Does anyone else think this week had like an extra day in it or something?
So here's the thing. I tried to make it work with the temp, I really did. I spent more time trying to train her than I had to spare, I rearranged the tasks so that all she had to take care of was the simple annoying tasks like sending FedEx packages and making copies and filing since she swore up and down that she was REALLY experienced at all of that stuff and could take care of it all no problem. I think she upsold herself a little too much though, because it took her an hour to print two shipping labels on the FedEx site, despite assuring me that she had done TONS of shipping using the site. Le sigh.
On Tuesday she told me she had to go to a doctor's appointmnent at 8 in the morning on Wednesday but that it should only take and hour and she'd be in later that morning. So imagine my surprise when I got a call from the temp agency and they told me she was being checked into the hospital! And would be having exploratory surgery! It was really weird because the agency lady was talking about IVs and potassium as though I knew what the hell was wrong with her, so I have a feeling the temp told her that she had told me everything already. Flash forward to today, when I was told that the surgery went well and they were keeping her overnight for observation but that she would totally be able to come in after being discharged tomorrow morning. Um. Okay.
Needless to say, I saw my opportunity to escape the Temp Conundrum and I snatched it up like the last cupcake the day before my period starts. I told the temp agency that we actually have a full time employee who doesn't have full coverage right now (totally true) and that my boss would rather have me send work over her way rather than paying a temp (semi-true) so we were going to be ending the temp assignment early.
And lo, there was much happiness in me, which showed itself in the form of chair dancing to "Sexy Back" as it played on the radio.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Reason #398572 that I'm glad we don't have kids: Preschool.
I just watched my friend go through sheer agony trying to get her 4 year old enrolled somewhere that was A) not sketchy and gross B) had a decent curriculum and C) was actually something she could afford. It's such a damn Catch 22; your kid's not ready for school unless he/she goes to preschool, but there's not crap out there to help out anyone who's solidly lower middle class and can't afford $500-800 a month to get their kid into a decent preschool.
It's as bad as paying for college anymore. You're either really well off and can afford it no problem or you're below the poverty line and able to qualify for state or federal programs. If you're in the middle, you're screwed.
But it turned out okay in the end; she found a good school that's (just barely) affordable and her daughter's looking forward to starting.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *I pretty much hated everyone for the first half of the day today. It seemed like everyone was bound and determined to be as whiny and pushy and just all out icky human beings for the first three hours I was in the office. Oddly, this was a vast improvement over yesterday, when my eye started twitching within 20 minutes of my arrival. And on Tuesday my right boob started aching for no apparent reason other than my fantatic polycystic "lumpy bumpy" boobs deciding to act out in anger, and it hurt all damn day. The whole wacky business is just wearing me out. I've been so out of it that my sleep has been all kinds of weird (the other night I dreamt we had twin babies somehow but one was so tiny that it slipped into a computer keyboard and then got squished when we accidentally hit the key it lodged under), which has made me way more useless than usual.
It's gotten so bad that this morning as I was getting ready for work, I thought to myself "Hm, I don't remember taking my birth control pill yesterday". Imagine my surprise when I realized that hey, I hadn't taken one since Monday morning! Go me! And did I mention that the robbers stole all our condoms for some reason back when we got robbed? And so now any plans for holiday weekend sex is on hold unless my husband remembers to go get more condoms?
And now I am going to just stop talking because dude, that was dipping the toes right into the TMI pool right there.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Okay, so I mentioned that we're going to Las Vegas, right?
What I didn't mention is that when we go, we get to stay
here in a one bedroom suite somewhere on the 15th floor or above, and we get to stay there at an amazingly cheap rate since I have a really awesome friend who totally hooked me up and is letting me take advantage of his rental ownership in the Hilton Grand Vacations Club thingamajig.
Two words: whirlpool tub. I am so totally taking tons of crappy magazines and novels and my favorite bubble bath. And also some alcohol so I can drink while in the tub.
The best part is that somehow the stars aligned so not one but TWO sets of my friends are going to be there the same weekend so it will be a rocking good time.
Man, I wish it was tomorrow that we were leaving.
Criminal element
Guess what I'm doing?
