I find myself introspective this morning. I think this time of year does that to me. It’s a combination of the weather, the impending festivites and the lack thereof. On the one hand, this is the most active time of year for me because I’m no longer forced to stay inside to avoid the heat and the sun. On the other, I absolutely adore spending time with my family, my immediate family that is. It’s a healing time for me. I can complain about all of the petty problems that make me miserable and they will listen, advise, make me laugh about how rediculous and unreasonable I am being and genrally make everything better. The problem however is that they all desire to spend time with the extended family and I do not. Don’t get me wrong, I love them all for who they are, I just haven’t for years been comfortable around them and so I tend to spend the majority of the holiday curled up at home doing my own thing. This year though, I’ve been spending quality time doing my own thing for the past week and am greatly looking forward to this being the year that I get to spend the majority of the Thanksgiving day with my immediate family. Apparently, we decided that every other year on Thanksgiving, we were going to have an intimate family dinner with just the six of us. I don’t remember that but that’s not important. This year the boy will be with his fathers side of the family which will be weird for us. I’ve been assigned green bean casserole as my dish to bring and I couldn’t be happier about that. Not only do I love it, it’s got about 3 ingredients and is easier to make than just about anything else. Dump it all in one pan, swish around, cook and serve!
Lately, with the free time I’ve so recently acquired, I’ve been experimenting more with cooking. I’ve never really been much of a cook. But having spent some time watching Friends again (Yes, I have all 10 seasons and yes, the boy and I have watched them all sequentially a number of times. This time I’m up to season 8, Rachel’s about to have the baby, I wonder what will happen!) coupled with the desire to spend $0 I have been looking to the cabinets and fridge for sustenance. I attempted lasagna but couldn’t remember what Mom had instructed me and ended up making something rather bland and not NEAR as good as hers. That’s OK, I’m going to attempt it again this weekend. I’m also a fan of taco night. All I have to do is cook the meat and cut up a bunch of veggies!! HOW MUCH EASIER CAN IT BE?!!
I digress…so much so that I’m not even entirely sure where I was going when I started this blog. Oh well, whatever.
I sit here feeling ever so slightly hung over, and I can’t help but people watch and then proceed to judge. Sitting at the table right behind my BFF Katie, are two lesbians. I don’t even have to ask them, I can tell. They’ve got the hair, the topic of conversation is softball and there’s the vibe. You know the vibe, the one that makes a pretty little thing like me feel like they might try to recruit me at any moment. (I think I just threw up a little.) Then behind them, there are another couple of ladies that ordinarily wouldn’t have caught my eye except for one of them didn’t bother to change out of her mumu before trotting off to get coffee. Now I can’t really judge, I didn’t exactly bother to spruce myself up before trotting up here myself, but I’ll be damned if you’ll ever find me out and about in a mumu. Word.
Behind the counter are two gals that seem OK. The one seems really nice and just quiet but the other one has a voice that really annoys me and she wasn’t all that polite to me when I was ordering my drink and getting a muffin for the boy. Whatever. I hate this place. I don’t know why I ever come here. The help sucks, the music makes me want to hit someone, and they are slower than the line at the DMV.
So last night I had my girls meet me out for a few drinks and some dinner. Hence the ever so slight hang over. They came out to support me because I was in the process of being “let go” by my then boyfriend Steve. I needed to get out of the house and get it off my mind and they did the trick. There were tears at the table but it was quickly smoothed over by my girls and their abilities to show me the positive side. Like maybe I could use his pajamas to help start a fire in my fire place. I do love fires and I frequently have a difficult time getting them going. The boy and I have been using a book that I couldn’t finish. This book was so bad that I refused to even give it away so we use it to fan the flames and get the fire going. Now I seem to have one more thing to assist us with that! My other option was to DHL them back to him but they didn’t like that idea. So here I sit, single again, a little hung over, worried that the knitting party I have planned for today will be a flop and wondering where this crazy day will take me. We shall see!
My Mom and Dad are doing a Bible study together right now and they were both working on it when the boy and I landed at their house for a free dinner. Mom was making taco salad yo! Anyway, they study they were doing was about Jacob and Esau. These two were twins. Esau was born first and came out all red and hairy so they named him Esau which means literally (I’m told) “red and hairy”. Jacob came out second and he was holding on to Esau’s heel so they named him Jacob which means deceiver or more literally, one who holds the heel or something very close to that. I don’t claim to know all about names and their origins and meanings. Just try to keep up with me here.
The point of the study was that they parents of these two boys named the first one by what he looked like, and the second one by how he behaved. The author then asked that the reader think back on any two siblings that they had known since birth and try to name them with these same methods. My Dad of course thought of my sister and myself. She being the eldest, she should be named by her looks. He asked me to try this practice before he would tell me what he came up with so my first response was: #1 - Ugly Baby and #2 - Perfection! They didn’t really think that was as funny as I did but whatever. I don’t even remember what my second attempt was. After much consideration and pondering, my Dad came up with “Serenity” for my sister because she looks so serene and “Kitty” for me. Apparently I behave like a kitten. If you’ll recall, the last time my Father donned me with a name it was “The Spicy One”. I’m starting to see a trend. Independent, sure. Sometimes. Let’s you know when I’m ready for attention, well yeah. Who doesn’t? Naps a lot. PAH!! That’s ALL I’d do if I had my druthers. I’m clean, that’s for sure.
The moral of the story is, my sister is the good daughter with a well balanced life (husband, home, dogs, job - she’s the happy one, makes friends easily, can cook and basically has it all) but I get the good names.
It’s been over a month!! I can’t believe I have left you all without reading material for so long. In case I feel some need to take another sabbatical though, my friend Katie always has something interesting going on on her blog.
So, next Saturday, October 25th, my hero James Hetfield and his band Metallica are coming to Kansas City and playing at the Sprint Center. I haven’t seen them in concert in probably 4 - 5 years. I was an irresponsible fan and I did not get logged on and make the purchase of tickets in time and the concert sold out. I can honestly say that if anyone knows only one thing about me, it is almost always that I love Metallica. In an unhealthy way. When their most recent album came out, people that no longer work here and that never really even like me, made contact with me to see what I thought of it. I’ve have someone that I worked with 2 years ago that has since moved to Florida and started a new life text me to tell me he thought about me when he heard the new song in the car. Several people here at the office make references to the band and one called me back to his desk yesterday just so I could hear Metallica on his computer because Sirius was playing them. This is how unhealthy my infatuation is. The last concert I went to, James took his shirt off on stage and I made out with the stranger sitting to my right. I’ll never forget that night.
Alas, a friend here at work has a friend that purchased tickets and is no longer able to use them. He offered them to me for a slight mark-up and I jumped, lunged, threw my whole self at the opportunity. For the chance to see them again? Are you kidding me?? Totally worth it.
Unfortunately reality set in and I realized that I need to make a mortgage payment so I cannot afford the tickets. This is a sad day. Depression is starting. It is almost worth it to get to go to that show but I do also enjoy having a home to come back to every day. One to stay in when I’m sick. Somewhere to go when I’m too lazy to get dressed. I tell ya though, it was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make. You think deciding if you want to exercise or not every morning is stressful? Try deciding between a home and something equally as important. A Metallica concert. Sadly, the fact that there is a poor economy right now and there’s never a guarantee that I’ll have a paycheck won out over the solid reasoning I had for buying the tickets.
So next weekend, when all of the cool people in town are rocking out with James, Lars, Kirk and the new guy, I will be hanging out in my living room rocking out alone to the S&M (Symphony and Metallica you dirty minds) DVD.
So this afternoon, I booked time with my friend Katie to go over the procedures for her department. As many of you know, we work fairly closely at our office and this can be both highly productive and entertainingly distracting with nothing coming from it depending on our moods. Today so far has been productive. Mostly because I’m sleepy and just want to go home and neither of us would rather be at our desk trying to accomplish anything else so it’s get this done or get in trouble. No one wants to get yelled at around here.
Katie’s department has recently been broken out of the Interactive department into it’s own little group. While this has been exciting for her and her growing team, it means more work for me. We used to have one 2-3 page document for PPL which over the course of time grew to somewhere around 15 pages. What we are now trying to do is break that down into individual procedures and put it in it’s very own section of the procedures manual. I know this is all extremely exciting to you.
We have moved into the “Dorm Room” for our meeting. This room was once upon a time, the office supply closet. Way back when I first started working here. Back when we were small enough to fit on one floor. As we grew, they decided to take my supply closet away, have me cram everything into a tiny two door cabinet, and turn my closet into an office. One of the first inhabitants was our fearless Agency Director, Darryl Mattox. He moved in here with his Nebraska posters, mini fridge, dominatrix barbies and old school boom box and the room was from then forward dubbed the “Dorm Room”, I’m sure there’s no more explanation needed as to why. Eventually he moved out and into Greg’s office with him as we grew again and someone else took over the room, but it has retained the name nonetheless. Until we grew to two floors that is. At that time, the New Business department moved in just outside of here and decided that they needed somewhere quiet to make sales calls and re-named the room the phone booth. I hate that name. I refuse to adopt it. They weren’t here when we originally named it so they don’t know. The room is now empty except for the abandoned desk and the binding machine so we tend to move in here and work from here as often as we can. It affords a small amount of privacy that we don’t get at our own desks.
