No medal needed

So all this week, Monkey Man has asked me repeatedly why I won't be getting a trophy or a ribbon for the race today.

My answer? If I can finish without dying, I'm already a winner.

Seriously, though, today is not about being the fastest or making a personal best time. Today, over 200 people and I will be running, walking, crawling, or whatever in support of our friend Tommy.

I've known Tommy for over 10 years. He owns one of the largest subcontractors in the state and we've done at least 20 projects together. Tommy is in his 40's, is married with three kids.

Tommy has cancer. Bad cancer. Esophagal, liver, and bile duct. The nasty ones.

So today, I'm a member of Team Tommy. We'll be the obnoxious, hooping and hollering people in the bright blue shirts with "Boom Boom Boom" on the back. We're hoping for a cure for Tommy - and for other people - and everyone racing today is running to raise money for the local cancer center.

Tommy is a class act. I remember many times when I was stuck out in the trailer at the Huge Corporate Office Job that he would make a special effort to come back there just to say hi to me. It meant a lot, especially on the days when I was wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into.

Team Tommy will be rocking the hizzouse today. So I better get my ass in gear and go meet the chicas. Pictures forthcoming tomorrow....

Pass the Kool Aid

Today I had the pleasure of sitting through a CQM class all freaking day. All Freaking Day.

CQM stands for Construction Quality Management and it's some fancy-schmancy thing that you have to do to get government contracts for construction. They sent seven of us to the class, and I'm not exactly sure why since our chances of actually getting any government work is pretty much slim to none.

What I did find is that not only was it one step from making me want to drink the Magic Kool Aid and go to sleep forever, but the freaking government has acronyms for everything. By the end of the class, my cohorts and I were scribbling notes to each other making up acronyms like FUCKU and really mature stuff like that. It was seriously the most boring class I have ever attended, to the point that when I was taking notes I actually found myself drifting off to sleep as I was writing. This was after I skipped my workout last night so I could get a good night's sleep and not be tired. Obviously that wasn't working for me. I kept drinking water and juice and sodas so that my bladder would be so uncomfortable that I wouldn't drift off to sleep.

The instructor had been a QC guy for the Navy for years and years, and was really into the topic. I would probably be safe in saying that the class was totally not into the class. And as the class went on and on and we all got more and more overloaded with information, the snappier the instructor got and by the end he was almost indignant that we didn't find the QCM process the most fascinating topic in the entire universe and beyond.

And then there was a test. Oops. All of us passed except one of the girls, who at that point was so agitated and over everything that she walked out before she even found out what her score was. I think she was secretly afraid that if she found out (and then the rest of us found out) that there would a company-wide e-mail tomorrow:

"Congratulations to all who passed the exam yesterday, except Christine - who was probably outside smoking during most of the class instead of actually being inside paying attention to the class that The Company paid big bucks for her to take, not to mention that she complained bitterly about having deli trays for lunch."

So between now being CQM certified and a LEED Accredited Professional, it means that I am qualified to do absofuckinglutely nothing. Although I am adept at sitting through long, painfully boring seminars and have eaten a lot of deli meat. I guess that will look good on my resume.

Indentured servitude

Last night at dinner:

Monkey Man: Mommy, can you please cut up my chicken?

A few minutes goes by...

Monkey Man: Mommy, can you please get me some more milk?

Another minute or two later...

Monkey Man: Mommy, I need a napkin!

Me: Any other demands, Your Highness?

Monkey Man (thoughtfully): No, all of my other demands are for Daddy.


Good thing, because this indentured servant really wanted to eat at least a bite or two of her dinner before it got cold.

This and that

This livin' right is gunna kill me

Week two of my Fitness Makeover Extravaganza. Unfortunately, my intake of a Fiber One bar yesterday caused some, um, digestive discomfort so I was forced to take the day off for fear of sharting myself on the treadmill.

Yes, I said shart.

Other than that, it's going pretty well. And my first race of the season is Saturday. I am not ready, and I'm praying for no sharting.

*****

Deja Vu

I was reading GMan's blog tonight about his son's weekend visit and the disaster that was his formerly clean closet. Boy, did that bring back some memories.

When Joey and I first got married, his brother Kenny lived with us. He was single, worked for Joey, and generally had zero ambition. We had been talking for months about him finding his own place to live, because dude - it ain't cool to crash with your brother and his new wife. Not to mention that although I love the guy to death, he is a horrible slob. Before I moved in, the two of them refused to wash any dishes so they either ate off plastic or threw away the dishes, pots and pans as they used them. Kenny's room typically looked like a bomb had hit it - his typical MO every morning was to pick clothes up off of the floor, sniff them, and then deem if they were non-toxic enough to wear.

So about two months after we got married, I was doing my weekly cleaning of our house and opened the guest room door to get out the vacuum cleaner only to find a pile of black socks about two feet high. I stalked into our living room where Mr. Clueless was playing video games and demanded to know if those were his socks in there.

"Yeah, dude...they smelled so bad I didn't want them in my room."

And that was the day his welcome was officially worn out.

*****

Moon river

Today was my monthly waxing appointment, and if you've been hanging around here for a while you know that this can be a very traumatic day for me. Today, not so bad - but mostly because that damn JoAnn had me rolling on the floor telling me about her appointment yesterday.

Apparently, JoAnn is the only person at the salon that will do Brazillian waxing. And if you don't know what that is, it means you're waxing the whole enchilada, from the rooter to the tooter. I personally would rather wax my entire head than have hot wax that close to the tooter, but hey - whatever floats your boat.

So her last appointment of the day yesterday was a new client who wanted a Brazillian. JoAnn kept waiting and waiting for the client to show up, and finally she went up to the reception area to see if the woman had called in and she saw this, um, rather large woman coming into the salon. It was her client, who probably tipped the scales at a very conservative 350 pounds.

So JoAnn took her on back to the waxing room and got down to business. Keep in mind that in order to give someone a Brazillian (and this is all according to JoAnn, so if this is wrong set me straight) the subject must get on their hands and knees in order to apply the wax to the nether regions. Oh my God. The wierd part was that the woman's husband kept calling her cell phone through the entire thing and the woman was cooing into her cell phone, "Oooh bay-bee, I'm-a doin' this jist fer yew....."

"My God," signed JoAnn, "Thank goodness she was my last appointment of the day. Because that was a lot of ass to wax."

Um, ewwww.

*****

Shout out to the big pimp daddy

I just have to say congratulations to Joey today. He booked a $2 million contract today, giving them the largest backlog (that's upcoming projects logged on the books that haven't started yet) in company history.

He has been on a total roll this year - has booked $8 million in work in the past month. He is on fire.

All I can say is keep it comin', big daddy. Mama needs some more bling and getting our bathroom redone would be great too. And maybe I can let you have more than a quarter a week for your allowance.

*****

Well, that was an interesting post. Sharting and Brazillians. Have a good one, y'all.

Hell hath no fury

I had something happen to me last week and it has taken me this long to be able to write about this without being filled with white hot hatred. Not to mention that I find it really hard to find any humor whatsoever in this situation.

I'm normally not a hot-tempered person. I tend to be pretty laid-back in a lot of ways. But insult me, my family, or my friends, and the gloves come off. Question my honesty and integrity, and prepare yourself for my hellish wrath.

