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Unboxing, carefully wrapped kitsch. Far too carefully wrapped. Keepsakes, those vintage ceramic salt and pepper shakers made to look like pigs, pineapples, bananas, anything you can possibly imagine. Souvenirs. And - finally - a resin figurine, you know the ones, like the ceramic "Hummels" or Royal Doulton figurines, "Collectables", but done in China in a cheap poly resin, then painted and shipped overseas. Even they can't stand them.
This figurine, a child with wings petting a bunny rabbit in a flowery meadow.
WTF?!!
And I'm trying to think of "Why?" when it dawns on me that this is the perfect dollarama gift for the newly bereaved parent. "Yes, your little ... is now an Angel in Heaven ministering to the bunnies....". Like - WTF.
Anyways, the world is largely preposterous until you figure it out, then it's just...
Well, sometimes even WTF doesn't cover it.
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The restaurant, May Day, Slower than usual, dead, even, busy spells but nowhere near what we'd do usually. Busy in fits and starts, unpredictable.
I compare this to the thrift shop. My sales alone in a day equal the entire sales of a very busy day at the thrift shop - with double the paid staff, dozens of volunteers, the additional expenses of tipping garbage, truck, etc, etc. Even though the margins are great (it's all donations) they can barely be paying their staff, let alone the rent, utilities, taxes, etc, etc - AND subsidize the soup kitchen upstairs.
Anyways, as much as I loathe the restaurant it's certainly worthwhile for the money. The thrift shop - well, I'm not loving it either, especially since the transition from volunteer to "paid temporary staff member" - especially given that I've no days off whatsoever now - and can afford none - and those 3 days in the thrift shop pay me less than a day at the restaurant. The backlog is visibly clearing, 2, 3 more weeks, there's the jeep to register, insure, slight repairs, bills, dentist to be paid for, so - at the moment - grateful for every peso that comes my way. I'm piss broke and I'm not paying utilities or rent.
But, there's an idea for a way - once the backlog has cleared - to make this a damned sight more interesting. If only I can get Michael on board...
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#3 Times a Charm, so they say.
The new Jeep:
Stretching myself a little thin with the Camera phone and new jeep - have to wait a couple of weeks to afford insurance & registration.
Anyways, I like the brand, the engine's good - low KM - 180, 000, but the undercarriage is held together with structural rust. Which means off-roading will need to be a little more gently than I'm used to -
Meanwhile, everything according to plan...a little behind, but only a little, and by October - with luck - a proper place to live.
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And, finally, Ken in the kitchen showed my his new phone, a free upgrade from Ma Bell with a 2 year contract, and it spurred me to finally upgrade my phone.
You've probably noticed as of late that the photo quality has been a little off, and that is only mostly my fault, certainly not entirely.
So, head down for my free upgrade. I'm looking for a free upgrade to a Samsung S22 Ultra, which, I've heard, is a good phone as well as a great camera.
I'm hoping for a bit of credit on my old phone:
"It doesn't take the same quality of pictures it used to...." I tell them, but fail to drum up any sympathy. Long out of warranty....
And no one, I mean no-one, was interested even in the slightest in my "Etsy" page whereby I offer custom wrapped and protected phone covers.
***
In the end there was no free upgrade, a $900 credit against a $2000 phone, $525 up front, the rest pro-rated on the bills, and another $100 for the case because I damn well better not drop this one!!!
***
So far, I'm marveling at the quality of photos it takes (none so far because there's been nothing to take pictures of...), it's rather amazing and hopefully this is the summer in which I get more than a few great photos. The improvements in phone technology - every 2 years, are amazing. This I find impressive. My last phone, I was impressed, this one even more so...
We'll see. An ill-advised but long overdue purchase.
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At Share, unboxing, the most appalling kitsch, resin angels, ceramic cats, carved wooden pigs, somebodies entire life collection of dust collectors, knick-knacks, trifles, curios, curated by the most undiscriminating eye, put away into storage, lovingly wrapped in newspapers.
Old newspapers. The highest quality of reading. National Enquirer, the Sunday Sport, Weekly World News. The Columnist, Ed Anger - "My America", tales of Bat-Boy, escaped from a lab and terrorizing the US, lonely hearts, agony aunts. I get distracted reading out the headlines.
I miss these. I mean, in Edmonton, once in a while I would buy them and laugh all the way through. But they've long since disappeared. Britain, well, they still have them.
But what I miss most of all is the fact that they were all - universally acknowledged - occasionally amusing, but otherwise complete and utter rubbish.
Nowadays, Fox News, Tucker Carlson - the quality of rubbish is the same but turned to a political ends, and too many believe it.
And so I read the clippings out loud for the amusement of the volunteers, staff, and sadly think of the time when people were a bit less credulous, more skeptical, when a lie was a lie, and think of the labels we should be applying to our era. There was modernism, post modernism - how to describe the political, social, moral landscape now?
Post-Truth. The Truth nowadays is irrelevant, nobody cares. We live in the Post-Truth era.