Fandom Island and Town

It had been several things, really. A call from Emma Leroy asking Lacey what she thought of several proposed menu changes at the Ruby. An entire list of Hank's latest mishaps in vivid detail (and how Wanda had managed to cram that much of a smug, envy-inducing undertone of heh heh, sorry you missed it into an email, Lacey had no idea). A weird dream that had involved gophers, Fitzy losing a mayoral election to Emma, Brent selling Corner Gas, and her moving back to Toronto; it'd made her wake up feeling homesick. News about a kids' soccer team starting up in Dog River and wanting sponsors. Maybe the clockwork spiders had factored into it, too.

She was being pretty low-key about it for now, but Lacey wasn't bustling around prettying things up the way she usually did; paperwork was going to take up a lot of her time today. A little more spontaneity in her life wouldn't hurt, but she wasn't going to up and leave her employees in the lurch without making sure the diner was taken care of.

So paperwork: budgets, inventories, recipes, instructions, overly helpful lists. And if you squinted just right, maybe a little bit of wibbling while she was at it.



Luke's is open and, despite the manager's preoccupation today, still quite clean and shiny and (she hopes) welcoming.

[OOC: I'm too sleepy for OCD. Yeah, this is Lacey's last diner post, though she won't be leaving until Friday. Aww.]

Lacey had gotten a new blend of organic fair trade coffee in today; this was a good way to start the week, if you asked her, and it put a spring in a step and a lilt in her voice for about the first hour of the day.

When she happened to overhear the kitchen staff in the middle of a spirited discussion about whether anyone would notice if they replaced the fuel in someone's tank with the (as it turned out, really potent) coffee, it deflated her bubble a little -- which put her back down to about normal, tolerable levels of Lacey-chipper. So really, that all worked out.

She'd be keeping the coffee under close surveillance, though.



Luke's is open. And not any kind of filling station, thank you very m-- well, technically, if you counted stomachs . . . oh, all right.

[OOC: Pff, OCD.]

There were some mornings when she showed up at the diner and everything was normal. With the island in its current itinerant mood and the scenery across the causeway changing from week to week, 'normal' for Fandom was even more relative than it usually was, but that was sort of the point: 'normal' for Fandom was a constantly changing concept.

Still, Lacey didn't count on things like walking into the kitchen and finding a model volcano made out of bread, erupting oatmeal at a vigorous rate.

". . . not asking," she declared immediately, and headed back out to the front of the diner to leave that to the staff.



Luke's is open, and not in a terribly breakfasty mood today, it seems. Odd, that.

[OOC: Perhaps inspired by what happens when you try to cook steel-cut oats in a shallow bowl in a 1250-watt microwave.

. . . the OCD went where half the oatmeal did. :/]

Last week's election results had been disheartening, at best, to say the least. The kitchen staff, in their own special way, were going to be asking Lacey questions about it all day, and Lacey, in her own special way, would be spending most of the day answering in far too much well-meaning but not entirely coherent detail.

In between questions and customers, she'd be contemplating writing notes to Fandom's other Canadian citizens, apologizing for Saskatchewan . . . and wondering if it was a good idea or a bad idea to include a postscript disclaiming that in her defense, she was from Toronto.

Being Lacey was fun sometimes.



Luke's is open, and blunderingly, earnestly civic-minded. North of the border, anyhow.

. . . how does that work when currently in Iceland? Don't answer that.

[OOC: Oh, I am so not awake enough for OCD. Also I blame shagthis.]

Lacey was expecting a quiet week, or at least that was what she was hoping for; expecting it might be the same thing as jinxing it, given her luck, and did that mean that she'd already -- okay, no. No thinking about that too much.

Better to just polish the napkin dispensers and wipe down the counters with an almost obsessive fervor, probably, which was . . . what she'd be doing most days anyhow. There was just a little extra frantic vigor behind the cleaning routine today. If anybody asked, she'd call it residual Easter enthusiasm.

. . . yes. Right. That'd work.



Luke's is -- oooh, shiny -- oh, right. Open. But also shiny.

It was a sad, sad statement to make that someone who ran a diner and had a certain passion for food could have traumatic associations with certain ingredients now, but Lacey had spent most of the weekend running from ambulating mushrooms and getting lost in various pipes.

Which was why, when the cook approached her in the morning and asked if she thought a mushroom frittata would be a good idea for a breakfast special, the heretofore-unrealized bad influence that over a year of doing radio broadcasts with Katchoo had had on Lacey's vocabulary made itself very, very amply known.



