Weird Dreams...

Well, Thanksgiving week went pretty well. Got some stuff done around the house and spent some quality time with Mom & Watson, though I'm completely worn out now. Saturday we tried to go to Cafe Ponte with Betsy & Craig for the jazz...sadly, they had an oldies band instead. Now, when I say 'oldies' you might be thinking something along the lines of the Beatles, or Sinatra. I don't know what the heck these people were singing, but the band themselves were geriatric. The woman even had some kind of huge blue peacock feather in her hair. It was incredibly bad. A waiter sees us turn around and goes "Where are you going?" and Betsy's harried reply - "We came for the music, but no thanks!" We wound up at Ringside Cafe. It was ok. Though there was a fashion victim there. People with pot bellies should NOT wear fluffy pink shirts and pleated jeans skirts. Actually, pretty much no one over the age of 12 should wear a pleated jeans skirt.

Monday we told the team I was leaving. It was both good and bad. Everyone was shocked. Then we had our team lunch. I picked up the tab -- likely my last bit of largesse before I becoming a starving artist. Then all the managers went to dinner. We wound up going to Roy's, which is always a good place.

I will miss the people, but I'm so ready to GO.

Last night I had the most bizarre dream. I think it would make an excellent sci fi story, if I could work out some of the dream weirdness. Cloning, a war, mixed up brainwashing stuff...

Tonight is pottery class. Hopefully glazing some stuff.

Tony still hasn't heard about the job in KY. Yeeks, I wish they'd just hurry up and tell him. It's driving us both nuts.

What am I, some kind of trustworthy person or something?

I had jury duty again yesterday and once again I was selected for a jury. Luckily, it was just a one day trial this time and not a murder one. I must have an honest face or something.

This one was for a solicitation of prostitution charge of all things. Against this poor 72 year old Chinese guy that barely spoke English at all. It was a travesty. They have him on tape, but all you can really hear him saying is "Home" as in, I want to go home you crazy lady, you're scaring me.

We found him not guilty.

Crazy things. The state should be apologizing to that poor guy.

Anyway. Let's see, other than that...Mike is going to announce to my team on 11/29 that I'm leaving. Then we're going to have our team lunch, though I guess at that point it will be a goodbye lunch...

I'm so full. We had our potluck today at work and I'm just stuffed like a turkey. I don't really have anything clever to say or any witty remarks...I'm just full and I need a nap.

Another day...

Boy, I'm just barely getting through the days anymore! I need a nap! Actually, it isn't too bad, but I've written up everything that I needed to and now I just need to go through my files. That's about it.

Mike is going to take all the managers out the last week, not sure where. On Monday. I kind of hate note telling anybody. Part of that, to be honest with myself, is I don't want anybody to think I just got laid off like some slacker. ;-) I chose to go. Unofficially, since official with HR you can't volunteer.

Anyway.

That house in Louisville is down to only $159K. AGH. I wish Tony could find out now whether or not he got that job. I also don't want to send off any resumes or anything either, since I don't know whether we're going to be moving or what. It's worse for him though, poor guy, since it would be his job and he wants it. He'd be really good for it. But I guess they aren't going to tell him until around the last week of the month. Feels like forever from now.

For his birthday he got...

• Dish towels and laguile cheese knives - Lisa & co
• DiSarrono and home brew book - Pam
• Hard Rock Key West shot glass (we used to collect them) and Wusthof mezzaluna - Royce & Janet
• Artsy cutting board - me
• M&M wine - Betsy & Craig

I think that's it. Mom bought him some kind of easel that she's going to bring down at Thanksgiving. We invited Charles & Phyllis over too. Haven't seen them really in a while. I'm not sure if Royce & Janet are coming or not. Haven't gotten that menu together yet either.

Ugh. Thought or more things to fix on the house:

• get rid of rusty shower curtain rod in master bath
• replace counter top in guest bath?
• fix flap in swimming pool
• fix fence
• fix fence gates, if possible

I'm sure there's more. There's always more.

Monday

I'm feeling pretty good, really. I'm so ready to be gone. The news is good, bad, good, bad...but I'm just done and I don't really care anymore. Well, I mean, I do, because, no matter what the bigwigs think, what you're talking about are real people. They'd probably use a term like collateral damage or something like that, but everything comes down to a person. I think they (there it is again, that ubiquitous they) forget that.

