Bummed

Today has not been a good day. Between putting out fires at work and dealing with a not-so-pleasant trek to the DMV to take - oh, no sorry, make that fail - the motorcycle driving test, this day is kicking my butt.

Actually, this whole week could use a do-over. All I can say is, thank God it's Friday. And that it's 4:36, which means I get to leave work in 9 minutes. I plan to head straight home and indulge in a good sulk and a big bowl of Oreo cookies n cream ice cream.

It's all good

Happy Easter, everyone! Or Day-After-Easter, as the case may be. It has been a busy weekend and the good news is it isn't over yet. I am taking a mental health day (otherwise known as a sick day off from work when you are feeling perfectly fine) and the day is just full of endless possibilities. I think I'll do a little gardening and let my otherwise indoor cats run around outside for a little while. Dave is also home, so we are going to go register the motorcycles and maybe have a nice lunch together. I love three-day weekends, and I just don't get them anymore with this current job.

So, let me fill you in on everything that has happened in the last few days!

1) I got to leave 40 whole minutes early on Friday so I could get a jump-start on my Easter weekend. Don't I work for a great company?! I came home and immediately practiced on the motorcycle all by myself for about an hour. My confidence has improved greatly and I am finally getting excited about going on an actual ride outside of the safety of my neighborhood.

2) We got up early on Saturday and packed up a bunch of Dave's tools and a wheelbarrow to go help with the Cabbagetown Community Cleanup. We got to the spot where we were supposed to meet-up with the organizers, and it was absolute chaos. There was no parking, so cars were parking along the streets, turning two-ways into one-ways, but the traffic was still coming from both directions. We ended up stuck a couple of times, we parked somewhere we were told we weren't allowed to park, and Dave didn't want to park a distance from the meeting place and walk because he was afraid his tools would get stolen. We kept circling until Dave finally ran over a hole in the road that ended up having screws in it which pierced his rear tire in two locations. At that point, I made the executive decision to abandon our attempt at volunteering, so we could go take care of the tire situation instead. Oh well, we tried!

3) The remainder of Saturday was spent cleaning house. Boring, but necessary. I kicked the cats outside while I swept the floors and at one point, my house was completely empty of all animals. Well, except for Dave.

4) Sunday was Easter and Dave volunteered us for two things. The first was a motorcycle ride to Lake Jackson (thirty miles away!) with my dad and the second was Easter dinner with my dad and his family. The motorcycle ride was going so well! We made it to the lake in about 40 minutes and I really felt like I knew what I was doing. Until the ride back. For some reason, Dad was pushing speed around some of the turns and I ended up dumping the bike...again. But this time, going kinda fast. The good news is I am fine! Not even a bruise, which I find highly disappointing. The bad news is, Stella did not fare as well, and she will now require a new set of handlebars, a new headlight, and a new left rear shock. Also, she is going to require some cosmetic surgery at some point. But not until I know what I am doing. Poor Stella. She is not quite so shiny anymore. She's tough, though. I was able to ride her home, even though she was banged up pretty bad.

(On a side not: my guardian angel should get a bonus this month. She didn't even get the Easter holiday off.)

Dinner at dad's went well, though it is that polite type of chit-chat that is typical of any event that includes my stepmother and stepsister. I feel so different than those two that I really don't ever know what to say. And my dad just sits there, letting them dominate the conversation. He is a lot more fun without them around. I remarked to Dave after dinner, that he would really have made a better big brother than a father. He is not very paternal. He acts like he has something to prove, like a big brother. He was driving too fast around that curve and I guess he didn't realize that stupid me was trying to keep up. He kept saying it was his fault I fell, and I kept saying, "no, it wasn't," but a tiny bit of me thinks that "yes, yes it was" since I had never been out of the neighborhood on a ride before today. I keep having to remind myself that I am Inexperienced. Obviously, I have to remind my dad, as well.

I just had a cat (Colin) crawl into my lap, so there goes typing. And, it is time to find something to eat.

In which I anger the locals

by displaying this on my vehicle:











The rivalry between Florida and Georgia is so intense, that now lawmakers are trying to take away my shiny, new UF tag:

House votes to stop out-of-state college plates

By BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Published on: 02/21/08

Georgia House members dumped two things off their plates Thursday: Gators and Tigers.

In a 142 to 10 vote, the chamber voted to stop making out-of-state university mascot tags if neighboring states don't return the favor.

"Whatever is good for the goose is good for the gander," said state Rep. Barry Fleming (R-Harlem), speaking with great earnestness on the matter.