Luke's is open and distinctly fungus-free, and if you need the manager she'll be hiding over there in the corner, appalled at what came out of her own mouth.

[OOC: The OCD can't get past world 3-2. DAMMIT.]

There was a miniature potted tree on the counter this morning when Lacey came in, bright and cheerful in its shiny foil-wrapped planter with tiny colorful fruits hanging from its branches, and it got an excited little "Awwww!" out of her when she spotted it.

Upon closer examination, though, she realized that the fruit dangling from the tree's miniature limbs was, in fact, miniature peppermint candy.

"All right. I know this is Fandom, but come on now," she announced to the as-yet empty diner.

The diner didn't (mercifully) have a comment in response. Neither did the tree.



Luke's is open, and it refuses to dignify its proprietor's protestations pertaining to plausibility with a response.

[OOC: The OCD is hiding in embarrassment at my apparent compulsive need to be alliterative, but the diner is open.]

Lacey was in an odd sort of mood today; she'd found a roll of blue masking tape dangling from a branch on her way into the diner this morning, and used it to outline a hopscotch court on the tiles of the diner before she opened up.

Anyone looking through the windows might see her taking the occasional hopping runthrough, concentrating fiercely in fine elementary-playground style. Definitely an odd mood, and one that appeared to have influenced the menu.



Luke's is open. No, there isn't a jungle gym. Sorry.

[OOC: The OCD is wherever my brain is. Seriously, this took me three hours to write, WTF.]

How had it gotten this close to the end of the month already? Lacey had no idea, although she blamed part of her own inability to keep track of the time on getting far too distracted looking up recipes for the vegetables her in-house planters seemed to be intent on growing all on their own.

It kept her from sighing too much over not being in Hawaii, at least. And the diner smelled (she thought) pretty good. Warm and inviting, even.

. . . even if the island was largely empty this week.



Luke's is open, and soupy.

[OOC: And OCD-free, though fair warning, I'm covering someone else's work today and slowness is pretty much guaranteed. Yeah, I want soup. What?]

You'd think Lacey ought to have been frustrated by the sudden influx of rose petals all over her diner, just on account of the mess they made.

Oh, no. Lacey thought they were downright adorable. Filling up two drawers of her cash register, sure, but adorable -- and they made such a nice decoration for the dessert case, and maybe she could come up with some creative plating arrangements today, and, and, and . . .



Luke's is open, and brewing with rose-scented plans. Fear.

[OOC: The OCD is allergic to the rose petals, though. Diner open, usual possible-SP warnings apply.]

Lacey was expecting a special delivery today; she'd spent the weekend collecting, matting, and framing some new artwork for the diner walls, and all she needed was the set of picture-hanging hardware she'd ordered.

. . . the shipment that did come in was large, and bulky, and not at all what she expected.

"A white lawn chair? But I ordered nails . . ."

Suspicious glances at the kitchen staff yielded nothing but helpless shrugs and mumbled denials, so Lacey sighed, picked up the lawn chair, and headed for the storage room. "I guess this can just go back there with the tricycle planter for now."



Luke's is open, despite any special-delivery fail.

Lacey still didn't know why exactly the squirrels had decided to herd her into the radio booth yesterday to make that announcement, but she was still firmly convinced that this meant they had some kind of weird platonic wee squirrelly crush on her.

She thought it was sweet, and in her strange overcompensating way had decided to make them a rum and nut cake as thanks. Of course, it was an interesting contrast to today's specials, chosen in light of the surprisingly warm weather, but that was all right; this cake wasn't meant for human consumption.

. . . which didn't mean she wasn't using human food-grade ingredients. Smart squirrels and all.



Luke's is open, and summery, and kind of nutty. Some might point out that on Mondays, that last statement is a given if you interpret it the right way . . .

[OOC: Also OCD-freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, as I flee to work now.]

The year was starting off on an interesting foot for Lacey -- almost literally, given the single designer boot that dropped out of thin air and hit the floor in front of her just as she walked through the diner's door this morning.

Lacey'd shrieked, and flailed, then quickly recovered herself to take a deep breath, in then out, eyes closed. Right. "No, no," she declared loudly to the as-yet empty diner, "I'm turning over a new leaf. I refuse to take this as a bad sign of anything this year. It's a good sign."

Silence.

". . . good sign of what, I have no idea yet."

If she'd been hoping to get an answer to that not-quite-question, it wasn't going to happen today, but at least no bad signs had seemed to crop up so far?



Luke's is open, and despite initial appearances to the contrary, shows no sign of unexpectedly metamorphosizing into a purveyor of fine footwear. Honestly.

