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So now I got away today with six hours of sleep on top of six hours of sleep, always a fun thing. I clock out, I sleep, I get up, I work AGAIN! Damn busy weekends…and I thought weekends were carefree and fun! Not the other way around.

Right, so I had the shift from hell. To start, while on concession the very first customer I got was a band of girl scouts who ordered 10 small drinks (you’re paid on commissions in concession—you have to have 1:8 small popcorns/drinks:regular popcorn/drinks to get all forty cents for each combo you sell. It’s complicated, but you can imagine what 10 small drinks meant for me—no commisions today!). So, that screwed me for the day in the 50-some Super Combos I sold. Errk I was mad about that, but I couldn’t blame the Girl Scouts; they were so cute. I could; however, blame maybe the 10 or 12 other people who ordered small drinks from me. ERRRK I promise you, I’m not THAT bad a seller—people just SUCK today!

And then they gave me this drawer (drawer: the thing that holds money when people are selling stuff) that would NOT open unless you poked around in it with this tiny key that I knew I’d loose if they kept me on shift all day (usually the drawers just pop open when you ring in the order, so you can do easy change). Sure enough, just as we were getting a huge, 10-minute line to box office, I closed my drawer, and locked the key inside. AHHHH POP! goes my head. So, I told the girls in front of the line that I needed to grab the manager’s keys for a second, promised it wouldn’t take more than that, and ran over to box office where I saw—the PE coach manager. ACCK what luck. I told her my problem, pointed at the line, begged for her set of keys, and she said, “Just a moment.” Then she proceeded to drain every person’s drawer on box office, went into the manager’s station, and maybe what felt like five minutes later, finally emerged with her keys. I ran back to the stand, went over to my drawer—TA DA! it opened quite easily, I grabbed the key, and then I talked to the girls.

“I’m real sorry about that…my manager was taking her sweet time when really we don’t have any, don’t you know, so I was like, ‘AHHHHHH!’” I explained. While finishing that last part, I looked over to the left, standing right next to me was the PE manager. *BANGS HEAD ON DESK REPEATEDLY*

THEN if that wasn’t it, right afterwards I got a family of four or five who obviously thought I was an idiot, because they assumed I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, and it only seemed verified when I thought they wanted a child popcorn and not a tub of popcorn. It was really hard to hear the lady though, because she muttered every word, and the popper was going and there was a crowd and it was just…evil. So, she seemed rather affronted when I asked if she wanted butter flavoring on the child popcorn, and then she was like, “NO. TUB of POPCORN.” Oh. Tub. Well, not to get technical, but we do call them Super Value Buckets, and I know that’s a really dumb name, but it’s so much easier to hear than TUB, which sounds vaguely like “pub” or “kid,” the way she was muttering. No one says TUB in our stand.

So, that was crappy. The rest of the day at work was good….I clocked out half an hour early, and Laura and I passed time between then and six enjoying a PretzelMaker in the mall. That was cool beans.

Then Dad took the boys and me out to dinner, the Eclectica Cafe, or something like that. It was a simply delicious meal, across town, but worth the drive if you’re up to it. And we met up with Jessie and Mike at Sean’s football thing at Dorado Stadium, which was awesome, though I fear we didn’t stay that long due to sprinkler’s coming up…it was cool though, running into people.

After that, I wrote with Cristal and Jessie (AHHH MULTITASKING), but now I’m relaxed. Methinks I’ll get a Hawaiin Midnight Snack in L.A. (well, it’s probably not Hawaiin, seeing as it’s 1a not 3a…errk, you get the drift).

Deepinder, the rushed ending is your fault! :P

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Zack: And the gay man, who takes everything personally and makes it personal, while adding the velveteen touch of a dandy fop.

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Adam: You’re only cool if you’ve spilt something.
Lex: [mopping up the coffee he spilt all over the kitchen] If spillin’ makes ya cool, consider me Miles Davis!

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Lex: [after watching The Mothman Prophecies; 2 AM; hopping around outside and flapping his hands] Weeeee! I am the mothman! Weeee!

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Damon: I am setting a precident for all rap videos. It is now mandatory that the two thug rappers start making out passionatly in the video.

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Lex: [talking about Ice Cube the rapper] He’s like Pink Panther on heroin. Only not as pink.

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Ian: [talking about a circular water slide] Oh, so it’s like a penny thing for retarded kids?

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I went to bed at normal time last night (3a) when Joey woke me up with a, “Time to get up” bright and early at 9a. I flipped him off, but rolled out of bed. This morning was to be dedicated to Maurine’s funeral, six hours of sleep or not.

I put on a black shirt and jeans, then we drove to St. Ordelia’s. The entire way Mom chatted about how not to do this, but act like this, don’t say that, just be quiet during this time, etc. I wanted to tell her to shut up, but she always talks like this when she’s nervous.

When we arrived at St. Ordelia’s, we greeted Pat and Jack, Maurine’s parents. First I ran into Pat. She was…smiling? Mom was saying how she was in shock, and she seemed like it last Saturday, but it was disturbing, that she still seemed so jovial. It was definately a crazy smile.

“Hi, Pat,” I said awkwardly.

