(Rhymes totally unintended)

Five minutes later I texted Denise: “Home w/ migraine. Tell me it’s OK to call in sick for that”

“Absolutely!” she replied 90 seconds later. She is a good and loyal friend. Next, I took half of an Ambien.

I hate calling in sick for work because inevitably I have to go back to work and I don’t wanna!

I slept again until noonish, when I theoretically felt up to heating up leftover beef stew for lunch for the humans. By 2 PM, I was asleep again. I think I took a full Ambien this time. Around 4, Gene stuck his head in our bedroom and asked if I’d be up to going to dinner at 6 at Our Favorite Local Restaurant.

“Sure!” I replied, even though I think I was hoping for sushi and my “Sure!” was kind of a “Yeahh, football!” in A Christmas Story type of “Sure”. Regardless, I woke up again at, oh, 5:45 to dress for dinner. I think I ate appetizers for dinner and ended up home with cake for dessert.

(Moral of the story: Stay home).

Oh, and at some point in the day I called in a refill for more Ambien. Yay.

Today!!!! TOOOOOODAAAAAY I woke up with a sore back. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

So now today’s been a heating pad, Aleve, walking around the Outlet Mall (we had to get tickets for the Best Picture Showcase* and also a new pillow for me **) kind of day.  Yes, I totally should have put off traipsing around the mall until…tomorrow. Or never. But I’m a woman, and a particularly stupid kind of woman who refuses to just say eff it and hole up with the laptop and Netflix episodes of Greys Anatomy.

*yeaaah, gonna make Gene see The Artist!

**and NOW I wish I’d made Gene buy the pretty purse for me that I spied in the window @ Michael Kors or at least walked through the Coach outlet (one never knows what’s in there that is not specially made for the outlet and cheap). The chance of getting him to the mall by himself tomorrow is 2% and the chance of me getting back to the mall tomorrow is exactly -500%.

(Yes, I’m excited about a coupon for a spice shop. Leave me alooooone).

I know I purchased something from this deal of the day site last year but apparently they have implemented a ridiculously stringent password system in the last few months so I managed to lock out my Gmail account. Not to be dissuaded, I set up an account using my classy sounding email (elaine.lastname@internetprovider.com)….

And then somehow got locked out of that.

Ha ha! But Crazy Elaine reaaaally wanted the coupon to the spice shop so instead I set up ANOTHER account (yes, a THIRD account) with this stupid website using another version of my grownup email address (elaine.lastname@internetprovider.net – it’s the same as the other email, but different enough to count as a separate account to…)

Get locked out again! Of my third freaking account. And the way to get unlocked… get this…you have to contact the freakin’ deal of the day site and have them reset it. But they didn’t email me my password and username on the first request.

And then on the second request, they sent me the password but not username.

I tried the password with what I assumed was my username (also my email)…

and got locked out again.

I WANT MY DAMN TEN DOLLARS OF FREE SPICES, DAMMIT.

PS – turns out my username was the same as my Twitter ID. Sometimes the internet kicks my ass.

Dammit, dammit, dammmmmmmmmit.

I’m doomed to Big Payroll forever, aren’t I?

No news on the new job front. Maybe I’ll hear something tomorrow? At what point are you OK to call and check in?

Second, darn it all to heck, PLEASE?

Third, Gene and I spent some time on January 21 cleaning out our filing (because we are losers!) and I found the file of random stuff that I’ve saved throughout the years. I learned that January 21 is the anniversary of the passing of one of my great grandmothers. I also found a postcard that my Grandma M sent me from Florida that was postmarked on….(cue eery music) January 21.I know that none of that means anything, but between those two things and the pool smell at the hotel restaurant the previous Friday… Ugh, I am totally rolling my eyes at myself.

Fourth, speaking of family, the 22nd was The Boy’s 18th birthday. Now he is The Young Man. I wish he was still in our lives. I’d like to write more about that, but not right now.

(Spoiler Alert: Gene and I skipped tonight’s reservation in lieu of just ordering pizza…first world problems, yo!)

Night One: Dinner @ the restaurant in a hotel a town over. Yummy, delicious, and the smell was incredible (I have more waxing poetic to do about that, BTW…later?). Gene won because his salmon was better than my beef.

Night Two: Dinner with Gene’s coworker and his partner at an Italian restaurant down in Cheesecake City. The best decision I made all week was ordering a glass of wine. The second best decision I made all week was ordering the second glass. The food was good, but not as good as last Restaurant Week. It was nice to patronize an Italian restaurant without the words “Olive” or “Macaroni” in the name but the drive was pretty long. I had carpaccio, veal and chocolate lava cake. Gene had…hmm. Scallop, something else, and panna cotta for dessert.

Night Three: Back to the seafood restaurant where we celebrated Gene’s birthday in August. I had peanut soup (yummy!!!!), duck (also very good!!) and a delicious dessert that I can no longer recall, even when looking at the menu. Gene had mini fish tacos (deeeelicious!), sea bass (as opposed to land bass? Or Chuck Bass?*) and a not-chocolate dessert. I noticed that we got spotty service, but I still want to try this restaurant’s huge sushi menu someday. (But why drive 30 minutes away when we have delicious sushi 3 minutes away?). My duck was better than his sea bass, so I won.

