my baby!

I really need to do something to cheer myself up. I’ve been all strange lately. I’m not sleeping at night and my head is killing me all of the time. I’m anxious and can’t seem to relax or just be. I’m all stressed out about everything and nothing. Last night I was jittery and light headed for some reason. It doesn’t help that I looked on Realtor.com earlier and there are 7 units for sale that are exactly like mine. There are about 20 in my community when you count the 3 bedrooms, the lofts, and the ones with only 1.5 bathrooms. I don’t know what kind of crack one person is smoking because theirs is listed for 255! Umm, if the person listed for 210 can’t sell what makes you think you’ll get 255? Even if the place needs work, it sure don’t need 45,000 work of work…

So, as I try to conserve I keep thinking I really need a trip. I mean, yeah, maybe just a few days off would be good for my sanity/health, but sitting in the house will just remind me of the fact that it hasn’t sold yet. I’m trying to think of somewhere I A) would want to go and B) can afford to go. There is Anguilla, but I don’t have $600 to get there. There’s VA, but that would encompass seeing way too many people in a short period of time as well as my mom’s “What are you going to do” questions. And Seattle? Well, it’s half the cost of Anguilla and I would get to see my baby… But then again, without my parents there as a buffer, I’m liable to kill my sister or her husband. Remember him? But then again, the baby will make me happy… Hmmm, that’s something to consider. Even though I will be killed if my Sis ever found out, here’s a pic of my baby! Isn’t she cute!

6 things

I couldn’t think of anything to write so I am going to take inspiration from all those other blogs doing a 6 things list. So, here are 6 wacky, crazy or odd things about me.


1. I took wine appreciation my senior year of college because I didn’t like the taste of alcohol. My excuse for not drinking prior to that was that it was a dry campus so there was no alcohol at parties and I wasn’t 21 so I couldn’t go to the bars. I’m still not that into it, which is why I often become the DD.

2. I took drama in high school to be more comfortable in front of groups. It was ok. When someone tells me exactly what to say and people can’t ask questions, I’m cool. It’s when I have to give a presentation at work or something that I get super nervous.

3. I really don’t have any goals or life aspirations. Is that bad? I have always just kind of done what was expected of me like college, a career, a house. Nothing that I am or that I am doing right now was anything that I was passionate about. It all just happened. Maybe that’s why I really want to take a year and just travel. It’s also why I can’t tell people when they ask me what I want to do with my life.

4. I secretly want to be a stay at home mom. Yeah, I know I have this expensive education and equality for women and feminism blah blah blah… whatever. I would love to just be a mom and a wife. I used to pack lunches for my roommates for goodness sakes!

5. If I was getting any, I’d be pregnant by now. Not on purpose, mind you. I just constantly forget to take my pill. This afternoon around 4 I realized that I forgot it again today.

6. I have always struggled with my weight and my family doesn't make it any better. They like to give "helpful suggestions" which in reality make it much worse. You know when someone says something that really bothers you, it makes you want to do the opposite just to spite them? Yeah, that's us. "You aren't going to eat that are you?" "Well, I wasn't but now I am!"

What an Ass!

Ya’ll will be happy to know that I was a good girl yesterday morning. I didn’t have a drink till at least 5:15! LOL. I was so tempted to because Shel and I went to lunch. Usually we run errands, take a walk, or just pick up something and bring it back. Yesterday, I just couldn’t sit at my desk for another minute. So, we went to Chili’s, had chips and salsa, and talked about non-work things. I did end up with a few drinks in me at the end of the night. I had to put up with an ASS to get them, though.

