Zoo Update

Just had Tiegen forward me this from our zoo trip today. So... here's the story. The three of us were standing around in the safari-type exhibit. They had those machines you can look through to zoom in on things off in the distance. Blake asked if I had a quarter for it and I gave him one. Well, I expected him to offer me a look-see, but he didn't so I asked if I could... by "ask" I mean "told him." So I look through the viewfinder and see this:



'nuff said.

Gulf Breeze Zoo

Went to the zoo today. This is one of the first animals we saw, a black swan. Beautiful, right? Except it had a serious attitude problem. At first we thought it wanted the animal food we'd bought. So, we gave it a few pellets, but the swan didn't want the pellets... it was out for blood. It pecked my fingers and tried to get our toes.

It reminded me of that "Gilmore Girls" episode where Jess came into the diner with a black eye and everyone automatically assumes he's gotten into a fight (because he's a bad-boy, as if you couldn't tell from the leather jacket and angsty-intense stares). Finally, Luke gets the truth...



This is one of my favorite moments in "Gilmore Girls" and I laughed hysterically when I first heard it. Now, it rings true. Seriously, people. Swans can be vicious and dangerous. Watch out.

So, the Gulf Breeze Zoo is confusing. A lot of it is being remodeled (which it definitely needs) and maybe because it's the "off season" the grounds aren't kept quite as neat as in the summer. The animals were nice though and there were lots of chickens, roosters and peacocks roaming around randomly. Plus... I saw a chimpanzee play with himself.

Obligatory List

It's obligatory to write a Thanksgiving post about how thankful you are.

I am currently digesting a ginormous meal and generous slice of raspberry pie (with homemade whipped cream, thank you very much). I ate my turkey, etc, etc, and a few hours later we brought out the pie. It turned out to be a meal unto itself and pushed me over "comfy full" and into "bloated full." Oh well.

Here is what Thanksgiving consisted of at my house apartment.
-Turkey & gravy
-Celery stuffing
-Cheesy vegetables
-Crescent rolls
-Cranberry relish (which turned out amazing, thank you Tyler Florence)
-Super-rich mashed potatoes (sour cream & cream cheese)
-White wine
-Raspberry pie & whipped cream

Being my first Thanksgiving, I tried to keep it simple. It turned out great! I was really, really happy and made it known. I am a very effusive person... emphasis on the 'very.' Blake isn't, but that's okay because I force him into excitement (he's kind of a Scrooge at heart, whereas I am a complete child). Tiegen, Blake's sister, is like him. She gets excited about things, but unlike me, doesn't feel the need to say so. In fact, I think the jumping around and hand-clapping freaked her out... just kidding... I don't get that excited. I'm just naturally expressive and I've been around small kids my whole life and the excitement of children is contagious. So, I turned on holiday music and we had dinner.

Okay, so what am I thankful for? My husband, number one and forever n' ever. He is the best thing in my life. Family, of course. This year has been rough for my family and they're having Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house, so everyone can be around my grandma. I'm sorry to miss that, but am looking forward to Christmas, which I'm sure will be a big affair this year. We've all spent this year being thankful for the time we get to spend together. Friends. But really, my family is my base of friendship and I don't have a lot of 'casual' friends so my good friends are family, which is something to be thankful for in itself.

Blake's parents are spending this holiday alone, just the two of them. I don't know if that's sad for them, or a relief. Blake lives down here with me. Tiegen is visiting us. Chelsea is in Egypt. Plus, my mother-in-law has lyringitis. Well, at least they're having a nice meal.

I, for one, am looking forward to tomorrow. Some call is Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. My Aunt Sherri used to get up at 5a.m. to go shopping and get deals. For me, it isn't so much Black Friday as it is... Leftovers Day, a day which makes me super happy. I love leftovers. This year, I made 5lbs. of potatoes for the three of us. Yes, I did, no joke. You know why? Because mashed potatoes with a ton of extra fat make the best leftovers ever and I am always soooo sad when they're gone. I will now have mashed potato leftovers until my third child is graduated from college. yay.

A Souvenir

Today is my last day here. I've only temped for four days, but I got settled in really fast. It was probably because the people are so friendly. I hope their new receptionist isn't a snarky old lady. Anyway, as a nice going away present, one of the girls here gave me her cold. Wasn't that nice of her?

I'm not a cleanliness freak, but I like to keep my office space equipped with anti-bacterial wipes for all the gear. Unfortunately, there were no Lysol wipes in sight. Said cold-infested-coworker sat at my station numerous times and I could just feel her germs spreading over my workspace. I wanted to be like, "Get out of my nook!" (a la Kelly last week on The Office. Hilarious by the way. William F. Buttlicker. ha!... anyway) Yesterday my sinuses were stopped up like this morning's traffic (unbelievable this morning). Today, I am officially with cold. Kind of like being with child, except instead of a big belly you get a runny nose and instead of the miracle of life you just want to shoot yourself in the face.

