able to schedule some vacation time, or at least some time away from work, to do work on my house. I suppose it wasn’t much of a vacation. After all, most people take vacations to GET AWAY from work. Not me, however. I use vacation time to do things I can’t get done any otherwise. Anyway…

During July I was able to get most of 4 rooms cleaned out — walls and ceilings torn down and dragged out to the 30-yard dumpster sitting in the driveway. I still have some old carpeting to get out, but that’s minor and will be taken care of later. The cabinets, counter, dishwasher and stove/oven have also been removed clearing the way for me to finish wiring the main part of the house (once I finish getting the ceiling down in the kitchen and cleaning up the debris). So much for moving in on July 31st! The way things are going it may be until spring before I’m in completely.

The dumpster? Well, after ripping out the better part of 4 rooms I can say the dumpster is FULL. Looks like I’m going to need another one to finish gutting the place. If only I had a few more weeks of vacation time…

Pizza Hut: No Humor Allowed

Whatever happened to humor? When did we, as a society, lose our sense of it? There once was a time when a stray comment, clean in nature but nonetheless off-beat, would get at least a smile from passersby. I miss those days!

Earlier this week I happened to stop in a Pizza Hut Take Out and ordered some wings and a pizza. I was interested in one of those “Edge” pizzas they’ve been hawking on TV lately, when the woman at the counter asked me which kind I wanted. Of course I asked what they had and finally settled on the pepperoni version, after a discussion of what was on the different types. One of the offerings had a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t have minded (onions, pepperoni, olives) but did have some objectionable toppings (sausage and tomatoes).

I’m sorry, but PH’s sausage is kinda like tofu, except uglier. I don’t like tofu, or things that look like tofu. To put it mildly, tofu SUCKS! I’ve tried several varieties of tofu: mush, not-quite-as-mushy mush, and firm mush. It’s still mush. And the taste? Soy doesn’t have much taste. Why do we expect tofu to have it? Oh yeah, that’s right…it picks up the flavor of everything else. Well, if that’s the case, why not leave the tofu out and eat everything else? Too bad it can’t be used effectively for bio-diesel. It would probably have better taste.

Tomatoes, while an essential ingredient in pizza sauce, cause random difficulties for me. Sometimes I’ll have a reaction that causes me to alternate between sweating and chills for a few hours. Other times I won’t have any reaction at all. So I deal with it and enjoy the pizza. But tomato pieces are totally different. I cannot tolerate them in the least, and will choke if I try to eat any. So I classify tomatoes as EVIL.

But I still eat pizza and pasta.

OK. So here I am, ordering a pizza, when I tell the woman at the counter (as she describes the all-encompassing ultimate edge pizza thingy) that except for the sausage and tomatoes, that variety of pizza would have been perfect. I also make a few comments about evil tomatoes. Somewhere along the line I expected a laugh, or at least a quizzical look from her as she took my order.

NADA. I don’t get it. A person orders a pizza made with pizza sauce from tomatoes and calls tomatoes evil. Further, this same person won’t eat a pizza with tomatoes on it because they’re evil. Don’t you think that would be worth at least a puzzled look? When I make comments like that in other places I at least see a smile.

Maybe it’s some sort of corporate policy forbidding humor in the workplace.