My manager was planning to take SW out to dinner since it was his night here. In the old days, anytime anyone was in town or if someone had been here for a while and was going back, everyone got invited out. Now days, the managers and maybe if you worked with the person directly, you get invited. I admit that the old days were a blatant misuse of company funds and we all just ate and drank ourselves silly, but when you are given that, it’s hard to take a step back. You feel like you lost some perk when you really shouldn’t have had it in the first place. The only time I feel like “I want to go” is when they are going to a really great restaurant that I love or that I’ve always wanted to try, which isn’t that often. Well, yesterday, one of the managers came over and whispered to me “do you want to come to dinner tonight with us?” Now, remember me mentioning yesterday that I got in at 8? Well, being as I am usually just getting out of bed at 8, I couldn’t think of a reason not to go. Plus the man was all up on me. I felt pressure, so I agreed to go. Thinking about the whole thing, I started to feel like something was up. Did I do something? Are they just trying to make sure I’m “happy” like they did when Ben first left? The 3 managers are going because they always go for the free meals and SW was going because he was their excuse, but why me? Shelly and I speculated for a while a then two of the managers started talking about it. One said “Is it just 6 of us?” and the other one said “Yeah, I asked everyone and no one wanted to come.” Shel was like “Everyone, huh? Didn’t ask me!” He asked her but she declined. I really wish she had come, but if I was asked as an afterthought, I wouldn’t have come either.

So, on to dinner, it ended up being 2 managers from here, one from the UK, the guy that was leaving and the test guy. I was the only girl, which I’m used to, and the only minority, which I’m very used to. The evening started with drinks, which they always do. The guys were their normal selves. Now, I didn’t know this manager from the UK. The only thing I know about him is that the last time he was here it was with a bunch of other guys from the UK. Some of these guys had a bad reputation already and when they came, Lizzy and I were warned about them. Apparently they were also told to stay away from all the ladies in the office. Well, all of these guys went down to south beach for a night out and the next morning, they returned without the manager! Apparently he had been left down there. He was found and somehow made it back to the hotel, but I’m still not sure that we got the whole story. As we sat and had drinks before dinner, I started to see how maybe he was just as bad as the guys that were here before. Through out drinks and even dinner, he was crude and a bit of an ass. He said things that would have been appropriate maybe around the guys, but NOT around me. Everything had a sexual connotation and he even ogled these women for quite a while. I mean, the guys always look at women when they come in to a place, but he was leering at them continuously and even ignored SW when he was speaking to him. I tried to just ignore him or change the subject because I was there with my bosses. I mean, my bosses say stuff sometimes that isn’t really appropriate at work, but I’ve known them for 6 years! This guy I just met and he said stuff above and beyond anything they would say in my or any other women’s presence. At one point we were talking about a new woman that works in the UK. He actually said when asked if he had met her before "Oh yeah! I met her, then came in my pants!" I just couldn’t believe it. What an ass. But I was good. I had a couple of Martinism, a glass or two of wine, and pretended not to hear most of what he said. Hopefully I’ll be gone soon anyway and won't have to depend on pompus sexist asses to sign my paychecks.

More of my Randomness

Ok, first off, can I just say I love you guys! Don’t get me wrong, I love all of ya’ll but I gotta call some people out this morning. When I got in this morning at 8,(YES, ME! At 8AM!) I had a nice message from NYABG. Then as I am already toiling away around 9, Shawn and Chele come with the encouragement. I tell you, this just makes my morning. Well, that and hearing Little Sidney say “Morning Auntie, Sherie” on the days I pick ShellyP up.

Last night we went to this really great Spanish restaurant in Little Havana. It was Casa Panza, on Calle Ocho. We had pitchers of Sangria and lots of Tapas. There was a singer and lots of dancing. I admit. I suck at dancing to Salsa, Meringue, and anything remotely similar to that. But it was so much fun anyway. There were 7 of us, 2 couples and 3 single people, but only 2 women. At one point JG and his partner were dancing, IL and her hubby were dancing, and SW and I were dancing. Then JG and IL switched partners. SW just said to me “I am NOT dancing with JG!” I was laughing so hard! So IL and I switched and I danced with JG’s partner. He was so funny because he kept bumping into this REALLY hot guy on purpose. I didn’t stop dancing because I was tired, I had to stop because my sides hurt from laughing so hard. It was great, just what the DR ordered.

