"Knock-knock."
"Who's there?"
"A blood-thirsty thief, bent on burgling your home and terrorizing you for 25 minutes... mind if I pop in?"

I was perusing my friends' blogs, and was shocked to see a link to this article on Julia's blog. A home invasion, way up in Irondequoit. We're not talking about a street between East Ridge and Norton, or off Hudson now, but up towards the goddamn lake. This is seriously fucked up. I know my folks keep their doors unlocked when they're home, and they live closer to the city line too. They also live close to the cop shop, but since this is the IPD, I don't think that counts for much, the bunch of rancorous, indolent shit-heads. I'd naturally advise them to get a 12-gauge handy, but that would be unwelcome advice, since my mother is rabidly anti-gun. I personally, am anti-African-American home-invading thug, and would gladly keep some iron at hand as my home-invader be-gone.

I got an email and phone call, with apologies from internet Julie about bailing on yesterday's plans. To provide back-ground, we've been emailing for a few months, and talking occasionally for about a month too, and she's re-scheduled tentative plans upwards of a dozen times now. I'd suspect that she's blowing me off, but that makes no sense, as she emails or calls, expressing a sincere interest in meeting, so I have to take her word that she's a very busy lady. Looks like were on for thurday night at MacGregors... supposedly! It'd be nice to meet her, as she looks attractive from her picture, and she seems pretty damn nice from our short conversations.

Back to a more relaxed pace this week... I've only one work day this week, although it's saturday at 5 am, and through lunch. I know there's a chance that they'll ask me to stay & work that night too... a triple! I could be at Happy Hyatt for upwards of 20 hours saturday. Insane, but it'd be a pant-load of money. If I can get a shift or two from Gatherings this week I can forego that kind of torture. And I have to say that last night's wedding was just about a grand cluster-fuck. It was one of the most ornate ceremonies I've seen yet... an Indian-Pakistani Muslim wedding. Lots of nice people, and a change of pace. But the dogma the priest babbled from the Koran was the same old "my way or the highway" as I hear from the other monotheistic religions, not surprisingly. Religion get so damn tiresome... when the hell will humanity outgrow it finally? Anyway, once the show got going, it went down-hill. I was with one of the vets there, and she was kind of wierd. I felt an irritating tension in the air, in general. A real negative vibe with everyone there, and lots of stress. It was an unpleasant function, with the staff being generally churlish & quarrelsome with one another. It got better when alot of them left after dessert, actually. I think everyone has had a long couple weeks and just needed a break. None of us wanted to be there, or to work last night. It got irritating again around 1 am when it became obvious the guests were going to linger around the ballroom, preventing us from wrapping up with the room tear-down. Thankfully Justin, the banquet captain, let us go & took care of what was left with one of the bartenders, since she wasn't done breaking down her bar yet. I'm so happy to have almost a week off. The rest & chance to get shit done will almost be worth the lack of money this week.