Quick post while Dave’s in the shower: I survived the flight. I got a job. (More details on that later.) We’ve managed to eat some pretty awesome food – some cooked by my sister, some cooked by chefs in a fancy-shmancy restaurant. I got a great early birthday gift from my sister – a pair of jeans that make my ass look fantastic. (How rare a find is THAT?) We’ve been to the Museum of Modern Art and Central Park. We (meaning Dave and I – and probably my siblings, but definitely NOT my parents) got way too tipsy last night at dinner. I’ve managed to only get into one fight with my dad so far. (I’m doing well. Trust me.) And today we’re going to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty before we head back to T’s apartment and eat way too much food for Thanksgiving. I’m wearing my fat jeans in anticipation. Hope everyone has a good holiday.
Author Archives: Cindy
Oh November, how you have kicked my butt
I have to be on an airplane in less than 48 hours, and I’m still sick. Ugh. I’ve tried everything I know how to do: I’m downing Emergen-C and vitamins like crazy, drinking tons of water and orange juice, doing that disgusting nasal irrigation thing, and I’ve even tried that “magic potion” that Angie recommended. (And she’s right, it’s not that bad. It’s not good either, but at least I didn’t have to slam it like a shot of tequila. Which would’ve hurt with a hot beverage.) And so far? None of it has made a bit of difference. I’m still miserable, coughing all the time and blowing my nose approximately 37,000 times per day.
Credit where it’s due: my sweet husband went to the store for me to buy the lemon herbal tea, honey, and cough drops that I needed to make that little “magic potion”. Isn’t he a good egg?
So yes, the flight to New York on Tuesday morning is rapidly approaching. I’m still hoping that I’ll make some miraculous recovery between now and then, or that the super-duper heavy-duty Sudafed will knock me the hell out for the duration of the six hour flight. I was worrying about how I was going to pack NyQuil without it leaking all over my bag, since that’s the only thing that lets me get to sleep and not wake up with coughing fits. (And yes, I must have the liquid. The pills don’t do squat for me.) I finally decided that I’m just going to buy a new bottle when we get there, and I’ll leave the leftovers with my sister. So, if I don’t recover between now and Tuesday, at least I have a plan to manage the symptoms. I suppose that helps?
I have nothing to report on the job interview scene. I think they went well – I ended up doing several interviews last week, for a couple of different jobs, but I don’t have any feedback yet. I guess I’ll find out in the next week or two, but I feel too lousy to really care at the moment.
In other exciting news, we have had crazy fog here for the past few days. Right now I’m looking out of my office window, and I can’t even see the house next door. That’s some seriously thick fog. Which sucks for us, because we have a satellite dish, and thick cloud cover = bouncy Internet connection. I believe the term Dave used for it the other day was that our connection was “up and down like a whore’s drawers.” Nice.
I’m planning to bring my laptop with me on this trip, so there may be a blog update sometime later this week from the Big Apple. If not, I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving.
whimper
I have a job interview today, and I’m sick. To elaborate: I’ve been struggling with this cold thing for the past few weeks, but it’s mostly been either a constant runny nose or a lot of clearing my throat. (Not even real coughing, just that annoying “AHEM” thing that won’t get out of there.) Nothing too horrible. Today, however, my throat is swollen and achy, I have a killer sinus headache, and I just generally feel awful. It hurts to swallow. Whee.
As for the job, it’s a contract position at the Giant Software Company, and I’m not sure that I’m in love with it, but I’m sure I’d enjoy it well enough if I got it. Plus the whole regular paycheck thing would be nice. It’s a bit weird that my interview isn’t until 6:15 this evening, but apparently the hiring manager (who I’ll be meeting with) is going out of town tomorrow morning, and she wants to meet all of the candidates for this job before she leaves. Hence the evening interview. Kind of strange to go in for an interview after dark, but whatever.
The upside of all this is that I just took two ultra heavy-duty Sud@fed, and I’ll have time to nap off the ensuing grogginess before the interview. Cross your fingers that I don’t yawn too much during the interview. Or hack up something on the poor lady.
random stuff, part 336
Aaaand once again, the elusive full-time position at the Giant Software Company slips through my fingers. I never even got a real interview on this one, just an email letting me know that they already hired someone. Fine, ho-hum, whatevah. Meanwhile, there have been several possibilities that have started cropping up for contract jobs at the Giant Software Company, and those might turn out to be promising. My little 100-day hiatus is coming to an end, boo-hoo. What that means is that I can officially start looking for jobs now because I’ll be able to work there for another year starting the Monday after Thanksgiving, and it’d be nice to have something set up and ready to go as soon as I’m eligible to start working there again. So, it’s good to get the respective balls rolling now. (Hee-hee, I said “balls”.)
Oh, that reminds me, did I mention that Dave and I are going to New York for Thanksgiving? My sister (occasional commenter on this here bloggy thing) lives there, so my whole family is going to meet up for a few days. We’re staying at home for Christmas, so this is kind of our one big family holiday gathering for the year. Dave’s never been to NYC before, so I imagine we’ll be doing lots of touristy stuff. I’m really looking forward to it.
In other news, Dave and I saw a Henry Rollins spoken word show last night. Happy sigh. I love that man. (I mean Henry – but Dave too, obviously.) I believe this is the 5th one of his shows I’ve seen. It was great, but I won’t try to recreate any of his stories for you here because it just wouldn’t work and wouldn’t be funny at all. However, if he ever passes through your town, you really should go see him. You won’t regret the money you spent on the ticket, I promise.
