bumblepug

a day in the life

during lunch i swung by andronico's for a sandwich.  since the sun was shining so briliantly, i decided to be leisurely and sit outside in the area of empty tables.  it should've struck me as odd though, since the tables on one side were completely packed and the tables on the side were totally empty with the exception of one guy.  he was a homeless guy but that kind of thing totally doesn't pase me.  i just though "i'm in palo alto (which has no homeless people) so they probably just don't want to sit near this guy."  well, as time went on i realized this guy was not only homeless but he was a nut job.  everytime a shopping cart strolled by he would cover his ears, close his eyes, and scream.  "buddy, if you have a fear of shopping carts sitting in front of a grocery store is seriously one of the worst places for you to get your daily rest."  it just so happened that i had also bought 3 bags of groceries which were chillin' in my cart as i at my sandwich.  after seeing the trauma each cart seemed to induce for this guy, i decided that it would be best foe me to carry my groceries despite their weight to make his day a little easier.  boy, do i know how to choose the seats!

happy halloween!

yes, it's finally halloween!  my favorite day of the year!  this is the first year that i have not dressed up during the day.  boo hoo.  i figured a bunch of lawyers wouldn't find the humor in a costume as they give me assignments.  i'm glad i went with my gut because costumes are zilch-o here with the exception of misc. types of headband animal ears (and a group of people who are made cardboard cutouts to be ipods- so cool!).  maybe the costumes come out later?!  we have a halloween party this afternoon so that should make for a nice break!

ralph and i are going to my family's annual halloween party which i'm stoked about because they're making chile verde and beans- another favorite of mine!  we're going to dress as construction workers since we're pretty much in the business now after doing our home rennos!  ;)

hope your night is full of spooks and good costume sitings!

what, me work on a saturday?

like, real work?  on the clock kind of work?  not just sit around at the garage sale and make a few bucks an hour kind of work?

yup, that's right...i have to work today.  a full day.  i need money since i didn't have enough pto to actually be paid while on vacation (another virtue of being new!) so i offered to pitch in.  i also thought it'd be a good way to acquire some skills to add to the ol' toolbelt and maybe i can meet a new person or two since i still haven't established a lunch group as of yet.

date night

i have a date with a hot guy tonight!  we're going to dinner and the movies which is totally cliche but it's what we like! 

- must find something clean to wear

note to self: don't fall asleep on the couch for the 3rd night in a row.  that's so not cute!  it's even more not cute to wake up at 5 am in the "where am i blur" with a severe backache from slipping like a v into the center couch cushion for most of the night.  snap out of it, the couch is not your friend!

as luck would have it!

a new girl is moving in to the cube across from me.  this is good on many levels...i will no longer be the newest person in my wing (unless she's just transfering from another department), and we might get along and become lunch buds.  at the very least, it's just another person that i can bug and talk out loud to since i'm pretty much a mute since there's nobody in my area.  will update as soon as i get more info.  she'll probably start on monday.

3 more days til halloween

as many of you know, halloween is my favorite day of the year, well, second to my birthday, which is almost exactly 9 months later.  things that make you go hmmm....

this is the first time in history that i haven't had a countdown, had a costume prepared for myself, and a costume prepared for dog.  what's happening to me?  am i getting old?  and tired?  yuck.  i want to always love halloween.  i'm still recovering from the fact that i can't trick-or-treat, and that was like 10 years ago!

i can't use one of the costumes in the costume box because i've defaulted to those for the past 10 years.  i need something new.  give me some ideas please!  something original!

holiday outrage

macy's is out of control and this is why i vow not to do any holiday shopping there!  i went there during my lunch break to return a pair of shoes and they are already decorated for christmas.  wtf?!  i felt like i was in the twilight zone!  did somebody forget to inform macy's that we haven't even touched halloween?!  i officially hate macy's.  who cares about their stupid sales that are so good they are practically paying you to take things home.  i refuse to shop there for the holidays.  my millions of dollars are their loss!  ;)

i feel a letter writing urge coming on!

the virtue of being new

being new in a company is a virtue.  forget patience.  as of now, it's no longer a virtue...being new is!

