Snail mail

Text to my sister's husband last night:

Hi, D. It's me...your birthday card. Just sittin on the counter with my friend, the Yankee candle...where I've been for nearly 2 months now. I don't know what is wrong with your idiot sister-in-law that she can't remember to buy a freaking stamp to mail me with. She even went to the post office last Tuesday to mail some scholarship packets off. She didn't remember she needed stamps until she came home and threw her keys down on me...again. Well, sorry I'm not with you yet. Maybe some day, some how, I will find my way to you.

P.S. Gift card says "Hi!"

I'm pathetic.

This n' That

THIS is a broken Waterford water goblet, pattern: Maeve.  The pattern is retired because OF COURSE IT IS.

 

THAT (below) is Maxx, the prime suspect in the misconduct that lead to the breaking of the water goblet. 

 

THIS is Maxx checking the calendar, apparently to see when the Replacements.com shipment was made.

THAT (below) is the $99.95 replacement goblet from Replacements.com

 

 

And THIS is where my crystal has lived for the last 24 years without mishap...

 

The current theory is that a moth or some other kind of bug got in...and in an attempt to protect his family from whatever vile disease or toxin the insect was certainly equipped to deliver, Maxx scaled the china hutch to reach his enemy.

And now he knows he can. So he does...ever vigilant, he checks the ceiling above the hutch ever so often.

Now I need a place to move it out of potential harms way.  And THAT is what I am about to go do.



I wish...

That anything made me as happy as the bathroom rug makes Daisy.

Hotel hell

I am spoiled.  I don't deny it.  I even readily admit it.  One particular area of my rottenness is travel accommodations.  My company lets me stay in anything that will let us have a government rate and is under per diem.   These days, that is practically anything.  My favorite places are Country Inn & Suites, Hamptons, Hiltons and Marriots.  Each of these franchises tries to top the other one when it comes to the comfort of their guests...particularly when it comes to how comfy their beds are.

Well, as it happened, when I went to book rooms for us in Tuscaloosa for Panhellinic Day (the monkey is planning on rushing in the fall), none of my usual stand-bys had any vacancies (there was a marathon being held that weekend as well).  In fact, the only thing I could find that still had a non-smoking vacancy was a Super 8.

Now, I was prepared for the experience to be slightly more economical than my usual.  However, our stay ended up being, well, pretty horrific.

Pulling into the Super 8 parking lot, it looked mostly innocuous...nothing too fancy...but not too ramshackle either. 

Something I didn't catch right away????  Notice the bottom row of windows?  Yes, the first floor was half-way underground.  Good news during a tornado, I suppose, but it was weird being below street level...kind of like Lavern and Shirley.  And it had a funny smell...not exactly moldy...kind of what you would imagine an earthworm would smell like. 

This was the lovely view out of our window. I kind of had to stand on tip toe to even see out. Of course the view got better at night: 

That's when the pretty lights from the TRAVELING CARNIVAL right up the bank from us would brighten the night sky. I didn't get any audio, so I can't share with you the sounds we enjoyed from our room...the clanking of the poorly bolted together rides...the screams of the people riding the poorly bolted together rides and the music blaring from each ride and booth...all happening concurrently. 

Not that there was any real danger of Jeff or I getting any sleep whatsoever.  For one thing, the mattress appeared to be about 75 years old.  It groaned and and made dying-spring sounds whenever we shifted our weight.

It was also squished down at the head by about 3 inches.

We are used to sleeping in a bed with an elevated head (Jeff has a hiatal hernia and this helps his heartburn issues).  The Super 8 bed was like the antithesis of our bed at home.  I felt like I was standing on my head.

Also?  I was afraid to get under the covers.  I have walked this earth for 44 years without suffering a bed bug bite, and I intend to keep it that way, I assure you.

We had rented a separate room for the girls (my niece is starting at Alabama next year as well, and met us down there).  They at least were on the non-carnival side of the building.  Plus, teenagers can practically fall asleep standing up, so they did alright.

Neither Jeff nor I got much sleep at all.  Even after I went to the front desk to get us two extra pillows to make up for the mattress lean (I had to show my drivers license to the guy at the desk before he gave me the pillows).

That made for a long, long day the next day when had to sit through the parent's portion of Panhellinic Day. (The girls' portion was all about the wonderful, happy, fun time you have as a Greek.  Ours was all about how much it's gonna cost you.  It is not cheap.)

So, lesson well learned.  Book early and pay the extra for anything going on in T-town.

 

International Women's Day

So a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine, who works for another company out here on our job site, asked me if I would be the keynote speaker at their company's International Women's Day luncheon they were planning to hold on March 6th (actual IWD is March 8th...but that was a Saturday).

His story is that some of the ladies recommended me...but the truth of it is that I was probably deemed the easiest to talk into doing it.  Kind of like Mikey with the Life cereal.  Anyway, I was told that Classic on Noble would probably be catering it, and that there would be bread pudding.  It is a well known fact that I could be led off of a cliff with Classic's bread pudding...so I agreed. (As it turns out, McCallister's catered...and although the food was tasty enough, it was no Classic bread pudding.  I was LIED TO.)
(No, Robie, I will not let it go.)

