Hurry-up-a-cane

I bought a lot of water today. And cookies with colored chocolate pieces in them. And a flashlight. Come on, Gustav, I'm ready for ya.

Actually, no. I am not mentally prepared for this hurricane in any way at all. I am from New York. We have the occasional ice storm or blizzard. We get snowed in, and some branches fall, but as long as you stay inside, you're pretty much good to go. A hurricane . . . is scary. Lots of wind and rain and gray skies and the potential for danger all around. My roommate and I talked to the apartment manager ladies today and apparently, during Hurricane Ivan, a lot of people (who are still alive and well) stayed in their apartments here. Minimal damage to the apartments. I think I'll be safe. Think positive.

In other news ... whoa ... If you are ever in Pensacola... please visit this place. It is full of craziness. As long as you don't mind running into "those girls" it's a great place to hang out. You know those girls, the ones who dress up to go out and think that a little makeup and a pair of heels makes them irresistibly hot... those delusional young women...

First story about McGuire's... there was a girl who turned 21 yesterday and was out with her friends celebrating. She had this huge posterboard sign "21 things to do when turning 21" and it was a list of stupid crap like "get 21 kisses on the cheek from a stranger" and "next a guy who hits on you." I was there with 8 guys and 1 other girl so naturally, birthday girl decided to see if any of the guys I was with were up to helping her fulfill her mission. She said that they could help her complete her list, as long as they didn't hit on her. Are you serious?!?! You can't wear a sign proclaiming open season on yourself and expect the sweaty masses to stay away from you. You can't wear a sign that is code for "I am a slut" and then guard your virtue like the holy grail of sexuality. One thing I can't stand about some of my gender. Put a little more value on your body... it's worth more than 3 beers and a handful of compliments.

Second story about McGuire's... I drank an "Irish Wake," bought for me by a friend who wanted to welcome me properly to Pensacola. I had never heard of this little slice of heaven before last night. Served in a rather large mason jar... about 7 liquors, citrus, two cherries and a big-ass straw. We left the bar about midnight and while I wasn't completely wasted, I did lean a bit heavy on Ryan's shoulder. And I drunk-dialed my husband. Which he wasn't happy about at the time, but now that it's the day after, he agrees it was pretty funny.

Third story about McGuire's... there is a guy there, middle-aged, with a guitar, singing cover songs of Bruce Springsteen, etc, etc, and Irish ballads. This is awesome. Kind of like Kitty Hoynes in Syracuse only a lot more... I don't know, down home. I mean, sometimes the guy with the guitar sings dirty Irish songs.

Before all the McGuire's madness, we had a great dinner at the Fish House. They also have an oyster bar (Atlas) that I'll have to go to sometime. I had an AMAZING dinner. AWESOME scallop appetizer. Great fried oysters. BUT the crowning glory? The best thing? The side dishes, fried okra and corn fritters. Holy cow were those good. I would go back for the side dishes alone. Seafood is kind of a dime a dozen in this town, but that restaurant truly has the golden touch with all things fried. As a side note, I first heard of the Fish House on Bizarre Foods (which you should watch, by the way, it's awesome). See this article, waaay on the bottom, for more info on that. No, I didn't eat bizarre things, but it was delicious just the same.

Awesome and not so awesome

So........ yesterday I spent a few hours at the pool at the apartment complex. It was BEAUTIFUL. Ninety degrees, sunny and the water was perfect. Mostly, though, I laid out and got a tan. Read some. It was just perfect weather. Today is really beautiful too.

And yet, on the horizon, I see a big, giant disaster named Gustav. Fay was a big let down. One day of sort-of heavy rain. Once again, I don't think we'll be getting the worst of it, but from the maps, it looks like wherever Gustav makes landfall, Pensacola will be hit. Great. Maybe I should go buy water.

