Vacation Day

Oh, the romance! The luxury! Who am I kidding? A day off from work can be a beautiful thing, even without romance and luxury.

Sometimes it's not the presence of swaying palms that makes the time special; it's the mere absence of the constant hassle and endless emergencies, even when those pressures are replaced by grocery runs, Costco trips, bank deposits, and laundry.

Case in point, I had no choice but to take a day off today, since I've gotten so behind in my household tasks and errands. Of course, the recent drama at work hasn't helped much, so on Wednesday I decided that a day off would be just the thing, and blurted out at the end of a meeting, "Hearing no objections, I'll be taking Friday off."

Response: "That's sudden. What's going on Friday?"

Me: "Nothing. I just need the day off to recover from recent employment-related threats to my mental health."

So, here I am, with a list of errands and a mountain of laundry. Strangely enough, it feels like a day on the beach.

King for a Day?

Not me, silly! I know I've been away for a while, but I PROMISE I'm still a lady and therefore could never be King.

J, on the other hand, came home from school and announced that he's been nominated for Prom King. Not only that...he intends to actively campaign for the position. There's no "it's an honor just to be nominated" philosophy here; this kid is making the full-court-press to win his rightful place on the prom throne. So far the plan includes t-shirts with his picture on them, a guest appearance on the morning announcements, and any other means of ingratiating himself with the senior population.

Sure, it's cool in a way, but it's also weird. Let's step into the kooky space-time continuum bending machine for a moment, shall we?

(Cue the fantasy-sequence music...)

Stepping out of the machine, you find Mother and Son in an alternate reality in which they're both in high school at the same time, a la Back to the Future. In this case, the Mom is a pasty, bookish social retard hurrying off to Academic Decathlon practice, and the Son is the handsome, happy-go-lucky flop-as-a-scholar everyone loves. In other words, he's that kid who never would have known I was alive if we had gone to school together.

I'm not sure why I think that's so bizarre, and I don't think I'll ever completely understand it. In any case, I guess having a kid who's nominated for Prom King does score me some vicarious cool points on that big scoreboard in the sky.

The Blog is Dead, Long Live the Blog

I know. I’ve been absent. I owe rants on a variety of topics, but in my typical self-indulgent fashion, I’m going to rant about something else. Right now, my freedom of choice has become scarce and precious, so I’ve got to exercise it when I can. The good news: I’m about as drunk as Cooter Brown as I type this. Now, if you’re from Texas, you know Cooter Brown, and you know that means I’m really, seriously, three sheets to the wind.

More good news: the pups are doing really well these days. Hoover’s fur has become soft as a bunny, and Bruno is turning into the world’s best and biggest snugglebug. Those pooches are really a bright spot for me. J & T are also doing pretty well, except that J has Mono, just in time for spring break, graduation, and prom – yay!

Even more good news: Garrett is still the bomb-diggity, and he’s made so much progress on the yard that it actually ALMOST LOOKS DECENT. In the intervening weeks since my last post, I’ve had no complaints on the G front. I have, however, had plenty to gripe about on the work front.

Now for your reading displeasure, I’m proud to present the Top 10 Reasons My Employer Can Suck It.

1. They laid me off from the position I liked.
2. After laying me off, they gave me a job I didn’t want.
3. Once I started the job I didn’t want, they gave me a promotion to a worse position.
4. The promotion didn’t come with a raise.
5. The promotion required me to perform, on average, 38 additional hours per week, raising my normal weekly hours worked to almost 80.
6. The number of hours I’m now working is sucking the life out of me.
7. They moved the office to a new space with NO cubicle walls.
8. I now have to stare at my colleagues all day.
9. I am now in a commissioned position, but still don’t know what my metrics are.
10. Today, I received an EMAIL stating that all U.S. employees will be taking a 2.5% pay cut. An EMAIL, people.

I could have easily made this a top 12, or top 15. The last thing I’ll say is that if ONE more person tells me that I’m lucky to have a job, SOMEBODY is getting bitch-slapped.

Xena's #1 Fan

It's been a while since I've posted an embarrassing story about one of my kids, and I'm prepared to remedy the situation. This story came to mind the other day as I was driving home, and I determined to relate the tale without disclosing the identity of the child involved, who will hereafter be called Mr. X.

When Mr. X was roughly four or five, a television show by the name of Xena: Warrior Princess exploded onto the airwaves with a burst of leather-clad girl power. Xena had a hottie side-kick, a signature banshee-call, a bustier, and skirt with flaps like a gas station car wash. It was as mesmerizing as it was mediocre.

Except to Mr. X.

To Mr. X, there was nothing mediocre about it. Mr. X wouldn't miss an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess if he had anything to say about it, but I didn't think this was too unusual.

I didn't realize how much Mr. X loved Xena until one evening, when I walked into the living room to find Mr. X, clad in his little footie pajamas transfixed by his favorite show. Not seeing me behind him, he suddenly rose to his feet, shuffled across the floor, wrapped his fat little arms around the television, planted a big, long, wet kiss on the screen, and whispered, "I love you, Xena."

Needless to say, he hates that story as much as I love it. Now if he ever brings a girl home who looks remotely like Lucy Lawless, I'm sure I'll pee my pants.

Update Schupdate

Crazy couple of weeks it’s been, which is why it’s been dead on the blog. I know, I know…borrringgg!

So, I started going back to the office two weeks ago to start working in my new role for my employer. Apparently, after almost three years of working from my home office, my immune system approximates that of a newborn kitten, and I got dreadfully sick with a fever within 4 days. Fabulous!

In other work-related news, I was actually pretty lucky to have been selected to take a training class that is the industry standard for my profession, and I’ve been able to get THE certification that goes along with it, which is cool. No sooner than I completed this hurdle, I was offered a promotion, making the skills and certification pretty much inapplicable to the OTHER new role I start tomorrow. Hell, at least I don’t have to go shopping again, right?

Enough about work, if for no other reason than I’m boring myself to death. I know what you want is confessions, and I have one.

I’ve been doing some outside writing. Outside the blog, that is.

Now, before you feel betrayed, I’ve been doing this writing on my breaks at work, and I can’t use my company network to get on the blogs, so I guess if I weren’t doing this writing, I’d have to take up crack or something to occupy myself in my downtime. What I’m doing is compiling some of my favorite funny experiences and character sketches. I’m not sure exactly what I’m doing this for, but it is an interesting exercise since I’m trying to distill the people and experiences into as few words as possible.

What else? Hmmm…well, Garrett and I actually have plans for Valentine’s Day, which may actually be a first. We normally don’t support what’s basically a greeting-card holiday, but it happens that we had a chance to go see the Dames Aflame show Showbiz What Sizzles this year. Like I always say, “Nothing says ‘I Love You’ like a burlesque revue.”. Ok, I never really say that, but I’m saying it now.

Speaking of Garrett, he’s still a superstar, and he’s really made tons of progress this weekend on the exterior front stairs. Yay!

On another note (and I almost forgot to add this), the weather has been FANTASTIC here, and I took advantage of the weather yesterday and took a little walk, during which my neighbor Mark informed me that yesterday was his 42nd birthday. His only disappointment, he said, was that he didn’t get his birthday spanking, whereupon he turned his little tush in my direction. So I did what anyone would have done; I spanked his booty right there on the sidewalk. I’m sure it wasn’t inappropriate because Mark likes boys. I know…I’m a good neighbor!

Anyway, that’s about it for now. I hope someone is still there to read this, and I’ll try to do better keeping this up in spite of my occupational incarceration.