We finished the Big Corporate Headquarters project in October 2005. We still haven't been paid for it. The contract that we had was somewhat unusual for this region of the country, where we didn't work directly for the owner - we worked through a huge worldwide construction management company who was hired as the watchdog for the owner. From this point, just out of laziness, I will call them Acme. Throughout the project, Acme Jackass, the rep who handled this project, was extremely difficult to get along with. By the end of the project, everyone including most of the owner's team hated this guy's guts because he was just a total dick.

So in the almost two years since the project was completed and the owner moved into the building, we have been bickering back and forth with Acme over issues. Most of them were minor, one of them was pretty major in that the rooftop units that were purchased by the owner and assigned to our contract to install and make sure they ran, don't work worth a flying shit. I think we might have this finally resolved, but it should not have held up our payments on this project. If anything, they should've withheld a small percentage of the project to cover any repair costs and/or replacing the craptastic units. This is a huge risk that we take as contractors when we deal with "assignments" of equipment purchased by a building owner - they can buy a total piece of shit, it can be delivered 6 months late, never work right, and WE end up being on the hook for it. Hardly fair, but it's a risk that we take to work on some projects.

Anyhow, we have been through two financial audits by an independent auditor. I have personally answered every stinking question that has been brought up by Acme to the point where I have dug through filing cabinets looking for invoices from 2004 for something that cost $24. I shit you not. The last time the auditor came, he complimented us on our work and said that we had not only addressed all of his issues but that he was going to recommend that we were paid immediately.

Well, that was what - a month ago? We bickered back and forth with Acme some more. And finally, last week, our Big Boss went and met with the owner and the Acme rep to try and hammer out a financial settlement to finally get us our money. When it all came down to it, it was more prudent for us to lose a couple of hundred thousand dollars so we could get our money versus putzing around for another six months with the potential of still getting screwed. So we took the settlement offer. I haven't sat down yet to figure out exactly how far we got bent over (it involves some shared savings that we were awarded yet a bunch of change orders for extra work that they refused to pay) but I would say it's probably in the $200K range.

But the kicker - and the thing that made me go totally ballistic - was the Acme Jackass telling the Big Boss that "the reason we didn't pay before now is that we weren't sure that the subcontractor payments were entirely legitimate."

Oh no you didn't just say that.

See, subcontractor payments are my baby. That is what the main part of my job is. I take a lot of pride in my job - I believe that people deserve to be paid for the work that they've done. Now, if they fucked it up or never showed up, that's a whole other story. But I've been on the subcontractor side before - hell, I married into the subcontractor community - and I will never, ever screw a subcontractor. Period. So to have this jackwad at Acme question my ability, my honesty, and my integrity totally sent me off the deep end. I suspect that Heather and GMan probably heard me all the way in Baltimore when my mouth exploded into a string of expletives that would make a sailor blush. Hell, Gretchen probably heard me way out in her neck of the woods!

The most irritating part, other than having my work questioned, is that we provided backup on top of backup and then more backup for the backup throughout this entire project. Copies of subcontractor invoices. Copies of checks. Copies of final lien waivers. There was no way in hell that I was leaving any loose end out there for Acme Jackass to find because I knew how he was going to play all of this. Even the auditor told me that we had more than adequately explained any oddities that he had found. So for Acme Jackass to pull this stunt at the last minute - not to mention to my Big Boss - was way over the top even for him.

And then today, a new list of demands from Acme Jackass about things they want before they will pay us, including lien waivers for people who literally did $100 worth of work on this $40 million project. This will be a humongous pain in my ass for the next week while I call these people and beg for a lien waiver for a project that they finished over two years ago. Most of these little companies don't have offices, fax machines, or email, so imagine how fun this is going to be for me.

I have always done my best for my clients. I have always done my best for the people that work for us as subcontractors. And I have never been so insulted professionally in my entire life. I realize that the jackass from Acme is pulling every excuse out of the book to keep himself on the owner's payroll a little longer, but puhleeze - pull a more legitimate excuse out of your ass next time, dude. Really.

So I told SG and Cat Door M about this over the past few days since they worked on the project with me and are acutely aware of Acme Jackass' past hijinks. And Cat Door said it best when he told me, "Liz, I don't think there's a single person out there that would ever think you gave it less than your very best."

I hope not. I try to do the best in everything I do. Yes, I'm human. Yes, I screw up sometimes. But I always try to be fair, honest, and live my life with enough integrity that I can look myself in the mirror every day.

I wonder if Acme Jackass can say the same thing. I sincerely doubt it. And mark my words, if I ever see him walking down the street I will run him down with my car and then back over him. Twice. You know, because I have so much integrity that I wouldn't want him to suffer longer than he has to. I'm a nice person that way.

And that's all I have to say about that. And to you, Mr. Acme Jackass:

So much for that idea

Remember yesterday's post?

Take one 5-year-old who is for some odd reason jacked up beyond all belief and literally bouncing off the walls from the moment he wakes up. Then add a second 5-year-old whose parents are dancing for joy in the driveway as you load him up and drive away. Throw in a basketball game, some chicken nuggets, and a bunch of toys and you have a woman who is getting her tubes tied first thing in the morning if at all possible.

It has been a hell of a weekend. Not necessarily in a bad way, but in a "I need to go back to work so I can get some rest" way. Monkey Man had tae kwon do yesterday morning, we came home and I got in a two-hour workout and caught up on a little DVR action, and then we had plans to run to a couples baby shower and by SG and Mrs. SG's house to see the new baby.

Well, the shower plans were all screwed up. See, Monkey Man wasn't invited. By Thursday night, our normally Most Reliable Babysitter Ever had bailed out on us and our three backups were already busy. I guess I could've asked one of the Neighborhood Badasses if they minded watching him for a few hours, but I figured that Joey was totally not into going to this shower anyway (even though the dad-to-be is HIS friend) so it would be a good excuse to drop the gift off and run.

So we went to see the baby (who was totally the cutest thing ever) and then we got lost on the way to the shower. We finally came rolling in the door half an hour late only to discover that the honorees weren't even there yet. And we knew no one at the party. In our marriage, I'm the social one while Joey tends to be far more reclusive...well, he was like a turtle hiding in his shell, and when I discovered exactly who was at the shower I felt like an awkward preteen all over again. See, I put two and two together when I was looking at the shower invitation and figured out that the friends of Mom-to-be were from my hometown (just like Mom-to-be is).

You see, I only lived there for about two years - my senior year of high school, and then for slightly over a year when I dropped out of college during a temporary moment of insanity. And I went to the county high school - not the city high school - and there was a certain degree of "us" versus "them" when I was there. Well, this crowd went to the city high school and they were the golden kids - you know the ones that live in the big fancy neighborhood and daddy buys them cars and they have a live-in maid, etc. Well, I might be almost 20 years removed from it, but the social stigma of being a "county girl" still sticks. For example, the conversation last night...

Me: So Martha, are you from Hometown?

Martha: Yes, yes I am! Did you go to City High School?

Me: No, I went to County School. I only went there my senior year of high school and then I went off to Huge University....

Martha: Oh...that must have been a long year...

And suddenly, everyone who had turned their ears to our conversation suddenly dropped me like a hot potato. And I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there, because it was made painfully apparent that I Am Not Nor Will I Ever Be One of The Privileged Ones. Ouch.

