A Week of Sundays

The ring is in sight, but of course the 4th Holiday makes this a short work week, and an oil change, haircut, carwash, etc. is in the cards for tonight (and getting a jump on sleep would be nice), so that's meant packing a week's worth of duties into 3 days. Burning 2 hours vac Tue and Wed meant _almost_ getting in a full day of work at the desk job jockeying meetings and surprisingly fitting in another honest 7 hours each night at the lodge. Not that I'd want to do that regularly, but I've had weekends that've felt more taxing out there. Last night was nice, though. Cara came out shortly before dusk to christen the freshly-installed commode (or at least hit the flush lever a few times for novelty's sake) and we had pizza out on the deck as the sun set, watching the deer roam the fields. Afterwards, she watered the crab apples while I glued down the last black VCT in the washer area.

July will be a month of tying up loose ends, contracting out cement and brick work, and getting down and dirty with the outdoor assignments. Oh yeah, and that whole moving heavy, awkward, irreplaceables out to the lodge that has Cara a bit worried.

Poor Walmart. They know they'll no longer be the only game in town and they're putting on their best poseur threads to fit in with the cool kids. The whole exterior has been painted (light beigy brown from the old blue) and comically, their new outbuilding sign is now light blue with white type. Speaking of type, they've dropped the Sam Walton era typeface and gone with a "cool" softer look that's so very now. They've been studying the playbook pretty closely: setting their aisles on diagonals, building a freestanding pharmacy, adding "dramatic" lighting and track grids over the bakery and produce areas. They even changed out the bulbs in the upright freezers, or at least pulled the diffusers, for a "crisp" effect, which isn't as "crisp" as it is hard-on-my-eyes. They even had a landscape crew busy out front Tuesday but their asphalt wasteland is no match for all the trees and green across the street. The only good to come of this is that when I stopped in after leaving work, I noticed the prices were once-again hitting reasonable levels. Loaf of bread: <$2. Two liter of Vault: $1. Totinos: $0.98

Still, they falter. I hear the merchandise continues to move around the store inexplicably. And in the great beigoning, someone thought it'd be a good idea to paint all the rough-face block while they were at it. Oh, the desperation.