i've been at my current job for almost 2 months and i'm still considered new!  argh.  after taking what seems like 40+ training classes, i still only know 1/100th of my job!  to top it off, they added math to the line up!  those pranksters.  me, math?  this makes afor a disastrous recipe!  putting me in the general vicinity of numbers is a bad idea especially when it has to do with other peoples' finances, their lives.  pray for me.  lots, please!

i can't wait to be a senior employee with a messy desk and lots of tasks.  i want to feel needed and useful.  afterall, isn't that what i'm being paid for...to be useful, to get things done?! 

for now, i'll sit tight in my impecably well-organized cube and enjoy reviewing all trillion of my training manuals and videos.  patience is a virtue.

late bloomer

in most realms of life, i'm would probably be considered an early bloomer.  in the world of alcohol, i'm definitely a late, late, late bloomer.  i enjoy drinks but my taste still closely resembles that of somebody who just turned 21.  beer and i are just starting to become friends and red wine and i are definitely still on the rocks.  i enjoy a glass of white wine here and there but i have no clue how to choose it.  so now you can see why i usually keep it within the martini family.

anyways, i found an awesome sauvignon blanc.  well, i didn't find it but a wine man (can't recall their official title) did and i want to share it with you: it's nobilo 2004 sauv blanc.  this brand is from new zealand and it's one of the best wines i've had to date.  ok, off to buy a case!  ;)

enjoy!

land lover!

ok, back for real this time.  i needed some time to recover from jet lag and changing time zones 4 times during the past week! 

being home is nice; as dorothy said, “there’s no place like home.”  the best part about being home is dog.  i missed her so much!  so now...my “land” life resumes...back to work, back to unpacking 2 homes, back to picking up dog waste.  what a party.

as for the cruise, it was nice despite hurricane wilma!!!!  we didn’t get to stop in grand caymans (those sting rays are probably still waiting to swim with me!) or costa maya and they substituted those ports with progresso.  “what the heck is progresso?!  i know my geography sucks, but where is progresso?!”  apparently, it’s somewhere along the yucatan peninsula in mexico.  it was probably one of the worst ports a cruise could stop at but i guess it was better to be safe with a shitty port than sorry by trying to go to the nicer ones where the hurricane was hitting.

needless to say, progresso was my least favorite port (and it was our last stop).  we went to the mayan ruins and i swam in a pool that had an underground tunnel to the ocean.  they said it’s where the rain god lived.  it was really pretty and i’ve never been in cleaner water in nature than that!  it was fun to barter for clothes at this stop.  they had a lot of nice cotton dresses with the colorful mexican embroidery.  let me just say one thing, if you can’t speak spanish (even really terrible spanish), don’t think of trying to barter because the shop people don’t seem to like it.

belize city was our first port and it was a nice way to kick things off.  when we got off the boat, we were bombarded by merchants that wanted to braid our hair and be our city guides.  i wasn’t feeling the braids because my friends that have them done regularly say they hurt if they are done too tight.  besides, who wants to waste their time in belize getting their hair braided?!  so, we did the smart thing.  we hired a random local to be our city guide.  real smart, huh?!  we had our choice of over 50 men yelling for our business so we went with our hearts (as napolean suggests) and we chose the guy that seemed safe.  turns out, we have accurate instincts.  our guide, henry, was awesome!  we did some shopping, dining, and made a pit stop to a local music shop.  i bought some cool music to add to my collection that would be difficult to download since i wouldn’t have known about it prior to this trip.  traveling is good for that reason—it opens your eyes to things you would’ve otherwise missed.  belize had some of the nicest people i have ever encountered.  it seems like a very poor country, and i barely saw any women.  to my surprise, most residents of belize do not speak spanish but creole.

cozumel was our second stop and my favorite by far!  not necessarily because of the people or shops but because of the animales!  my mom and i did a shore excursion to a national park where we swam with dolphins and held parrots.  or more like, the parrot held me!  the parrot they put on my arm had a strong grip and he did not want to get off of my arm.  needless to say, “the parrots have large talons!”  swimming with the dolphins was cool.  they feel like wet mushrooms and they are very muscular.  when (we gotta be optimistic here!) i win the lotto, i’m definitely going to buy a beach house and set up a dolphin sanctuary!  outside of the park, we saw iguanas roaming in their natural environment.  and, there were hermit crabs in my mom’s shoes.  it was literally a pet store outside!