I didn’t tell you guys about the book release party I went to, did I? It’s the book Fly On the Wall by Trista Russell. Now, I’m not much for this type of book really, but I am a huge book fan. I would have probably never picked it up browsing in a store, but I’m about ¾ of the way through and it’s pretty good. Sister can sure paint a vivid (STEAMY) picture. Maybe it’s just me, maybe I just need a man, but OH MY! Anyway, the premise of the story is a bit controversial. It’s about a 32 year old teacher that is dating her 18 year old student. It’s not illegal, it’s just a bit unethical and kinda icky. The party was nice. It was a little bit of a drive, but not that bad. ShellyP came along with another friend. There was food, drinks, gift bags, prizes, and people re-enacted scenes from the book. The room was decorated with plastic bugs everywhere. Why did it take me half way through the thing to realize why there were plastic flies stuck to the wall? Umm, Duh! Fly On the Wall… and I wasn’t even drinking. LOL.

SW leaves tomorrow. He has been here for about 2 months and I’ll miss him. He works over in our office in England. It’s been great having him here. I think I’ve done more the past couple of months than I did my first year here in Florida. I can easily spend my weekends in my pajamas reading and watching TV if I don’t have encouragement to get out. Besides that, SW has traveled everywhere is encourages me to do the same. And he sees some of the issues we have in our office that Shelly, Ben, and I talk about all the time. It’s nice when an outsider agrees with you because it kind of validates that there are issues and you aren’t just complaining for nothing. Anyway, He’s off to Brazil when he gets back to England and after that, who knows. He said if I’m over there on my world wind traveling, I can stay with him and his fiancé. One of my other co-workers over there offered to take me to France and we have family friends in Germany. It looks like I’m all set if I travel Europe.

Ok. This post started off so positive, but I’m not feelin’ it anymore. I was determined not to bitch about work, but they are already stressing me the fuck out and it’s not even 11! I think I need a drink…

Do you ever have one of those days that just start off bad? Well, I guess it’s not bad, but in the very least draining. I was pissed at work AGAIN yesterday. I just hate it when people imply that I broke something when they really did it. Anyway, that’s another story, so I won’t get into it. I had a dream last night that my boss was asking me if I was ok and how things are going. If anyone knows him, they know he says that crap all the time. It’s like he’s trying to be one of those touchy feely “I care about your wellbeing” bosses, but it never seems to come out right. It feels like he is trying too hard and is kind of creepy in reference to the women in the office. Plus, you know that he’s not REALLY listening anyway. See, he tends to have a selective memory when it comes to promotions, raises, and just about anything you want/need that wasn’t his idea. Anyway, in my dream he gave me the standard “You can talk to me line.” So in my dream, I told him I was going to South East Asian in December. I let him know that I’d be gone a month and would take unpaid leave if I didn’t have enough vacation time. He said that it was impossible and started talking about how “the business” would perceive it. Then he was saying how busy we were and that I couldn’t go. I told him that I was going. That I needed this break and it was important to my personal sanity. Then I told him that if he had a problem with it he’d better hire my replacement before December if he wanted me to train them. I felt weird and very out of it when I woke up. For a second, I had to think about if it was a dream or not. Did I just basically quit my job? What about the house? Oh, wait…just a dream. Damn. In my dream I went through all the emotions. First I was still pissed from yesterday. Then I was nervous about telling my boss my plans. I was excited, I stood up for myself and told them how it was gonna be. Then I was terrified that I couldn’t pay my mortgage. And finally relieved and a little sad when I realized it was all a dream. I was so tired from all that that I was ready for bed again. So of course it doesn’t make matters any better that a) there’s no coffee made when I get to work and b) I get a ton of shit thrown at me as soon as I walk through the door. Maybe my dream IS destine to come true…

A trip around the world

I am dying here at work every day. I feel like I am stuck. I just want to get out and travel. In case you all didn’t already know, I want to take a year and just travel. I was hoping to take all of 2006, but as you can see, I’m still sitting here at my desk pretending to write code while sneaking and reading other people’s blogs. As long as I do something dramatic(or just loud) like eject the card or change the key positions, people tend to assume I’m doing something. (BdaB and Shelly, ya’ll know what I’m talking about! LOL) Anway, I’ve kind of made tentative plans for my travel but as the weeks/months tick away I keep crossing stuff off my lists. I really just need to sell my house so the adventure can begin. Are you sure none of you want to buy a lovely home in sunny south florida?