She smiled happily. “Oh, Natalya! It’s so good to see you. [we hugged then] My, how you’ve grown! You’ve gotten so pretty…” Her eyes went distant.

“Thank you…and how are you?” I said politely, but dumbly.

“Oh, I’m not too good, Natalya. I’m not too good at all.”

There was an awkward pause, which ended quickly because someone motioned for me to move on, one of those old gossipy women who haunt funerals such as these. They are the ones who everyone pretends to appreciate, but everyone hates as well because they are so morbid.

Next, I ran afoul Jack. He gave me a hug, in his quiet way, and he introduced me to David’s Californian uncle, Jack, Jr., whom I actually met, but Jack, Sr. obviously forgot. I forgave him.

After Jack, Joey and I met up with David. David looked…well, like David. Aside from me giving him a hug, too, he looked nothing short of his typical distant, self. I think Cristal would like David…he’s a bit like Draco Malfoy, down to the silver hair and everything…

So, then we all sat down, held a mass. Except I think maybe half the community was athiest and the other half not fundementally Christian, which at first didn’t bother me, but I grew up knowing when to kneel and knowing the “Our Father” by heart, so eventually seeing hundreds of people patronizing the church by doing it all—well, “wrong”—started to bother me. I guess I can understand why Mormans don’t like non-Mormans in their synagogue. It didn’t help at all that our priest played the opportunist and talked about not Maurine and her beautiful life, but Jesus Christ, our Savior, who takes away the sin of the world. Okay, so it’s great that we’re turning to God at times like this, but I swear to you, it felt like he was selling it, not praying it. That’s why I don’t like fundementalists, though.

Romy said a beautiful eulogy, however. She said how when God created Maurine, He put a star in her heart, and it shone in her face, her actions, and the many lives she touched. It was, like I said, beautiful.

After the mass, we hung around a bit in the church (the old ladies called it a “reception”), until most of the crowd dispersed. Pat and Jack already wanted us to go to this luncheon at their house, which was odd, but they kept emphasizing how they wanted their “closest friends” to be there. I guess we went more for Pat and Jack than for Maurine. I mean, I love—ack, loved—Maurine, and she loved me back. If anything, Mom used to say how of all of us, she liked me best ’cause I was like the daughter she never had, you know? Errk this sucks. All right, I miss Maurine a lot, now that I just typed that. In fact, I’m finally starting to cry. There. I admitted it. I’m crying now. And it sucks ’cause I do—did—love her. But, that’s in the past. And at the time I think we were going more for Pat, David and Jack. Jack kept repeating how he wanted to go to the house, and how they were having their “closest friends” go there, how they were having their “closest friends” go there. It was so weird.

We put maybe an hour, an hour and a half into being there, not because we couldn’t stay, but because Pat and Jack seemed to want to be alone. David; on the other hand, surrounded himself with friends and refused to talk about anything. I guess that was David’s way of dealing with it, though. People kept saying how he looks just like his mother. If I was David, I’d resent it. Because David was the one who found Maurine’s body, and David had a huge fight with her before she did it. He never got the chance to say he was sorry, he told us.

So we sat there and talked and laughed over small talk. There was little mention of Maurine or the situation, except one tense moment where Pat talked about finishing off the garage and letting David move in his own room.

When Betsy and her family arrived at the house, they came in from the kitchen, which made us all laugh since they didn’t use the front door. “Well, I don’t know any other way in this house!” she argued, and I saw the truth in it. That was one cool thing about Pat and Jack’s house, was that even though David was Joey’s friend, we were all kind of close to the entire family. And Maurine was part of that—she used to like to sit there and cook or clean or just talk with me while Joey, David, and Jimmy played Residence Evil in the back. Yeh, those were the fourth-fifth-sixth grade summers, and by middle school Maurine and I would go shopping and stuff. Maurine was cool like that, always hip, always fun. But, like I said, that’s in the past now, and they wouldn’t even bring it up at the funeral or reception or luncheon. Childhood memories are a strange thing; they come to haunt you as though to remind you that you can’t come back to them, like it or not. I think if I learned anything today, I learned that~

Then I came home and kicked Sin’s ass. That was depressing, the end of FFX. I won’t say more though, because I’d hate to spoil it for those of you who haven’t beaten the game yet.

At work they put me on the stand, and that was boring, if anything. I didn’t feel like going home though, so I stayed an extra hour and a half, helping them close and stuff. Jolly.

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Talya [during crazy Friday night rush]: Hi, welcome to Loew’s, would you…
[Two Random guys & random girl bang two empty cups from Wal-Mart or Wendy's, or one of those places]
Random Guy 1 [enunciating every word]: We’d like our free refill we are entitled to.
Talya: What?
Random Guy 2: Yes. It says up there that you have free refills on all fountain drinks. And this [pointing at two drinks] would be under fountain drinks, don’t you think?
Talya: Uh, no!

[And, no, it didn't work, I'm sorry to say, but at least they tried, eh? I tried this ploy once with the people at PretzelMaker...I tried paying them with a penny because the sign said, "Refills, .53 cents" (note the dot in front of the 53 cents). I even told them I'd be generous enough to let them keep .43 cents...the same result above happened...]

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Jimmy: Yeh, they wanted me to be in REACH, but I said, “FUCK. YOU.” So they left it at that.