Fleming was really talking about Bulldogs. He and the vast majority of his House colleagues think the citizens of the Bulldog nation living in South Carolina, Alabama and Florida, should get mascot tags of their own in those states.

After all, the state of Georgia offers Clemson and Auburn Tiger tags along with those for Florida alumni living in the Peach State.

The Gators fans' response to the House vote was essentially: Grow up.

"Now this is really a joke, isn't it?" said Martha Smith of Norcross. "I've never heard of anything so infantile in my entire life."

Smith, a Georgia Gator tag purchaser said she worked in the University of Florida's athletics department in the 1970s and has a son who attended the institution.

Under the bill, Smith won't have to give up her tag until it needs to be replaced. For Gator alumnus Greg Grillo of Alpharetta, that could be as early as August.

Grillo said he wouldn't be surprised if the Florida Legislature asked for some reciprocity from Georgia on another issue.

Said Grillo, "I heard the Florida Legislature told Georgia to pound salt unless they would allow for Sunday alcohol sales in Georgia."

As of right now, I can only keep my Gator plate until I need to renew in December. Georgia is just determined to continuously irritate me and this is only one more reason why I need to move somewhere else. That, and the law that bans alcohol sales on Sundays. Oh, Florida, how I miss you!

And now I am laughing

This really cracks me up:

http://www.technorati.jp/photos/tag/YZF-R1?page=3

http://espaciomotos.com/modelos-motos/Yamaha/YZF-R1/fotos (scroll down)

And to think, I didn't even know how to ride when I sat on my brother's bike in California!

In Which I Explain How to Avoid Being Arrested on Your Lunch Break

I've got this new plan where I exercise everyday during my lunch break and my marketing assistant and new lunch buddy at work has decided to join me. It's been about a week now and we have faithfully walked or gone to the little gym here at work every day. I didn't dare go into detail about this plan until I was sure it would not crash and burn like so many of my other attempts at exercising regularly.

Yesterday, we decided to walk down to a new subdivision that they are building near the office and L had the great idea that we should try and peek inside the half-a-million-dollar houses that were for sale. We were successfully able to enter three out of the four we tried since the back doors (and one window) had been conveniently left unlocked. We were on our third Unofficial Parade of Homes tour when I asked L, who is not a novice at this kind of thing, if she had ever been caught inside one of the houses she was exploring. Of course she had not, so we continued our perusal of the over-priced home. No more than 10 minutes later, I happened to glance out of one of the upper story windows to see a car parked on the driveway. I turned to L and said something like, "Shit There's Someone Here" as I pushed her out of my way in my desperate haste to Get The Hell Out Of There. And of course this was the house in which we had entered through a window.

We got out of the house without getting caught and were in the backyard trying to decide the best place to enter the woods so we could make our Great Escape, when a woman came out onto the second-story deck and asked, in a somewhat huffy voice, "Can I help you?" And I cheerfully answered, "Well, we were trying to decide where we would put a pool back here." Right...like she totally bought that. She just stood there, looking at us like we were a couple of derelicts, so we casually walked through the backyard to the driveway and down to the street. And would you believe the woman got into her car and followed us?! We just continued our walk, but I was a little disappointed to have to cut our tour short. Climbing all of those stairs is great exercise. As is climbing through windows.

I'm not sure what she would have done had she caught us in the house. And I don't think I want to know, since I have never been arrested and definitely don't want to be handcuffed and thrown into the back of a squad car on my lunch break. Though what a story THAT would make.

* * * * * * * * * *

Completely unrelated, I am a little worried about Kaylee. She has been fine for months, until this morning. She had another seizure as she was eating breakfast. I woke up to Dave shouting my name and I immediately knew what was wrong. We knew exactly what to do this time and we stayed calm, so I think that helped her a little bit. Dave had acted quickly to pull her into the middle of the floor, away from any objects she might have knocked into and hurt herself. And I petted her and calmly talked to her until she came out of it. Poor broken little dog. How I wish I knew what to do to keep your brain from having to reset itself.

The perfect day for lazy

It is raining today and it would be the perfect day to be lazy. Except that it is Friday. And I am at work. I have caught up on everything I had to do and I may just take a break and play on the internetz for the rest of the day. I wish I could read my book at my desk, but I think that would be a little too obvious.