Travel Plans for 06 (what’s left anyway!)

June/July – Santiago Chile
- A good friend of mine just found out she got an intership in Chile. She is at Georgetown studying law right now. She invited me to come visit while she is there. Being that I haven’t been to south America, I really want to go.

August – Anguilla, BWI
- Remember how I loved my “work” trip to Anguilla? Well I definitely want to go back. I’ve kept in touch with people I met there and August is their carnival. Essie, who I mentioned back in the trip posts one of which is here, said that I could stay with her if I go.

October – Germany/Spain
- A cousin of a friend of mine has moved to Germany. Now this friend and all of her family are like family to me. Her grandmother calls me her 6th grandchild and I’m auntie to all of the little kids. The plan here is to go visit the cousin, well more so to see her son. We love that little boy and my friend practically raised him until they moved to Germany. While there, we were going to fly down to Spain too.

December – South East Asia
- Now if I don’t go on a single trip all year, I’m going on this one! A little while back I was talking to my girl Lee, who I mentioned here,
here, and in a couple of posts around those ones. Her adventurous spirit has taken over me. The girl is a few years younger than me and she has traveled the world and lived this adventurous life. I’m telling you, I wanna be like her when I grow up! LOL. Anyway, her brother shares this spirit. He is getting married at the end of the year and having his reception in the Philippines on New Years Eve. She asked me if I wanted to go. And of course since we are there, we’ll go to Thailand and Cambodia too. Maybe Vietnam or China as well. We could even go visit my family in Japan if we have time. I am sooooo excited. This trip will be unlike any other I’ve ever taken, and the adventure of a lifetime.


Now, of course besides these great big trips, I have people to visit in Virginia(various cities), LA, Seattle, Cincinnati, Chicago, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Savannah, and somewhere in Oklahoma. So between the big ones, I was going to pop in on everyone else. Of course after the year of travel is up, I still have no clue as to what I’ll do. I think I’m kind of happy that way, though. I’ve always had everything planned. I was really freaked out about not having a medical/dental plan and doing things alone (Chele you know I don’t do Jack alone!) I’m the person that had a 401K at 21 and a house by 25. But now, I see that this is not the direction I want my life to be going in and I am happy with uncertainty. Money isn’t everything, otherwise I’d stay here. Security is great and I’d really love to have it again when I’m married and/or have kids. For now, I just want to be able to breath… and why not try the air in some other places?

Latin Funk and the Church

Thanks for all the well wishes. Work still sucks, but I’m much better now. I had another interesting weekend.

I was invited to a First Friday event by a friend of mine. It was a comedy show. What he neglected to mention was that it was a church event involving 2 churches, sponsored by their Singles Ministries. I kind of had a hint about how the evening was going to be when I had to fill out a questionnaire on the way it. The first part was pretty standard. Name, email, how you heard about it, would you come to another event. Then it got into the “What church do you attend? Are you saved? Do you want to be saved tonight? Etc.” When all was said and done, I think I had no for every answer. I just knew they were going to hunt me down afterwards to have an “intervention”. It’s not that I am against church or God, I’m just not that into organized religion. The show itself was ok. There was an awful lot of talk about Non-believers and various jokes about things within the church that I didn’t care for. There was some “You know them white people” jokes and things said about gay people that I really didn’t care for. The music was good and they had a poet there who was good. Over all it was pretty good. I met one of the Pastors from one of the sponsoring church. I kind of skirted by the “What church do you go to question” by mentioning that my friend invited us. He started to go on and on about how he had helped so much with the planning and told me to make sure he brought us by Church one Sunday. After meeting him, my girl and I were talking about how we wished we were more religious cuz he was in his early 30s, cute, AND single! LOL! Don’t worry, I’m not trying to hit on a Pastor. There won’t be any “So at Church today” stories. By far the funniest part of the night was my girl D. When the show started, a guy who organized the whole thing went up front to introduce the MC for the night. As soon as he stood up and introduced himself as Omar, my girl grabbed my arm so hard, I almost cried. “You are NEVER going to believe this!” In a whispered voice, she related the story to me about how she knew Omar. Ok, one day after work she went to Whole Foods because she wanted a cop of soup for dinner. If you have never been to this grocery story, they have really good already prepared foods, including various soups and chowders. Anyway, as soon as she got inside Omar, who was about 5 feet tall, approached D, about 5’10, and asked her “Do you date short men?” THAT was his pickup line! He then proceeded to follow her around the story asking her questions and giving her his card. “Do you shop here a lot?” “What kind of soup are you eating?” “You gonna call me?” I had to stop myself from laughing hysterically because Brother Omar was still talking. Out of the corner of her mouth she whispered “He didn’t mention Jesus when he was stalking me!” and I almost lost it! I told her I’d have to ask my friend if he knew Brother Omar…

