AND THIS IS THE AD AT THE TOP OF MY LINKEDIN PAGE!

What the what?

This is not a job! The link clicks through to the 90-day rehab program at Seabrook House! This is not a job!!

What the crap, LinkedIn??!?

May 17 2013

1. The motto of the Brownies is “Lend a hand.” If this were the personal motto of someone you know, who would it be?

WM is always doing extra things at school, like giving up his preps to cover other classes, offering his ear to twitchy students and buying supplies for the kids whose parents can’t be bothered to spend their own $1.99 for a bag of 10 pens, that kind of thing. Teachers, man. It’s crazy. My mother has to buy her own ink for the school-owned printer in her room. But God forbid we defund athletics. Let’s just graduate a bunch of illiterates who can play a game well, and watch 99% of them not even earn a scholarship for said game.

Oof. Got ranty there. Sorry.

2. The motto of the Olympic Games is “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (“Higher, Faster, Stronger”). If this were the personal motto of someone you know, who would it be?

One of my former managers at the CP is a marathon runner and he is always trying to make his body a healthier, better-tuned machine.

3. I don’t think it’s a motto, but Apple, Inc.’s tagline for some time has been “Think different.” Grammatical iffiness aside, if this were the personal motto of someone you know, who would it be?

Me!

4. Here are some food-related marketing slogans: “The incredible, edible egg.” “Beef: It’s what’s for dinner.” “Got milk?” What would be a cool marketing slogan for something you’ve eaten in the past twenty-four hours that doesn’t already have one?

“Let out that belt another notch. No, wait, two notches. Oh hell, get rid of your belt altogether. Need some elastic-waist pants?” – The Cheesecake Factory. We were there for WM’s bday dinner last night and my stars the troughs of food they offer are over the top. I ordered from the “Skinnylicious” menu (I hate that name. Hate it.) and got a portion of pasta that still cost me 500 calories. The saddest part is that I can easily clean the whole plate of the regular sized portions and still be hungry.

5. Here is a very long list of cool Latin phrases. Which will you adopt as your personal motto for the upcoming week?

Sic parvis magna: greatness from small beginnings — I’m going to finally start my blog about garden gnomes. Seriously. Dumber sites have flourished, my friends.

***
And thus begins my three day weekend!

Abbreviated to CDC. Like the Center for Disease Control. Fitting

My duties are very important. They are:

1) Make sure lunch is ordered & delivered for the Left Behinders today (Qdoba), tomorrow (sandwiches) and Friday (pizza).
2) Help with the decorating. Another of the Co-ops’ responsibilities is decorating the office to welcome back the Annual Meeting group. There is a theme, which I cannot disclose at the moment.
3) Ensure that we don’t inadvertently burn the office down.

I think I got this.

PS: Happy birthday to my Wandering Minstrel!

Since the last time I was there I was … blue … I was more than excited when the opportunity arose to go back! Unfortunately, the short business trip + jet lag meant that I didn’t go touring around as much as I wanted to, but I saw some things. On someone else’s dime!

Meals of note:
First Crush: Had the scallops and a “Rhone Ranger” wine flight.
Le Colonial: If you click through, you’ll see the lovely outdoor area that we sat in. French-Vietnamese being a new cusine for me, I had Cà Ri Tôm (Coconut curry prawns with eggplant, shiitake mushroom, mango, potato, yellow onion and basil), and we split an order of spring rolls and an amazing plate of fried rice. And wine. I had more wine.
Jasper’s: Met some friends of my manager’s there – had a delicious plate of fish & chips, gourmet deviled eggs and … yes, more wine.

Touristy things:
I went out to see the Bay Bridge lights and they were just as gorgeous as I imagined. I also got to stroll through Chinatown. Our hotel (and the convention center) were in the Financial District so I didn’t have a chance to venture far. That’s okay. The weather was GORGEOUS and perfect for short walkabouts.

We also went to Johnny Foley’s to watch the dueling pianists, and it was a rollicking raunchy good time. I think I had wine there, too.

I’m thankful for a job that allows me to go places other than McLean, VA and Asbury Park, NJ.

Photos:
I’m still wrangling with photo galleries. Bear with me.

1) What’s something you know about constellations?
I can always find Orion by the 3 stars in his belt. I can find the Little and Big Dippers and Cassiopeia as well!

2) What’s something you know about bugs?
All bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs. I’m pretty sure bugs suck (literally) instead of bite.

3) What’s something you know about a car’s engine?
The more cylinders that fire, the greater the horsepower, aka “VROOM.”

4) What’s something you know about wine or beer?
Beer before liquor, never be sicker. Liquor before beer, all is clear.

5) What’s something you know about the Pacific Ocean?
It’s the largest one! Also, it’s much prettier than the Atlantic.

****
My face swelling went down today and I spat out a stitch tonight. Ew. But the sooner they come out the better because they’re really bugging the inside of my lip. One more day of soft foods and I think I’m ready to start chewing again.

I started Yet Another Diet. I’m counting calories. That’s it. It works. And now that the weather is nice, I’m going to start skipping the PATCO shuttle that my office offers. It’s a mile walk each way. And when the weather is delightful and I put my sunglasses on I’m all “Hey! I’m ON! I’m City Girl in the City holding coffee like a City Person!”