Night Four: I had to work late, so we ate at a nice restaurant across the street from our neighborhood. I started with the calamari (with a drizzle of wasabi sauce, sooo good!), had a lovely entree (the salmon, I think?) that was just a touch over cooked and chocolate cake for dessert. Gene had goat cheese on pita (it sounds meh, but it was very good), the crab cakes (He thinks, but the more I consider it I think he had chicken) and carrot cake (?) for dessert. I won. Or maybe Gene won. Who remembers? The bottled water cost as much as a mixed drink. Feh.

Night Five: I was supposed to leave work @ 6, ended up getting caught up (Stupid Year End!) and had to have Gene reschedule our dinner reservation for 7:30. To be honest, when we made the schedule this was one of the nights that I would have been pretty happy with grilled cheese at home but when the rubber hit the road…who wants to clean? I started off with a shrimp appetizer that was nice but very complicated in presentation (the theme of the restaurant, I think), veal osso buck (very delicious!) and apple tart for dessert (the tart was inexplicably paired with mint ice cream…wtf?). Gene had mussels (which were very good), crab cakes and creme brûlée for dessert. This was the night I devised the rule “If we can’t choose who wins, we must consult the server” (because we apparently enjoy looking like giant assholes in public?) and we spent the meal discussing restaurants we preferred to the one we were sitting in.

Night Six: Wednesday! The night we ate at our very favorite local restaurant (that we are going to sometime in the future with Denise and her husband the Almighty G)! Yay! Compared to the crush at the other restaurants in the week, it was nice to be some place where the servers recognize us and we could actually talk. I started with a ‘mini’ wedge salad that was so good. I love wedge salads. I had the steak entree, which is quite rare for me (beef joke!) but was amazing. For dessert, I had a root beer float and regret (but on the bright side, it cured my root beer float craving). Gene had risotto, chicken, and the house specialty red velvet cake (which is why I had regret for dessert). He won on the strength of his better tasting dessert, although my steak kicked A Serious Amount of Ass and we probably should have consulted the server.

Night Seven: We ate at our former favorite local restaurant. I started with deviled eggs, then prime rib (yes again) for my entree and super decadent brownie for dessert. Gene had pimento cheese and guacamole dips for appetizer, trout for dinner and strawberry shortcake for dessert. I won because the shortcake was actually served on a biscuit (why do restaurants do this??? I think a shortcake may technically be a biscuit but…meh), although it helped that Gene drank both of our complimentary glasses of wine. (I was driving, Mom).

Night Eight: Dinner was at a “Brazilian” style steak house. It was the first restaurant where the three courses that make up a restaurant week meal did not include dessert. At a Brazilian steakhouse, you start with a trip to a really big salad bar and then you eat your salad. After that, waiters wander around with huge skewers of meat and they offer it around. It’s kind of a reverse buffet. No winner that night because we both had the same thing. It was all a little too Golden Corral for me so I don’t think we’ll go back.

Night Nine: Mexican with Denise and the Almighty G. The town I used to work in is home to a fancy Mexican restaurant and we always make it a point to visit it during Restaurant Week because it’s a convenient excuse to hang with Denise for a couple of hours (to be honest, it could be Emissions Inspection Week and I’d do the same thing). I had seafood enchilada thingys, Gene had some sort of fancy Mexican pork chop. The service was slow but it turns out that neither couple paid for the queso and guacamole, so, huzzah. The restaurant was pretty crowded with big parties so by the end I think we were all ready to clear out. I automatically win this night because I got to hang with Denise.

Night Ten: About 3 PM today, I looked at Gene and asked if he really felt like going down into the city for dinner. He didn’t. I didn’t. We ordered pizza.

* Ah, I kill me w/ the Gossip Girl puns. Chair forever!

We’re about 80% of the way through restaurant week again and once again we’re eating out every night.

Last Friday, dinner was at the restaurant in a hotel the next county over. The hotel was part of a chain that I stayed at once when I was a little girl, with my grandmother. Indoor hotel pools smell like the best parts of my childhood and it makes me so unbearably nostalgic, I can’t even say. The glass of wine with dinner was so nice and relaxing though. I had prime rib, Gene had salmon. I think he won because his salmon was better than my beef. The amuse bouche (they called it that) was a jalapeño stuffed with barbecue. I think there was bacon involved somewhere, too. Yummy.

More about Restaurant Week later…

So, I had a first interview for the out of the blue job I got the call about two weeks ago…

And a second interview yesterday.

And now I’m sort of patiently waiting for a call or an email or a carrier pigeon or a fax or a smoke signal telling me “yay” or “nay”.

BAH!

I know that I’m one of three candidates being considered, so I guess I have a 33% chance.

It’s not a totally perfect situation…for example, one of the company’s core values is one that I don’t share (hint: it’s the reason I have a category here called “Snaked Again, Naturally”). But it’s an environment that’s at least 50% less stress, theoretically better money and the location is literally a quarter mile from where I work now…

(which will be super awkward in the line at the nearby Starbucks)

In other news, I found out – through sheer nosiness – that one of my teammates has given her notice. Which means that Big Payroll Co may work harder to keep me, but it also means that after my coworker leaves, it’ll be me, Broomhilda, Boss Belinda, Token Dude and The New Girl. (And two other New People To Be Named Later).

(Oh, and Broomhilda interviewed for a job working closely with Pattie, our former team lead).

This means that I really, really want this job. It’s not just the anxiety talking when I say that my team in a month will be radically different from how it is now, and not for the better. I just can’t do it.