Truth or dare

This should be fun! If you leave a question in the comments, I'll answer it in the following day's post, okay?

Let's start with Joansy: "When will you be in Las Vegas again?" God, I wish I knew. Probably next February if the stars align and our convention is there. I'm hoping to con a friend of mine into flying there with me later on this fall, so you know if I do that we'll have to meet up again! And have more martinis, hooray! I just actually took the receipt from Spago out of my wallet yesterday...

Then Tree asked some great questions:

"Where did you leave things with your mom?" Well, about the same. I haven't actually talked to her in over a week, but I need to call her. I got word last night from my sister that it seems as though my father's prostate cancer is back - or at least his PSA levels are up again. So I need to bite the bullet and make that call. In other related news, I have the name of a therapist who a friend recommended and I have to make that call too. Sigh.

"Are you going to run that race in a couple weeks?" Yuppers, or at least if my application is accepted. It's a small race, only 1,500 runners and walkers - compared to 35,000 in the race I blew off last weekend. I did it 2 years ago so I'm familiar with it and look forward to it! And I'm hoping to run an 8K in conjunction with our marathon in November. Maybe a few others this year.

"Do you have an interest in a half marathon?" Um, not really. I think I'm not physically fit enough to do that, I struggle just with a 10K!

"What is your favorite meal that you make?" Probably a good beef tenderloin filet on the grill with some au gratin potatoes and grilled asparagus. Good stuff! Oh, and a good red wine.

"What is the favorite dinner to order at a restaurant?" It really depends, but I'd say anything with beef. I do like salmon a lot too. I avoid chicken because hell, I get that at home. A lot. Some kind of potatoes. Grilled veggies. And of course, dessert - anything chocolate with some ice cream. Yum.

"What gourmet meal would you like to learn to cook (assuming of course that you do not already do that!)?" Honestly, I have no clue. I've never done a prime rib before. And I'm not good at cooking fish myself other than shrimp or scallops. I've tried just about everything else though!

"What is your favorite alcoholic beverage?" Right now it's the pomegranate martini. Before that it was a whisky sour, and before that it was a Lynchburg Lemonade - hence my nickname for years, Lynchburg Lizzy Lu-Lu. Ahem. I also love a good Merlot, the more expensive the better!

"What is your middle name?" Since I got married, I use my maiden name of Johnson as my middle name. My "real" middle name is Booth...yes, I am a distant descendant of John Wilkes Booth. It's my grandmother's maiden name. Ironically, I'm the only child in our family that got a weird middle name - the rest of them all got normal "first name" type of middle names like Ann, Allen and Lee. I got screwed on that one.

"Do you see yourself living in the same house until MM graduates high school? Would you consider moving after he leaves for college? Where would you move?" I really haven't thought about it. We've moved every five years since we've been married, but this is the first house we've had that we both agree feels like HOME. Plus our friends live nearby, the schools are good, and so on. We will probably be here at least through middle school if not longer, depending on whether the school situation stays the same. And I'm sure we'd downsize after Monkey Man moves away...we don't need all this room for just the two of us (or maybe we do, heh) so perhaps we'd get a cool condo or something like that. Joey likes having a lot of property to ramble around on so he would probably hate that idea, though. He'd like to move closer to our family, which as most of you readers know it would be a cold day in hell before I'd consent to that. So I guess in summary, I have no freaking idea!

"Have you been looking for a new job or are you happy with the status quo for now?" Funny you should ask. Two weeks ago I got a call from a headhunter that I'd been talking to a few years ago. He had heard that I was a LEED Accredited Professional and had a few opportunities available. I started drafting up my resume and almost had it ready to send to him when I realized that honestly, other than dealing with a super-crabby boss, I like where I work. My friends are there. I have a flexible schedule. I have just enough responsibility to be challenged but not so much that I have to work nights or weekends. And, the other kicker is that two members of our five-person team are leaving in July to head off to MBA programs in other states. Leaving right now would not be a good thing...and honestly, I really have no desire to have a "career" anymore other than exactly what I'm doing. It's not always fulfilling, but it does allow me to do things like take vacations without worrying about what's going on at the office, or taking a half-day off to go to a program at Monkey Man's school. So I guess until something falls into my lap, I'm just going to stay put.

And the final question from today comes from The Piper Family: "How did you end up in the construction field?" Let's just say it was lack of anything better to do. When I graduated from college in 1993, the employment field in this state was pathetic. Seriously, almost no one in my graduating class had a job lined up for after graduation. I really didn't know what I wanted to do - I thought maybe working in a law office would be great and I had done an internship for a team of lawyers and loved it. But unfortunately, I wasn't a paralegal and although I sent resumes to every law firm in the city worth a toot, I didn't get a single interview.

The biggest part of this is that I had decided to move here to be with my boyfriend. A college friend had fixed me up with Bill and we had been doing the "commuter romance" for about six months. We were pretty serious and I figured if I moved here then the natural progression would be that we'd eventually end up married. The friend that fixed us up had gotten a job up around DC so her parents kindly offered me a place to live for free until I could find a job and an apartment.

The other part is that my parents told me I had to have a job by June 30th or I was going to have to move back home. That was clearly not an option for me.

So anyhow, Bill's stepdad worked for this big mechanical contractor here in town and mentioned that I could probably get a job there. All I knew about mechanical contractors was way back when I was in community college and working the night shift at the Super 8 Motel, there was a group of mechanical contractors staying there for about two months while working at a glass factory. There was this one really hot guy who would bring me dinner and milkshakes all the time, so I was pretty smitten with him. And no, I didn't go to his room with him. Anyhow, all I knew was that mechanical contractors at least made enough to buy milkshakes for girls at hotels. I didn't exactly know what they did, although later on I got to know way more about ductwork, piping, and sewer lines than a girl should know.

I got the name of the office manager at the company and sent her a resume. And then sent her another letter. And then called her. Finally, she called me and said, "You are probably the most persistent person I've ever seen, so I have to bring you in for an interview and see what you're all about." I went in for the interview and although they didn't have a position open, they ended up creating a job for me and the rest is history. I stayed there almost three years until I got sick of the BS there (lots of female beeyotchy politics there) and ended up with my current job. I've been here almost 12 years. Shit, I've been doing this for a loooong time.

Oh, and what happened with Bill you might ask? Well, I discovered that maybe the long distance thing worked better for us. Seriously, the guy was annoying as crap. For one thing, he was a bodybuilder and ex-Marine, so not only was his diet totally bizarre but his table manners were atrocious. Like picking up an entire chicken breast on his fork and gnawing on it like a wolf. He worked as a manager at a video store...not a district manager of Blockbuster like he'd told me. It was some random video store chain here in town. And the kicker was he lived with his mom and stepdad - it was supposed to be a temporary situation, but then when they started building a new house and took me on a tour, I realized that they were building enough room for all three of her sons to live there FOREVER. And the sons didn't seem to really want to live on their own. Red alert! FREAKS. So we broke up, he cried, and I moved on to an even worse boyfriend for the next two years. Sometimes life sucks that way.

So anyhow, if ya wanna know my deepest, darkest secrets...leave 'em in the comments!