So, just working on trying to get everything documented that I do.

Last night we went to Roy's with Vanessa and Herman. Good meal. Went a little crazy, but hey, it was Tony's birthday and soon we won't be able to really do that anymore. Had a $173 bottle of Sauterne. A Chateau Yquem...

Yquem is a Sauterne, but classifying it as such is akin to calling a vintage Bugatti an old car. It is the finest of the Sauternes because every grape is literally picked by hand, having succumbed to la pourriture noble, the noble rot, a parasitic fungus that dramatically alters the chemistry of the grape, consuming one-third of its sugars and five-sixths of its acids. It is this change in chemistry that begets the unforgettable color, texture, and flavor of the finished wine. It is the most rare — not only of Sauternes, but also of all wines — because only 240 acres are under cultivation, limiting production to roughly 66,000 bottles per year. It is the most expensive because every step in the arduous processes of pruning, grafting, picking, selecting, fermenting, bottling, and shipping is done by hand, and done in the same time-consuming, fastidious manner practiced over generations.

Found that on a web site. It was very good. More mellow than I expected it to be, but very, very nice.

I had ostrich and Monchongo ? Something like that. A Hawaiian fish. Everything was very good. Tony had two different Hawaiian fish. The other one started with an N and looked vaguely like Nairobi. It was impossible to pronounce.

My goals this week...

• Finish the darn Clive Barker interview. Up to almost 2,000 words typed and still like 40 minutes of interview to go. Egad.
• Re-do my resume.
• Send a reminder e-mail to Richard.
• Call that one magazine I sent the Wine Shop article to.
• Send recently posted review copies to the publishers.

And that's probably enough. There's a bunch of other stuff to do, but I can only tackle so much at one time. Pottery class on Tuesday. Dinner on Thursday. Etc., Etc. There's never enough time. But soon, soon, I'll have more time than I know what to do with. And I already know what's going to happen...there will never be enough time. That's just the way it goes. It's like the stuff in your house...it expands to fill whatever available space there is.

Tony's Birthday Weekend

Well, let's see what's going on...Tony got back late on Friday, but earlier than I thought he was going to. I was still making the ice cream and the potato dish for Saturday when he got here. He's not sure about the job. He got a fairly good feeling from them, but he's just not sure. They're supposed to let him know (hopefully) by the end of the month. So we're going to be in countdown mode until then. He really wants it. It's right up his alley. I hope he gets it.

If he does, then we'll be in scramble mode as we try to get our house ready to sell (and sell it) and find a new place and move to Kentucky (by god).

Saturday he went to play paintball with Pedro, Adam, and Clint. He's got these weird shaped paintball bruises all over now, like some strange kind of paintball ringworm. They look very painful. Vanessa thinks paintball is grounds for divorce. She just doesn't get it. I don't really mind, though I'm not sure I understand the bruises. But I look at it this way, he puts up with me playing computer games. I can put up with him playing war games.

Saturday night we had his big birthday dinner. Le Menu:

Rack of venison with shallots and dried cranberry and juniper berry gravy

Goat cheese scalloped potatoes

Green beans with carmelized onions and wild mushrooms

Chocoloate Souffles with raspberry semifreddo

Assorted cheeses beforehand, and Betsy brought these gorgonzola stuffed mushrooms that were really good. We had the Del Dotto wines we got on our trip last year -- 2000 Cabernet, one from Missouri oak, one from a French oak, and then the blend of the two. The semifreddo was primarily a semifreddo because I made failed homemade ice cream. But it tasted good. We started out with the Darioush Viognier. My favorite (and only) white.

A good night, all in all. I ate way too much though.

Tonight we're going out with Vanessa and Herman to Roy's. Actually got to make a reservation at OpenTable for once. ;-) I checked; Kentucky's got just two restaurants listed there, but one of them is Morton's. So maybe I'll get to have good steak. Or maybe not, since I'll be a starving writer, ha, ha.

I laugh, but who knows.

