Gillian's cake and Canadian Tire money

Gillian's birthday cake was lovely.  A standard 9" two layer vanilla scratch cake with raspberry frosting.  the entire cake was covered with the flowers you can see here.  There was a business card in the box stating that the cost of the cake included a "Consultation fee".  I'm guessing between $65 and $70, or more,  based on the prices listed on the card. We had cake at Loren's house after a meal at a local "Tapas" restaurant.  This means that we chose, and were served,  small portions of a variety of dishes.  Each dish was just big enough for us to have a good taste, but that's all.  Between the five us I think we had 7 dishes, but it was enough.  A very different experience, and one I would try again, but David didn't enjoy it, so it was probably the only time we'll actually go there, unless we go for lunch one day next time you visit, Beth.

Thursday and Friday we did a bit of shopping, both for me and for the new quilting group at the local Active Living Centre.  This included two lovely irons from Canadian Tire. So late in the afternoon, after two long hard days of shopping, with myself barely able to walk because of pain, we had to take the irons back as we couldn't get them to work.  When I approached the customer service, she gave us directions to a different desk quite away from us, along with some heavy duty attitude. Then we had to wait for our turn, and when it came the clerk was rude enough to try to get someone else to deal with us, while we were standing there. Because we had separate bills there were two separate return transactions. Finally she was finishing up the first set of paper work,  and she turned to me and asked if was going to return the 10 cents in Canadian Tire money I had been given (at home on the kitchen table--never even thought of it).  The last straw. I reached into my purse, said "how about I just give you a dime?", and slammed the dime on the counter.  There must have been something about the look in my eye, her attitude abruptly changed and butter wouldn't have melted in her mouth.  Both transactions were quickly finished, we politely thanked each other, and we left.  By the time we were out the door, no-one had touched the dime.

Friday night and this afternoon, I did a bit of volunteering at a local art show.  There was some excellent art work, and I was surprised to see how often the artist had included some texturing in a piece.  If nothing else, I'm grateful for the opportunity to see what I believe was a wonderful art show.