So there's that. And you know, there are so many people I've met over the years that went to the same school - like my college roommate Kim and all of her friends - that never made me feel like I wasn't on equal par with them because I went to the less prestigious school. They always made me feel like I belonged. It just goes to show you that some people grow up and move on, and some remain shallow little bitches where it really matters when you're 30-something that someone didn't go to the "right" high school. Whatthefuckever.

On to Outback for dinner, where we ran into SG and the family. Small world! He was standing outside chugging a gin and tonic and shaking like a leaf. When they arrived at the restaurant, they got on the waiting list and when it was time for them to be seated, a patron of the restaurant started choking and the restaurant staff was unable to do the Heimlich and get the object out of the guy. He ended up passing out. So Mrs. SG, who is a trained professional in the medical field, got the guy on the floor and did the Advanced Heimlich and finally got the crap out of the guy's throat. Apparently, he had half of a steak lodged in the back of his throat. He might want to reconsider doing a better job cutting his meat. So anyhow, the manager treated SG's entire table of 8 to dinner and booze so he made sure to send us a round of drinks. That's my boy!

Today, we took Monkey Man and his buddy Q to see the Harlem Globetrotters. Monkey Man was wild from the moment he got up this morning - my normally well-behaved child was ricocheting off the walls and by 10 AM I told Joey that if he didn't remove said child from my presence that one of us wasn't going to be alive long enough to see the show. And since I'm bigger, I think we know how this equation was going to work out.

The show was really fun, the kids had a great time, and I literally ran smack into the Governor. I was going into the lobby looking for popcorn and drinks and was looking in the wrong direction, he was hauling ass (with his two security goons panting trying to keep up with him) and I ran right into him. Nice. I met the guy about four years ago when he was the city mayor and I had to take him to the restroom at one of our company functions, not like he recognized me but I'm sure he picked up my "I didn't vote for you" vibes.

We picked up McDonald's, brought the little angels home and ate on the deck. They played basketball and proceeded to fight over the little souvenier basketballs even though they were exactly the same. (All the parents reading this nod in unison....) And then it was time for Q to go home.

This is where things go horribly wrong yet again. His dad came to pick him up and he had a complete and total meltdown. Then Monkey Man had a meltdown. Then I had a meltdown - no, wait, I think I'm the ONLY person in this scenario that didn't have a meltdown. I was ecstatic to send him home - not like he's a bad kid, but today he was very demanding and high maintenance which we are totally not used to and it made the game kind of a challenge. Not to mention he almost tipped our couch over, but that's a whole story in and of itself.

So now it's 7:53. I am going to give Monkey Man his shower and send him to bed early. Oh, wait, Joey just came in and volunteered to give him a bath so that I can get started on my workout. Goody, goody. Tomorrow is the beginning of the second week of this debacle, and I think I am seeing some results. However, I am dog ass tired, so I'm not sure if it's worth looking hot when you spend all your spare time unconscious and drooling on the couch.

Tomorrow is another day. I just need to remember to pack my flask, I mean lunch. Just kidding. I really did mean to say flask.

Sniff, sniff

Ya know how it is when you hold a baby...and it's been a long, long time since you've held one?

And then the little sucker falls asleep in your arm and you can just watch them forever and ever while they suck on their pacifier like there's no tomorrow?

And then you watch your five-year-old gently touching the baby's face and covering her little legs up with a blanket?

My ovaries are crying right now. I better go drink some more to make this all go away.

Thanks to SG and the Mrs. for sharing little Peyton with me this afternoon. Between that red hair and those blue eyes, it was hard to give her back.

I've got a confession to make

Since going through rehab for my Def Leppard addiction, I've been hooked into XM channel 48, The Squizz. I guess you could define the music selection as hard alternative rock. Joey, on the other hand, loves channel 41, The Boneyard which is basically old hair bands. The odd thing is that they are mostly hair bands that I don't remember, and I was the freaking queen of the hair bands in my day. You know, back in the day when we rode in covered wagons to school and had to do math on our abacus? Yeah, back then.

I've always liked a huge variety of music. My parents, who were growing up in the 1940's filled our home with Big Band music and show tunes. To this day, I can belt out most of the soundtrack to Porgy and Bess and Oklahoma.

Stop laughing. I really can.

My brother Paul had a rock band when I was like 2 years old, and I used to hang out in our basement with the band while they practiced. They played stuff like the Doobie Brothers and Steppenwolf and your classic 70's stuff. Not to mention that my brother, who is as white as a piece of Wonder Bread but was cursed with the curliest and kinkiest hair ever, was rocking a major afro and would also wear these red, white and blue vinyl bellbottoms.

I listened to your typical Top 40 music through high school. Nothing wierd for me, no sir. Probably the farthest out in left field that I ever got was listening to some old Genesis with my boyfriend Rob, who also introduced me to Steely Dan (an obsession that still seems to wax and wane with me). Not to mention that I was also in the marching band (our specialty was Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart" which is particularly lame to play the flute to), the orchestra (second chair violin, thank you very much!), string quartet, church choir, and of course the drama club. I was dipping into pretty much every musical genre that you could imagine.

Except one. And that wouldn't come until I moved South when I was 18 and discovered country music. Yeah, I'd heard country music before. But somehow listening to it on The Lawrence Welk Show on Sunday night with your parents isn't the same as listening to Randy Travis sing "On the Other Hand". Angry Rocker Ex-Boyfriend Ron introduced me to old school country music as well as southern rock. Before moving down here, I'd never heard of Lynryd Skyryd or maybe I figured they were some sort of disease or something.

And I liked it. And then it went away. I went off to college and submersed myself in God knows what music-wise. You know, I can barely remember my first two years of college (ahem) so I am not even sure what the hell I listened to. Funny how lots of alcohol can do that to you.

When I finally transferred to the school that ended up being my alma mater, I met this girl from my hometown who happened to have landed a teaching job in the same city and we decided to be roommates. (Hi Kim!!!) Soon, I discovered her deep love for country music. We would hang out at home and watch CMT in it's infancy and listen to Garth Brooks (this was like the first year he was popular) and go to this place in town where they had line dancing and these tall handsome Marines from the local base would come down hoping to find a cute college girl to dance with. We had the requisite acid-wash jeans, boot shoes, black belts with silver buckles, and just enough attitude that we would get out there and dance our asses off.

And it was during this time that I became a member of the Reba McEntire fan club. Looking back now, I can't believe that I actually joined it. We did get to go backstage for a meet & greet which was basically like 50 fan club members herded into a back room where she came and posed for photos and such, so that was really cool.

But the best part of it all was that even though country music wasn't (and still isn't) one of my favorite genres, it gave me a common bond with Kim and I'd like to think it was a great part in making us friends.

So anyhow, I hadn't thought about any of this in years until GMan and I were emailing each other about music recently - I offered to burn a CD for him with some of my lovely angry music and the subject of me belonging to the Reba fan club came up. Not to mention that a few weeks ago when we were in Las Vegas, I heard that song of hers "Whoever's In New England" and I was belting it out just like it was 1992 and I was in our living room.

While it might be a mild embarrassment now (not only for me, but for poor Reba - who wants someone that likes Sevendust claiming to be a member of their fan club?), I'm thankful for it. Not to mention it totally freaks Joey out when we're riding down the road and I start singing along with the radio. He thinks I'm a closet listener - and that's not the case, but typically when we're listening it's stuff that was popular back in 1992. Hardly fair, but the freakout factor is significant.