A week in Florida

I've been here a week and really, I haven't experienced much Florida-ness. Mainly I've been playing video games and trying to orient myself to my new habitat. Love the stores, but they are spread out all over the place and traffic is ridiculously stop-and-go in this city. But I love it anyway. I'm enjoying the change of surroundings. Change is good, though it sometimes makes me nervous.

Life-changing experience today. I got a new razor to shave my legs with and whoa... it's like seeing color TV for the first time or your first pair of heels or something else that's really great. My legs feel like the soft parts of a baby. Too bad my husband isn't here to appreciate this. Oh well. His time will come. Until then I keep rubbing my legs together. Wow, what a freak.

Living Near the Beach Lesson

Where I come from... there are no more swimsuits to be had by late July. Actually, there's probably one rack of 75% off, mismatched, size 24 swimsuits waaaay in the back of the store. No one is interested in them by August. Even if there is an Indian Summer, up North, we know what's to come. We feel the golden, summer sunsets mocking us. We know that it will soon be time to freeze our asses off.

Here on the coast... it's always beach time. Even in the "off season" people still go to the beach. So today I went swimsuit shopping at the Cordova Mall. I went to Belk and Dillard's and found... a rack of 75% off, mixmatched, odd-sized swimsuits. What gives, Florida? If it's always summer, shouldn't you always have swimsuits out. A little miffed, I drove home, unlocked the door, changed into something more comfortable and then realized my mistake. The swimsuits are by the beach. Not 20 minutes from the beach. Whoops.

Not that I'll be going to the beach this weekend anyway. I'll be having a weekend in, courtesy of Tropical Storm Fay. Thanks a lot Fay, you stinkin' jerk. Rain and wind and it might even get cold... like only 80 degrees.

Devouring Books

I finished three books in three days.

A Year of Living Biblically: A man lives the Bible as literally as possible for a year. Hilarity ensues. Stoning adulterer's? Check. Do not shave your beard? Check. Do not touch a woman during or for ten days after her period? Check. Do not lie. Well, he tries. He starts out agnostic, sure that religion is intangible, just a way people are deluding themselves. You can feel it in the way he writes in the beginning. A sarcastic edge to everything. But by the middle of the book, he comes around. He starts to quote the Bible more respectfully. He gives more space to explaining Biblical precidents for actions and while he struggles with some of the more puzzing/contradicting rules in the Bible, he eventually sees the good this experiment has done him. It was a great read for me, a lifelong back-and-forth believer. I'm not the most religious person on Earth, but I try not to lie, steal, cheat or murder my neighbor.

The Bourne Identity: This book blew my mind. Not in how good it was (though it was). But it literally blew up my brain with all of its twist/turns and complications. Picture the complicated plotlines from all three movies multiplied by ten and then stuffed into a few hundred pages. It was ridiculous. Three quarters of the way through, though, I was kind of sick of the intrigue. I just wanted to get to the end and find out what was really going on. The movies were a lot simplier to follow, but the book was more rewarding. I'm really glad I didn't try to read it aloud to Blake. He stopped me three times during There Will be Blood for plot updates.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell: Wow. What? It goes like this: you know when you get together with a group of friends, just hanging out and you all try to top each other with ridiculous stories about your life? This guy wins. Hands down. Forever. His drunken antics are... legendary... and not necessarily in a good sense. It's amazing he's venereal-disease-free and still has a working liver. A good read. But not for the squeamish. As a side note: this guy's life is one big, completely drunken, string of sluts and random and dangerous acts with friends. Naturally, a TV network wanted to document it. Was it A&E's Intervention? No... it was MTV. The youth of America don't need to be taught how to be a frat boy by a guy who won't ever grow up. They're doing fine on their own... plus, it takes all the fun out of it.

Vicarious Living... Not Awesome

I watched The Hills today.... almost all day. I watched last night's premier twice.

I am exactly the type of viewer The Hills is geared to. Someone who does not (and will not) have that life. Someone who sits at home... watching "reality" TV to feel as if they've done something today. No husband. No job. No geographically close friends. What did I do today? Well, I threw a party for Audrina's birthday, recapped my trip to Paris and my fiancee hates my sister who wants to move in with us for awhile. What did I actually do today? Nothing.