A-hem...anyway...when I sat down to write myself some talking points, I came away realizing how much things have changed in just the time I have been in the workplace.

My first "real" job was in 1989 when I was still in college, but already had my associate's degree and was able to work as a designer/drafter.  I completed my Bachelor's in 1993 and started for-real working as a bona fide engineer.  Somehow, I landed my first job as a Mechanical engineer in the foundry/steel industry.  If I had TRIED to find a more male-centric, good-ole-boy atmosphere, I couldn't had done it on a bet.

I will never forget the first American Foundry Society golf tournament I attended.  I worked for Vulcan Engineering at the time and our president was acting president that year for AFS....so we were hosting the tournament.  I was helping out at the hospitality tent.  As the afternoon wore on, and the beer flowed, an older gentleman sauntered over to me and introduced himself to me as one of the retired AFS presidents...and he told me, "You know, back in my day, the only way you'd've been allowed in here is if you were gonna jump out of a cake for us."

And I think he meant that as a compliment...'cause back then I WAS quite the cute young thing.  I kind of wanted to go into something similar to the Dr. Evil rant ("I didn't attend 4 years of evil medical school to be called a Mr.") but refrained.  Instead I just smiled and poured the old codger another beer, and gave him a free Vulcan engineering key fob.  You pick your battles, and I wasn't like I was going to ever be working with this guy.

Now, 20-25 years later, I can't IMAGINE anyone saying something like that to me...partially, 'cause I no longer look like anything that anybody wants to see jumping out of a cake...but also because I don't see much of that kind of attitude anymore.  I am surrounded by strong, assertive, and immensely capable professional women every day at my job.  My senior Division manager is a woman. Half of my own staff are women.  And there isn't a single person of the male persuasion that I know that doesn't respect them.  Maybe that isn't the case everywhere....I'm sure there are still pockets of resistance out there...and I'm sure some industries are harder than others for women to work in...

But I work in a VERY engineering/tech heavy industry (the Chem Demil program....we're destroying WW II era chemical weapons in accordance with international treaty)  and a very fair share of the subject matter experts I work with are women.  I once heard one of the site project managers talking about the workforce at our work site in Alabama... he said, "The guys there are some of the strongest, most capable people in the program......they have to be, the women there kill and eat the weak ones."

We've come a long way, baby.

Lazy

Sometimes I look around me and positively cringe at how lazy our society has become.  Now, don't get me wrong...I'm all for rest and relaxation...eating, drinking and being merry and all that...AFTER you've done something meaningful with yourself and have earned your R&R.  A balance, if you will.

But over the past several years, I have noticed a growing trend of products out on the market that can only appeal to the portion of our population afflicted by LTS* (lazy turd syndrome).  Examples:

- For those of us afraid to touch our own toilets: the toilet wand thingy...holding the end of a wand, you click the other end onto a scrubbing head...swish it around in the toilet and then "click" discard the head into the trash.

-Tubs of mashed potatoes that SAY they are made from potato flakes...because the potato flakes were too hard to use?  I don't get it.

-The new insurance commercials that make fun of losers who actually waste 15 MINUTES getting insurance quotes, when they can deliver quotes in 7 1/2 minutes.  Really?  Is that where we are?

Sadly, it appears that we ARE in the throes of a LTS epidemic.  I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw this in my grocery store this weekend:

Yes.  Pot-sized pasta for those out there who cannot manage to break their own spaghetti in half.  I can only interpret this as the harbinger of doom that it clearly is.  Is this the signal that we have reached some sort of event horizon of sorriness and will now hopelessly spiral into the black hole abyss of ultimate sloth?

Or is there still hope?  Can we still hope to shuck off the mantle of LTS, cast aside our containers of pre-sliced onions and peppers, firmly grasp our cleaning brushes and actually scrub our own showers clean?

I beseech each of you...do something today...something that you don't particularly love doing...but do it anyway...with your own two hands.

Cut up your own fruit.  Skewer your own kebabs.  At least, for the LOVE. OF. GOD. break your own pasta to fit your pot.

*LTS: Lazy Turd Syndrome is a phrase first coined by my friend (and the big boss-man over the location where I work), Tim G.  It's the perfect description...and I have to give credit where it is due.

Dr. Doolittle

This picture is poorly edited...my apologies...but I think you can still get the gist.

Jeff apparently has the most comfortable lap in all of Christdom.  There have been relatively minor scuffles (like one cat just continually nudging until the other cat jumps down) to all out warring factions vying for the treat of curling up and taking a nap in his lap.



I took this blurry picture a couple of evenings ago.  This was a completely non-violent skirmish, thank goodness.  What you see here is approximately 115 pounds of spoiled rotten beast all trying to sit in his lap at once.  And that's not even all of them.

I should note: Simba won this round.  He was sprawled all over Jeff's lap and half-oozed onto the couch.  He was snoring about 7 minutes after this picture was taken.