Lame, lame, lame

Here I was being all cocky and thinking that I was going to have a really great post for today. And then my plans got cancelled, so I got nothin' other than a boring super secret cocktail party for work that was pretty lame. Not even anything good out of there other than finding out one of my coworkers had a boob job about 5 years ago. Yawn.

Did I mention that this little exercise program is killing me? And my brain cells, too?

Tune in tomorrow. Seriously, I got nothin'.

Obviously, the term "sexual harassment" means nothing at our office

This morning, I was walking out of the kitchen when my coworker Jim beckoned to me from his office. Jim is going through a nasty separation which will probably lead to d-i-v-o-r-c-e right now and two of the girls in our office fixed him up with someone they used to work with years ago. She's divorced, not really having any luck in the dating department, and when they showed me her profile on Match I immediately noticed that her screen name pretty much screamed "I am desperate for Hot Monkey Sex ASAP!!!!!" A perfect match for Jim, who probably hasn't gotten laid in about two years.

So they've been out a few times, he's asked me for some basic dating advice in the past and since I dated approximately 992 people in my illustrious dating career, I feel like I have achieved some sort of expert status. But today, I wasn't really prepared for this conversation.

Jim: Hey, so she and I, ya know, kinda hooked up on Monday night!

Me: Oh really? Thank God. So how did it go?

Jim: Well, good and bad.

Me: Uh oh. What happened?

Jim: Well, on the good side, she gave me a blow job.

Me: Ooookay...

Jim: And on the bad side, well, let's just say that I had a hard time rising to the occasion. I think I'm just not that into her.

Me: Oh damn, don't tell me you are one of those "I'm just not that into you" assholes, please?

Jim: But I swear to God, I have never, ever had this problem before. Maybe I should go see a doctor. There might be something wrong with me!

Me: Did you ever stop to think that maybe you aren't ready to move on? Like you haven't really resolved yourself to giving up on your marriage?

Jim: Damn, Liz, it was a blow job. How freaking hard could that be to get it up for that? I mean, actual sex is one thing, but a blow job?

Me: I'm just saying, maybe deep down inside you feel like you're not ready to carry this relationship to the next level.

Jim: I think I probably ought to go to the doctor. Ya know, get it checked out.

Me: I guess it wouldn't hurt...

Jim: Yeah, I just don't get it. I mean, the thing works fine on manual.

File this conversation under "Things I wish I didn't know about my coworkers." Thanks.

Hi, my name is Liz and I'm a big fat wimp

Last July, I went out and got myself a really cool bike. I rode it quite a bit last year with the hopes of beating the boredom of running on the treadmill all the time.

Today was a gorgeous day - 75 degrees and sunny. And I was hellbound and determined to get the bike out today and ride. Not only that, I was going to teach Monkey Man to ride his bike as well. I must be an idiot. First of all, trying to teach a five-year-old who is totally uninterested in riding his bike how to do it is impossible. When I was his age, I would ride up and down the roads (and a freaking mountain, for pete's sake) all day long. Now I can't even get this kid to ride the bike five feet. Next thing you know, he's going to want to hire one of the kids up the street to ride his bike for him. Kids these days! Anyhow, I pulled my bike out of the garage and discovered that the rear tire was pretty low (and I don't know where the air compressor is) so Monkey Man and I entertained ourselves with a rousing game of basketball until Joey got home. And by the way, Monkey Man cheats at basketball. It's so not fair.

Once Joey got home, I bribed him to pump up my tires and off I went. Cool and confident, bike helmet on and running tights too (ya know so you don't snag the ol' pants leg and tank into the road messing up the dental work your parents paid millions of dollars for), I headed on down the street. I was looking forward to having a great ride just like the ones that I did last year.

What I didn't remember from last year was that it appears that our neighborhood goes uphill. There is no downhill here. And how that is physically possible is beyond me.

Thirty minutes later, I finally pulled back into the driveway with my head pounding so hard that I thought my brains were going to come shooting out of my eyeballs and my arms are still shaking. What in the hell my arms have to do with riding a bike (other than holding the handlebars) I have no clue.

And here I sit. Head pounding, coughing my lungs up, and jonesing for a Girl Scout cookie. Or twenty.

Kicking myself in the ass, join in if you want to!

So it's all come down to this:

I have gained back six pounds. All those fancy-schmancy dinners, desserts, and living the high life over the past few months have paid in dividends. Dividends located on my big fat butt.

Ever since I lost all the weight, I've been fanatical about weighing every single day. I guess I fell off the weigh-in wagon back in late January when all this traveling around got started. You miss one day...eh, it will be fine...then a week goes by...and the next thing you know, your fat pants are starting to feel a little tighter.

Then there's the exercise issue. I haven't run or done anything in almost two months. Well, really a month-and-a-half but I'm being mean to myself here. I had gotten into a routine of treadmill and weights and abs at least three days a week, usually four. I was looking pretty good.

Complacency has always been my biggest enemy. I have struggled with my weight for my entire life. It sucks, but both sides of my family have members with pretty serious weight issues and I don't want to end up diabetic or with heart problems. But I tend to let myself slide when I feel good about things. Oh hell, even when I feel bad about things. This winter has been particularly challenging - for some reason, I've really struggled with my mood and trying to stay upbeat. Funny how my mind never pictured the endorphins from exercise keeping me from going postal on someone, but that's just the way I roll.

I'm one of those people who has to mentally prepare for a while before dieting or making any kind of life changes. So I've been kind of ramping myself up for a few days, thinking about things that I can do to make myself feel better about who I am, not to mention that warm weather is coming and the thought of myself in a bathing suit is almost more than I can stand.

So it all starts again. I got on ifit.com and found a page of workout routines and decided to go with the eight-week program designed for busy moms. I went to the store and stocked up on Kashi and fruit and all kinds of stuff. I have that 10K on the 31st and I am excited about that for the first time since I signed up.

I've got to get past the "diet" mentality and start living it like my lifestyle. I will never look like a supermodel. I will never be super skinny. All I want is to be healthy and toned. I want to take care of myself. I want to be able to run up a flight of stairs without feeling like I'm going to die. I want to be around a long time to see Monkey Man grow up, to go on vacations, to continue my never-ending search for the perfect eye cream, and to get lots of bling. I want it all! And I worked way too hard to lose all the weight to allow myself to backslide. I am declaring war on my big fat ass.

But to do this, some stuff is going to have to give. Like blogging - it's not that I'm going anywhere, but I might not post every day for a while and I will probably bore y'all to tears about fiber grams and workout routines and bitching about how I hate to drink water. I'd really like to give up doing laundry, but that ain't happening. If my camera battery wasn't dead, I'd take a picture of the mountain of laundry that is currently occupying our bedroom floor and you'd realize that quitting laundry would mean imminent death by being smothered with dirty socks. Not a good thing.

So that's it in a nutshell. To summarize: my ass is huge, I hate drinking water, and our laundry is suffocating us. Test tomorrow at 10 AM.

It was all fun until the ugly "Ma'am" incident

Despite my belief that last night was doomed to be a night filled with disaster, last night was pretty fun.

Marie ended up taking the boys to Build A Bear Workshop. Until now, we have avoided that firy pit of hell by some grace (and skill), but now we're doomed to whining every time we pass by the damn place. I have to admit, though, that Monkey Man did a good job picking out the newest member of our family - a turtle wearing a basketball uniform and holding a basketball. It is really, really cute. So he was pretty ramped up about that this morning and I think missing the monster trucks was kind of lost there in the fuzz of his memories. At least until the next time he sees a monster truck.

