Almost Turkey day

Been trying to wrap things up at work so I can take next week off guilt free and enjoy prepping for Thanksgiving/Christmas with my family. Then back to work for 2 days then off again for 5 days and it's time for the new job.

I'm really excited by the idea of starting at the new place. But also nervous too. Comes with the territory I guess. I remember interviewing for my first job and then having folks tell me what my responibilities would be. And thinking to myself "they want me to do all that????" By the time I'd been there two months I was looking around for more to do and couldn't believe that I'd ever thought I couldn't handle the job. Same with my current role. Couldn't believe the amount of things I was expected to handle and now handle with incredible ease.

Life is always new and exciting, and I can't wait for the next bit!

They're here!!!

My folks are home. At last. It was so good to see them again. Actually feel them hugging me and not pretending they were while reading an email. I got some presents, which is always good. It reminded me of when I was little and they would go away on a trip. There was always a surprise in the suitcase for me when they got back.

So now 4 lovely weeks of doing things with my folks. I think even just watching tv with them will be great just because I haven't seen them in so long. More details on what we actually do coming soon.

Tuesday morning was actually a little rough. My folks got into BWI late-ish and made it over to my grandmother's by around 9:30. Happiness ensued and by the time we'd all calmed down enough to realize we were tired it was 11 o'clock. Andy and I had a half hour drive home. Delayed by an accident and a fireman who really didn't understand that I COULD have gone through the intersection the three different times the light turned green. I finally made it to bed around midnight. My usual bedtime is between 9-10. Then at 5 am my alarm went off. Time to get up and watch the meteor shower.

I'm really glad I got up. Andy and I bundled up got out the folding chairs and sat down by our lake and watched the show. It was amazing. Streaks of lights going across the sky, every minute or more often. Sometimes 2 or 3 in rapid sucession. I counted about 60 in the 40 minutes I was outside. Then I and the dog got cold and went in. Andy stayed out for longer and saw some pretty cool stuff.

After that I went back to bed. And got up again in an hour. Paying attention at work yesterday wasn't easy. All of it worth it though. Last night sleep hit at about 8:30. Don't know if I dreamed, or talked or what. I was dead to the world until the alarm went off again this morning.

Another new bundle of joy!!!

Congratulations!!!! To Sam and Sherri, proud new parents of baby boy, Ethan Jordan!!!!

Names removed to protect the innocent

I'm reviewing resumes for people to fill my position. I just received one with a picture attached.

I laughed so hard I cried. Then I forwarded it on to my friend. Her response...

ick. do people do that nowadays? like is she thinking "ooh, i am a white female. have that going for me. must let them know before interview."

Laughed until I fell out of my chair.

DEER!

There's a sign on my way home from work. You know, one of those yellow signs with the jumping deer on it. And then underneath the deer silhouette there's a distance posted. So you know how long you should watch for deer.

The sign I'm thinking of says "Next 2 3/10 miles"

Do the deer automatically stop when they hit that 3/10 of a mile?

Hey Gary stop!
What's the matter George?
You've gone 4/10s of a mile!
Well crap! Now I'm gonna get a ticket.

WHEW!

I'm leaving my current job and going to work for a more stable, more Laura friendly place, not too far away from my house at the beginning of December.

Changing jobs this time was nothing like my last experience. My first job out of school, was my only job for 3 years. When I left the company, most of my co-workers and friends had been laid off or had left, and those who hadn't were cheering me on for my interviews.

This time around, was definitely different. Not that anyone was shocked when I told them I was leaving, but building up the courage to actually tell them was not something I'd speculated for. I'm not sure why I had butterflies. I can't imagine they would have yelled at me. But now that it's out, I feel a lot better. And now I can start prepping for my switch.

Time to pack up the pictures and knick-knacks. Time to make sure all my files are in order. Time to say goodbye.

And more...

Why do elephants have flat feet?

To put out flaming ducks.

And while I'm in the bad joke vein...

Why do ducks have flat feet?

To put out forest fires.

Get it?

Two headhunters run into each other in the jungle. They haven't seen each other for a while and start chatting about what's been going on.

Head Hunter #1: I caught one of the missionaries the other day
Head Hunter #2: Oh yeah?
HH1: Yeah, one of those all covered in brown. I boiled him up, and he tasted AWFUL!
HH2: Boiled him you say? One of those missionaries all covered in brown?
HH1: That was him alright
HH2: Well there's your problem. You don't boil those. Those are friers!

A bit oblivious

I walked down to the Food Lion yesterday at lunch time to pick up a few odds and ends. On my walk back to the office I had the plastic bag on my wrist and my hands jammed in my coat pockets, since it was chilly.

What I didn't pay any attention to was that the plastic around my wrist twisted just a hair every time my leg bumped the bag. It wasn't until I got back to my office, and in the elevator I noticed my hand was numb and the bag had a strangle hold on me.

Is there anything better than Indian food?

My garlic naan so delightfully sharp and bitter, with the sweet bits of garlic on top and the bite of cilantro.
Chicken Tikka Makhani so delicious in it's creamy, curry, goodness.

I could eat it all day long.

You say burgundy, I say wine

I recently went to J. Crew and tried on a lovely red sweater. It was on a Sunday. I went back on Tuesday to make my purchase.