If it keeps raining, I will not be able to practice riding the bike today. But I think I need a little break from Stella. She is probably mad at me, since I panicked on her yesterday and we ended up on the grass in a neighbor's yard. The grass was covered in just enough pine needles to make it slippery and we fell over. Oops! Stella is fine, but my leg is a little bit hurty today. I have the mother of all bruises and am quite proud of it. I have now gotten the falling out of my system, so things will only get progressively better from here. I think I hurt my pride more than anything, since two cars stopped and people got out and asked if I was okay, which is nice, but also slightly embarrassing. I got mad at Dave when he offered to ride my bike back across the street for me. I am all, "I can do it, DAMMIT!"

We were on our way to Publix for dinner groceries. It was my first real outing. I got scared by all of the traffic and after falling, told Dave to go on without me. I zipped back home, like a poor scolded little puppy with its tail between its legs. I told Dave later that I should have been doing the "Eiw, Eiw, Eiw" dog cry on my way home. I DID manage the driveway bump all by myself and parked Stella in the garage. So progress is being made. I just have to remind myself to take smaller steps, and that sometimes, it is okay to feel like a girl.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Plans for this weekend include:

- Going out with the girls in the office (there are only 5 of us) for drinks after work.

- Cleaning house tomorrow. I really need to work on putting away the laundry after I fold it. My job is to fold and put away the clean laundry after Dave throws it all on the bed in our guest room, and lately I have been folding it and just leaving it there as our closet / dresser combo. So lazy! But I have a friend that may need the room tomorrow and she would not appreciate us coming in to pick out our clothes while she is still sleeping.

- Going out with a friend who will be celebrating her 26th birthday tomorrow. She wants to go downtown and check out some clubs. Totally not my scene, but I will go to support her and to act as DD / shuttle bus driver.

- Not sure what we are doing Sunday. It is Dave's birthday, so it will be up to him. I am going to make him a cake! Who am I kidding? I am not a baker so I may end up buying one from our wonderful Publix bakery. But I will be driving there in a car, most definitely.

Oh, on a side note: Dave would make a great blogger. After I fell, he came up and said, "I wish I had a camera. I could document this moment and call it Chelle's first fall...like a little kid." Um, thanks, honey. I love you too.

She's Got A Ticket To Ride

So that scooter I was going to borrow from my Dad? Well, that isn't going to happen. Because I bought this instead:



Isn't she a beauty? I am going to get to know her a little better before deciding on a name for her. Preferably without killing myself.

Feelin' Sore, But Lucky

What I learned this weekend: tiling is hard work, friends. And it makes your body HURT!

About a year ago, my mom decided to do her allergies a favor and get rid of her 30+ year-old carpet (vintage!) and replace it with tile. She bought all of the tile. She bought the grout. Dave and I offered to install it for her. After putting it off too long and with mom hinting that she "just might hire someone else", we finally began the installation process over the long weekend.

Dave drove down to Florida on Thursday to start the process. I drove down to join him on Friday and to assist. We only got the living room done, so we will be repeating the process on Dave's next three-day weekend in March. But it's lookin' good! When I arrived on Friday night, Dave had gotten this far:



On Saturday, we finished laying all of the tiles in the living room, and it looked like this:



The entire time we worked, the dogs stayed in my mom's teeny tiny backyard, watching us through the window with their noses pressed against the screen. I kept saying they were our supervisors.



I had to leave on Sunday, since I am not lucky enough to have President's Day off from work. But I WAS lucky enough to avoid the severe weather that hit Florida right after I left and had hit my travel route a few hours before. I like to think it was my Jedi-Janet mind tricks that kept it to the east of me the entire way.



Alas, it is Monday and I am back to work. Dave will be home tonight and maybe we'll finally celebrate us a little Valentine's Day. Though we might decide to catch up on sleep instead. We are just that romantic.

And the sunshine echoed with laughter

I feel like I should write this post in stream of consciousness because that is what the memories of this past weekend feel like to me:

The plane touches down where the sun is shining. I begin to shake and wonder "is this wrong?" as I let them know I have arrived. A red bag. Wheeling toward the unknown. Strangers all around. I've never done something like this. Never been this daring. A warm bench. A cool breeze. Waiting. Watching. Wondering. I remove my jacket and feel the wind on my arms. Nervousness. Cannot sit still. What if? A shiny car. Friendliness. A new beginning. The intangible becoming real. Driving surrounded by mountains, conversation, sunlight. A new place. So many faces. Second guesses, Hesitation. Then, laughter. Surrounding me like a soft blanket. Hugs. Calzones. The doubts float away like dust motes. And then there is love. Sharing. Intelligent conversations.

Smiles. So much laughter. Easiness. Cats and sunlight. Food and cool drinks. The color pink. A celebration of someone special. Magical. The reason we are here. The universe is smiling. I think "Where is the drama?" And there is none.

