A State Drive

The thing about living in the West....
Is that all our states out there are rather large.
Like it can take the entire day to drive through the state to reach another state. 

And it wasn't that weird of a concept really. 
If you want to go anywhere out of state.
It takes time. 

But for the first time really....
I'm experiencing something different.

I flew out to the east coast this week to visit friends. 
And I'm currently the furthest north on that East coast I've ever been lol. 

Because before that point I'd been to like North Carolina and Virginia and Florida.
All states that are pretty big in their own right.
Where it can still take hours of driving to reach another state -depending on where you're starting from and where you're going.

But currently.
I'm not in one of those big states.
I'm in one of the little states.
And like it's weird.

We went on a drive today and like after twenty minutes of driving...we'd entered another state. 
I don't even known 'when' we entered this other state.
I only knew that the location -an Amish Farm- was in another state.
And it's crazy.
Because I didn't 'see' when we entered the other state. 
Maybe I missed the sign.
Or they only do it on large freeways/highways.

But the fact that we drove for only twenty minutes...and reached another state is mindboggling a bit lol. 
Because that shouldn't happen.
It shouldn't be so short of a drive.
Yet it was.
And like...if we'd driven for another hour or two, we'd probably would have been able to reach two or three other states in that time frame (depending on direction we were driving.) 

Like...weird.
So weird.
To think that you could live in one state and work in another and have the commute be like...twenty minutes. 

*shakes head*

It was pretty cool.
But definitely not something I'm used to. lol. 

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Sparks of Light

The sun had mostly sat when my friends and I ventured outside to pick black raspberries from their patch that borders their house. 

It was dark enough, even though it was still light, that we needed to use our phone flash lights to be able to see the berries. 

So there we were,

Walking  through the grass to go to the first patch.

When I saw it.

A spark of light.

And then another.

I blinked.

Wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me.

-After all I'd been traveling all day, and I was tired.

But no. 

There were more of these yellow flashes of lights. 

That's when it clicked. 

"ARE THOSE LIGHTNING BUGS?!" I gasped.

They were.

Little fireflies flitting about their yard.

*shakes head*

Like I feel like I've seen them before. 

I'm almost positive I have....

But not like this.

Not this many.

There were hundreds of them scattered through the yard.

Flaring up with their bright yellow lights.

Flitting by our heads.

It was amazing!

Like mini sparklers really. 

Honestly, I thought they were sparks of fire at first.

Which makes sense. Since their names are FIREflies lol. 

It was just sooo cool to see!!

SO. VERY. COOL.

I've never seen so many together before.

Definitely the highlight to the night for sure. ^^;; 

Until you next see these words;

I'll be watching the leaves.

Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Checked

One of the fun things about traveling, especially if you're flying....is the security check.

Because like...you never know what's going to be a flag for the checkers to pull your bag to the side after going through the x-ray machine. 

I have to admit. 

I wasn't surprised that they pulled my suitcase to the side.

I do tend to travel with weird objects. 

Like rock wands, and heat packs, and randomly shaped objects and such.

Soo, I figured my suitcase would be pulled to the side.

What surprised me though was my carryon bag too was pulled to the side as well.

Like. O.o What in the world was suspicious enough in that bag to have the people go "Oh we better look at this?"

Because mostly it was some power cords for my various electronics and a bunch of notebooks...and like one rock wand that I figured would be fine.

In the main suitcase it was the heatpacks that caused it to be pulled to the side.

They even did a little wipe paper test thingy to put in a machine to test it.

I'm guessing to make sure there were no drugs or something within it. 

Nope. Just a regular old rice bag lol. Used to keep my tense muscles from...well getting tenser.

But my other bag?

Apparently....having a variety of random snack food in your bag is suspicious enough to warrant getting pulled aside lol. 

Because I had a thing of cookies, and some chocolate bars, granola bars, rice krispi treats, and ritz crackers in that bag.

You know...snack food. 

But because they were all in individually wrapped packages and such....

The agent dude needed to pull it aside and check every single one of those packages to makes sure they were properly sealed and not disguised as something else. 

*shakes head*

Good to know for the future lol. 

Can't do much about the heatpacks, so I suspect that I'll get my bag pulled to the side again when I return home. Though I will be sure to put them on top so the agents don't need to dig through my bag to find them.

But the snack food?

Yah, gonna make sure that's all eaten before I have to come back. ^^;; heh. 

Until you next read these words;

I'll be watching the leaves.

Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Sound? What Sound?

So, last week I was late to work by like an hour because I'd turned off my alarms Monday morning and forgot to turn them back on for work the next day. 

*exhales* 

Today....well I was late for work again. 
>.>
Which that's not a good sign if something occurs multiple times in a week....
But like...I don't get how it happened?