A New Place to Live

So things are neat in the new apartment. It's easy and it's difficult to settle in. It's easy because the apartment is wonderfully clean, with plenty of storage space and did I mention how clean it is? It's difficult because I'm not used to my stuff being all over.

It's also awkward because I have a roommate. I like him a lot, but it takes time to adjust to living with another person. You have to pick up on their habits, moods and personalities. My first experience having a roommate probably ruined me for any other roommate ever. She is the most polite, accommodating, nice, funny and great person. A great person to live with. She's in New York City now.

Ryan, my current roommate, lived with my husband their senior year in college. He actually has a lot in common with my old roommate. He's conservative, polite and really really nice. But there, they part ways. Probably has to do with... you know... things that are different about men and women...

It's surprising, but the whole gender difference thing isn't coming into play at all for me. Mainly, it's just that we're both really willing to compromise and be polite so we end up going back and forth like this: "do you mind if I do XYZ?" "No, not at all." "Because I can do something else." "No, it's okay, you can do whatever you want." and so on and so on.

It's okay. At least we won't be getting a visit from Hurricane Fay.

I live in Florida

I live in Florida. whoa. The drive down was tiring. Blake and I lived in the cab of a Penske for almost three days. Then... the moving in. I shudder to remember. But we had a lot of good moments.

-Visiting Grandma and Grandpa in New Jersey. Grandma sent us away with two sandwiches, a tin of chocolate chip cookies, two packages of brownies, trail mix, frozen bottled water for our cooler and money to go out to dinner. Nothing like grandparents to make you feel good about yourself.
-All of the Cracker Barrel and Waffle House restaurants in the South. Holy crap. Almost every exit. There are two Waffle House restaurants within a 5 mile radius of our apartment.
-Discovering the amazing walk-in closet/bathroom/everything about the new apartment.

More details later, but for now.... just happy.

Freedom

Today is my last day of work. I have accomplished the following things:
-put together/organized hanging file folders for two cabinets
-made innumerable copies of time sheets and forms
-scheduled surveys until I can see the calendar every time I close my eyes
-made friends with the office dog
-gottens supplies from Staples

But I learned a lot of things about moving and trucking. Random information that I'm sure will come in handy some day. Lots of tidbits of moving information.

I'm not sorry to see this office go, but I am sorry that the office will now be short-staffed. Nothing I can do, though. I must get out of here, for the Navy and my wallet say so.

Second to Last Day

Arrived 45 minutes ago to work. Flurry of activity. All of the hardware for a rich lady's beds and furniture is missing. So, she's got this $20,000 sofa that was handmade in Italy and she's got to set it on the floor. Yeah, I would probably be mad too.

But at least it's Thursday. Which means tomorrow is Friday. Even though I'm leaving this job soon, I still have that "can't wait til Friday" feeling. Going home again tomorrow. Last weekend going home for awhile, probably a few months at least. I'm really excited to get going. Loading everything into the truck will be a pain, though.

Dinner was great last night. We got pizza delivered and just talked for a couple of hours. But by the timeBlake and I got home, we were tired and didn't pack anything (surprise, surprise). So we have to pack up our bedroom tonight and Monday. Shouldn't be too bad. We didn't get out a lot of knick-knack kind of stuff because we figured the room was temporary.

We had crazy, torrential rain here yesterday. The coming week in Florida looks like it will be in the high 80s with possible t-storms. Fine with me... just as long as the trip down is trouble-free!

Last Wednesday in Vermont

This time next week, I will be in New Jersey. Probably eating breakfast with Blake' grandparents, aka: two very nice and awesome people. Blake and I are planning on leaving VT on Tuesday and spending Tuesday night at Blake' grandparents house in Stewartsville. And then on to Florida, however long it takes us.