We headed downtown where we were supposed to meet Harper, Debbie, David and Yvonne at one of the Irish pubs down there. From what I had read in the newspaper yesterday, it was supposed to be one of the biggest parties in town and it was starting around 6:30. Well, when we rode down there at 6 the line was around the block and word on the street was that the place was already bursting at the seams. So we drove around the block, found the cheapest valet parking ever ($4! In downtown!) and went to one of the "old school" restaurants in the city. David ended up being a wuss so they didn't show, but Harper and Debbie brought along their neighbors from next door and then another couple from down the street - and the husband had brought his non-English speaking mother and sister.

Now, I can't even imagine how bored the mother and sister must've been. Apparently, the four of them had been catting around town since 1 PM and by this point it was close to 7 and they looked bored to tears. Either that, or as Joey said later, they were thinking "Stupid Americans, what the hell are these people doing?" Which is probably the case.

Drinks and dinner were fun, especially when I found out that the neighbors are best friends with one of the owners of my company - who happens to be going through an extremely nasty divorce because he left his wife of almost 30 years for a woman younger than I am. I got all kinds of juicy scoop, none of which I'll be able to use for fear of hurting anyone's feelings - but dayum, it was some good stuff.

So once dinner was over, the debate started about where we should go. We went to the club downstairs in the restaurant, which was a total joke. I don't think anyone in there was much over 21 and there were no other older people in there except maybe the bouncers. Then we got a call that Joey's cousin Taylor was having a little birthday party a block away at a brewpub. Against our better judgement, we slid on down there to check in on him and see a few other cousins and friends from back home who happened to be there. Now, keep in mind that these kids are like in their mid-20's at the oldest.

I got carded at the door! Joey didn't, of course, because he looks like he's around 50. But I was so happy, so cocky that I went sashaying up the stairs to the pool tables where the gang had congregated along with 952 empty Bud Light bottles. It was pretty impressive. We snagged a few beers from the guys and were having a great time.

So we're hanging out, and the waitress comes over. "So, someone told me that you're one of these guys' parents - which one belongs to you?"

I was mortified. But not as much as when we were leaving and one of the college girls called me "ma'am". Ugh. Yeah, I realize it's a sign of respect, but damn - ma'am? Do I look like a ma'am? You don't have to answer that.

So we went slinking out the door where the PimpMobile was idling at the curb and came on home to hang out with Marie, who totally empathized with us on feeling old as shit.

And speaking of feeling like shit, or old shit, we are both feeling bad today. I didn't have much to drink at all, but I have tasted dinner over and over and so has Joey. Even a trip to the Almighty Temple of the Waffle this morning hasn't taken that raw feeling out of my stomach. I suspect it was the garlic mashed potatoes, because Joey had the same thing and feels the same way.

Anyhow, enough whining. I am doing NOTHING today. NOTHING. Maybe a few loads of laundry, but as soon as I finish this my rump will be on the sofa with a pillow and a quilt - or my name ain't "ma'am".

I think we've succeeded in crushing his little spirit

Plans were hatched a week ago for a little adults-only outing tonight to imbibe in some Irish festivities. Considering I'm the only one in the crew who is even 1/18th Irish, I find this amusing. But whatever.

Babysitter was procured. This is Marie, who is one of Monkey Man's old teachers and she also has a four-year-old son that MM adores. The best part of this arrangement was that Marie was going to take the boys to a monster truck show tonight.

Alas, Marie's son is sick with a bad inner ear infection and the doctor says he can't go. So none of them are going.

Monkey Man is devastated. And I guess we could (should?) cancel our plans for tonight and take him, but we decided not to. The tickets available suck big wang, it's in an indoor coliseum that will make it louder than hell, and frankly we just don't want to go. Does that make us bad parents?

So I found out the big show we went to last year on Mother's Day weekend is going to be back again this year. On Mother's Day weekend. So I guess I will be spending Mother's Day weekend covering my ears and smelling fumes and getting sunburned. Unless I wear a Diva Hat.

I think he's okay now, but I'm a little sad. I hate seeing him get disappointed. I know disappointment is part of life, and he should learn that he doesn't always get to do everything he wants to do every time. Shit happens. People get sick. Things get cancelled.

But part of me feels bad for not cancelling our plans and taking him anyway. And a teensy part of me is a little resentful that yet again, I will be forgoing breakfast in bed on Mother's Day to spend it walking around a bunch of trucks on steroids.

On the other hand, though, I can't think of a better way to spend the day than with my favorite little fellow. Monster trucks or not.

Curses, foiled again

I still have a job, dammit.

Back in the days of yore when I was young and naive, I would get all gussied up for my yearly performance review. I honestly believed that that day, more than any other day, would be the defining moment of my destiny. What I realized about four years ago is that it really didn't matter if I wore a suit and heels or sweatpants and sneakers that day - my fate had been decided days beforehand. Sometimes, it's better to be naive. Not to mention, flashing boobs at the office should be used in a crisis situation only - all of my bras have "Rip open in case of emergency" right on the back label. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

This is my tenth year of The Annual Dog and Pony Show. Last year, I was bitterly unhappy since two of my best friends had quit the company to go onto bigger and better things (one worked out, the other failed but since then has managed to pull things together) and I was just pissed. I felt like the company owed me something other than the occasional pilfered pen or pad of Post-Its. I wanted a real job. And I interviewed with a bigger, more prestigious company and was offered a real job. And turned it down. And after doing that, I was even more bitter and unhappy than ever. This would be around the time that I started listening to bitter and unhappy music again, but that's a whole other post in itself.

Things happen for a reason. I've always believed that. Like the time I had a horrible at-home waxing accident - sometimes, you need to have these things happen to realize that maybe things aren't as easy as they seem at the time. When my dad almost died and then within two months we came narrowly close to almost losing Monkey Man, suddenly having a real job wasn't so important anymore. I didn't care about the title, the pay, or any of that extraneous crap. What mattered was surrounding myself with people who actually gave a shit about me as a person and what was going on in my life. The people I work with are like family to me. A dysfunctional family, but they are mine warts and all.

I went into the review preparing to be disappointed. Last year I didn't even get a cost of living increase, and for several years I've gotten the whole "you're maxxed out salary-wise for your position" speech. I had also heard the office scuttlebutt that all everyone was getting was 3% max for raises if they even received one.

It was me, EPOD, and Boss of EPOD. And damn, I had to sit there for twenty minutes and listen to glowing praise and requests to help design flowcharts and procedural manuals, and then they gave me a nice little raise. More than the rumored 3%. I was shocked. And actually, a tad bit irritated because the bastards gave me nothing to kvetch about.

So I did what any normal person would do who just got a glowing review and a nice raise:

I took a long lunch.
I screwed around on the internet (so if you check your SiteMeter today and see that I clicked in like 28 times, sorry!)
G-Man and I emailed back and forth about music and the Harlem Globetrotters umpteen times
I left promptly at 4:00

A good, honest day's work. My dad would be so proud.

Now, a theoretical question. Let's say you were going to an Irish pub on St. Patrick's Day and didn't own anything green that you liked. Would you risk going "greenless" and be pinched all night, or wear the ugly green thing instead? Personally, at my age, a little pinchy-pinchy might be nice.

Dirty girl

That was me. Until about an hour ago.

I spent almost all day today working in the project archives at the office. One of the least fun chores ever, but something that had to be done. Legally, we have to keep things five years and then they can be tossed. There was still shit from 1975 in there. So starting last week, all the ladies in the project management group chipped in and today we finished at last. And hopefully by the next time the archives need tending to again, I'll either be dead or retired.

So I went in the bathroom to wash my hands, and it was like watching black water go sliding down the drain. My hands haven't been that dirty in a long, long time. Poop and/or vomit don't count. And of course, I still had about two hours left at the office so I sat there at my desk and felt itchy.

But it was okay. I was fine. Until Christine, my partner in crime, came in and told me that she had found a bug in her pants. A bug. In her pants. So then I was not only itchy, but felt like I had critters crawling all over me too.

I couldn't get home fast enough to hose down with lots of super hot water and soap. And a Brillo pad. But you know how that goes - I still feel itchy and kind of gross. I hate that!

The boys are getting a haircut tonight. So I am alone in the house, the dog is outside barking at God knows what, and it is blissfully silent. Aaaah. Okay, that's enough of that. A little Sevendust and it's all good. Now I feel like I should be itchy and gross.

So I haven't talked about music for like two posts now, right? My latest downloads (over the past few weeks):

"Mojo" by Peeping Tom. Yeah, it's about doing drugs. But I like it, it's got a good groove. And the little Britney Spears dig at the end doesn't hurt either.

"The Older I Get" by Skillet. It makes me giggle that I'm listening to music by a band named after something I cook Hamburger Helper in, but I love this song.

"Driven" by Sevendust. I love Sevendust. 'Nuff said.

And there are a bunch of others, some stuff from a few years ago that I guess I missed out on the first time. I have a lot of catching up to do. But you know what group makes me want to ram an ice pick in my head? Hinder. That damn song "Lips of an Angel" makes me want to smack the shit out of somebody. Jackass, does he really expect us to feel sorry for him because his girlfriend is in the other room and he can't talk to the ex-girlfriend? Boo fucking hoo. And the rest of their stuff is just formulaic crap.

Ahem.

This weekend, we will discuss my dating advice to my coworker. Helping someone pick out condoms when they haven't bought any since, oh probably 1993, is pretty entertaining. And I am sure that I will have a few bitter comments about my yearly performance review which is scheduled for 9:30 tomorrow morning (with my boxes packed promptly by 9:35 AM).

Off to rock out.

The light is at the end of the tunnel - no wait, that's a train coming to run my ass over

So since my nose hasn't fallen off yet, I have been kind of scrounging around for stuff to talk about this week. This post-vacation letdown really sucks, because after Vegas somehow life at home seems kind of, uh, dull.

But then we got some big news today. Potentially life-improving news. Almost too good to be true.

As a little background, Joey is part-owner of a subcontracting company. For obvious reasons, I'm not going to name names or what kind of business it is because I don't want this Googled until the end of time. But he has two partners - one is the money man, one is the operations guy, and Joey is in charge of bidding all the work.

It's a really hard, stressful job. He works usually over 60 hours a week not including time he works out of our home office. When you have over 150 employees to keep busy, it's more than a full-time job. For years, he's been hoping to find someone to help him keep up with the estimating. About eight years ago, he had someone that he trained to be his protege and as it turns out, the guy got a little greedy and quit to go somewhere else (and of course within 6 months was back begging for his job back and Joey told him to fuck off). Since then, he hasn't found anyone even remotely qualified that could hit the ground running without years of extensive training. What they do is pretty technically complex, with dozens of systems that have to be learned and it takes years for someone to be competent at estimating this kind of work. So obviously hiring someone with a lick of sense in their heads would behoove them, but they hadn't had any luck.

Until this week. On Monday, they got a phone call from a guy who worked for one of their competitors and had abruptly quit. He was entertaining some offers from two other decent companies, but had been wanting to come meet Joey and his partners because they've been a good, stable company for almost 15 years and that's the kind of place he wants to work for.

He has lots of experience. The salary range was perfect. And they all clicked immediately. This guy can hit the ground running tomorrow and be bidding work right away. So they offered him the job, and he took it and thanked them profusely for the opportunity.

All I can think of is that after the last few years where Joey has been bidding all this work single-handedly, that maybe I'll get my husband back. There are some weeks like we've had this year where he's had upwards of 19 projects to bid in a single day. That's gotta be rough. Right before we left for Vegas, he booked almost $5 million in contracts, which sums up about 1/4 of their yearly sales. In one week. It is crazy.

But speaking of crazy, when we were in Vegas we had heard that this particular company that the guy had quit from was having a lot of internal problems. "Problems" would be a huge understatement. Let's call the owner "Bob". Bob was building this multi-million dollar house here in town and started running out of money, so he began pulling money out of the company to pay his bills. In the meantime, in the hopes of getting his business to make more money so that he could afford this house, he brought his cousin Vinny down from New York to make some operational changes. Vinny thought it would be a fabulous idea to restructure the business and include things like a CEO and a Board of Directors. Y'all, this is for a company that has like 8 employees, so in a case like that it was totally ridiculous.

Now while Vinny was making all these changes, Bob got caught by his wife schtupping their housekeeper so now she is divorcing him and she will inevitably get half of the business anyway. Well, what's left of it because the entire office staff quit last Friday, including this guy that Joey hired.

And you might think that this is all great for Joey, right? Yeah, but it sucks for me. Because guess who has Bob's company working on her latest project? Doh! All I can say is that it's no wonder we couldn't get anyone at the office to return our calls for the last three days. They're all gone.

And that, my friends, is yet another chapter in my life in construction.

He might be short, but he plays a mean game

So, what do you do when you've had a long day at work? Corgi Ball, of course!

"Mom, can we go outside? Please Mom? Please? Mom? Please? Outside?"












He plays a mean guard:















He tries to steal the ball:















The dog seriously LOVES to play basketball. One of these days I'm going to YouTube his ass actually using his front paws to dribble the basketball. It's pretty hysterical.

The cuteness factor is somewhat outweighed by the fact that he is annoying as crap when anyone has any kind of spherical object out and whatever you give him will inevitably be coated in slimy drool. Ew.

But I'm hoping that when he finally makes the CBA (Corgi Basketball Association), he will be able to buy himself this big fat doghouse he's been eyeing lately. From the website:

"Treat your pet like royalty! This estate house designed and built by Alan Mowrer, can be constructed with countless interior and exterior options. Whether it is cable, running water, electricity, central air or a wireless communication system, Alan can accommodate your wishes. Other architectural styles are also available from fairy tale cottages to rustic cabins or even a miniature replica of your home. Comprehensive interior design services are also available through designer Michelle Pollak who helps clients with a variety of interior details such as window treatments, moldings, paint colors, furnishings, rugs and flooring including wood, marble or Mexican tile. Each house is a custom piece; with Alan and Michelle the possibilities are endless."

For the small sum of $6,050. Yowza. I wonder if it has a stripper pole in it for the bassett hounds he likes so much?

Ahem.

I had a milestone day at work today. The Big Headquarters Project that I finished back in October 2005 finally got it's LEED certification and it ended up going "Silver" after all instead of just plain ol' "Certified".

To tell you a teensy bit about LEED without putting you to sleep, LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and it is a program started by the U.S. Green Building Council. The theory is to encourage designers and contractors to build structures that are not only healthier for the environment, but healthier for the building occupants as well. I became a LEED Accredited Professional in 2006 and it's become one of my specialties. Anyhow, you have to accumulate all kinds of documentation of how you meet these design criteria set by the USGBC and it's not a task for the lazy or faint-of-heart. Sometimes, the approval process can take months and months between the initial submission (which requires paperwork from all of the design teams and the contractors which can take some time to wrangle) and all the audits that it goes through.

So to say that today was a great day for me is an understatement. And then to top that off, I heard back on the initial audit on the LEED project at my alma mater and received the nicest compliment from the architect. This guy is a well-known expert in green building design, and he said, "Liz, this is the best contractor submission I have ever seen in my experience doing LEED projects." It was very, very flattering - I still have a few things to tweak, but the vast majority of it all passed with flying colors.

And tonight, I have this to look forward to:

See those lovely pages? Just some of the floor plans I was working on today on the latest job from hell. That is a flooring study, since we are now in our fourth design change to the building and no one has a clue in hell what floors are going where anymore. It took me almost all day just to do four pages, and I have one more to conquer tonight so EPOD can revamp the project schedule tomorrow.

And I need to find something to wear tomorrow that will accentuate the five different highlighter colors on my hands and arms. That should be fun. At least it is distracting everyone from looking at my nose.

The nose knows

Today got off to a not-so-nice start. I knew it was going to be rough getting Monkey Man up with the time change and all, but I wasn't prepared for the meltdown that ensued.

Two weeks ago when we got back from Orlando, we rolled in from the airport around 11 PM exhausted. And of course, my loving husband decided that it would be a wonderful time to cut Monkey Man's fingernails. This is not something that Monkey Man typically freaks out over, but it isn't exactly something he looks forward to either - so of course this sent him on the downward spiral of horror and I had to scoop the remnants of him up and pour them into the bed. I remember vividly hissing at Joey, "Why the hell did you have to cut his fingernails NOW when he's exhausted?"

So this morning, waking up an already cranky boy, Joey decided once again that it was time to cut his fingernails. By the time he got the kid downstairs, poor Monkey Man had gone into severe emotional shutdown and wouldn't make eye contact or talk to us at all. I swooped him up onto the couch and snuggled with him for a few minutes and eventually at least got him into his shoes and to tell me a Pop Tart would be okay for breakfast. "Didn't you learn anything from the last time you cut his fingernails?" I asked Joey. At that point, he's lucky I didn't perform any Lorena Bobbit action on him with some toenail clippers.

So I got Monkey Man to school (this is usually Joey's job but I figured it was better to cut my losses and handle it myself) and things continued to go downhill. Monkey Man is typically happy as a clam to be one of the first few kids at school - today he got upset that two other kids had beaten him into the breakfast room. Yeah, I knew it was going to be a bad day for him of epic proportions. By noon, I had a phone call that he had pretty much cried all morning and wouldn't eat his lunch. I asked them to put him on the phone, tried to talk to him, and apparently he ate most of his lunch after that and promptly fell into a coma by 12:40 PM. Naptime starts at 1. So obviously, he was exhausted. And I was irritated - this is why we pay the big bucks, for them to deal with my normally happy-go-lucky kid when he has a bad day every now and then - not to mention that he needs to learn to deal with having a bad day and not being bailed out if he is having one. He wasn't hurting anyone, he wasn't disrupting the class, he was just on emotional overload and probably needed a little TLC. And I made sure that they knew by the time that I hung up that unless he was acting like the kid in the Exorcist or spouting blood from every pore, I didn't want to hear from them again.

So while all this was going on, I had some not-so nice news at the dermatologist's office. And I present, The Nose:

And this, my friends, is why you always, ALWAYS should wear plenty of sunscreen. Especially when you're close to the equator. And part Irish. And drinking a lot. Which has nothing to do with being part Irish in this case, but I digress.

Remember when we went to Cabo and I got that horrible sunburn (despite the fact that I was very careful)? Well, I've had a spot on my collarbone and a spot on my nose that kind of popped up a few months ago. Today was my biannual appointment with Dr. K and she took one look at my nose and pronounced that the spot had to come off immediately. Apparently it's something called Actinic Keratosis - kind of precancerous stuff. It shouldn't progress any further since we caught it early. And the spot on my collarbone was just another funky pore. She froze both off while I just about tore a hole through the exam table with my fingernails. That shit hurts. Not to mention the wound on my vanity is just about all I can bear, since everyone was walking into my office this afternoon and asking what the fuck happened to my nose.

So I guess my biggest hope at this point is that I don't end up looking like this at the end of the week:
















That's just wrong.

So Dr. K told me from now on that I'll have to pretty much stay out of the sun unless I'm using 25,932 SPF sunscreen and most likely wearing a hat too. I've always been very careful about sun exposure since I got sun poisoning as a freshman in high school, but I guess I've been pretty lax about taking care of myself versus Monkey Man, who is constantly being sprayed and slathered with sunscreen until the cows come home.

And my other dilemma is finding a hat that fits. I have an enormous head. Most "one size fits all" hats look like beanies on my head. It's downright embarrassing at times, because more often than not I end up buying my baseball caps in the men's department and when I found out that the men's Underarmour baseball caps have velcro adjustments in the back, I went out and bought one in all the major colors they had. It's that bad and that hard to find stuff that fits.

So when you see me at the pool this summer, I will be looking fabulous. If I can find something that looks like this:


The "Diva" Hat.

God help me.

Wear sunscreen, yo. Don't be a dork.

Four score and seven years ago

Actually, it wasn't quite that long ago, although it's seemed that way sometimes. Especially those nights when I can't figure out a single thing to write about which seems to happen more often than not these days.

A year ago today, Builder Mama was born. It was a boring Sunday, I'd been thinking about jumping into blogging for a long time, and I figured I would do it about three weeks and then quit.

And here I am. Still filling the internets with inane chatter.

Someone asked me recently why I started blogging in the first place. There are a multitude of reasons that are way too boring to go into. It's not that I ever thought my life was so noteworthy or cool or that I was seeking fame and fortune. But this blog has brought a lot to my life, especially when my dad was so sick and there were times I could tell y'all how I felt when it was too scary to say out loud. It's helped me reconnect with old friends and make some new friends. And it's taught me that people will come here because they've Googled "geriatric nudist resorts" and other things. Pervs.

So if you're new around these parts or if you're doing naughty Googling and stumbled onto my page, welcome. And if you've been here a while, thanks for coming back. Now you might want to talk to a professional about why you continue to torture yourself this way, but that's all up to you.

Post-vacation hangover

Maybe not hangover, but letdown? Depression? I don't know, but the fact that it's almost 3 PM and I'm still in my pajamas tells me that Houston, we have a problem. I am dead dog-ass tired, Monkey Man actually asked to go upstairs and take a nap without being forced at gunpoint, and Joey has been catnapping all day long. And don't even get my started on that worthless dog of ours, who is currently sunbathing out on the concrete driveway.

The only weekend plan that we have is dinner tonight with David and Yvonne. We're taking Monkey Man along because apparently the Christmas Staff Party for The World's Most Expensive Preschool is tonight. Yes, I know it's March. They do it that way so that the staff can take advantage of making extra money babysitting during the holiday party season, which obviously means that despite what we're paying in tuition most of it is going to mink-lined chairs, caviar and weekly massages for the owners. So this will be a G-rated night for sure since our little tape recorder is going, but at least there will be crab legs involved. Crab legs can cure a lot of ills.