[OOC: It is still raining here, and the OCD washed awaaaaaaaaaaaaay.]

Christmas in Dog River had been surprisingly nice, actually, and it had been good to see everyone again -- yes, even Hank. Lacey missed it there, but the Ruby was in good hands with Emma (even if Emma did keep hinting that some of the menu changes she'd made were a huge hit thanks to things being much less big-city-fied now) and she had a diner to run in Fandom, and people to keep fed there.

So the first portal out of Saskatchewan this morning had dropped her off back on the island, and she'd wasted no time in getting everything bright and shiny and ready to go for anyone who might be around at this point in the break.

Although she could swear the vegetables in the wall planters seemed a little droopy, as if they'd missed her.

That was what she was telling herself. Hush.



Luke's is open, still cheery, and those plants are actually just fine.

[OOC: And OCD-free, still with a potential epic SP warning. Sigh.]

Lacey's grand plan of making sure the troopers and police force were supplied with food and coffee over the course of last week hadn't exactly gone according to schedule, but that was hardly her fault when the storage closet had locked her in and not let her back out until this morning, was it? (In retrospect she'd probably been safer that way, but it was hard to be appreciative when you were still picking pinto beans out of your hair, and all you'd done in the first place was go in for a pack of coffee filters.)

In short, she was irritable, and slightly traumatized, and very much in a mood for therapeutic baking -- which was why, after a quick trip home to shower and get a fresh change of clothes, she promptly commandeered the oven, made the kitchen guys work the front, and proceeded to indulge herself with a lot of consolatory confectionery.



Luke's is open, and smelling rather a lot like it ought to be round, golden-brown, and juuuuuuuust the perfect amount of chewy. And melty.

[OOC: OCD-free, and modding your service today is highly recommended as I'm going to be quite scarce until evening. Also, today's specials board is rilla_myrilla's fault.]

Despite the season and the cold temperatures outside, the plants inside the diner were, thanks to Lacey's obsessive care, lush and verdant, blanketing that entire wall of the diner (and those spots of the ceiling from which hanging planters dangled) in bright, cheerful green.

You'd think this would be an uplifting sight, the kind of thing that ought to brighten the day of the diner's proprietor upon entering first thing in the morning, but Lacey had spent several hours last night parked in front of her TV, decked out in Saskatchewan Roughriders gear out of some slightly desperate need to show solidarity with people thousands of miles away and unaware of her efforts, only to watch the Riders lose the CFL championship game for the second year in a row to the Montreal Alouettes.

So as soon as she saw that bright, vitamin-rich wall of vegetable green?

". . . oh, sure. Rub it in."

The staff didn't get it, but they thought football with only three downs and the goalposts at the front of the endzones instead of the back was slightly delusional anyway.



Luke's is open, if in a bit of a post-Grey Cup slump.

[OOC: And the OCD went wherever the hell Durant's ability to throw a goddamn complete pass last night did. Not that I'm bitter about that game or anything. REALLY.]

. . . right, so the less said about what she'd been up to last week, the better, Lacey decided; she was just going to steadfastly ignore any amused looks or muttered comments from the staff, go about her business, and . . .

Spend a lot of time inventorying the stockroom, apparently. Who knew if there were the right number of beans in those bags of pinto beans back there, after all?



Luke's is open, and Lacey's around . . . somewhere.

[OOC: OCD is itemizing grains of rice, diner is open, caveat that today I may be extra slow is in effect. Oh, Monday.]

Lacey did not want to talk about the unfortunate ramifications of an overambitious pumpkin-carving plan that had resulted in her being . . . let's just say she never wanted to deal with pumpkin guts again, okay?

It explained why she still twitched every time one of the kitchen guys would walk casually within earshot and make squishy sounds, really.

But she wasn't going to talk about it; thankfully, she could throw all her energy into tending to her hydroponic planters instead. Nooooooo pumpkin guts involved there.



Luke's is open, and yes, menu item substitutions are available upon request. So long as they're not unreasonable requests. Or riddles.

[OOC: OCD has dissociated itself from me out of embarrassment that I went for the cheap and easy joke there. SP warning more in effect than usual since I might have to make an off-site run today.]

Let it be known that if Lacey had woken up yesterday to a noticeable drastic change of anatomical assets, she'd have deemed today completely and totally spoiled. But she hadn't, and a lot of the people who'd gone on the trip had come back looking different from usual, as did her kitchen staff, and Lacey . . . was finding her sense of unaffected smugness stymied by the feeling of being left out. Again.



