Summer Plans Part 2

The first week of September was my vacation (half of it anyway,) and we worked hard on the back room. New floor, new paint, and reconstucting a closet into more useful space. Putting in the floor was a lot of fun. It took about 10 hours, and looked fantastic when we were done. Naturally, Shadie was scared to death of it. (See previous post "Encore".)

The large closet at the end of the room became office space (with a built in computer desk, etc.), and a small broom closet, with storage space above.

Gaby picked the colors and did most of the painting. We put in a chair rail, painted white, and the wall above is now golden yellow, the wall below avacado green, with a maple leaf stencil above and below.

We ran out of time before we could finish. There are still the cabinet doors to do and a drawer to build, plus a few minor details. But we are very happy with the results.

The Fairies Have Come to Dance In Our Yard!

A circle of mushrooms has grown up in our yard, and our neighbor, Dot, came over and explained to Gaby that it's called a fairy ring. Apparently, the fairies have decided that they like Gaby's garden, and to celebrate it they have created a place to come and dance in our yard during the full moon. There's a space about 18" wide on one side, which means that Gaby is welcome to come in, but when he mows, he has to use scissors inside the circle.

Last Wednesday afternoon, a fairy on a stick showed up in the center of the circle. We assumed Dot had put it there. This morning the fairy turned into a flamingo. When Gaby saw Dot today and asked her about it, she said that she had driven by this morning and noticed it herself, thinking, "Oh! Gaby's got a flamingo just like mine." But when she got home, it was "Wait...Where's MY flamingo?" Turns out that the son of another neighbor had taken both items out of her yard and put them in ours -- the fairy because it was appropriate, the flamingo as a joke.

Management Has No Sense of Humor

One of our afternoon front desk guys, Kevin, is a creative and incorrigible prankster. Example: A couple of months ago he got online and found some official forms from the Department of Human Services, printed them off, and arranged to have Bossman presented with papers explaining that his check was to be garnished to support the two-year-old daughter he didn't know he had. Brilliant!
One time, AFOM wrote a note on the big dry-erase board in the office complaining that he'd had to remove nine used glasses that had been left in the office. (This is a recurring problem, along with plates and silverware and other lunch remnants.) Kevin added, "Nine glasses of pop in the office, Nine glasses of pop, Take one down, Pass it around..."
But he almost got fired over one prank that went too far (in Management's opinion.) One of our HR managers had written a list of the top ten rules that employees must obey, and had hung up copies all over the employee areas. Kevin, having noticed that a chair from the restaurant was downstairs needing to be repaired, used her list as a basis for what was ostensibly an employee rewards perk.
When I got to work, there was a new flyer taped to the locker room door. (Actually, they were all over the place.) I read it, thinking at first that it was one of those lame-yet-kinda-cool things they do for employee morale. But the more I read, the more ridiculous it got. Click on the picture, and you'll see what I mean.
Upstairs, it was pretty obvious that Kevin was proud of his work, but the next morning, our head of security went around and took all the flyers down, muttering about looking through the security tapes to find the culprit. I found out later that upper management wanted Kevin fired, but the FOM refused, so he was given a three day suspension instead. Most of the rest of us thought this was an unnecessary overreaction, and some spoke of rallying to Kevin's defense with a prank of their own, but within a few days the whole thing had blown over, and now it's just one of those stories everyone laughs about. Except for management, of course.

Encore

Remember that Shadie was scared of the floor when we took the carpet out? Well, just when she was getting used to it, we covered the green tile with laminate flooring. And this time we got it on video! At this point, the floor is half done, and the moisture barrier is sticking out from underneath the new flooring. You can see the ugly green tile at the end of the video.