Tonight is Couples Night. We're having dinner with the Crossett's, who got married early last month. They're a really great couple who are ridiculously in love with each other. Blake and Adam are friends from Norwich. And Adam's wife, Sharon, is always really nice whenever I've seen her (on a handful of occassions, one of which was her wedding). Should be interesting.

Last night, Blake and I didn't do any packing. We'll probably regret that because we won't get any packing done tonight either. Instead, we watched "10,000 B.C." It was interesting. Except that everyone was always dirty and sweaty. I know hygiene wasn't top of the list for olden day man, but by the end, I was sick of seeing sweaty, dirty streaked people fighting one another. I did like all of the dinosaurs though, saber toothed tigers and whatnot.

Then we watched Wipeout. I've got to tell you. I really look forward to that show. It's not that I love watching people embarass themselves. It's just... funny and really relaxing to just be able to laugh at stupid stuff... like this:

Sinus Pressure

Last night, I had a glass of wine and a huge chunk of fudge. Actually, let me back up a bit. I had one large glass of wine before, during and then after dinner (one glass for those three times, not one glass for each of the three times). I actually began drinking most of it right after dinner. So I'm happily downing my glass of chardonnay when Blake says to me, "come on, we have to pack stuff." Whoa mister. You're kidding right? Do you see this ginormous glass of alcohol in my hand? Yes, he saw it and yes, he still wanted my help packing. I think I helped... in between sips of wine. Carrying heavy boxes was a little out of my capabilities, but I remember packing books.

Then I sat down to a chunk of fudge almost the size of the palm of my hand. I finished that, finished my wine and promptly felt sick to my stomach. I thought it was the alcohol and chocolate, but I woke up this morning with a sinus headache and a bad case of the sniffles... allergies. And I was so tired this morning that I forgot to take anything. So I'm sitting at my desk and my eyes are just refusing to stay open. I must be driving everyone crazy with my quiet sniffles. I think this office is the most popular spot on the East Coast because the phones are ringing of the hook. It's pretty weird to be this busy on a Tuesday morning.

Oh wait, the phones are silent.... let's see how long the lull lasts...

I am 10

I still, very routinely, at the age of 22, "take things the wrong way." For example, in the last 24 hours, the following funny things have been said and NO ONE but me has laughed:

My boss: "Alex, where is your package?"
A book: "They pitched a tent in the town square."
A customer: "I live at 14 Pucker Road."

Granted, the "package" references can get old, but Pucker Road is a new one for me. What a great place to live. It's probably next to KY Lane and Brown Street. Maybe it runs perpendicular to Stink Avenue.

And as far as "pitching a tent in the town square" goes... well, come on people! Not only did one guy pitch a tent in the town square, a whole Company did! Picture it! Uniformed Army reservists of the early 40s, standing straight-backed and sober-faced in an old-timey town square (one with a cupid fountain in the center). They're lined up neatly, in perfect formation and each one is sportin' wood. Now THAT is funny.

Score!!!!

This day went by so fast.....

awesome! :)

And it's a sunny day.

And Blake had to wear his khaki uniform today and he looked hot!

And my boss didn't punch me for quitting on such short notice.

What a great day!

Here is the big plan..

Leaving for Florida on Tuesday the 12th. I gave notice at my job Friday and today. I feel bad for the company I'm working for. The guy before me was apparently the world's biggest idiot and now, I've just settled in, and I'm leaving. Of course, I don't feel too bad because it's a job I didn't really like. Surprisingly my boss man was calm about it. I expected a hearty "get the hell out." He's had a terrible day so far. Problems with a truck, a customer complaint and one of our drivers put a couple of dents in his Jeep. He gets Monday's blue ribbon prize for not letting that quick temper get the better of him.

In other news, Brook's this weekend was amazing. Went with my parents in their new PT Cruiser. It's orange. I love orange... I went to Syracuse after all. I also saw some of my family and will catch up with the rest of them next weekend.

