OK, one short rant and then I'll backtrack and mention what a nice weekend it was.

TODAY'S Harridan of the Day award goes to two of my coworkers. I don't care HOW badly their respective days were going, MINE wasn't going any better and I didn't appreciate being treated as rudely as I was by either of them. I'm not planning to be rude in return, but I'm done giving them more than "Hello", "Goodbye", whatever other bare minimum is necessary for manners' sake, and conversation that's directly work-related.

That was the proverbial last straw... at lunchtime I went into the parking lot with my cell phone and called the two temp agencies I'm enrolled with. To the one that didn't get me this assignment, I said "I need something NOW". They haven't got anything. But at least they know I'm available. To the agency that did get me this assignment, I let it be known that the long commute is killing me and I really, really need them to transfer me to an assignment that's closer to home as soon as they find something. Yeah, I blamed it on the commute... the daily round-trip IS hideous, but if I liked the job or the pay was half-decent, I'd put up with the commute. Since I neither like the job NOR think the pay is anything remotely resembling compensation for the job's level of stress and aggravation, I am not willing to cope with this commute over an extended time, either.

OK, now that I've gotten THAT out of my system... we had a great weekend. The Other Donna came down from New England, and a bunch of us went to Strasburg (again, lol, Mark and I were just there a few weeks ago) and did some shopping in Lancaster County. My suggestion that we should arrange to spend an entire weekend there was pretty well-received. There are so many things to do out there, and there's not enough time to do everything in one day. The last few times I've been to Lancaster County, there has been at least one major thing that we've had to put off doing until "the next time we come here". I'm tired of that -- if we spend a weekend, we'll have more than enough time to go places and do things without rushing through it all. So maybe one of these days I'll be blogging about a Lancaster County weekend instead of just a day-trip.

Sunday was nice: all of us went to Karla and Al's for a barbecue. Joe's aunt brought Pokeno, which I hadn't played in ages. I always did like that game. :o)

On Monday, which was the Labor Day holiday, Mark and I went to our nephew Thomas's 21st birthday party. We met the chicken who visits my sister-in-law's yard from the neighbor's property across the street. My gosh, that's one big bird! She's pretty, too -- I have to see if I can find out if there's any particular kind of chicken that's got yellow-gold feathers all over it. My cat-in-law (aka my sister-in-law's cat), who is an enormous feline weighing at least 20 lbs, is scared to death of the chicken. LOL!!! The moment the bird arrived in the yard, the cat started meowing to come into the house. When nobody let him in quickly enough to suit His Royal Fuzziness, he leaped up onto the picnic table and avoided encountering the chicken that way. All I could think was, "If you describe someone who's afraid of something as 'chicken', then what do you use to describe someone who's afraid OF a chicken?" Inquiring minds wanna know.