I'm writing an entry on our new laptop while Kevin is surfing on the desktop. Apparently the influx of yuppies on our street has brought with it a few open wireless connections that I am blatantly using without a single bit of remorse. It's kind of awesome. When I'm done with this, I'll be surfing around to try and find a decent laptop bag to order (not on the unsecured wireless connection, don't you worry).
(Okay, the new laptop is a ThinkPad R60e, which has made more than one of the engineers at work sort of drool over for some reason but dude, I HATE THE STUPID LITTLE KNOBBY THING! Why is there no touch pad?? WHY???) So now I am unstoppable. I'll be able to update anytime I want, anywhere I want. And yet...I probably won't, because the lazy trumps the convenience any time.
So last night I went and saw
The Descent with my group of friends I call the Scary Movie Club. We're a bizarre little group that know each other through a complicated set of connections involving our company, scrapbooking, and T-ball. The movie was gross. Seriously, I think I saw more blood and guts and bones last night than any person really needs to see, especially right after dinner. It's dangerous to sit next to me at scary movies because I tend to flail a lot. Anytime I make it out without whacking the person next to me is a successful night.
Anyway, I'm super tired tonight, but I figured I couldn't go without posting an entry on my stolen wireless connection.
Read this all in one breath, because that's how I wrote it
Holy fucking crap, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. First, my assistant went out on maternity leave two weeks early so I had to fly into Super Admin role and cover her desk as well as mine until the temp we hired gets up to speed. Then it turned out that the temp (who interviewed very well) is not quite as swift on the uptake as we thought she was, which means I am now training her while doing two jobs. The overtime has been great, but it's not really conducive to things like blog updates and a social life.
And then this weekend I had an all day scrabooking session on Saturday (where I finally, FINALLY finished our engagement/wedding/honeymoon album) and on Sunday we went to the baseball game (which I will detail more later) so we didn't even get a chance to go grocery shopping until late Sunday night and if it wasn't for the fact that Kevin does laundry, I wouldn't have any clean underwear right now.
Speaking of Kevin, today's his birthday.
In fact, today's his 30th birthday. Today my husband is a man! (Okay, that? Just cracked my shit up. I have no idea why.)
He's stopped doing regular bloggy type things but he's been doing this book blog
over here so I think you should probably be heading over there to say happy birthday to him RIGHT NOW.
Bad Wife, Exhibit #1: I've been so busy/exhausted/going crazy that I still have not bought his birthday present. I did, however, present him with his annual Pepsi and Mac & Cheese along with a card I bought for him years ago that I kept losing and then finding again after his birthday. It was a hilarious card at least.
So happy birthday, honey! I'm sorry you have a sucky wife, but I promise I'll make up for it somehow!
(Don't feel too sorry for him though....we are going to Las Vegas next month and meeting up with some friends for some gambling and debauchery as a belated birthday shindig.)
Okay, gotta go train the sucky temp some more. Adieu!
Take me home from the ballgame
The game is tied and I am getting totally sunburned.
Take me home from the ball game
Tomorrow I'm going to a baseball game. I'm going to a baseball game voluntarily, with my baseball obsessed husband who will spend the entire game keeping score on a paper scorecard like the good old baseball dork that he totally is.
I'll be honest with you. I can't stand baseball. The new ballpark opened three years ago and I have yet to set foot in it despite us saying every year that we should go to a game. Kevin knows I'm only saying it because he likes baseball and I love him and so I want him to be able to go see the new ballpark and watch a game there. But I will freely admit that there are about a million other things I would rather spend our money on than baseball. I have no idea why this is; I spent a good part of my childhood playing softball and going to games, and I seemed to like it then. But now I get bored out of my skull just thinking about watching a baseball game. And the way I figure, I can be bored for free at home.
But! My mom's job now gives out tickets to a Padre game rather than doing a traditional summer picnic. I think my mom is probably one of the few people in the world who has even less interest in baseball than I do, so she, of course, passed the tickets on to her daughter and her baseball loving son in law. I could have been nice and told Kevin to talk his father to the game (since his dad loves baseball as much as he does) but no way in hell would I be that generous with my father in law.
Besides, there's beer at baseball games. And cotton candy! And lots and lots of people watching opportunities. And you know, if I'm totally honest with myself, I did have fun at the last baseball game I went to and that was with my ex and his wacky brother so I'm sure that Kevin and I will have fun.