A long table. Beautiful people. Cameras everywhere. Fresh sushi and endamame and miso soup. The low buzz of conversation. Operatic singing. Sated and sleepy. Trees with white lights. A hotel room. Yellow walls. Games and more laughter. An open window. A warning delivered meekly. Attempted hushing. A crescendo of noise. Singing. Drinking. Carousing. Sleep.

A new day. A beautiful breakfast. Strong coffee. Multiple cups in saucers. Paper plates decorated with cupcakes. Shifting the focus. Surprise and tears. Hugs and comfort. Passing around tissues. Weeping dissolves into laughing. A flurry to gather supplies. Moving to another gathering place. Glue and scissors with the alphabet as inspiration. To adorn a baby's room. L and R, M and C are taken. 14 spectacular results. Night falls. Dinner is paella and sangria. My brother arrives late, but safe.

A trip to the airport. The first goodbye.

Games and more laughter. More goodbyes. Then sleep. Morning. Dress warm. Riding behind my brother. I am scared, but won't show it. I trust him implicitly and ride perched behind him. Don't fall. Speeding down the freeway. The wind whistling. A beautiful coast. 10 foot tall dinosaurs welded out of metal. Camera trouble. New card, continue on our way. Driving through the city. It is cold and overcast. Surrounded by fog and cars.

A huge cable bridge spanning the bay. A famous prison. I take lots of photos. At least for me. I am beginning to ache as I realize it's time to go back. Perched for what seems like eternity. Burning between my legs. I hold on. Stopping to say "We're allmost there." Understanding.

Dinner in a small space. Good food. A smaller group. More games. A sense of melancholy. Knowing it will soon end. Heading to the Anchev house. Comfortable and homey. A cat jump into a basket. More sharing. My brother opens up about our dad and for a moment I am sad. Back to the hotel. Everyone is sleepy. Worried about his ride home, I fall asleep.

Packing. Waiting for a ride to breakfast. The mood is subdued. We know we are leaving. Laughter, eggs and coffee. Then alone time with Catie. Decompressing from the excitement. A ride to the airport. Hugs goodbye. Too tired for tears. Feeling small and alone as I wait for the plane. Four hours airborne. A shaky landing. A hug from Dave and I'm home.

Homeless in Las Vegas

So my trip to Vegas was good. Not much to write about, except, MY HOTEL CAUGHT ON FIRE! And I was homeless in Las Vegas. Well, for a few hours, anyway.

This is what happened: I was at the trade show for it's final day when I received a phone call from my boss letting me know that the Monte Carlo, the hotel at which I was residing, had caught fire and was being evacuated and had I heard from Dave? This was at about 10:30am. I tried calling Dave, who was still at the hotel. No answer. I tried again for several minutes with the same result. Eventually he called from a pay phone to let me know he was okay. He had been out for a quick run before he was to head over to the convention center to help us tear down the booth. He was told about the fire on his way back from his run. Since they were already in the process of evacuating the hotel, Dave was forced to stay in his stinky running clothes and head over to the convention center without the tools we needed to tear down and with only $20 for the cab fare.

We finished up the show and got the booth all packed up and finally headed toward the Monte Carlo at about 4:30pm. They weren't letting anybody in the hotel, telling us to head to the MGM for more info. We arrived at the MGM Garden Arena, only to be given a hotline number to call for updates. They put us on shuttle buses and distributed us around to the various MGM Mirage owned properties. Dave and I ended up at Mandalay Bay, which was actually a pretty nice upgrade from the Monte Carlo. But we still didn't have any of our stuff.

I kept calling the hotline and they finally let us back into the Monte Carlo to retrieve our stuff around 9:30pm. We were escorted to our room and had to fill out a form indicating whether or not anything had been damaged. Luckily, our room was on the 15th floor, far away from where the fire started. Our floor smelled like smoke, but that was it.

All in all, we were pretty lucky. My coworker was on the 17th floor, where there was a bit of water and smoke damage, but his stuff was fine. Floors 26 and up were still closed when we were there retrieving our belongings.

I will say that the Monte Carlo did a great job organizing our distribution to other hotels and also the retrieval of our stuff. The whole thing could have been a lot more chaotic and it really wasn't more than an inconvenience.

It is good to be home. Though I would have paid good money to have been able to keep that bed in Mandalay Bay...it was SO COMFY!! Totally made the whole moving-to-another-hotel-because-mine-caught-fire worth it in my book!