Category Archives: Travel

things I like about my job

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1) Free coffee & at least a dozen different types of tea. And I don’t mean just plain ol’ drip coffee, either. There’s that too, of course, but there’s also an espresso/cappucino/latte-maker that is freakin’ awesome.

2) The soda machine only costs 25 cents. And it has both Diet Coke AND Diet Dr. Pepper in it. Hell yeah.

3) I met my career manager on Monday (more of a mentor than a boss), and he’s very nice. His name is Maurice, but everyone calls him Mo. I asked him if anyone calls him the Gangster of Love. He said no, but some do call him the Space Cowboy. So he’s cool. 🙂 He took me to a very nice lunch (company tab) and filled me in about lots of work stuff I didn’t know. He also told me that when I travel for work, if I’m going to be gone for a long time, I can take Teenie with me & the company will pay for it. He said that a lot of times if he’s going to be somewhere longer than a month, he & his wife will drive down with their cat & dog and all stay in the hotel together. (His wife is a writer, so she has flexibility to travel whenever/wherever she wants. Must be nice.) So that’s good, worrying about pet-sitters is honestly the one thing that had been making me not want to travel. But Teenie is a really good flyer, so if she can come with me, the problem is essentially solved.

4) I’m going to Vegas tomorrow, for an employee meeting for the western region. It’s only for one night, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I’ve never been to Vegas, and I’ve wanted to check it out for quite some time. Mo warned me to plan on getting (a) very drunk, and (b) very little sleep. I told him that I had no plans of getting drunk with my co-workers and he said “Oh don’t worry, you will. You know that expression, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? That’s true for these meetings. You probably won’t even go to bed that night.” So THAT part sounds totally awesome – although somewhat scary, since I can’t remember the last time I stayed up all night. And my flight back to Seattle doesn’t leave until 8:00 on Friday night, so Friday is going to be one looooooong day for me.

On the other hand, I have to share a hotel room with someone I don’t know, which is a bit awkward. And there are some things on the agenda that the HR ladies have been sending out, with phrases like “team activities involving creativity and fun!” that sound like absolute hell to me. I am not a fan of those “let’s get a bunch of grown-ups who don’t know each other to stand in a circle and play a game” types of exercises. One of the events is bowling – which, if there’s going to be alcohol involved, I’m going to have to politely decline from participating in, because I’ll end up seriously hurting someone, most likely myself. I do have weird carpal tunnel-esque issues with both of my thumbs (years & years of typing), so I think I can use that as an excuse. Oh well, damn near any event is tolerable as long as there’s an open bar.

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Just walked in the door of my apartment… ah, home sweet home.

The trip was pretty fun overall, I guess. A bit more drama than I’m used to. I’m not going to get into most of it because it’s internal family stuff that I don’t think I need to share with the whole world, y’know? Christmas was good. The family is doing well, all things considered.

The trip to New Orleans was great too, because it was really awesome to get to see my extended family. It’s been 2 years since I’ve been to one of these shindigs, and it hit me that I don’t realize how much I miss a lot of them until I see them again. Particularly a couple of my cousins. Kris totally blended right in and everyone loved her, as I knew they would, although I’m pretty sure that at least a couple of people thought that she was my girlfriend, not just my friend. Ah well, no biggie. If that’s the worst thing they think of me, I think I’ll be ok.

As for going out with Kris in New Orleans on Friday night — hmmm… Well, we had a lot of fun for the first couple of hours, but after that, everything gets hazy for me. I will say that I don’t think I’ve ever been drunk to the point of being psychotic before. I’m almost exclusively a happy drunk, so this was very weird. I was crying & screaming, and my skin felt like it was going to crawl off of me. Kris actually had to go get my mother in the hotel room next door (apparently I asked her to, but I don’t remember the majority of that part of the evening) and my mom had to lie on top of me to make me stop shaking. It scared the hell out of me, and I decided that I’m going to stop drinking as of now. There were a couple of guys that I had been talking to and kind of flirting with, and I’m guessing that one of them could very likely have put something in one of my drinks because I have never had that kind of reaction (or anything even vaguely like that) with alcohol before. But even if that’s true, the fact that my judgment was impaired to the point where I left my beverage unattended and didn’t have my guard up is proof enough that I need to watch myself.

