last day of work haiku

Today is the end -
of this stage in my career,
of a very long year.

disappointments and changing directions

The Boy did not get into grad school. He just found out. I'm super bummed
for him; for not having had the impulse to go before, he really put a lot
of pressure on himself to get in this year. Sucks. Now our lives are on
hold for another year, waiting to see what happens.

seasonal haiku for you

the whirring of fans,
followed by cold foggy nights,
mean it's summer here.

one of those days

Umm...so, I just escaped from a potentially very embarassing situation. See, I went down the hall to the bathroom (the communal one) and popped into the last stall, since there was no one in there. I did what I had to do, flushed, and twisted the silver locking handle back to the left to exit the stall. Twist, push, nothing. Hmm...twist, push, nothing. The door wouldn't open. Peering closer to the latch, I could see that it was no longer engaging with the mechanism inside the door and the post was stuck in the lock. I tried twisting lightly... nothing; twisting hard... nothing; twisting while leaning to the left...nothing; shaking the whole door frame in an attempt to dislodge the cheap-ass lock...nothing. i was stuck. I weighed my options, eyeing the 14" gap between the bottom of the stall door and the dusty tile floor. Maybe I could just wait in here until someone else came along, maybe they'd be able to jimmy the lock from the outside. The thought of being forever remembered as "the girl from down the hall who got stuck in the bathroom" just didn't appeal. My mind flashed to the junior high school trick of locking stalls and slipping back out underneath to foil the next person who had to pee. I did what I had to do, dropped my adult self to the floor and slid out from under the stall door like the experienced swing dancer I'm not. Phew. Free at last. Hope there's not too much floor funk stuck to my butt.

a post about nothing

I was reading Tequila Mockingbird's archives today (her archives b/c she
has gone MIA of late), and am still supremely jealous of her skills. See
my sidebar for the link, if you're interested in some quality storytelling.

today is wednesday, right?

Then, it must be Haiku Wednesday!! Here we go:

Dear, sweet gelato,
Stracciatella, nocciola,
So hard to choose one.

insert previous title here

Okay, so the last post's title was meant for this post, in case you get the allusion. What's making me so happy? I got a new job!! Yay! Now...how do I tell my current coworkers? Breaking up with one person is hard enough, how do you dump an entire office?

zippity do da

Back from Las Vegas! Surprise, surprise, I didn't win anything. I have a bit of a problem with slot machines. Awhile back, during another trip, I hit a $250 jackpot on a quarters slot machine, and ever since then have suffered under the delusion that these things happen all the time. I've been paying the slot machines back since then! The Boy got in some quality poker playing, got to enter in a World Series of Poker event, and even won some money playing with freebie credits from our hotel. The highlight of the trip for me was finally getting to pet the baby lion at MGM Grand. So cute!

haiku wednesday - are you hiring?

almost done with this
promise not to bring it up
if I get the job

(that was on the many rounds of interviews I've been doing lately)

things that disturb your sleep

Under the heading of things that disturb your sleep, I have to say that thinking that the world is coming down around you ranks pretty high up there. I have never been so abruptly ripped out of a peaceful slumber as the time I thought all hell was breaking loose around me. It happened about a year and a half ago, The Boy was on a business trip in Las Vegas for a week and I joined him halfway through so that we enjoy Sin City together for a few days at his company's expense. I should clarify, though, that he never told his work that I would be joining him, so when they made his hotel reservations for him they booked the room for only one person, thereby making me paranoid the entire time I was there that I was going to be nabbed for being the second person in the room.

Anyway, after a night filled with the drinking and gambling that comes naturally when one is in Vegas, TB had to be up bright and early for an in-house meeting while I got to bury myself under the covers of our king bed and pretend like the day hadn't started yet. One of several things that they do right in Vegas is understand that a) people need to sleep in and b) there are a lot of bright neon lights in that town. As a result, every hotel has great big thick curtains to block out light, sun, a nuclear blast, what have you. So...there I was, safely snuggled up in a giant bed in the world's darkest room, pretty much dead to the world, when....holy mother of god, the loudest siren I have ever heard in my life starts going off above my head, accompanied by a seizure-inducing strobe light. It was deafening...I had to fight the impulse to curl up in a little ball with my hands over my ears in reaction to it, and instead flailed about, literally falling out of the king-sized bed and scrambling blindly about the floor in search of my dropped glasses. The pitch blackness of the room, combined with my own practical blindness and the blaring alarm that filled my head, reduced me to pawing all over the floor like Helen Keller without Polly Thomson. My heart was in my throat from the shock and believing that I was about to be burned alive, and I fumbled in the darkness for my belongings, feeling out my glasses and my cell phone. I ran out of the hotel room in nothing but my pajamas and rushed down the emergency stairwell and out the door.

Of course, since the hotel was filled with conference-goers and and they were already up and dressed and in their meetings, and I wasn't even supposed to be there, much less huddled outside some emergency exit in my jammies, I didn't exactly want to be running around the parking lot shouting for The Boy. Fortunately, everyone else came out of other exits and mine deposited me behind the hotel's dumpster. So, there I was, shrinking from sight, trying to figure out if the hotel was on fire, realizing that I had no way of getting back inside or proving that I was a guest, and wearing my pajamas and clutching my cell phone. I ended up calling The Boy's cell, convinced him to meet me behind the dumpster, and had him let me back into our room when the coast was clear. But...I never did get back to sleep.

over the river and through the woods

It's Fourth of July weekend (almost) - woohoo! Well, maybe just "woo". I've still got some time until I can call it a day, and even when that happens, my weekend plans aren't all that exciting. As the title of this post indicates, I'm going to my grandmother's house this weekend. It's an annual pilgrimage for everyone in our family, since it's both her birthday and a three-day weekend (no excuses for not being there!). It's a long, boring drive, to a hot, boring place in the middle of nowhere, only made tolerable by the hugs and love shared by the rest of the flock. (Sometimes even that's not enough!)

So, basically, my weekend consists of me driving to my parents house, all of us driving to my grandma's house, all of us driving back to my parents house, me being guilt tripped into staying longer, and then me driving back to my own house. Phew. Good thing everyone else in America has also decided to spend the weekend in their car. At least we get three days to recover from all that.