Apparently when J. Crew gets a new shipment in, anything that was in the store prior to that vanishes. They had just gotten a new shipment of clothes in that morning and put them all out. Thus, no red sweater.

I searched thoroughly and then became frustrated and asked a salesgirl, where I could find the wine colored, merino wool sweaters that they had out on Sunday. She pulled the sleeve on her sweater and asked "Like the one I'm wearing?" I answered "No, these were merino v-neck sweaters." She responded "OK" and led me to a pile of the identical sweater she was wearing. A turtle-necked, sky blue, boucle sweater. I almost lost it. What kind of sales people, don't know their own merchandise let alone totally ignore the customer?

Apparently a more direct approach was needed. I led her to a table piled high with merino v-necks and said "Like these, but wine colored." She looked panicked and called to another saleman. He came over and asked how he could help. In that 2 seconds the girl had vanished completely. So I repeated my original question, and stated that were about 50 of them on this exact table 2 days earlier. When I finished asking about the wine colored sweaters, he said and I honestly, and truly quote "Red or white wine?"

I stared as if the man had grown 3 extra heads. Then turned to another table, picked up a wine colored shirt, held it up and said "Wine colored." The response, and once again I honestly and truly quote the man "OH! That's Burgundy"

It took full self control not to tell the man that Burgundy is a wine. And that not all wine comes in boxes labeled red and white. He went back to the stock room for 5 minutes, presumably to study his color chart, then returned to say that nope, they were all gone.

All this, is why I purchased my wine colored merino sweater from Lord & Taylor yesterday.

!!!!

I think I used a few too many exclamation marks in that last post. Can you tell I was a little excited?

Baby Shower #3

Just got invited to my third ever baby shower! Thanks!!!

I will, of course, fill everyone in on all the lovely details after I go. I may soon become an expert at those games! I can now distinguish carrots from squash in bottles of baby food that have no labels!

But they don't have sales tax in Connecticuit

I went shopping at lunch. A favorite pastime since the mall is literally a block away. As went in to Lord & Taylor to hunt down a cheap merino sweater, I noticed one striking thing. The only women shopping were the age of my grandmother, or my age with children. Maybe the women my age that work, don't like to shop at Lord & Taylor. But this reallly wasn't what I was going to write about.

As I was standing in line to purchase my newly found sweater, I was behind 3, count 'em 3, grandmas. The first 2 went fairly quickly. The third, wanted to do an exchange. *Rolls eyes* Now of course, everyone has to make an exchange once in a while. But this one was in front of me, and the clerk had been trained on exchanges, but behaved as if he'd never actually had the opportunity to do one.

This befuddled me a little bit because he had one of those gold pins on his namebadge, signifying he was a "good" employee. How can you be that stellar if you don't know how to do an exchange, quickly and efficiently?

The woman wasn't helping either. First she wanted the man to scan the clothes she was returning, because the clothes she was buying were on clearance and if the clothes she was exchanging were less than the ones she wanted then she just wanted to do a return. He dutifully scanned the tags on the clothes to see what the prices were. Since the clothes being exchanged were the EXACT ones she was trying to buy, they of course came up in the system as the exact price of the ones she'd just picked out. The sales clerk didn't even seem to comprehend that this might be the case.

So on we went, first the pants. When the gift receipt information was punched in and the new pants were scanned, lo and behold she got back $10! She blinked, the clerk blinked, her husband standing slightly off to the side blinked. The pants she'd gotten as a gift had obviously been purchased before the reduction. But she got her $10 and smiled happily while he started working on the shirt.

The shirt, she mentioned, to him, her husband, and oddly enough to me, was not on sale, so it should be a flat exchange. As the salesman was working on this piece, he looked up at me and said, there's another cashier at the other end of the store if you;d like to go down there. No way. I'd already waited out 2 grandma's and half of this one. I wasn't going to the other end to wait in another line so I could simply charge my $30 sweater. Grandma #3 turned to me again at this point and said, I always go check out the other register and wind up in a line. You were smart for staying here.

The shirt it turns out required $2.45 to be paid. Everybody blinked again. And grandma #3 said "OH, but there's no sales tax in Connecticuit." Obviously where the gift had been purchased. "Why do I have to pay the sales tax when it should just be a flat exchange?" The salesman point out to her that we do have sales tax in MD and since she was purchasing the new item here, tax would have to be paid. Grandma #3 blinked again and looked befuddled. The saleman (smart guy) quickly pointed out then that she'd already gotten $10 on the pants. She decided, $7.55 plus the shirt and pants, was a fair enough exchange. But she mumbled to her husband the whole way out of the store, that it would've probably been better if they'd made the exchange in Connecticuit.

I never heard her husband say a word the entire time. Smart man.

In case you were wondering...

I went as a Deviled Egg for Halloween.

The times they are a changin'

Every child's favorite thing to do to a dirty car...write "wash me" in the dust. Yesterday while driving home behind a filthy white truck I looked up and saw "www.washme.com/asap"

It is most definitely the computer age.


Or are they?

Of course when I got to the mall I saw kids standing out front playing Hackey Sack. Maybe things aren't that different.