I'd made sure the alarms were set before going to bed last night.
So they were on.
They were going to go off.

And what do I wake up to this morning at 7:15 when I was supposed to be at work at 6:30? 
Yah, the vibrating of my phone as work was calling me to see if I was alright. 

Soo....
What had happened to the two alarms I set to ensure that I wake up for work?

Well....
Apparently they went off. 
Because my phone had notified me that I had missed both alarms 
-aka. they'd made noise. They'd gone off for at least a couple of minutes. Each. 
Which the alarms are only like 6 minutes apart.
So that much noise...

Should have woken me up.

The noise has been wakening me up every work day for like ever. 
So the fact that I didn't hear it this morning?

So weird. 
So. Very. Weird. 

*shakes head*
At most I can figure that my brain just is in vacation mode. 

Because I had the last couple of days off work. 
And then I had work today.
And then for the next week....I'm on vacation.

So I guess my brain just...checked out, decided it was too tired to hear my alarm, and whatever I was dreaming at that point in time just filtered out the sound. 

Hopefully by the time I get back from Vaca…..my mind will be much more willing to hear my alarms again. 

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Note: Posting may be sporadic for the next week due to being on Vaca. :) 

A Visit

I visited the home ward today.
Meaning the ward I grew up in.

And like...it was definitely different.
Looking over the sparse audience (because a lot of people were gone this weekend)
I only recognized like a dozen people in the ward.
When I used to know like everyone.

But I suppose that's what happens when all the people you grew up with have also grown up and moved out of the ward.
Plus the ward boundaries have adjusted slightly to include more townhomes and such.
So there's a lot more younger couples in the ward now with a handful of older folk. 

I kept expecting to see like all my wardies there. The kids I grew up with and their parents.
But nope.
Only a few familiar faces.

*shakes head*
Totally a weird experience for sure. 

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Those Rings

I went to a Gem Faire today.

Which isn't a surprising occurrence as they come to town every four months or so. 

So like....going to go check out the rocks is something that happens for me quite frequently.

However.

I'm not always able to make it to the gem faire that takes place in the summer. Particularly in June as that's when a lot of my family vacations take place. So like...I don't actually remember going to a June one before.

To also make things slightly more different.

I went on a Saturday instead of Friday like I normally do.

….people are weird on Saturdays.

The whole thing was weird.

Whether if it was just a Saturday weirdness.

The fact that I was there towards closing time instead of opening.

Or that it's just a June weirdness that I haven't noticed before....

It was weird today at the Gem Faire. 

Within thirty seconds of entering the floor to see all the shiny jewelry, rocks, and beads plus all the other random stuff....

I heard a guy speaking slightly behind me.

Turns out he was talking to me.

He was like "Hey! I know you! I've seen you around all the time back down in Happy Valley haven't I?"

Dude didn't look at all familiar to me. He had one of those faces where....sure I could have possibly seen him. But like...there are a lot of doppelgangers in Happy Valley, so who knows if I actually saw him or saw him recently at that.

But I did live in Happy Valley, and being one valley over from Happy Valley...made it definitely likely that he'd seen me around from there. 

Did I know him though? Nope.

Once he established that he did know me, the guy proceeded to show me a ring he'd just bought for himself.

A nice silver one with some sort of green stone within it.

And I was like Ooooo

Because you know, I like shiny things, especially if rocks are involved in said shiny things.

And then he was like "It's a poison ring!!"

-Meaning it's one of those rings with a secret compartment where you can hide poison and such.

Which me being me....and having read/seen a lot of fantasy/mystery/and history....

It made me want to take a couple of steps back.

because >.> Did it have poison in it now?!?! 

(probably not, but you never know) 

He then told me that the stone in the ring was like his favorite stone or his birth month stone and then proceeded to say "Well I gotta go! Cya later! Bye!" 

And he left just like that. 

*shakes head* 

I thought it was weird.

Though I usually find it weird when people want to approach me outside of work.

Because I'm never expecting people to do so. 

It just doesn't really happen.

In any case.

I continue to wander around the different booths. 

Have a couple of the owners try to start up conversations with me, but I was on a time crunch and didn't want to get into chitchat when I wasn't interested in jewelry. 

But I'd paused to look at another booth.

When this other person came up close to me.

Me being me, I automatically try to move out the way so that I don't block people and they don't run into me. 

But this person moved with me.

So I looked up, mostly in the "okay why are you being so close to me, do I know you or something?' sort of thing.

And there's this woman there. 

Smiling at me. 

And she's like "Hi, I know this is going to be a little weird."

It was already weird. Since she'd been standing next to me not saying anything until I looked up. 

-I think she was trying to see my hands. 

Because she said: "My husband and I came here to get this ring appraised"

and she showed me this ring that had a large blue stone in it, with a ring of diamonds around it in kinda a star/sun shape.