Every month I get a Birchbox. It’s a $10 indulgence and I get to try a bunch of beauty samples. Here’s what I got this month:

Toothpaste? Toothpaste.

• A sample of Fabulous perfume by Isaac Mizrahi, who I catch on QVC often. The scent is nice, but for now I’m sticking with Twirl by Kate Spade, which I bought based on a sample I got in a Birchbox, believe it or not!
• A hair nourishing mask by Amika. Even though hair is dead, I’m looking forward to trying it.
• Marvis toothpaste. Haha, Fate. You’re a funny one.
• Coola “organic” sunscreen for the face. SPF 30. I’m skittish about this one because I still break out from some things.
• Sumita contrast eye pencil which is very black and I’m not sure black eyeliner goes with my skin tone anymore. I’m taking Mom to the casino on Sunday so I’ll try it then and see if I look like a middle aged Goth.
• The bonus is a Pilot Acroball pen which writes beautifully….in PINK ink. Okay I’ll take that to my LADY job where only elves and unicorns read my memos!

If you’re interested in Birchbox here is a referral link. If you sign up from that link I get 50 Birchbox points. For every 100 points you earn, you’ll get $10 to apply toward a future full-size purchase from the site. It’s pretty sweet.

There are all sorts of lovely things going on outside tomorrow, but there’s an 80% chance of thunderstorms so we might end up just going to see Iron Man 3. I hope your weekend is delightful!

Now that I got this out of the way… April!

WM and I went to Walt Disney World the first week of April — the week after Easter. While we had a tremendous blast I don’t think I’d go back the week after Easter again. Very, very crowded. We stayed at Port Orleans: Riverside (formerly Dixie Landings). It’s beautiful there. We did not do the dining plan because despite how good it seems, it’s just not a right financial fit for us.

Photos below – I’m playing with gallery plugins so if you click on a photo you’ll get a slideshow. This will change eventually, but the dogs need to pee.

Medical update: Knee is better, stomach is better, allergies are okay and this morning I had an apicoectomy on the tooth that I had the root canal on in September/October. Google that if you want a world of disgusting. The pain’s really insignificant (thankfully) and because of the swelling involved, I’m sporting a natural duckface. No hostess picture this day, folks.

I decided to take today off in case I ended up oozing rivers of blood out of my mouth (I Googled apicoectomy, which is why I told you not to.) I’m bored senseless. So I’m binge watching Parks and Recreation from episode 1. I’m 8 eps in so far.

The stomach’s better, as I ate blandly all weekend.

Feedly’s not bad at all. I’m still learning my way around it. There seems to be a lot more functions than Reader had.

So yeah…things get better in just a weekend. I’m a lucky woman.

Old.

What a week it’s been. I was sad because a coworker left. Then I was snubbed by someone. Pretty obviously, too. And then there was a presentation at work put on by our outgoing group of college co-ops that made me feel old. I mean really old. As in, “there was a powerpoint slide detailing the differences between college life of 20 years ago and college life today” old.

Then on Thursday morning, I was walking the dogs and accidentally twisted my leg. Ollie tugged at the leash a bit — it wasn’t a hard tug, but unexpected as I was dealing with a poop-filled bag and not paying attention — and while my left leg twisted, my foot stayed planted on the ground and my knee said, “WTF?” I went to work anyway, and the leg got worse as the day progressed. Today I worked from my sofa (I love my 21st century job!) and followed the RICE advice for a sprain/strain/non-broken body part: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.

I’m not hobbling as much tonight as I was this morning, which is good. But my right side is screaming because I’ve been babying the left side. My stomach has been mad since I had pizza at work a few days ago. My head hurts because I haven’t had coffee in 2 days because my stomach’s bugging. My eyes are itchy and I’m sneezing because my spring allergies are starting to kick in.

There’s a bead show tomorrow in Cherry Hill and a craft show in Pennsylvania on Sunday that I want to go to, but I really shouldn’t because I’m hobbling. I have a lot of travel coming up in April and I need this knee as close to 100% as I can get.

Oh, and Google’s killing Google Reader in July, which is how I’ve kept track of the many websites I follow for years now. Revenue (or lack thereof) is likely the number one reason, but the number two reason (according to the pundits) is that RSS is an old and dying technology, and younger people don’t read or follow blogs, preferring to get links and content from social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Blogs are dying. I can see that — my stats have dropped steadily over the last few years. Personally I think having to search through (bookmark?) a bunch of FB or Twitter pages for site updates is a big step backward from the efficiency of having all the content in one spot, but what do I know?

So I’m taking Pepto for the stomach, ibuprofen for the knee and eye drops for my itchy eyes. It’s too late in the day for me to take Claritin. I downloaded the Feedly app for Chrome to replace Reader.

But as of this moment I feel like a giant loser of a woman, daughter, wife, friend, coworker and all around human being.

I’m not opening comments on this one or sharing it on FB because I’m not fishing for compliments or reassurances – just documenting how I feel on this day. I try to keep my blog authentic, which means it isn’t always rainbows, pixie dust and cute dogs. I’ll feel better in a day or two, and I’ll smile at this post in a few weeks.

Happy Cinco de Marcho, all!

(video warning: cultural stereotyping, gunplay, simulated violence, objectification of a silhouette, arson and Ornithophobia triggers.)