So that’s it. I’m volunteering to be designated driver on New Year’s Eve. I can’t afford the cab fare anyhow.

Anyway, we left New Orleans kinda late last night & drove back to Jackson. I think I got about 2 1/2 hours of sleep before I had to get up to catch my 6:50 a.m. flight back to Seattle this morning. Bah. At this point, my plan for the rest of the day is to eat something, take a shower, crawl in bed & stay there until tomorrow morning.

For the record, Teenie had fun too. She doesn’t care much for flying, but she never makes so much as a peep. She just quietly shakes in her kitty carrier under the seat in front of me. But there’s a lot of room for her to run around at my mom’s house, so she got lots of exercise, and she played with my mom’s cat a bit. She seems happy to be home, though. She’s currently making the rounds of the apartment, rubbing her scent on all the furniture again (as if it all might have faded in the past 5 days).

early

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Ok, I’m early. Like WAY early. Like “why didn’t I sleep in another hour & a half?” early. I guess I freaked at the prospect of not having packed anything, so I got up at 6 a.m. I need to leave my apartment around 9:30 or so, which’ll put me at the airport around 10:00 for my noon flight. I don’t care what anyone says, I’m not getting there more than 2 hours before my flight — every time I’m actually on time or early, I breeze right through security & end up sitting at the gate for an hour, waiting to board.

Anyway, it’s 8:15 and I’m done. Packed. I have a few things left to gather up (cd’s for the walkman, etc.), but all the critical stuff is done. Even the curling irons (yes, I meant that in the plural form — it takes 2 of them to get my ‘do to look right) are packed. Since I have to curl my hair with them in the morning and then wait for them to cool off before I put them in the suitcase, they’re usually the last thing to go. And they’re done.

Damn. I’m glad I’m not frantically running late, but all things being equal, I think I would’ve preferred to sleep in.

i heart ny?

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The trip to NYC was really fun. Here’s the day-by-day recap:

Wednesday:
I got in late, chatted with the fam for a while, ate some awesome leftovers that they had saved for me (that’s the thing about showing up at 11:00 at night — you miss dinner in the fancy restaurant), then we crashed for the night. Nothing really notable about the flight, except that my back, which had been hurting for the previous couple of days already, was made significantly worse by sitting on a cramped plane seat over 8 hours. Mom’s painkillers helped.

Thursday:
We got up & I was dragged against my will to the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. “So you can tell your grandchildren you’ve been there” was my mother’s reason for going. Hmmm. Yeah. Not much to say about that. We got there pretty late, so we really only saw the end of it (which I was incredibly grateful for). I saw Kermit, Garfield & Jimmy Neutron. Oh, and Atomic Grover. Very exciting.

After that, we did the sight-seeing stuff — we started off at Grand Central Station, then walked up 5th Avenue to Rockefeller Center. The tree is up, even though it’s not decorated yet, but it was cool to see it. My parents decided sometime while we were walking around that my winter coat is less than sufficient, so they dropped $100 on buying me a new one, which was pretty sweet. The store also had a sale on pashmina’s and my parents offered to get me one, but I said no. I’m such a cheap shopper, I was a bit overwhelmed by the $100 already. I was also tempted to get one of the fake Prada purses that people were selling on the street for $20 — I don’t know why I like the idea of having a Prada purse so much, I’m usually not a designer-brand kind of girl. Doesn’t matter, though, because I didn’t buy one. Anyway, we also walked through St. Patrick’s Cathedral (awesome) & Central Park (also awesome) before we headed back to Tracy’s.

For Thanksgiving night, we got our to-go Thanksgiving feast (everyone carried a bag), walked down to Times Square, got on a subway & headed out to Brooklyn to have dinner with Tracy’s friend Amanda and Amanda’s parents. Funny thing, Amanda & her family are British, so this was their first Thanksgiving. It was a very fun evening, and the food was incredible.

