Late last year we saw an ad for Oysters for Life and decided to adopt/sponsor an oyster cage (hi, cage 1917A!). Today we received a bag of oysters. I was expecting a net bag in a styrofoam box. We ended up with the cute little cooler bag and an oyster knife too.
The oysters went straight into the refrigerator. They will be on the grill tomorrow afternoon when some friends join us for dinner. I can’t wait to taste the oysters from just down the road.
On Saturday, a mere two days ago, I left the house at 7am and got home at 7pm. Where was I? In Virginia Beach at a SharePoint Saturday conference. Please do not be too jealous. Really, just settle down.
This morning, my new supervisor and our boss stopped by my cube and asked about the conference. The first question out of my new supervisor’s mouth was, “How long did you work on Saturday?” and then I told her. The two of them looked at each other and smiled. Or maybe those were grimaces. I had already put 8 hours down for this coming Friday to make up for the conference, but now I suddenly had 4 more hours to dispense with this week. They both said figure it out and block off your calendar. This is why I like working for the both of them. They get the whole work/life thing and live it. It’s refreshing.
It will be nice on the one hand to have truncated days this week, but on the other hand it means that I’m basically in meetings all week. When my supervisor and I were looking for time for me to work on a project, I opened my calendar and she said something to the effect of well, crap. Yeah. I won’t be producing anything this week. Unless it can get done in the 30 minutes I have wafting around over the next three days.
Now, on with the very interesting part of SharePoint Saturday. Someone I don’t know well, by sight only, asked me if I could give her a ride home from the conference. She was going down the day before with another co-worker, but had no way to get home. I told her that was no problem…she lives .5 miles away, if even that. I was a little concerned because stranger in my car for two hours and I’m not good at small talk. As it turns out, we went to the same high school. She graduated a year after I did. I threatened to find my yearbook and bring it in…if I actually knew where it was, I’d do it.
We cracked each other up with stories. She has a much better memory of high school than I do, probably because her experience didn’t suck. I did tell her about a memory I have of our campus-style school and that was of the cat fights in courtyards between classes. It had to have happened more than once because why else would that be such a strong memory? She went silent for a moment and then told me that as I was telling her that memory one face came to mind. When she said the girl’s name, we both just burst out laughing because I am sure that girl could throw a punch.
When one of my sisters and I were young, we would be told to go to our rooms to separate ourselves. Then we would talk through the HVAC vents.
Tonight, the better-half and I were half arguing. I was in the bathroom speaking under my breath and the better-half was in the basement looking for a bottle of wine. He heard me complaining. We talked through the floor vent. Exactly as I did when I was 8. Guess he understands about arguing with siblings.
Or I need to shut my mouth.
We went out into the world today and, lord have mercy on my soul, people are stupid.
First there is the place we go for haircuts. 90% of the clientele and employees are women. I almost always have to use the bathroom at the “salon” because in the morning there are several cups of coffee and juice too. I put salon in quotes because even though they used to do nails there it’s nothing but old women getting their weekly helmet hair adjustments. You would think it would be mandatory that someone is responsible for the ladies room. The automatic paper towel dispenser has been broken for years. I can see into it and all they have to do is open it and adjust the roll. But no. They put paper either in rolls or singles on the back of the toilet. Then there is the question of toilet paper. I have, no lie, walked into the bathroom, looked around and walked back out, into the the supply room, and grabbed paper before. Today, had I given two sh*ts, was a day to go get a roll of toilet paper. Instead I used up almost the last bit, washed my hands and used the next to last paper towel. I turned off the light and went back to my book.
Then we went to Lowe’s which is convenient. That’s the reason we shop there. It’s convenient. We had to buy the third and final toilet paper holder for the house (there were NONE in the house when we bought it) and we also bought filters for the HVAC system. The existing filters hadn’t been changed in a year. Yea gads, you should have seen the old ones we pulled out. Lowe’s was actually an OK experience, for once, but I throw them under the bus every chance I get.
Finally, we went to Kroger to pick up a few things for dinner tonight. I swear to you that one day in a few years I am going to crap in my diaper, drive my scooter cart around and take up every square inch of the aisle to pay every last customer back for not caring one bit about anyone else. I like the store, but I hate the other customers. There is NO reason, unless you are coding on the floor (and someone needs to be standing there with an AED), to take up an entire aisle to put a can of beans into your cart. And, if you are morbidly obese, ill-washed and driving one of those scooter carts, get some of your dignity back and be polite. Use the brake. I do not want the imprint of the cart in the back of my leg because you are too damn dumb to control your scooter cart.
I just looked back at entries for this year and boy did I slack off. I need to be better about coming here to tell you things.
Good things from this year:
We went to Annapolis, Duck and Washington.
I went to Knoxville and hated my class but liked the town.
We started brewing beer.
We sold a house and bought a new one.
We love our new house and the neighborhood.
I got a job and then I was part of a re-org, but still ended up doing something I like.
We saw 14 shows this year.
Started going to Farmer’s Market and taking advantage of Relay Foods and the local market down the street.
Bad things from this year:
Can’t think of much that was terrible.
It seems very wrong to have the windows open on December 21st. But, it’s 70 degrees out and why not air out the house?
I prefer cold weather in the winter, but I have to admit that walking around in a t-shirt and bare feet isn’t too awful. I just don’t want this weather to last more than a day or two.
This coming week is the first time in many years that I’m working every day but Christmas. This is what happens when you don’t have tenure and have very few days off. The good news is that I’ll get to park in the deck attached to the building instead of the one down the street. And I think all of my usual meetings have been postponed or cancelled. It will be nice to not have to run hither and yon attending meetings.
On Thanksgiving we took the MIL to her brother’s for dinner. I sat next to the better-half’s aunt who said, “I don’t like stuffing”. I gave her the WTF face. I thought she just didn’t serve stuffing for dinner because she considered the potatoes and dinner rolls to be enough carbohydrates. These people are good hosts but their food tends to be bland and unimaginative.
Bland and unimaginative are all fine and dandy, but no stuffing for Thanksgiving is a sacrilege.
Last night I made a batch and can’t wait for leftovers. I used weirdo 9-Grain bread so you don’t have to go with white bread. Next time, I’m going to try it with a mix of white bread and cornbread. I have to tell you that cooking bacon and then adding sage into the mix makes your house smell so good that you’ll want to walk outside just so you can come back in to take a big sniff (true story).
We spent a few chilly days in Washington this weekend. Way back in the summer our friend wanted to do the trip, but we said there was no way we wanted to walk around the city in 90+ degree weather with a bunch of other tourists. So instead we went this weekend, easily the coldest days of the year.
I sort of hoped I’d see a little boy riding a tricycle through the halls of our hotel:
We ate under this crocodile one morning. I snapped the picture and texted it to one of my sisters. We were scared of a wooden one at my grandparents when we were children:
This morning was the first time we felt we could hold still long enough to take pictures…the wind howled yesterday and so standing still was not an option.