It's going to be weird... not being close to my family. We probably won't see each other until Thanksgiving, which is about 4 months away. I probably would see my parents maybe once or twice until then if we were staying in Vermont. But for my parents, it's the distance that really hurts. From Fort Plain, NY to Pensacola, FL is roughly 1,400 miles. Yeah. All the way on the other end of the country. Could be worse... Blake and I both want be stationed in Japan or Korea in the future. It's extra hard for my parents to deal with because my sister and brother both live within a mile of the house we grew up in. Our family stays in Central New York. That's just the way it is. But my parents always knew I was different. I mean, obviously, I'm adopted so I look different, but other than that, my siblings didn't go to college and they got married right out of high school. They already had a couple of children by the time they were my age. They may not be happy living in Fort Plain, but they're comfortable and don't want the bother of moving.

I couldn't wait to leave Fort Plain. It's a small town so everyone says they want to leave, but maybe 25% or so of each school class actually leaves the entire area for good. I couldn't imagine living my whole life in Central New York. It's a great place, but there are other, even greater places. How do you know if you like a place if you've hardly ever left it?

I'm glad to be leaving Vermont. It's beautiful, but the roads have worn my patience. I don't mind paying an extra few cents on the gallon for gas, just fix the damn roads already! And I'll be glad to trade in our shabby-ish apartment for a gorgeous new apartment 20 minutes from one of the most beautiful beaches in the U.S. as voted by Trip Advisor (which those in the know remember is the "life blood of the agritourism industry ... hahaha The Office).

Even though it's been balls hot down there for weeks now, everything is air conditioned. And I'll be getting a new car. And Blake will be happier. Lots of things to look forward to.

It was a lovely July

bye bye July. It was a good month. My first full month of married life. I've heard that the true test of marriage is learning to live together. Though Blake and I haven't been married long, I haven't discovered any strange quirks or annoying habits (that I didn't already know about, ahahaha). In July, I got a new job, discovered new restaurants I love, my parents got a new car and a new puppy. I got a new scar on my left arm from the slow cooker. Blake got a handgun.

We really settled into the VT apartment. It isn't the best apartment, but it wasn't the worst. Great location to downtown. Not much hot water and the bathroom leaves something to be desired.

Today is the day we find out if we can get out of here by the 12th. I told Blake to call me as soon as he found out, but I left my cell phone at home. Of course.

Can't wait to get home. We're going to Brook's BBQ in Oneonta. Brooks is Tasty McTastyville, USA and I am going to stuff my face full of their famous (and tasty) chicken.

Office Drama

Oh man. I would never want to go into business with my husband. I think that the business would be fine, but our relationship would be ruined. We think differently. That whole left and right brain thing. When given a problem, we want to tackle it our own ways (convinced that our own way is better than the other person's way). Of course we can understand the other person's point of view, but running a business is difficult and tempers would flare...

Case in point... today at my office. About half an hour after I came in my bosses became pretty unhappy with each other. I've blogged about both of them. The boss man is short-tempered and has no patience for what he sees as stupid questions (like Blake, except Blake doesn't get mean). My boss lady takes a little longer than he does to get some things, but she always tries her hardest and means well (like me). So what happens? They're 'discussing' in stressed tones if we can fit a load and unload job into next week. Problem is, there is a really large, expensive job already set for next week that my boss lady has blocked out 3 days for with most of the good crew guys. My boss man thinks she scheduled it all wrong and he's trying his best to say it nicely (because he knows I'm standing two feet away). And she says, "To be honest, I don't even know how many men we have working for us." Scary pause and then he says quietly, "How can you be in small business and not know how many employees you have? I'm going to get pissed off if you say things like that." And she was super quiet

Then he says to his wife, "Come on, let's take a walk and talk about this." And he says it quietly, but it's like something out of the Godfather. You know, "Come on, Tessio, let's for for a walk..." Then they came back and it was awkward silence until she left for an appointment.