Friday:
It was rainy so we went to the Met. Everybody got to pick an exhibit, except Dad who was basically just along for the ride. Mom & Tracy wanted to see the Egyptian exhibit (some of those relics are sooooo cool!!), then I wanted to see the 19th century European painters. I’m honestly not sure who I like better between Van Gogh & Seurat. I love the sort of craziness & the 3-D texture of Van Gogh, but the painstaking detail that Seurat used in all those millions of little dots just makes me want to cry because I can’t imagine ever being THAT dedicated to something. Anyway, loved them both. Then Chris wanted to see the Asian/Islamic art exhibit, which I thought might be kind of dull, but it totally wasn’t. I really dig the Hindu icons & artifacts — there was one sculpted piece of the Goddess of Transcendent Wisdom who was sitting cross-legged on a lotus flower, and I just loved her. I want her in my living room. The Met was probably my favorite part of the whole trip, except that by the time we were gettng ready to leave, the crowds of people were really starting to get to me. I don’t usually get claustrophobic, but I started to feel kind of panicky & anxious after a while.

Friday night, we went to dinner at a very cute little restaurant in Tracy’s neighborhood called Rachel’s. Then we sent Dad back to Tracy’s apartment to watch football (his choice, not ours) while the rest of us went to see “Movin’ Out”. I was really kind of dreading that, and while it was somewhat cheesy, it wasn’t as painfully cheesy as I was expecting, and a couple of the dancers were pretty amazing. So the fact that I am willing to relent & say something nice about the show at all is pretty impressive.

Saturday:
Got up at 5:45 a.m., got dressed, walked to the Port Authority Bus Terminal to catch the 6:30 shuttle to the Newark Airport. Flew home. Realized once again how much I love Seattle — I love that there’s the big-city aspect of having tons of things that you can choose to do on any given day, but that there’s also enough room to breathe.

Nate & I went out for crab legs for dinner (god, that was delicious), then we came back here & chilled and watched a movie. And in the interest of keeping this blog somewhat PG-rated, that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I don't care what anyone says, I'm NOT going to the Macy's parade

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Looks like I’m going to NYC for Thanksgiving. My sister lives there, so the rest of us – meaning my parents, my brother & me – are going to descend on her for the holiday. They all came here for Thanksgiving last year (well, except Tracy, who was living in Italy at the time – and, surprise! – pilgrims don’t make for much of a holiday in Europe), and it was a lot of fun, so hopefully this will be good. I was a little stressed about it when the idea first came up, because I thought it was going to be overwhelming to have all 5 of us crammed into my sister’s tiny little one-bedroom apartment. But apparently my mom (smart woman) is vetoing my dad’s proclivity toward being cheap (“nevermind how uncomfortable it is, we’re saving money!”) and we’re getting a hotel room. Not sure how we’re going to divide up who’s going to be at the hotel and who’s going to be at Tracy’s apartment, but I think that as long as we don’t have 5 people sharing one bathroom, the overall tension vibe will be alleviated at least somewhat. Those of you who know me, know how much I like my counter space.

I also have a couple of options for Teenie-sitters, and even if everyone else bails & makes last-minute plans, mom has offered to pay for a pet-sitter to come in & check on her. (This is her way of bribing me, because I was trying to make excuses about why I couldn’t go to NY.) So the kitty will not go neglected while I’m off gallavanting around the Big Apple. Good to know.

Other upcoming stuff: Scott got us tickets to go see “Phantom of the Opera” on Saturday. I know the soundtrack because my mom used to listen to it all the time, but I’ve never seen it. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the big Broadway musical/opera productions. So that should be cool.

Also going to try to hit Cirque du Soleil while it’s in town, and the Comedy Central tour with Dave Attell & Lewis Black is coming on October 12th, and I need to get tickets to that because I’m going to try to drag both Scott & Chris G to that one with me. Unfortunately, all ticket-buying plans are on hold until I get my next paycheck on the 15th….. Ah well, such is life.