during the time that we weren’t at ports, we were on the boat which was interesting for somebody as claustrophobic as me!  there was a lot of food (in fact, it was entirely too much and could’ve probably fed 4 third world countries for at least a month), and lots of people that were in desperate need of some serious dental work.  during my time on the boat, i realized that i have a new found love for land!  being on the cruise was a good experience but from here on out, i’m going to try to keep it to land vacations.

but don’t take my word for it...if you’ve never been on a cruise i recommend trying it at least once. afterall, it is nice being out in the middle of the ocean!

the best parts of the cruise:

art auctions

24-hour pizza station, fancy desserts, melon, and fruit loops

duty-free shopping

the sun deck

towel animals

out of the loop

i'm so out of the tv loop, but more specifically, i'm out of the laguna loop.  what is going on?  somebody fill me in for christ's sake!  i've been on a boat for 8 days and i need my fix!

i totally missed the mini-marathon thye played on monday because dog had an appointment for an anal gland expression (don't ask!).  oh, what ever happend to my priorities in life?!

more later

we're back!  we outran (well, out cruised) the hurricane and made it back safely from the yucatan peninsula.  more later on our adventures and photos will be posted sooner or later.

gone sailing

back on sunday the 24th!

sweet laguna!

as i was listening to the radio i heard that laguna beach is coming back for a third season which has made my week! i truly couldn't imagine my life without their drama. thanks mtv!

progress report

i went to the doctor for the third time this month. so annoying considering i'm having to take time off from a new job. today's progress report was better than the past two...the doctor thinks the infection is out of my lungs but thinks my sinuses are densely packed with mucus so bad that i may need to be on antibiotic treatment for 3 weeks. ugh, i hate antibiotics. they make my stomach hurt. how does one go about examining the fullness of the sinus canal? a ct scan is the answer to that! sounds scarier than i'm sure it is. i have the scan the day before our vacation to the bahamas so i'm not sure it really makes sense since i wouldn't be able to start antibiotic treatment for at least two weeks. guess i'll stick to the mucinex for now even though it makes me feel totally hungover in the morning.

enough about my health, let's move on to ralph's...he's getting sick! no. not before the cruise. everybody has a cold right now. what is going on?!

as for dog she's finally not constipated which is great since my favorite passtime is picking up her shit in front of my new neighbors. her trauma from our fifth move in her life must've really plugged her up.

hope your health is better than ours.

love of the lash

i love eyelashes. well, eyelashes and teeth to be more accurate. anyways, i decided in junior high that i was put on earth to find the best mascara ever made. and i've worn mascara every day since then, and lots of it. my long time favorite was max factor's 2000 calorie in rich black with a straigh brush, then it was max factor's lash something or other (can't recall that name at the moment but it was good stuff in a blue and gold container). well, ive' found something better, it's clinique's high impact mascara. i can wear 5 layers without it getting lumpy and it is beautious! talking to people, it turns out that half the girls i know also wear it, including my sister. hello?! why didn't anybody tell me about this miracle worker years ago?! anyways, go out, buy it, and wear lots. oh, and clinique, feel free to drop me a bone!

welcome home, sister!

last weekend i went to rei to stock up on my favorite brand of astronaut ice cream. yes, i know, i'm weird, sometimes! when i was in rei i couldn't help but stop by their purse section. i'm sure most people wouldn't think to find a purse (or more like a bag or caryall since i think of purses as fancier than rei's stock) but a true shopper can find a diamon in any rough, and i did. i bought this super cute pale pink north face should bag. it's pretty small but just big enough that i don't have to carry 3 target plastic bags into work with all my belongings, which is the usual case.