Big...not really my style of ring. 

I don't remember if she said what the value was....but apparently it wasn't worth much because her next words were "And we can't get the ring resized because of how it's set, so we're looking to give it away, so I was wondering if it would fit your fingers." And she held it out to me.

So, me being me, I took it. Because I'm curious like that.

And slipped it on.

It fit...ish, but was loose. "Is this a size six?" I asked her.

to which she oddly enough seemed unsure of that answer. 

But it probably was because I put it on my middle finger and that finger usually is a size five.

So the fact that it was slightly looser would put it at a 5 1/2 or a 6. 

So I was like "Oh, this is too big for me too, I usually wear size 4 or 5 on my fingers." And I gave it back to her.

I don't know if she was disappointed or not. 

The conversation ended pretty quickly after I returned the ring to her. A comment on that 'yah your hands are rather tiny' and such....

and then she vanished into the crowd with her ring.

….I wonder if she ever found anyone to give it to.

Or if she was singling me out in particular.

But in retrospect.

It was kinda weird.

To have a random person approach and ask if you want a free ring.

Honestly, one of my thoughts as I took the ring was "I wonder if it's cursed."

Because people don't usually give away nice looking rings (unless it's like...fake costume jewelry?) 

So there has to be a reason why they would just...not ask for anything.

Why give away a ring.

Why not try and sell it.

Get some money out of it?

It's suspicious.

So I'm like...did I just avoid getting a cursed ring?

Who knows. *shakes head*

I probably never will.

But definitely was a weird day at the gem faire. lol.

Didn't mean I didn't walk away with more rocks though!!!

Yay Rocks!! :D 

Until you next see these words;

I'll be watching the leaves.

Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Three Tank Tries

I had a customer come up to me towards the end of my shift, wanting to know if we had a particular tank in stock.
So he took me to the reptile aisle to show me the empty space there where a 10 gallon desert starter kit was supposed to be....but wasn't. 

We usually keep our smaller overstock tanks on the steel nearby. So I told the customer that I would go check and see if we had the one they wanted. 

First glance showed me that I possibly did, though it was hard to tell since the tanks were over my head and turned sidewise so I couldn't see their label.

So I grabbed the tall ladder we had and climbed up to the tank in question.
And it was the one I was looking for!
Ha!
So after a bit of shuffling about, I grabbed it down and brought it to the customer....

Who realized that that wasn't the tank they were looking for. 
….Okay. 

They were looking for a different tank.
One that had a picture of a leopard gecko on it.
They even showed me a picture of the tank in question....Only it wasn't the entire tank that they'd taken a picture of. No they'd only taken a picture of the picture of the leopard gecko.
Probably as a visual memory aid to help them find the tank in the store.

And like I knew that we had a tank in the store that had a leopard gecko on it.
because we sale a 10 gallon kit specifically for them.
But that spot had been accidentally double faced over by the tropical 10 gallon kits. Which meant...it wasn't on the shelf.

Plus there was also another tank that was for 10 gallon desert reptiles as well....which that spot was also empty...that could possibly fit the bill...but I couldn't remember what the animal picture was for that one.

So I went hunting again. 
And found the 10 gallon tank leopard gecko kit tank up on the steel.
I brought it down, and with the help of a coworker, moved the tropical tanks aside so I could put that tank in it's proper spot.

Only....
That 10 gallon kit still wasn't the one the customer was looking for. 

*exhales* 
Who knew if the last tank was what they were wanting at this point.
I'd already struck out twice with these customers. 
And unfortunately...I hadn't seen any other 10 gallon desert reptile tanks in the steal that I hadn't already brought down.
And I told the customer that.

But I also knew that we'd just gotten in a truck in our back room. 
Which we usually work the truck the day after it comes in because we can't plan on 'when' the trucks will show up on their shipping days, so it's easier to schedule the stockers to come in and work the tank the day after so they know they'd be coming in to actually work a truck and not have to deal with the 'maybe it will show up during my shift' issue. 

So I told the customer I could check one last spot, and I'd be right back.
I wandered to the back of the store, to the wrapped up pallets hanging out in our receiving area.
And walked through the narrow passageways, searching for a pallet of tanks. 
-Most of it was pallets of dogfood and cat food really.
But in the back, hidden out of sight was a small pallet of tanks.
Only two levels really. 
And there on the bottom of that pallet....
Was the missing tank that I hadn't been able to find elsewhere. 

So, with permission from the manager to unwrap the pallet and get the tank out for the customer.
I did just that. 

Grabbed the tank.
And brought it up to the front.

Where.
Success!!!
That was the tank the customers wanted!! lol. 

It only took me three tries to get the right one. But at least I was able to make the customer's day. ^^;; 

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi