company outing

Two posts in one day? This better be good.

If you thought field trips were just for fifth graders and zoos, you were wrong.

Yesterday this popped up in my inbox:

So come 3:00 pm, we all (and by all, I mean the three of us) pile into my boss' 4-Runner for our undisclosed adventure. This is where we ended up:

FREE CONE DAY, motheruckers!

Here are my bosses, i.e. little kids, clogging up the line because they simply can.not.choose.

This leads me to one conclusion...my job is better than your job.

ohhhhhhhhh, mexico

Last night I may or may not have spent an hour taking identical pictures with two cameras. Flowers, flash on. Flowers, flash off. Powder, flash on (devil eyes!)...ok flash off. One camera was the one I use all the time, and the other is a recently acquired Canon that's smaller, has more megapixels, and more badass features (technical term). BUT I don't want to be a fairweather fan to my good old Sony...she's been around for over two years now! So I did a little test run, and it turns out that old trusty takes "warmer" shots than the newer Canon. She's in the clear! God forbid I take a camera this weekend that shortchanges the Caribbean.

Can you tell I'm excited about Cancun? i.e. the place I said I'd never go? Yeah, well I'm going, and I'm going hard.

Here is my in-progress packing list (as copied and pasted from the Excel, that's right Excel, sheet I made):

New orange dress that makes my boobs look existent

Sundresses, bitches

Sunscreen - Neutro. SPF30. Maybe buy SPF8?

Tolerance

Toiletries - minimal makeup

All flip flops

Yellow hippie bag

MP3 player (download CC and RA cds)

Book? Paradise?

Economic stimulus package

Only two more days of this work nonsense before my biggest concerns are if the swim-up bar makes weak pina coladas and whether or not I should attach an arm leash to Lundy in the club. TBD.

happy birthday

Today will be okay. It's my dad's 60th birthday, which I had been excited about sharing with him on the actual day for once. But alas. I wanted to do something to keep from being Debbie Downer all day, and on all future birthdays that I'm sure will bring emotions that I'm not yet aware of.* So, I decided to start a tradition of making a donation in his honor every year on his birthday, so the gift that would've gone to him can go to a good cause instead. This year, of course, I had to pick the Humane Society, mostly since I directed other people's memorial gifts there, but partly because they are on the verge of receiving a hearty 11-year-old orange kitty with a squeaky meow that belies his demeanor. Sammy "Satan" Blanton comes fully equipped with claws, an attitude, and an extra 10 pounds. Of course, if you would like to adopt Sammy, you will be immediately canonized. But no pressure. For a less noble (but equally appreciated) gesture, have a pint of Guinness tonight for Ed.

*I know, I ended the sentence in a preposition. I have a lot of English major ticks, but this has never been, nor will it ever be, one of them. Sometimes it's just stupid to rearrange the sentence for one little tiny word like that. Just thought this is something you might want to look out for.

finding normal

I promise to not let this blog go from being the(extra)ordinary to pleasekillmenow, but I can imagine there may be a few entries like this one here and there. Imagine how awkward it would be if I continued writing as if everything was fine? I'd like to be more honest than that. I assume anyone reading this blog probably knows that my father passed away two days after my last post. As you might guess by my cavalier attitude that day (work, hospital, dinner, play! yay!), it was largely unexpected. But alas, 11 days later I am back to work, back to school, and am told I am supposed to be defining normal. Figuring out how after and before can be as close to each other as humanly possible. But right now, I kind of hate the idea of normal. I don't want things to be normal, because I don't want a normal that he is not a part of. I know this is inevitable, no matter how much I fight it. It's just that right now I can't think about making a new that puts the old in a nice little box tucked in its new home under the bed.

Not surprisingly, it is the "adults" who have complicated things thus far. My friends have been amazing. They have closed the gap between us through lillies and plane flights and homemade breakfast casserole. But it's the people who were close to my father that want to dole out advice like free samples, outnumbering my questions with answers 1:10. Most people my age (including myself) don't truly understand what kind of things needs to be taken care of...and yet they are so so much better at being a band-aid. The adults who have lived through this already, they are somehow the insensitive ones. They want, think, feel like they're protecting me...but really they're just pushing. I hope they will soon return to their normal and not force me to find mine. In the meantime, I am settling for lazy days at work, a 3-week break from classes, a trip to Mexico, and a variety of cabernets. Arriba.

cure for the friday funk

It's 4:16, my bosses are wrestling in the back office, and we are having an A/C war with the tenants down the hall. It must be Friday! I can't wait to get off, stop by the hospital to check on my Dad, and then finally relax over dinner at Enoteca (thanks to a gift certificate from my bosses—did I mention they are awesome?) before going to see the Rude Mechs at the new Long Center! I'm stoked. I'm so stoked, in fact, that I'm saying words like stoked.

I have definitely come a long way from my chronic Friday Funk days in college. For some unexplicable reason when I got out of my last class for the day (usually around 2 or 3), I hit a wall. A mini-depression kicked in for about three hours, until finally my friends and I made our plans for the night. RIDICULOUS. It's not like I thought I wouldn't have plans or wasn't sure who I'd hang out with....I don't know what it was. Probably another only-child side effect.

No worries though, by senior year I'd worked out the kinks and could count on Katie and Jackie to show up by 3:30 on Friday (and Monday...and Wednesday) to watch Oprah, eat banana bread and/or queso, and smoke hookah until we were dizzy. I can't really explain the evolution of the ritual. But it was indulgent and comatose and flawless. And even though the hookah is disassembled in the back of Jackie's closet now, and I am 647 miles away and have sworn off pure Velveeta, somehow, it has kept that Friday Funk at bay.

a bike ride and a brewsky

You know what I need right now? A bike ride and a brewsky. Independently, each could slightly assuage this gloominess. But together, they're as good as valium.

Maybe to Crown & Anchor? Or better yet, the Draught House? I want to go there until I can stick my finger through its seams. It should be awkward, this little bier garten plopped between a Leggoland of one-story office buildings. But it's not. It's perfect. A juxtaposition that gently turns you to face picnic tables and bamboo plants and a just-barely-high-enough wooden fence. Go ahead, it says, it's your microcosm now. Parking lot tailgaters play Sticky Fingers and lament corporate leeches, and I know I am not cool enough to be there. But I'll drink their microbrew (cheap and delicious) as long as they'll let me. I'll leave my helmet on the bike handles because no one here would steal it anyway. I'll read The Onion out loud to you and argue with you over the crossword. Let's go soon, you and me.