Month: October 2008

23 hours til departure…

This time tomorrow we’ll be up in the air. Yaaaay!

There is still so much to do. I need to pack my carry on bag, finish packing my big bag and – of course – more work! After all the years where I felt like I was going it alone in payroll, it is so nice to know that I have D (especially!) and Gwen to back me up. I told D (mostly joking) that she should not be TOO good at doing the job because what if they don’t want me to come back?

(Actually, what would be wrong about that? Hmmm…)

So, this will probably be my last appearance here until we land in Kuala Lumpur, unless I get bored at the airport in Cheesecake City. KL is 12-ish hours ahead (behind?) the east coast of the US so who knows when I’ll be around.

Reasons why I haven’t posted anything of value lately…

1) Packing for the trip. I packed for myself on Sunday and, because he won a bet, I’ll pack for Gene tonight. (Trust me, it was totally worth losing the bet).

2) Work. I know, sometimes all I do is blog about work and the life drain it is. Who wants to hear more about that? All I know is, I’m trying to avoid doing anything to make the manager who was a dick to me mad because payroll is stressful enough. Showing D all I know about the new system is fun, but I feel like my bag of hints and tricks is woefully empty so far.

3) Sometimes I do make it as far as my site, decide to check my stats (why?) and then forget to post. Ooops.

4) I keep hoping that my redesign will magically appear. Won’t my dorky posts be that much more magical?

5) Feverishly trying to catch up on TV watching (yeah I know, lame!). I’m trying to make room for nearly 3 weeks of episodes of Colbert, the Daily Show, and Chelsea Lately (she’s on E! and she is usually pretty funny) by watching all 10 billion hours of “In Treatment” that I PVR’d in the last two months.

6) Reading more interesting things on the internet. Gee. Even I know I’m boring.

7) Pogo.com had a few weeks of free Club Pogo games and I spent a lot of time playing round after round of Lottso. I can’t explain how it works but I was willing to spend $30 to play it all the time.

8  ) Detoxing from all the games of Lottso (please see point #7)

9) For reasons I do not understand, I’ve been on FaceBook a little more than normal (for me). Four of the girls I went to High School with and two of the boys found me, plus all of my friends inside the computer (the Goofballs!).

10) And the omnipresent “I’m avoiding talking to anyone.” My therapist says that is depression but I think it’s just the boomerang from spending all day chipper and “on.” But really, I should probably call my mom, grandfather and friend (hi Brandy!) before I leave for Kuala Lumpur.

Patriotic Chore – Done!

Gene and I voted today at the library. I love early voting because I get it taken care of good and early. The rumor is that 25% of registered voters in Cheesecake City-County have already voted. Amazing.

Anyway, if you have not yet voted, I suggest checking out factcheck.org. The site takes an issue and analyses it. I really learned a lot. I wish there was a local version because the races here in Cheesecake State are really ugly this time.

In conclusion, I did not write in Stephen Colbert for president, but I kind of wish I had.

I am a freaking loon…

So I got the American Girls catalog (goodness knows why) and it turns out that they are retiring the “Samantha” doll. Samantha is the doll whose clothes and books were all Victorian-era. I positively coveted that doll when I was 10-12 years old (before we moved to the house my parents live in). For whatever reason, Samantha is the one and only present I can think of that my Grandma never bought me. (She was probably being smart – I was getting to the end of the years where a girl plays with dolls and these things were a huge investment, even in the late 1980s).

Ugh. And now they are retiring her. A little bit of me is panicking – what if I ever have a daughter? And part of it is that thing where parents always want their children to have the things they never did (the same reason why if I had a daughter I’d want her to take dance classes and be a cheerleader and NO I am not kidding shut UP).

Soooo, yeah. I am beginning to think it is time to cancel the credit cards and suspend my PayPal account because this is a recipe for disaster.

(edited to add: Looked on eBay. Crisis averted. Geez Louise…I have a better chance of actually having a daughter than getting the right doll at a decent price!)

Is it too late to become a ballerina/astronaut/rock star?

Because payroll? Uuuuuugh. Worst. day. ever. Far worse than the day Gwen demoted me, even. I had a location manager absolutely lay into me. He was rude, downright abusive. I can guaran-fucking-tee that if I had spoken that way to the lowliest of his employees I would be on the street posthaste.

The irony is that I was in the middle of trying to fix his restaurant’s payroll. Jerk. JERK. We had a hard deadline (as in “transmit before then or no one gets paid!”) and still he wanted to bitch about our new payroll software and how horrrrrrible it is. I finally said, “If I don’t finish fixing your payroll RIGHT NOW none of us get paid!” and he finally backed the fuck off.

After that I was shaking, I was so angry. I’d managed to not burst into tears on the phone but they were right there waiting for me to get the hell away from other people. I wanted to go into our warehouse and scream obscenities but I realized that our Chairman was on the other side of the wall and maybe he did not want to hear me shout words like those. So I went outside and walked behind the building where I let out, in a mighty roar, a particularly ugly two word phrase ending in “it.”

Anyway, I could go on but I won’t. Gwen wants to confront the manager who spoke to me this way but I really don’t want to. I don’t think I was in the wrong in any real way, I know I didn’t deserve the ugly way he approached his topic but I just want to get on with my life. It’s not like there’s going to be any major change – they’d never fire him for giving hell to the payroll clerk.

(In case anyone cares, my vulgar detour only lasted a couple of minutes and then I went inside and fixed that jerk’s payroll and transmitted so we all get paid. Hooray!)

(On the bright side, I did not chuck my office key at Gwen – the preferred method of quitting a job at my company – although it was tempting).

Mama told me there’d be days like these…

Ugh… Dog barf at 5 AM (with a repeat show at 8 – so much for getting to work early), payroll all day. Someone wake me up when I need to get on an airplane.

(In 16 days. AUGH…!!!!)

So, I’ve been extra anxiety filled lately. I have woken up anxious (that is, worried) three out of the last seven days. I don’t know what that’s all about, but last night I was the weirdo calling the Malaysian Embassy in Washington DC just in case they had a late shift (WTF?).

And a small part of me is seriously considering paying a ton of money to get a new (expedited!) passport before we leave in 16 days. My passport expires on 5/10/09, which is more than 6 months from the day we leave for Kuala Lumpur but LESS than six months from the day we return home. And one must have a passport good for at least 6 more months to be able to go to Malaysia. I will be fine for that part of the trip, but not necessarily the side trip to Singapore unless we are back in Kuala Lumpur by 11/10. I should be fine for the trip to the beach because that’s still in Malaysia. But what if? AUGH.

(Two rounds of dog barf is NOTHING compared to being afraid I’ll get in trouble with immigration).

A crazy dream…

So I dreamt (dreamed? one of those) that Gene and I were flying to Malaysia via Germany (which we are). I know our itinerary pretty thoroughly and I know that the planes are big ones (which YES is at least 10% of the reason I agreed to this silliness) and I am really really looking forward to getting to go on big airplanes.

So anyway… I dreamed that we got on the first plane and (in the dream) I didn’t wake up until we got off the second plane. I dreamed I missed the whole damn thing. In actuality, it’s something like 20 hours of flying one way. I don’t think the chances are high that I’ll miss much. LOL. Gene is a little worried about being cooped up in a plane that long. I’m not too worried (assuming I don’t run out of reading materials and White Dog can keep a charge. (Note to self: make sure White Dog’s power cord and international plug in doodad are in my carry on, not Gene’s). Worst case scenario we can always split a Lunesta.

Holy Crap…

(Sorry, gentle readers! There is simply no other way to title this)

Ball State University, alma mater to both David Letterman and your friend LaineyD, is the #24th ranked college football team. And NO, not in Delaware County, Indiana, but in the entire country. And by country, I mean the United States, not some sort of joke about Indiana being flat like the country. (That didn’t make any sense did it?)

(BSU’s in Delaware Co, right? It’s been nearly 10 years since I graduated and I don’t remember that bit of trivia anymore).

Huh. Who knew?

Suddenly, I get it…

I mentioned awhile ago that I now live in a tenatively blue state (WTF?) so I can’t just write in Stephen Colbert when I vote later this month because, really, the state’s definitely going to go red so why not have some fun? Anyway, while I don’t think I can vote for McCain, I wasn’t sure why until I saw the above episode of the Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart (who I am also not voting for). Now, it all makes sense.

What??

Since when do I live in a blue state??? Yikes, and the exit polls are saying it’s close.

I may have to actually choose a real candidate and not write in a TV show host. Dammit.

The truth is, I don’t know who I’m voting for (sorry Mom). I hope that regardless of the winner on November 2 (that’s election day right? I’m voting early so it doesn’t matter to me) that he brings the nation together and the election is decided by voters, not by the Supreme Court, geriatric Floridians or similar. Really. The United States needs a real uniter this time. I wonder if there has ever been a president who really did unite everyone or if even a hundred years ago the nation was divided.

I was really REALLY looking forward to writing in Stephen Colbert, too. Dammit.