Things that don't make sense

1. Why the water in Plano is so ridiculously nasty

I tried Google and Ask.com and can't figure out what the deal is.

2. Why F-Lay doesn't have plastic tops for their to go cups

Seriously, this makes no sense. If someone is grabbing a to-go cup, then most likely they'll be drinking at their desk...near their computer. Do they really want people spilling onto their computers? And if it's some sort of sustainability issue then maybe they should FILTER THE WATER so we stop buying multiple bottles of water each day. Am guessing that water bottles are worse for the environment than plastic tops.

3. That I wouldn't drink the fresh brewed Iced Tea because it was made from - you guessed it! - fricking Plano drinking water. But I did have a soda with ice.

4. Why no one comments on my entries

Am I not funny anymore? Or is everyone too busy to read up on my escapades. Oh look, it's a tear..sliding down on my computer...but at least it's not soda...or plano water.

Sitting in a Plano hotel room - Week 2

here it is week 2 in plano, and this week's trip has been a little chaotic, to say the least. i'd love to put together a nice story, but it's either a list of incidents or nothing. so here goes :)

• planes, traines and automobiles: never, ever, EVER use Hertz's f-ing NeverLost gps system. basically it should be called the Always Lost. last night i tried using it and it took me the opposite direction i needed to go. then it directed me to exit 448A/McKinney & Grapevine. first of all, there's not only no 448A exit, there's no f-ing Grapevine road either! i'd ask pardon for all the f-ings, but considering i dropped the f-bomb twice while freaking out on the phone to the parents, i just don't think it's necessary.
• i'd also like to mention that the roads on the, wait for it...president george bush turnpike...are raised, as in very high off the ground. it's like riding a roller coaster. i don't normally don't have a fear of heights, but this was so bad it gave me vertigo. i didn't think it was possible to get car sick while doing the actual driving of a car - last night i found out otherwise. guess i should've known nothing good could come from the president george bush turnpike.
• the hotel this week is called the NYLO. it's fabulous - i must give a shout-out. it's modern, and cool, and i've been upgraded to the "pure loft" which means the whole room is hypo-allergenic. it's literally the cleanest hotel room i've ever stayed in. for the first time in years of travel, i actually sat on TOP of the bedspread.
• 'course after enjoying my clean room, i accidentally set my alarm for 630 p.m.
• then the pair of pants i brought to wear today didn't work because they don't fit. would've been nice if i'd remembered that before i packed.
• it was supposed to be around 68 degrees today. when i left the hotel i thought it was overkill to grab my new pink shiny vest. turns out as i strolled out in a sleeveless vest, short-sleeve sweater and open-toe shoes i realized it was actually 45 degrees.
• as i was running errands before the airport yesterday, my tire pressure light came on. had to meet Dad at the gas station in the freezing rain. this morning on my way to work, the same light came on in the rental car. let me also note that this light caused me issues last year in cincinnati. some people of blood pressure issues, i have tire pressure issues.
• went to work. managed to spill multiple parts of my breakfast on myself. have also mysteriously lost my work notebook. boss called as i was at the car rental place (after trying for 30 min to find it) and it wasn't possible to sound more flustered. i'm sure that was very reassuring to a man who just got a new team, with no experience, and is on vacation. 'course this is also after being 10 min late last week on our first morning b/c the clock in the hotel room was set 10 min fast, but i was going by my cell.
• speaking of, the clock here in the hotel is also set fast. so far what i've learned of plano is this: don't drive on the GB turnpike w/o an airsick bag, do NOT drink the water...or smell it, and all the clocks are set faster than the rest of the country and even the tv stations.

And that my friends is the end of day one, week 2 in plano.

Where oh where has my litle dog gone?

Today I am officially hitting 'crazy dog mom' status. I've been online looking for Gracie on the Bow Wow web cams, and the pup is nowhere to be seen.

So far I'm managing to not call and ask how she's doing. I've had Gracie for close to a year, I should be weaned by now. If I'm this bad about my dog, what on earth would I be like with a child? Not that we need to worry about that, it's been so long since I've had a decent date, I think I've forgotten what that's like.

On a diff note, today is day two on the new job. Bossman has abandoned us for a 9-4pm meeting - sucks to be him! but we were here at 8am and will be here until dinner at 6:30pm. Um, I'm exhausted already. The Courtyard Marriott Plano pretty much sucks. I dont' mind a Courtyard, but this one is borderline clean, and the water has a smell! This morning it was like showering in lake water. As usual Princess was dressed to the nines so my Frumpy Mouse persona is in high gear this morning. She said she would drive the rental car, but shock, she hasn't. It's been me the whole time. On the plus side, since I feel I should be nice, she hasn't been awful yet. We just have very different personalities. She asks tons of questions ALL the time, whereas I like to sit back and assess the situation first. Oh well, at least I conserve energy by letting her yap. I'm def looking forward to being down here on my own - just to do my own thing.

And that's all the news that's fit to print at 9:27am - other than, I miss my jobs where I didn't even arrive until 9:27am!

Greetings from a hotel room in Plano, TX

sorry to not have written in a week, things have been ridiculously crazy. to update, last tuesday i got transferred to a new team and a new dept and am now working part-time from home and part-time from plano, tx. yeehaw. yes, it seems like a good opportunity. no, i wasn't "asked" if i wanted this. supposedly it's a three month assignment, but everytime we (oh yeah, foreign girl is on assignment too) ask about the three months we get a differnent answer. tonight's answer was at least february. at least our new boss a) knows how to manage people - the last one literally had a personality change he was so happy he didn't have anyone reporting to him - and b) is honest about the timing. he told us he'd like to keep up for a new dept...whatever. i'm in it till i hate it. so, with my timing, that could be a week ;)

so tonight i'm in texas till thursday, then i turn around and come back on sunday night. thankfully, then i'm home for two weeks. gracie lou has been sentenced to camp bow wow for the week as mom fell and broke her ankle and got stuck in georgia - LONG story. she's never boarded somewhere where she'd have to sleep in a kennel. she was all excited to go to daycare this morning, i on the other hand, almost cried. i was "that girl" today who was all concerned about her precious pup. oh well.

i could write more about how our planed this morning was delayed almost two hours and that by the time we got to the office it was 4pm and new boss had us work on setting up our new wireless cards - the kind where i can literally get a wireless connection anywhere. super cool, but def a super leash for work. anyhoo, i could write about that, but i'm tired and am actually thinking about going to bed early - a new concept for me.

before i go, i need to give a HUGE shout-out to Leah and her Mom, Triple B, and their amazing job on our Halloween costumes. Leelee and I are going as the Jolly Green Giant and Sprout - oh yeah, I'm Sprout - and she and her mom made the most perfect, most hysterical costumes. (hmm, ricky from My So Called Life is on Raising the Bar) Thank you Lee!! They are awesome :)_

This Week Is Kicking My Arse

Sorry to not have written all week - this week is seriously kicking my ass and it's only Wednesday. I have the attnetion span of a gnat right now, and am now so lazy i'm not going to use capitalization or fix the typo right above this sentence.

here's what's been going on...

mi casa: closed last week, painted and moved some stuff in this week. my favorite was saturday. dad and i take the rented van, pick up a table from hom furniture and hit the storage unit. i have a list of boxes i want to get, but of course they're all the ones buried in the back. dad reads me a number (of the very detailed box that lindy made for me while i was in the motherland) and i say "yea" or "nea" or b/c it's me "umm, i guess we can take that one. it's not on the list , but we can take it." thus dad says we're not taking anything b/c that's why we have movers coming next week.

then five minutes after he loads the van, he says "anything else you want to bring?" um, no.

we proceed to the house, unload - thanks to the Davis Fam for stopping by, and lindy says to me - want to bring anything else? No, people! we hired movers for a reason.

gracie met a new friend when a pit/lab/who-knows mix ran on over. her name is bailey, and her mom's name is amy. amy and i had a lovely chat while gracie and bailery played "dominant dog." i felt kind of bad for grace as she was NOT dominant dog. sorry pup :(

sunday was cousin dan's b'day - shout out to the old man!

unfortunately sunday was also the day i was besieged by the beginning of the fatigue plague. don't ask what that is b/c i have no idea. all i know is that from sunday until last night i had ridiculous fatigue. it was so bad that yesterday my boss told me that if i needed to go home, i should feel free to leave whenever. i was out the door before he finished his sentence.