Dishy

Good story from work. This morning, I get a call from XYZ Company. The lady doesn't sound to happy. Well, it's Thursday so I put on some extra friendliness and go about my business transferring the call to Chris. So... a few minutes Chris comes out with this look on his face, which, even in the three days I've been here is easy to recognize. It's the face that says, "it's share time." So... turns out XYZ fired their CFO in a "out-of-the-blue axed" kind of way. A few days go by, but no one calls the IT department here so we can shut off her access to their secure site. Well... Axed Ex-CFO goes home, logs onto the site, and deletes four years of files stored on the server.

Corporate America, people

Gobble Day

Wow. Thanksgiving is only a couple weeks away. I've planned out the meal. It's weird... my own Thanksgiving. I'm used to helping my mom. The kitchen is crammed with kids and my mom, grandma, sister and me are usually all stuffed into the kitchen trying to finish dinner by 1 or 2. We're all sneaking bits of food, the dogs are underfoot trying to get their own scraps. It smells amazing and there's a lot of laughter.

Thanksgiving will be 100% different this year. Blake and I aren't going home and we'll be having our own Thanksgiving. Blake' sister is coming down for the week. What will it be like? Thanksgiving with three people. Will it be loud and chaotic? I don't know how to have a Thanksgiving without a billion kids running around and yelling.

Thanksgiving back in New York will be extremely different. Since her stroke, my grandma doesn't travel well so my aunt and some uncles are bringing Thanksgiving to my grandparents' house. Since my parents live right next door, they'll be going. I'm guessing it will be pot luck mostly. Our family never does a huge Thanksgiving. I'm sorry to miss it. We have a lot to be thankful for. It's good that they're having Thanksgiving at my grandparents'. A lot of tears and prayers took place there in the last six months.

I'm going to call my mom this weekend and chat about Thanksgiving. Get a recipe I need. See how her plans are coming.

Blake and I are buying a table this weekend. We've been eating on a folding table, but it doesn't seem right to have Thanksgiving on a card table.

And this weekend is the Blue Angels Homecoming show which we're both looking forward to. The weather on Saturday should be nice.

Tomorrow is Krispy Kreme day.

Today is the birthday of an awesomely awesome woman, Lorae. She's 24. Which is an adult age. Whoa. It's sad when friends are so far away on birthdays. E-mail will never replace hugs, but I guess that's growing up, eh?

The best husband ever

Blake is the best husband ever. I always knew it and now I have proof. Last night was the most romantic-est, awesome-est night ever. It was my first day back at work in about 2 1/2 months. Working 8-5 is draining if you're not used to it.

It was dusk when I got home and I was ready to just chill on the couch and eat dinner. I walked into the apartment and immediately, something on the floor caught my eye. It was red and my first thought was, "Oh no, there's a trail of blood on the floor." Yeah, I'm sick. It wasn't blood though, it was mini Kit Kats, a trail of them. So I put down my stuff and took off my coat and followed them through the bedroom and into the bathroom where a mini Kit Kat heart was set up on the floor. The lights were off and candles were burning. A bubble bath was halfway filled and the all of my shower stuff was neatly placed within arms reach. I love that man.

So I had a bath with TONS of bubbles. Blake brought me a glass of wine and we chatted for a while. When I was ready to get out, he heated up dinner and put my towel and robe in the dryer so they would be nice and warm when I was ready for them.

It was the best thing ever.

:)

Must Post

Back at work. It's a quiet office. Cold. Temperature-wise, not people-wise. I'm only here for four days so I can't screw it up too badly. The computer setup is dual screen. I've never worked with two before and I wish I'd never had the opportunity. I can feed my internet addiction twice as much. Blogger in one window, Slate in another. CNN in one window, Fox on the other. E-mail on one window so I can constantly, obsessively monitor it.

I've definitely toned down my e-mail and internet reliance since Blake joined me in Florida. The two of us are more inclined to sit in the living room and watch TV, game or read. My love of just hanging out with him outweighs my need to check my e-mail. Plus, my mom's computer is down right now so we don't e-mail once or twice daily anymore.

My neices and nephews are sending me good old-fashioned letters. I love it. I wrote them letters because I absolutely LOVED getting mail as a kid. Even now I like getting mail. So, instead of calling them (which would result in many awkward silences), I write letters. It's awesome and is always informative and hilarious. I love kids. Probably because I am one. I mean, I act like one... but I guess I also look like one.