Also, as of Tuesday, Dave and I have officially been married for 6 months. And I have to say, besides the whole thing with my job ending suddenly, the depression of unemployment, and worrying endlessly about money because I have no income and feel like a big fat leech since I’m not contributing anything to the household other than doing dishes, laundry and all that insanely boring 1950’s housewife bullsh*t, this has been the happiest 6 months of my life. 🙂 Love you, baby.
more cute cat photos!
I had to take this picture last night because it absolutely cracked me up.
That’s three cats on one husband. The poor guy just wanted to lie down and take a quick nap on the couch, and they all immediately cozied up on him. I love how Cleo always has to be right up close to his face. She’ll do that to me occasionally, but she absolutely adores Dave and I know good and well that when she snuggles up on me, I’m only a poor substitute for the one she really wants. Not that I blame her, he is a damn good cuddler.
Also, Beaumont has a new hobby. He likes to attack the characters on the screen while Dave is playing video games. None of the cats have ever paid attention to the TV screen or computer monitors before, but this has suddenly become his favorite thing to do.
Go figure. And for the record, the reason why he looks sort of sparkly in that photo was because he had just come in out of the rain. And unlike me, Dave doesn’t get a towel to dry the cats off when they come inside soaking wet.
have you missed these fascinating little job updates?
First off, if any of you play CD’s or DVD’s on your computers, you better make sure that they aren’t produced by Sony. This article is pretty scary. Not surprising, really, but it makes me suddenly grateful that the only CD’s I’ve bought over the past year have been through iTunes.
New topic: I had a very strange phone interview last week. It’s basically almost the exact same job that I interviewed for a couple of months ago, but in a different department. The fact that this job is a different team at the same company is a good thing, because it means that there’s little to no risk that I’ll end up sitting in any meetings with Dave’s ex-wife. Not that that really intimidated me about the last job – I mean, hello, I consider myself to be the big winner of that situation – but it could’ve been awkward. Anyway, this new job is totally unrelated to her little group, so yay. The HR recruiter lady called me, and I had been told that the interview was going to be about 45-50 minutes long, but it was only maybe 10 minutes at the most. She told me that she talked to the recruiter for the other job that I interviewed for, and asked me if there was anything I would’ve done differently in that interview process. I said yes, that I felt like I did pretty well through the first few interviews, but I hadn’t been prepared for how long a day it was going to be, and that by the last couple of interviews, I felt like I was just saying “I don’t know” to a lot of the questions because I was brain-dead. She confirmed that I had done well at the beginning of the day, and that most of the people I interviewed with had recommended that they hire me, but that I “sort of fell apart in the last two interviews.” I was actually grateful to hear that, because that was what I suspected all along, and it’s the most feedback that I’ve gotten yet. And considering that one of those last two interviews that I blew was with the woman who would’ve been my boss, it makes sense that I didn’t get the job. Anyway, she said for me to send her some of my writing samples, and I guess that means that I’m going to get another one of those hellish all-day in-person interviews. I’ll find out soon enough one way or the other. But I suppose I can deal with another Hell Day, since now I know where I went wrong last time. And because this is another full-time job with benefits, which would be absolutely lovely.
smooshed whoopie
First, a blog note. I’m trying out a few new features to get rid of this one dude who keeps leaving dozens upon dozens of spam comments on my old entries. (And it is one dude, I’ve traced his IP address.) Anyway, since he’s always “anonymous,” one of the things I changed is that you now have to fill out your name and email address to leave a comment. It won’t be displayed and I’m the only one who sees it, but if you’re worried that I’m going to spam you (ha!), you can say that it’s blah@blah.com. I don’t care if it’s a valid email address or not, I’m just hoping it’ll get rid of Mr. Anonymous.
So, a couple of weeks ago there was a discussion on Angie’s blog about a delicacy in Pennsylvania called the whoopie pie. Being the southern-girl-transplanted-to-the-northwest that I am, I had never heard of these or tried them. So Angie, being the sweetheart that she is, mailed a few of them to Dave and me to try. And may I just say how awesome it is to find dessert in your mailbox? I think all bill collectors should start utilizing this tactic immediately, because if they mailed me sugary goodness along with their invoices, I’d be much more inclined to open them promptly. However, if you clicked on Angie’s blog, you probably saw the photo of what whoopie pies are supposed to look like, and by the time we received ours, they were a little bit squashed. Witness:
I know, they look pretty bad (damn you, careless post office employees!), but it really had no affect on their taste whatsoever. They are still all wonderful cakey-and-ultra-gooey-frosting yumminess, as evidenced by the fact that by the time we got the camera out, one of the whoopie pies (the chocolate one) had already disappeared. And Angie, you’re right, they are nothing like moon pies. I’m not sure which one is better – I mean, I do love my moon pies, after all. I think I’ll have to eat a few dozen more of each to be able to properly give an informed opinion.
This is actually not the first out-of-her-way super-nice thing Angie has done for us. She also used this photo that I took (that’s the same mountain in the banner on this page), jazzed up the color and gave us a great 8×10 print of it, which has since been framed and hung up in our front hall. And of course, I am a horrible person and never sent her a thank-you note (much like the several other dozen people who gave us wedding presents who I haven’t mailed thank-you notes to either, and yes, I feel very very guilty about that, and if you’re one of the people who hasn’t gotten one, I swear that you will somewhere before the end of time, it’s just a matter of when I can get off my lazy ass to write them). So this entry is sort of my little Angie shout-out. But really: I will send you something nice in the mail someday, I promise.