today is my only full day in the office. tomorrow is Yom Kippur, and then friday i move. depending on how things go this weekend, i may work from home on monday too. spend a little qt (quality time for you old folks) in 'jen's media room.' oh yes, i've named one of my rooms.

hmm, i only have 8 minutes until m&d arrive to whisk me away to services...not a whole lot else to report. tomorrow we're doing break the fast at josh's in-laws... so i'll be drinking. i've actually been on the wagon for several weeks, but learned long ago that outings at their home require booze. guess that means i might have my last official car pool with m&d.

okay, just got the call that m&d are almost here. time to make a run for it!

Surveys about workplace goofing off are under-represented

Cleary these studies that say people blow off 1-2 hours every day haven't ever talked to advertising people. Even my brother commented yesterday that he can't figure out how it works in marketing and advertising b/c it seems like we're always bored or slow. Mostly the work is cyclical but when planning sessions are over and /or there's a recession - it's thumb twiddling time for all!

It seems i'm a bad dog mom today. i totally forgot to relay Gracie's adventures with the Dog Communicator. Mucho thanks to Leah for writing about this and thus triggering my memory. So the Dog Communicator...she didn't show up. The website said she'd be there from 11-5, and Lee also callled to try and make an appt. She's not much of a communicator b/c she never called back. After severe disappointment, compounded by the fact that for the first time ever Gracie wasn't fawned over when she walked into a pet store; they all went for Rigley. Gracie seemed very confused why everyone bypassed her for a 3 month old Lab. To her, he's just a little boy with a mighty big crush on her. It's okay, though. She made up for it by trying to steal his bone later in the day.

After a few dog purchases, Leelee, Rigs, Gracie and I rambled over to Old Chicago where they not only opened the patio for us, they let us have the dogs out there. Talk about exhaustion! These two pups are more crazy than a pair of toddlers who just learned how to walk. They ran back and forth all over the patio for at least 45 minutes. Here's a short example:

Put water dish down on ground. Gracie comes over for a drink. Then Rigs squeezes in. Then Rigs grabs the water dish as his new toy. We pick the water dish up. Give the kids, a squeaky bone - they wrestle. Lee gives Rigs a busybone; Gracie steals it. I give the bone back to Rigs adn give Gracie the squeaky bone. She steals the busybone back. On and on and on.

The dogs did have a very fun time wrestling, though, and it should be very interesting to see what happens next time they get together as Rigs will be close if not the same weight as Gracie.

I'm officially an adult

Well, it's official. I'm an adult. As of 1pm yesterday, I am a homeowner and thus my sole purpose in life is to make sure I can make my mortgage payments. No one actually tells you that when you buy a house. they (i'm too tired for capitalization) say that you sign your life away, but not that you have this need to make sure you stay employed, for example, b/c you know own something. what's funny is that in theory lots of people get their first starter house, and aim to keep it five years. i got a puppy, and had to commit to at least 15 years on her application. you'd think therefore that a dog is scarier to commitment phobes than a house. not so much.

i do have to say the house is fabulous! 'course i'm not sure where the workout area will be as "jen's media room" doesn't have alot of space. oh that's right, i'm making a media room out of my loft. HUGE couch and new flat-screen tv w/ lots of cable, not to mention finally getting my dvr back (2 1/2 months w/o a dvr is tooooo long).

the cleaners and locksmith are there now...with super mom! saturday will move some stuff from storage and everything will move next friday. friday will be my first night home alone. some of you might want to keep your cell phones on...

what else is going on..? gracie is doing better. she had pink eye on tuesday and scared the heck out of me. i know it's just pink eye, but she looked so sad gazing up at me with one normal big brown eye and one swollen, oozing pinkish brown eye. yes, i said oozing. it didnt' help that the vet kept her for almost 8 hours and i had flashbacks of when minnie was in her car accident and had to stay in a tiny cage at the vet. poor puppy! we have a check-up on saturday, but i think she's doing fine.

that's all i can think of for today, or at least this morning. it's a quiet day, but rather peaceful as not many people seem to be here. this is good as i barely had the motivation to make it here myself.