Oh, that reminds me of a story.

Last week I went with Blake to muster and then we went and looked at futons for Tiegen's Thanksgiving visit. The base is open, but the exchange isn't open until 9. So we're sitting in a parking lot filled with old people. The refill prescription place is next to the NEX so at 9 a ton of people got out of their cars to get their stuff. It was like a mass migration of the elderly. Anyway, Blake and I were crossing the parking lot and there was an old man walking towards us in the other direction. Some people, you can just tell are going to talk to you and this guy definitely had that vibe.

He was very... weathered looking, kind of hunched over in that old man sort of way. He said hello and stopped right in front of us, literally blocking our bath. He was a very close talker. He looked at me and looked at Blake and smiled and said to him, "You have a very beautiful wife." To which I thought, thank you, but, I'm standing right here. Then he said to Blake, "I can tell from looking at her, you didn't get her from here." Whoa. Seriously?

Blake said, "yeah, I just got her from China. She looked a lot hotter on the internet, but she was on sale, ya know?" Just kidding. Both of us gave an awkward laugh. I know you're old, mister, but don't assume someone doesn't speak English or is a mail-order-bride. So I told him that actually Blake and I grew up together, though I was adopted. But I think his hard-of-hearing-ness made him believe I was speaking in a foreign language because he continued addressing Blake as if I was speaking Klingon. Then, he turned to me and said, in that slow tone people use with people who don't speak English, "I can tell you, you are now in the best country in the world." Then he smiled as if he'd just told me the secret of life and hobbled away.

Now, I find it very hard to be mad at that guy. If it was someone my age, you can bet I would be angry, but he was old. My grandparents are old-fashioned like that. They never had a problem with me being another race, but just from their tone of voice and choices of words when speaking about another race, you can tell they were raised in another time. Nothing really offensive, just... slightly awkward.

Also, I can't be mad for another reason. There are quite a few couples around that are foreign wife/American husband. I guess I can't blame the guy for assuming, though it's not generally a great thing to go around doing. I know, Blake and I look like those other couples, but I was raised in America and frankly, I have a better handle on the English language than he does (sorry honey). When you think about it, he only had about a year more in America than I did, so we're on pretty even footing. Yes, we do have a running joke that I am high-maintenance because I am "imported goods," but really, I'm not high maintenance (more like medium maintenance). I am, however, imported goods, and sometimes it's hard to keep that in mind, being raised in an entirely caucasian family and having no memories of Korea.

So, to you old man, I say this: thanks for the compliment. I'm just going to forget the rest of that conversation.

Back to life

I've let my life become lazy and completely unproductive. In college and at my job after, I was keeping track of things, you know, using my planner, looking to future projects and keeping fairly busy. For the past few months, I have been doing very little.

Have you ever read or seen the moving About a Boy by Nick Hornby/with Hugh Grant? The main character doesn't work, doesn't have to. His father wrote a song called "Santa's Super Sleigh" and the character lives off the royalties. Anyway, he measures his time in 30-minute units because he thinks a whole hour of time is too intimidating and most things can be done in 30 minutes (reading the paper, taking a bath, watching TV). So, in that fashion, here is how I have been living my life.

Breakfast (1 unit)
Job hunting (4 units)
Cleaning up (4 units)
Lunch (2 units)
Check job boards (1 unit)
TV (2 units)
Reading/writing (2 units)
Dinner (2 units)
TV (2 units)
Bed

Life looks so ... cookie-cutter like that. Anyway, those days are over. I'll be temping at a CPA firm this week (16 units per day). I'll be working in the IT department, which is great. IT people are... well, a breed all their own. They're very, very knowledgeable about computers and software, but working in an office setting doesn't challenge them because most of what goes wrong is born of simple misunderstanding or ignorance. As a result, they have this edge... not exactly derision for the common office worker, but more like... hmmm, not pity... well, they're tech snobs. I mean that in the nicest possible way and not as a derogatory term at all. I like IT guys, mainly because I like computers and one can learn SO MUCH from being around computer people all day.

I'll be handling their phones and scheduling. Now, this is puzzling to me. The CPA firm is a large, well-known one in the Pensacola area. Their IT department needs help just this week. So what gives? Maybe someone is on vacation or something, but frankly, I've never heard of an IT department with its own receptionist. Swanky. Maybe they're doing a big upgrade this week of something. Or maybe the IT people are fiercely anti-social. Maybe they hire help on a weekly basis because no one will stay more for a week for reasons dastardly and nefarious. I hope the office has windows... I wonder if they'll let me eat at my desk. Will I have a desk?

Temping is an adventure.