We also named what is now Mike’s office the Oak Room because we all hated the person that inhabited it before Mike moved in. It sat empty for some time so we had to name it. I’m not sure where that name came from? But it will remain for as long as I’m here.
Well, Katie has returned from her potty break so I guess I’d better try to finish these silly procedures…sigh.
So the title might be a slight exaggeration. On Saturday, my friend Katie (who had just gotten back from a client visit/road trip late the night before and really only wanted to stay home and nest) and I started the day with a foray into Kansas in search of cowboy boots. Yep. I’ve gone country. Back to my roots. I’ve gone country. (OK, I’m done singing old Alan Jackson songs to you. For now.) As per most of our trips across the state line, we got lost and wandered around Kansas for a while trying to “feel” our way towards where we thought we were supposed to be going. Apparently Katie didn’t see a need to remember ALL of the directions, just the first half. But that was OK because I was in no hurry to be anywhere and driving around in Kansas with Katie almost always entertains. Eventually we ended up there (by sheer luck I’m pretty sure) and wandered in to the “western wear” store to acquire said boots.
We were pounced on immediately by an over zealous sales woman who thoroughly annoyed me. She didn’t have anything in the womens section in my size but repeated herself about 20 times trying to convince me to try the next size up. I said “sure, I’ll try it” after about the 2nd repeat but that didn’t stop her. I was getting close to leaving. I finally said “I said I’d try it!”. They didn’t fit so she told me to try the kids section, that those run in my size. This my friends was devastating. I wanted big girl boots!! (Pout.) She wandered away and a gentleman replaced her to assist us. What a relief!! He was nice and didn’t seem to mind at all that I was being somewhat high maintenance in my refusal to wear children’s boots. He went so far as to go and get their book and walk down the isle with me pointing out which ones they had in a size that I could wear. Unfortunately, none of the 6 he pointed out were boots that I wanted. I eventually settled on a black pair of ropers (I had gone there to purchase brown boots, not lace ups but they were way too hot to not wear out of the store), and a pink pair of children’s boots and a brown pair of children’s boots. I convinced myself that this was OK after all because they were about half the price and they fit and it’s not like I’ll be wearing them with shorts or anything so no one will ever know. Except that people read this blog and I made Katie swear on her life that she would never tell anyone. So 3 pairs of boots in my pile and it was time to convince Katie that she needed to try on the ones she’d spotted as soon as we had arrived. She did, she purchased, she owes me. See her blog. I’ve since decided to just return the two kid pairs. I can’t wear them. I don’t want to! (Pout.)
After our excursion to Kansas and a bit of a rest at my house in which I’m pretty sure the boy got mad at me about something, we drove up to Kearney for the 14th annual Mule Run. Now, I don’t know a whole lot about it yet but I’m working on getting some background history. I’m prety sure it’s just a reason for a bunch of motorcycle clubs to get together, camp out and drink. There were a couple of bands, some raffle prizes, some beer and some rain. Neither of us were dressed appropriately either. I had on a really cute pink top and she had on a black sweater. Our fellow lurkers wore all black and looked like they were ready for the rain. We were not. So we wandered down to the stand where they were selling t-shirts and hoodies and purchased our own. Now we fit in!! All we really did for our time there was stand around, play with our phones, talk to random bikers and their biker chicks and stand out by the road with Steve asking questions and just being a general annoyance. It was so much fun though!! It was an adventure!! IN THE RAIN!! It really wasn’t raining that much. It was mostly just a light rain all day but it was enough to dampen the attendance. I’m interested in going again next year just to see what it is usually like. We also spent quality time giggling at each other and deciding that we’re going to establish our own group. “Ho’s Before Bro’s”. We’ve mentally designed the shirts too. More on that to come later!
It’s finally here. Football season has come out of hibernation and has brought joy back into my life. OK, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little but I love this time of year! LOVE. I can lose about a day and a half watching football. Thursday night, all day Sunday and Monday night. And I don’t feel like the time has really been lost either! There’s good food, better weather and all of my boys are back in my life.
So last night I watched the Giants beat the Redskins. I have no personal feeling one way or the other about the Redskins but the Giants I love. They started off really well and it’s a good thing too because they completely lost steam in the second half. But that’s OK and do you know why? Because it was the first full game they’ve played so far this year. I don’t expect full throttle on the first game. They’ll gear up soon enough.
I didn’t get to be involved in a fantasy league this year and that is disappointing. I was invited into one at work but it was an auto draft and that didn’t appeal to me so I opted out. I now wonder if I should have participated just because but it’s just left to chance what players you get and that can make a season crap right off the bat. I would have likely had to learn about players I am not familiar with and well, learning takes effort. Katie and I discussed starting our own but that too takes effort. We’d have to recruit. Ick.