On Sunday I went down to Miami for the Annual Latin Funk Festival. I know what you are thinking, WHAT? I was thinking that too at first. Then I heard some of the music and it was pretty cool. Plus, I never really do anything, so I’ve been making up for it by going out a lot lately. Anyway, we drove down to Miami and headed to Mansion, a nightclub on South Beach. It was nice because we parked several blocks away and walked down to the club. We passed the Tattoo parlor where they film that Miami Inked show and my friend had me take a picture of him for his brother. His brother in England has seen the show. His entire knowledge of Miami is Miami Inked and Miami Vice. How sad is that? Back to the show… There were a couple of artist that played. My favorite was Locos Por Juana. They had a Latin-Reggae sound. And there was Javier Garcia, who I really liked as well. We had a few drinks and danced a lot. It was fun. Afterwards, we met up with another co-worker and his sweetie for drinks on Lincoln Rd. Well, after drinking earlier, it was more like pizza, ice cream, and more drinks. By the time I got home it was 2am and I was completely exhausted. It was soooo difficult to get up this morning. Shelly called me a little after 8 and I hadn’t even made it into the shower yet. Good thing they don’t mind me showing up at a quarter to 10.

Ever have one of those days? - UPDATED

I am done. I'm just done! I am so tired today. I was great this morning. The coffee flavored Tequila last night and sleeping in a bit this morning helped make it a great day. Then came all of the crap. First, AB came off of 2 sick days. In “this is all the crap I’ve done in the past two days” talk, he mentioned a custom app that needed to be done. Not so much mentioned it as almost jumped down my throat about how he THOUGHT I was doing it and how he told the customer they could have it by Friday. Tough shit! You never told me to do it, there is no request assigned to me in the system., you never even sent me the spec for it! Deep breath, deep breath. It’s a two minute thing. I can get it done. If I didn’t, I’m sure I’d be the one blamed for not reading his damn mind. Next issue, the definition of the word minimum… What do you think that means? I spend a half hour of my life explaining to someone that minimum pin length meant you can’t have pins smaller that that number. A HALF HOUR! Poor Shelly had to sit through my tirade about this since it happened right before we went to lunch. After lunch, I spent another half hour explaining something to the acting IT person. It wasn’t even something he had to know. I just needed him to give access to a machine to a couple of the other engineers, but he wouldn’t let it go. In the end he was like “oh, the only way to do that is to make sure everyone knows about it.” No shit, that’s why THEY NEED ACCESS! Then, did you look at the document that BM wrote? NO! What the hell? How much time did you think I had? Suddenly me doing 3 high priority changes and getting 2 builds out in the two days you were gone is not enough? By the way, Ben, you‘ll love this. The document re-designs the work you did right before you left. Isn’t it nice to feel that all those long hard hours you put in are appreciated? I glanced over BM’s doc and it’s just crap. I don’t even know what he is saying half the time! And finally, there is the conversation about testing. How do we test this, how do we determine what to test, blah blah blah… By the way, I’M NOT IN THE TEST GROUP! I don’t really give a crap! Can’t you all please just leave me alone? It’s kind of sad that a lot of my answers to questions now end with “I really don’t care. If you want to do it, do it, if not, don’t.”