After all, how can I not have fun with the same guy I just spent my evening with flinging Splenda all over our table at Marie Callendar's?
And just like that, things were all better
Remember that interview I mentioned yesterday? The one for the temp to perm position at my company? The company that we've been trying to get him into since he moved down here 2 1/2 years ago?
Yep, he got it.
And also, they are paying him a nice chunk of change more than the Shady Company was paying him
So he'll be starting on Tuesday, exactly two weeks after the Shady Company laid him off. Better job, better company, better pay.
Everything happens the way it's supposed to.
It also helps that my hair is really cute these days
Last week on Monday, I had a small breakdown in my boss' office, complete with tears of frustration which left him stammering his apology for letting things get so chaotic that I had said nervous breakdown. On Tuesday, I walked into his office at 4:30 and declared that I needed to leave because my husband had just lost his job. On Wednesday morning, my boss practically tiptoed into my office to tell me that he had been planning on buying me flowers to cheer me up but had gotten to the office too early and the flower shops were all closed.
So yeah, I have to admit, the last few days have found me not doing well. This is the second time this year that we've had to deal with this situation, and adding money stress to the residual stress of the robbery kinda pushed me over the edge. And there I was on Tuesday night, driving home from work, crying big fat droopy tears while listening to a Tori Amos CD (
Little Earthquakes, I believe, which was the soundtrack to my angst-ridden college years). And I came home and cried on Kevin's shoulder for a while, then made a cake (which I have been dosing myself with regularly since then) and ate macaroni and cheese and started to finally feel a little better. (I figured cake was better than alcohol in this instance since alcohol is a depressant and obviously I did not need more depressing because hello, tears while driving and listening to Tori Amos is depressed enough.)
And then tonight I walked out of class and looked up at the sky just as the full moon was rising, a gorgeously huge yellow disk climbing the sky and hiding its face from time to time behind ribbons of black clouds. It's the Corn Moon, heralding the ripening of the crops and the hint of a properous harvest just around the corner. And as I looked up into the face of that moon, I was suddenly and completely at peace. What has happened has happened for a reason, and now we can do nothing but move forward.
The past seven days have been turbulent, yes. But Kevin's gotten a ton of leads, and had two interviews yesterday, has an interview tomorrow (at my company even! which is something we have been trying to get to happen since he moved down here), and another one on Friday. We've rearranged our finances to get some breathing room and discovered some nice little gems thanks to good advice from good friends. Things like...student loans can be put in forbearance and car loans can be temporarily deferred and sometimes credit card companies are willing to drop interest rates from 30% to 12% just because you asked them to. The light at the end of the tunnel is no longer the headlamp on a speeding train, and that's a very good thing indeed.
This might just be the cake talking, but I'm hoping it's not. After all, cake runs out eventually.
We are apparently the Universe's personal toilet
Wow, almost two weeks without an update, huh? I have perfectly good and valid reasons for that, but I'm not going to bore you with them. Besides, I don't really owe them to anyone do I? It's been a very dramatic two weeks though! Juicy with the drama! And gossip!
So first of all, I broke up with a friend last week, and if I told you the story behind it, your jaw would drop just the way the rest of my friends' jaws have dropped. But it's long and involved and oh so very high school that I'm not going to revisit it now. Suffice it to say that it was a friendship that's been dying since March, and everyone involved is better off with it being done. Besides, i have way bigger drama to deal with right now.
Y'all are not going to believe this.
Kevin got laid off again today.
This one was kind of expected though, because his company has been dicking him around since they hired him and also, they suck. They told him they were going to hire him on permanent after 30 days, and after 90 days he'd gotten nothing but the run around.
"Oh, you'll be permanent after you interview with the president. Here, have some free fruit."
"Oh, there's budget issues so we can't hire you yet. Here, have some free soda."
"Hang in there, Kevin, and work on being a team player. Oh, and come have a free fancy dinner on the company's tab."So last week, after the latest round of assholery, he confronted them (in a very well-worded and polite email) (I should know, I'm the one who rewrote it) and today was told that he "wasn't a good personality fit." In other words, "Stop calling us on our bullshit and go away."
It's a whole big long story, which I will tell in more detail tomorrow. My own job is not without drama lately so I've not had time to update at work, but we finally got one of the replacement computers and hooray, now I can update from home! So no more two week droughts, okay?