I did get my office cleaned while Tony was out paintballing, so I have no excuses now. I got part of the Clive Barker interview typed up, but I've definitely figured out that I SUCK at taking dictation. I need one of those machines with the foot pedal so you can start, stop, go forward, go back, etc. I think I've only got about 20 minutes of it down, so I've got like 40 minutes to go. I need to get that done. In fact, I should be doing that now...but I'm not.

I did get caught up on some book reviews though. I got four turned out, so I'm covered until the end of November at least. Still have a stack of more to do.

Man, I hope Tony gets that job.

Crossing Fingers...

I hope Tony's doing well in his interview(s). He called this morning before he left for the office. I don't think he got a lot of sleep. They did put him up at a nice hotel though -- his room has two four poster beds in it. Sounds very posh.

I'm taking a half day today and I'm going to go get the stuff to make raspberry ice cream and the goat cheese scalloped potatoes to go with the venison. Not sure if I need anything else. And was going to stop by Home Depot and get some weed killer stuff.

If we are going to sell the house, we're going to have to do some fixing up...

• Fix master bath faucet
• Fix master bath grout
• Re-carpet living room/master bedroom
• Get hurricane blasted trees upright again
• Fix nasty grass patch
• Paint the mail box
• Fix the handle on the microwave
• Probably paint all our multi-colored rooms
• Get rid of water stains on garage ceiling

I think that's it. Hopefully. This is all very exciting, but very stressful at the same time. The thought of moving is both enticing and scary. But that might be a good thing. I don't think you should stay in one place too long, in a way. You can get in a rut.

Oh, I did call those Kamado people again. This time they are telling us that ours will be the first one shipped from their new facility, in about 2 weeks. Hmmm. Last time they said it would be shipped two weeks ago. I don't trust them at all.

Yeah, I do.

I love my husband. I don't think that's a crime. He makes me happy inside, like a warm and fuzziness that spreads through you like a good Scotch. Or even a bad one, for that matter. He's in Kentucky now. And I'm here. I'm weepy, but it isn't because I'm happy or I'm sad. Sometimes I'm just plain weepy. I can't explain it. It just happens, I think that's the thing that guys don't understand. Sometimes there is no cause and effect. Sometimes there just is. That's all there is to it.

Of course, it could be the wine. ;-)

What did we do before smiley faces, anyway? Before you could defuse text by a semi-colon, a dash and a right parenthesis?

I guess I wax silly at night when I am lonely. I wish Tony luck tomorrow. I hope he gets the job. Not for me, but for him. I think he needs this. He needs another windmill to tilt at. He needs another project, something else. Another battle to fight. You can't keep fighting the same battles over and over again and not winning. That's what I feel like I've been doing for years at my job and look where that's led me. Like I told Jeffy, stick a fork in me, I'm done. I'm not corporate. That's really Corporate with the capital C. Not corporate in the Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land sense -- I'm not going to go metaphysical or anything. Some things are better left on this planet, not the next, or even the next one after that.

Well, I'm committed...

Or commitable. One or the other, I don't know. We're even thinking of maybe moving to Kentucky. Louisville. I can't even say the name right. But it actually looks like a fairly decent place. The thought of moving is actually kind of enticing. The kicker is the cats. Tony doesn't really want to move them because of what they've done to the house (which was primarily prompted by the presence of Pam's cats, but there's no guarantee). I understand that completely -- cat piss is not the eau du vie I want in my house either, but I also don't want to abandon them (well, I wouldn't abandon them, I'd find them a place to live). We made a committment when we got them and I don't want to be one of those people that dumps an animal just because of convenience. On the other hand, I've tried every recommended solution to getting them to stop peeing on the carpet and none of them has really worked. So I don't know.

Ugh.

I dunno, I dunno, I dunno. That's my mantra now.

Kentucky is kind of cold.

I kind of can't wait for the day to get here now. I've made my decision and I just want to be gone and get started writing.

First step...clean my office! It looks like a tornado hit it from when I was searching for something. Probably tomorrow night -- Tony's going to be in Louisville for his interview then. Tonight I get to spend a little time with him.

The Big Night

I forget, I should talk about the good stuff too. :-) The Big Night dinner party went really well. We had a ton of food and the timpano came out just amazing. We even made hand made ziti for it. The bowl I found from the guy in Bradenton was perfect, even the right brand and everything. We had a total of 10 people. The cannellini bean thing was another big hit. I'll definitely have to make that again. All in all, it was a really good time and a good group of people.