-2 days after original post and it never ends-
Hey everyone, thanks for the encouraging works, but it's still not better! Not better at all. It's not my job to direct SS! He is not my employee. I didn't write the spec he is using. Can we please just leave me to do MY job? And the thing AB promised to the customer... I did that. Yes, I turned it around in one day and it went out yesterday. Did I get a Thanks, Good Job, You saved my Ass since I promised it to them. NO! Of course not. That's how things go around here...

Chele - I think you are the only one that picked up on the tequila. Yup, got it in Anguilla at the rum factory. I know, rum and tequila? Well, their sister company is the tequila factory so they have tastings of both. After a few different rums and tequilas, you'll buy anything!

Oh What a Weekend...

If you had asked me on Thursday what I was doing over the weekend, I would have said nothing. I was thinking, laundry, vacuum the house, basically lay on my ass and stare into space. Well, it turned out a little different from that.

On Friday, one of my co-workers had the brilliant idea to have a happy hour. Well, a couple of martini’s later, we found ourselves on the high way headed to Hollywood. (Florida that is, not Callie.) It was loads of fun. One guy had never been down there before. We ended up at this Argentinean restaurant that had the greatest steaks. One guy actually ate an 18 ounce steak! I hurt just watching him. We also had this drink that is sort of like a white sangria. I can’t remember what it was called, but Yum! It was definitely too much food, but it was delicious. I got in at about 1:30 exhausted.

The next day I woke up early to go with the Steves(we have 2 at work) to Sanibel island. They asked me if I wanted to come with them between bites of steak on Friday. Now, I’ve never been to Sanibel or anywhere on the west coast except Ft. Myers. It was so beautiful. The drive was pretty short, maybe 2 hours, and we spotted dozens of Alligators along the way sunning themselves. It was so quiet and laid back when we got there, very unlike South East Florida. We took pictures of the light house and did a little tour of the island. Then we just relaxed on the beach. Sanibel is known for shellin’. People with little nets are constantly hunched over scooping looking for the best sea shells. It’s great for that. Unfortunately, that also means that the beach is made up of a little bit of sand and a whole lot of tiny sharp shell fragments. It was not pleasant. But now, I can say that I have swam in the gulf of Mexico. And the sunset was gorgeous. I never realized how much I missed them until we were sitting in the sand (shells!) watching the sun sink down slowly. We do get beautiful sunrises over here, but who wants to get up that early to watch it? I know I am not the one. On the walk back to the car, we could see these big birds flying over head. They were flamingos! They were so pink! It was amazing to see them settle on a couple of broken tree branches and logs and take turns fishing. We got home around 10:30 or so. Needless to say, I went right to bed.

Sunday I, luckily, remembered to set my clocks ahead. I always need to be reminded because I am still not used to doing it. See, when I was in college, we never changed our clocks. I don’t know what it was about that part of Indiana, but they just don’t do it. Someone once said it had to do with the farming and disrupting the animals’ schedules, but I really have no clue. Well, it was a good thing I remembered because we went to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. It was soooooo good. I had never seen them before. They did a whole selection with Earth Wind and Fire songs and the last selection was all gospel. I can’t remember the last time I heard Wade in the Water. I am really glad I went, even though Shelly had to convince me to spend the money. I wanted to go, but not $75 worth. That got veto’d right away. The $40 tickets were pretty far back, but it was still beautiful and well worth the money. Afterwards, the group of us went and grabbed a drink and some appetizers instead of sitting in the traffic line to get out of the parking garage for a half hour. Back at home, my intention was to do some laundry (everything is dirty!) and vacuum, but that didn’t happen. I only managed to make myself some dinner, do one load of laundry, and watch FoL.