Yes, that was an incredibly sad reaction to have to the whole thing. She was perfectly aware of that, thank you, which was why the planters (the veggies still looked healthy; yay for small favors) were getting an extra-vigorous tending job.

They could get extra sunlight today, reflected off the aggressively-polished counter surfaces, too.

Luke's is open, and this is perfectly normal, thank you, why would you think otherwise?!?

[OOC: OCD went wherever Lacey's genderswap did. Mwahaha.]

There were sugar snap peas in the planters, now; Lacey hadn't planned on those, but she'd stopped in over the weekend to pay the vegetables some compliments and distinctly recalled the phrase 'aww, that's sweet' coming up more than once. Maybe the unicorns had done the same a few days ago?

It actually made sense to her as a rationale now, and she'd just roll merrily on along without questioning that any further, thank you very much.



Luke's was open, and diversifying! Planter garden wise, anyhow.

[OOC: Also OCD-free. Also I want that stir fry myself now.]

Lacey's planters had held up nicely, she was glad to see, and the spinach and broccoli were flourishing. She'd brought in a few of those hanging tomato planters to add to the display today, and was humming to herself as she perched precariously on a ladder, suspending them from the ceiling.

The staff kept yelling "Come on, fall! Fall!" from the kitchen, but to no avail; the dishwasher sadly noted to the busboy that it didn't work as well as it did when they snuck up behind her and yelled "BOOM!" while she was playing Minesweeper.



Luke's is open, and it's not a game, kitchen staff, God.

[OOC: The OCD -- and most of my post-writing brain -- melted in this ridiculous heat wave, mmmkay.]

Lacey had been nattering on to the staff for a while now about a hundred little initiatives they could all take to be more environmentally conscious around the diner: CFL lightbulbs, more ecofriendly soaps and cleaning supplies, installing timers on the lighting, being careful about how often they opened the fridge, yadda yadda yadda.

She'd ordered the soaps and cleaning supplies over the weekend, come in this morning with a bag of CFL lightbulbs to tackle the kitchen and supply room lighting installations, and -- discovered that the walls had somehow sprouted wall planters of spinach and broccoli overnight.

"Boy, when I said I wanted to go green, this isn't exactly what I had in mind."



Luke's is not a greenhouse, but it's open.

After Lacey had found out about Thursday's banana-split surprise incident, she had a Very Serious Talk with the kitchen staff about fair division of work, labor laws, and how didn't they think, well-meaning as it was, that was a little harsh of a way to spring the surprise on Francine?

The kitchen staff was entirely unmoved, and Lacey really couldn't fault their ultimate intentions, so . . . she let it go, and busied herself whipping up a batch of cookies, since she had a new bottle of organic natural Mexican vanilla she wanted to try out, and then there was an unfortunate incident with the dishwasher, a fit of sneezing, and a flying spatula . . .



Luke's is open and smells like . . . a cookie, really.

[OOC: The kitten did an amazing disappearing act and took the OCD with it. They're probably plotting evil together right now.]

Did Lacey open the diner door cautiously and edge inside with a broomstick clutched in both hands, doing a comically bad (yet unintentional) impression of someone sneaking through dangerous darkened corridors in an action flick?

***

Flash-cut to Agent Burrows in a slick all-black outfit with cool hair and everything, high-powered uptempo action music thrumming in the background as she KICKS the diner door down and brings her weapon to bear on ABSOLUTELY NO ONE --

LACEY: . . . um. Hello?

***

Of course not. Why would she ever do that?



Luke's is open, and actually pretty boring today. Maybe just to spite Lacey and her suspicions.

. . . don't mind the footprint on the door.

[OOC: The OCD fell between the cushions of the soul-sucking couch that held me captive to sleep all weekend.]

It was a pretty typical occurrence for Lacey to walk into the diner and hear suspicious noises from the storage closet; she never did get the cream sodas to resolve their differences.

That didn't mean she'd ever stop trying, even if an outside observer might tell her that all her efforts only seemed to compound the already contentious carbonated conflict and so there she was -- once the counters were wiped down, the till was counted, the dessert case was presentable, and all the tables were arranged to her satisfaction -- strolling into the storage room with her hands held out.

"Okay, guys -- ack!"

What happened after that is a mystery, but anyone looking for Lacey might be looking for quite a while. Her one consoling thought before she got pulled in was that at least the specials for the day were squared away.



Luke's is open, proprietor-less, and . . . look, don't begrudge the currently in-absentia woman her trivial cause for peace of mind, as silly as it might be. Or at least, don't tell her if you do. Not that you can at the moment.

[OOC: Open, though service is entirely moddable today.]