then the shopping bug bit my ass and since i was next to petco it made perfect sense to get big boi some more water conditioner so i could change his water and his other bottle of water conditioner is packed away in one of these boxes, poor guy. so, petco...water condtioner, and um, a sister for him! i bought a female betta! she's super cute and really tiny. she has an awesome tiger print with splashes of blue and purple. i named her elle and the plan was to have big boi and her be neighbors since bettas cannot co-habitate without killing one another (that's what the petco fish guy says anyways, so i'll go with his advice since i love my fish).

full of new pet joy, i went home to change big boi's water and get elle (his sister; my new pet betta) into something better than those rinky dink plastic bowls that they keep fish in. sadly, i have a bad process of changing the fish water where i gradually poor the dirty water down the sink until it's just the fish and a little water that i can pour into a temporary bowl while prepping the clean fish home and conditioning the water. so, poor big boi suffered at the hands of my fast hands that poured too quickly and he went down the drain. :(

after the initial shock of my stupidity, there was lots of screaming and then ralph joined in. ralph's hand was too big to fit down the drain and i was scared to put my hand down there to get a dead fish. after 4.3 minutes of my hand squirming around to get boi, i grabbed him!!!! yay, best day of my life! i rushed him into his clean water and he was very crooked and floating at the bottom of his bowl, and to top it off, his beautiful scarlet fins were shredded and bleeding. i felt so bad! even though i've fished, i didn't realize that the little guys bleed, too. while he was in the kitchen sink i think the garbage disposal blades got to him faster than me. i was hopeful, but i really didn't expect him to live through the night. i thought he would be talking shit about what a terrible fish mom i am, with sean paul (my former betta) up in fishy heaven.

in all that freny, elle's transition from crappy plastic bowl to real glass bowl never happened. poor girl. i'm happy to report a week later that big boi is doing spectacular and he's happier than ever. i'm so happy for him and so grateful that he's a survivor. to annoy him and ralph, i sing destiny child's "i'm a survivor" to him. oh, my boys, they love me! ;)

i swer from last saturday forward that i'm going to be the best fish mom, ever! and i've definitely changed my fish water bowl chnaging methods for the better!

calgon, take me away (part two)

i think there's another "calgon, take me away" entry in the archives!

so much has happened lately that i can’t recall the happenings.  the big things that stand out in my mind are that you can now see the floor in condo #2 (that’s what i call ralph’s which is where dog and i now live), all the moves are done (me, ralph, and mom), recovery from pneumonia is smooth sailing (well, until i cough and it feels like my lungs got torched!), and it looks like i only partly live in my car (so no longer the fully homeless look).

things at work are going well.  at first i thought the new job was a poor match because i didn’t know a thing and was totally overwhelmed by the terminology and the idea that i had to bill my time, but now it’s grown on me and i’m starting to fit in a little better.  i don’t get lost in my building anymore (and that’s good because i’ve been here a month now and the receptionists might think i’m retarded and not capable of doing my job since i’m perpetually lost), i’m starting to recognize people (aside from the older gentleman with a squirmy eye who delivers my mail), and i have a radio at my desk.  yay for music!  aside from that, the obvious perks here are there’s a cafeteria in every building, i don’t have kitchen duty like i did at the last place, i have a secretary, and i never have to print labels or file again, well, if i don’t want to, and if i’m a few minutes late i don’t have 3 emails and 5 voicemails about the status of my location.

as for the home life, i miss sleep, i miss dates (with ralph), i miss long walks with dog, seeing my friends, and um, having a life outside of unpacking!  in the past month i’ve been sick so i’m super tired.  i’m trying to sleep a lot and if i’m not sleeping i’m unpacking or cleaning or shopping for home stuff.  ugh, how old am i?  100?!  thank goodness we take off for the bahamas next friday!  i can’t wait.  i’m going to sleep in the sun and go to the gym everyday (so, i think).  calgon, take me away!

p.s. if anybody asks about the red ferrari mug on my desk i’ll say “that’s what you get when you buy a ferrari!”  ;)

happy birthday, amanda!

yay, amanda! it's a new year and practically a new life. i'm so glad you're living out your dreams and loving every moment (even though it means i'm a solo lunch diner!). i hope you have a wonderful birthday. ciao bella (that's venetian), s ;)