It's closing time...

Yep, it's closing time...somebody's beginning end...that song, however it goes, kept running through my head. I've made the big decision. I've volunteered to take a package in the next layoff. It seems inevitable. Sooner or later... This way I at least have some control over where and when and how.

And, with Tony's support, I'm going to try and write. And be poor, I suppose.

It's freaking me out some, but I think it was something I needed to do. You can only take so much. We've had years of miserableness.

Now I've got to re-prioritize. I've put off the NaNoWriMo and I'm going to work on my "real" novel -- the one most likely to be published. I'll get about 4.5 months of paid time. I think I could finish it in 2...

So tired...

I could have slept until 3 today. They should declare the day after election day to be a holiday. I made it a bit past one. I think Tony was up until well after 2. And of course got up bright and early. I don't know how he does it.

On the work front...ugh. That's all I have to say.

I'm definitely behind now on my novel. Hopefully will get to it tonight. I just can't hardly think at all.

Well, I voted

I did my civic duty and voted this morning, even carting a 19 page printout of all the constitutional amendments with me. It's ridiculous what they try to put through every year. 95% of the stuff just doesn't belong in the constitution at all.

I must screw with all of the demographics, since I don't vote along party lines. Heck, it's my party and I'll vote how I want to. Or rather, it's really NOT my party (any of them), so I'll darn well do whatever I want. Tony is more consistent. And I know he's right sometimes, but I just feel bad if I vote for someone that I plain don't like.

Of course, the problem being that I don't generally like any of them.

President was a tough one, but I'm sure whoever I voted for won't win. Maybe that's a complete cop out. But I'm just really deeply unhappy with this particular race. We really need more than a two party system, there just isn't really a viable third one out there.

For heaven's sake, I looked up a Veteran's Party Candidate in the Senate race and he was sounding fairly reasonable until I got a little farther down his bio and he started ranting about how no immigrants should be allowed in the country and that prisons should be moved to tropical islands ala Reality TV with prisoners just given "what they need to survive."

Where do these people come from anyway?

NaNoWriMo Month

I started a new blog to do my NaNoWriMo novel (National Novel Writing Month) in. We'll see how it goes. Last year I didn't find out about it until half the month was already gone, so I didn't really get too far. I'd like to finish one this time. The tough part was following the rules and starting a completely new novel when I've got like 4 partly completed ones sitting around. But I'm nothing if not a a stickler for rules, so here goes a new one: Splittsville. I'd actually had the idea for it a couple of weeks ago when I was looking at a billboard for a new bowling place called Splittsville. It's got nothing to do with bowling though. It's about a girl who's always breaking up with guys until she starts dating this guy who won't take goodbye for an answer. Not exactly my normal writing stuff, but I want to at least use this to get in the habit of writing consistently again.

And I'm not going to go back and edit or do any of the things I normally do. I'm not even going to type it into Word. I'm just going to directly blog it. Sheer word count baby.

We'll see.

Lots of other stuff has happened since I last wrote....

• Pam decided that her problem isn't that she's co-dependent on guys and can't break up with anyone without stalking them, but that her family is the real reason she suffers from depression. She no longer wants to speak with us. Well, ok. I'm trying not to sound bitter and to see things from her side, but it's hard to do. She's right when she says I don't understand. I don't. I'd really like to, but I don't. I know she's not trying to be hurtful and she's doing what she can but sheesh. I dunno.
• We went to Chicago and had a great meal at Tru and a general good time. I'm still not big on Fright Fest type of things. Roller coasters just make me ill, but all in all it was a good trip, except for the bar fight that I thought for sure Sherri was going to get us in. At the Holiday Inn bar, for heaven's sake.
  
• More FMP's (forced management something or other, i.e. layoffs) at work. Constant. Probably another one in December. Lots of rumors too.
• Yesterday we ripped out the carpet (and the underlying vinyl tile we found underneath it) and installed the new Legato carpet squares while fielding trick-or-treaters. Yay! No more cat piss smell!
• Our receiver seems to have died, so we have no sound. That'll mess up the Big Night party this Saturday. Hard to watch a DVD with no sound.

That covers most things. Been busy and tired. And now I'm writing a novel in one month!