So needless to say, I will be spending this Sunday (two days before my birthday thank you very much!) on the couch watching TV. I can’t wait!!
So today, the beginning of our holiday (Labor Day) weekend, was our 3rd annual party because it’s hot parking lot party at work. This party originated within my first year with this Agency as a result of there having been a long time in between company outings and days off etc. I was tasked with coming up with something and that was all there was. And the parking lot party just because it’s hot outside was born.
We close at 2 on the Friday before Labor Day so we end up shutting down operations at noon and cooking out in the parking lot and taking up two of the Dr.s parking spaces and really just standing around eating and talking. Then usually within a half hour, most everyone gets hot and goes inside and then gets back to work. I however, would rather blog. We usually all bring something to eat so it’s a potluck of sorts and the office pays for the meat. This year though, we had the office birthday celebration two days ago and I didn’t feel like anyone should be asked to bring food twice in one week so the office bought it all. That was a fun trip this morning. I took Brooke to the grocery store with me because she’s the one with the company credit card since I moved out of accounting and into HR. We went through the store throwing miscellaneous crap into the cart that we thought would be tasty and then hit the alcohol and chocolate isles full force.
I also have a candy bowl at my desk so I try to stock up on chocolate as often as I can. The office can devour some chocolate so we’re frequently experiencing detox because Tams doesn’t feel like going to the store every other week but this time since I was already there I thought, why not? I’m also not a beer drinker, so I just got a case of Bud Light, Coors Light and Miller Light. They don’t like that, tough. BRING YOUR OWN! I digress.
Now, I’m eagerly awaiting the 2:00 hour so I can leave the office and go get my nails done. They’re looking pretty craptastic lately. I know you care. Admit it. You do. It’s OK. And then I’m pretty sure I’m going to spend the rest of the evening in my jammies, curled up on my couch, reading. Hell, I probably won’t move from that spot all weekend except to go potty and find food. The boy won’t be happy with me but when is he? Teen angst has set in in full force. He hates everything right now.
Ta.
So a friend recommended a book to me called ‘A Walk in the Woods’ by Bill Bryson. I bought it after reading the back and thinking it had great potential. (And let’s just go ahead and admit that this friend was Katie. Why even try to be mysterious about that?) It’s a nice little book about a fella that decided to walk the Appalachian Trail. With the sentence on the back “for a start there’s the gloriously out-of-shape Stephen Katz, a buddy from Iowa along for the walk” it promised to be an entertaining read as well as educational. I don’t know anything about the Appalachian Trail and why not learn something about it? Every now and then I get an itch to be outdoorsy. It almost always goes immediately away but still. Maybe I wanna try it! I can’t say too many bad things about this book because overall, it is pretty good. Bill Bryson is a very good writer and I’ll probably purchase something of his again in the future. The problems were:
1. He’s very interested in peppering his book with evolution. I don’t particularly care what he believes, I just don’t need it shoved in my face every other page.
2. He didn’t walk the whole trail. The book started off with him planning to walk the whole trail and it was a huge let down that he flaked out on it. He went home, then had his wife drop him off and another more Northern entrance to the trail. This isn’t roughing it in the woods as I felt I was promised.
3. There’s a bear on the front cover. This leads me to believe that there will be an encounter of SOME sort. Nope. Nada. No animals.
4. I can judge him a good writer based solely on the fact that I read the whole book and it was interesting yet nothing happened.
About a month or so later, I read ‘Survive!’ by Peter Deleo. Now this book was fascinating. He was seriously trapped in a bad situation and walked around in the winter mountains for 13 days with no food or heat and walked out alive to tell the story. The only problem with his book is that he writes in clipped sentences. He’s not a born writer. He’s in fact quite bad at it. The only reason I stuck with it is because I wanted to know how he was when he got out. Sure, I could have skipped ahead but that’s against my religion. My reading religion. I have a sick relationship with books. Much like my sick relationships with some people. I’ll stick it out to the very end just in case it’s worth it. It usually is. With both people and books. The difference being that I don’t typically give people a 1st chance whereas I’ll start every book I buy and then I’m forced to finish it. Again, loyal to a fault this one is. I digress.
My solution? I suggest someone marry the two books into one. Get Bill Bryson to write about Peter’s harrowing days in the wilderness. Now THAT would be a good book!!
1. The fire place
2. Solitary confinement
3. Lots and lots and lots of books. Lots.
4. It has a name. How many rooms in your house have a name?
5. The couch from Greg’s office - FREE
6. Pictures of my loved ones on every wall
7. Invisible book shelves
8. It’s tiny and cozy and homey
9. The dog tends to stay out when I’m in here
10. The boy can take over the rest of the house, this is MY ROOM.