My other issue today, other than being a lazy sack of shit, is that I am a technological numbnut. First of all, I am irritated because a few songs I heard on XM 48 are not available on iTunes. I thought everyone put their shit on iTunes, but obviously not. For example, one song I have been desperately trying to find to download is "Relapse" by 40 Below Summer. The only place you can find it is on their My Space page, and not for downloading, only listening. Another example is "Themata" by Karnivool. I thought everyone put their shit on iTunes, but apparently this isn't the case. And now, I will stop since I've given y'all enough ammunition to use against me and mock me until the end of time. I do tend to gravitate toward music that is kind of dark and crunchy, mostly because it's a great outlet for me and also because when you have stuff like that cranking in your office, people tend to leave you alone because they're afraid of the ax you're hiding behind the filing cabinets. Personally, I prefer a chainsaw, but to each his own.

I'm a little obsessive about music - I keep a pen and small notebook in the car because with stuff like tae kwon do schedules and work meetings running through my head and dealing with traffic I have enough on my mind without trying to remember some random song that I hear on XM all day until I can get home to download it. Not to mention that I limit myself to a certain number of downloads a week, otherwise I'd be in the poorhouse.

In other technological numbnuttedness, I have been tweaking things here and there on this blog and on the Picks and Pans site. Who knows what they will do, I'm not even sure if I did it right. I figure I can always undo what has been done, right?

Or maybe not.

Oh well. Off to defunk and get ready to go.

Tomorrow, a big day here at Builder Mama Headquarters....


If you want to check out "Relapse", go here to check it out...just make sure you don't have your speakers cranked, because one of their songs starts playing the second the page loads!

http://www.myspace.com/40belowsummer

Whew!

This is what I'm eating right now. Oh. My. God.

Call it my little mini-celebration that it's not the flu after all. Just a little cold, if even that.

We saw my brother-in-law's nurse practicioner and she checked Monkey Man from head to toe, gave him the flu test, ran a blood check, and pronounced that really he's fine. And that I should throw away my thermometer because obviously it's bad. I had no idea - those little digital thermometers should be replaced yearly, according to her, because they go bad and lose their accuracy. Hurumph. Oh, and she checked me out and apparently my problem is sinus drainage linked to how freaking congested I was out in Vegas. So a little decongestant and I'll be good as new.

So we celebrated by going to our favorite wing place - this is my little Monkey Man and Me ritual, where we go load up on chicken tenders (him) and wings (me). He loves going there, especially because they have about 264 televisions in there. Is love of television part of the male genetic code?

And we napped. Or rather, I napped and he is still napping. Nap, nap, nap. I love me some nap.

I will probably catch holy hell from EPOD on Monday. But until then, I'm going to enjoy a nice quiet weekend. And probably the rest of the box of toffee.

I knew it was too good to last

I woke up around 3 AM with my throat so swollen I could barely swallow. No problem, I got some water and went back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 5:30, I took some Tylenol and figured I'd suck it up and go on into work even though my throat feels like someone is sticking hot needles into it.

But then, Monkey Man got up and has a fever. And last night he had a touch of runny nose and was complaining of a headache. Today he says he's achy. Oh My God I Think It's The Flu And If It Is I Will Not Be A Happy Camper.

So we're home. And I'm hoping that my brother-in-law is back from taking my sister up to Philly so that we can sneak in there and see him and both get checked out. If he isn't, we'll have to figure out if we go to another doc in the practice or take our chances at the urgent care place.

And a question for you - is it bad if you feel like you have the taste of tequila in your mouth even if you haven't had any in, say, 7 days? Urp.

Assume the fetal position

We crawled in around 2 AM this morning.

At 6 AM I got up for work.

I worked pretty much a full day, including helping Beth throw away about 30 filing cabinets worth of old crap. It was hard work.

Then after work, my long-awaited facial appointment.

Dinner.

Bathing of the Monkey Man.

And now, to curl up in a ball and sleep. Since Monday night, I've had a total of eight hours' sleep.

Nighty-night. More frivolity tomorrow once my brain wakes up.

The good luck you're having is about to run out

Because your sorry tired ass will be sitting in a packed airplane on the way home today. Oh, and by the way, stupidhead - it's at 4 PM, not 6 PM like you've thought for the last five days. Oy.

I can't even begin to comprehend what tomorrow will feel like. I expect that it will feel like ass, but I'm not sure. I had originally planned to take tomorrow off but instead I'm hoping to drag into the office for at least 1/2 a day so that I can save vacation time. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now - not so much.

Yesterday was a great day. Joey and Malcolm ended up with an 8:15 tee time so I had breakfast with them in all of my unshowered glory and then came back up to the room to check emails and be a lazy sack.

And then, the highlight of my week - meeting Joansy for lunch. I can't say enough about Joansy - she is not only one of the PIM's but also one of the coolest people out there that I know.

We met at Spago and had a wonderful lunch and caught up on the kids and work and husbands and all that good stuff. Then, a little shopping. And she took me here where I cried a little and had to look at everything and then of course sample some and buy some too. Now that is friendship, y'all. Shopping and chocolate. It doesn't get much better than that.

I finally rolled back to the Wynn and met Joey so we could finally go over to the convention center. Part of the fun of the convention is seeing all these people that he does business with and then all the nightly parties. Last night was the best party - it was at Light at the Bellagio and it was closed down for the party which meant the liquor was flowing and everyone was having a blast. We finally left around midnight so we could get in some last-minute slot action.

Good thing we did. Mama won $200 last night. And you know what that means. It's time to get the hell out of town before I blow it all.

So that's about it in a nutshell. We came, we saw, and we drank a lot. A whole lot. My liver is thanking me right now that we're headed back to our normally dull existence.

And I can't wait to see my boy. That will be the best part. Who, by the way, has been taking showers the entire time we've been gone and we're not sure how much assistance Grisel has been giving him. I imagine that there are things growing behind his ears, but we can deal with that tomorrow.

Off to pack. Where the fuck I'm going to pack all this stuff is beyond me, but I guess I'll figure it all out.

Edited to add - Sorry about the run-together stuff. Blogger is being a total bitch right now.

*Yawn*

Another beautiful day here in Las Vegas. I just crawled back upstairs from breakfast and I'm looking out the window at the mountains. Is that snow I see in the distance? Damn.

Because I know you love reading every minor boring detail of my life, let me tell you about my day yesterday.

It started out that Joey and I were going to go to the mall across the street from the Wynn so he could do a little shoe shopping. Now, for Joey, this would be a major miracle because this is a guy that thinks that tennis shoes and a good pair of boots will serve for any occasion. About 2 years ago I finally talked him into some casual tassled loafers that he likes, but it was like I had to hold a gun to his head. Well, he saw these shoes the other day and for some odd reason he has it stuck in his head that he wants them.

So around 8 AM I'm finishing up getting ready and he looks on the convention website and discovers that the class that he thought was supposed to be today (Tuesday), was actually Monday. At 8 AM. At another hotel. This is some kind of certification class that he really needs for sales purposes (something about R-values of insulation, blah blah blah) so in a flurry of F-bombs he threw the laptop in the bag and hauled ass out of here, leaving me to my own devices. Heh.

After a leisurely breakfast, I came back upstairs to the room to watch a little news and ended up falling asleep on the couch up here for two hours. And I swear to you now that this is the best damn sleep I've had since we've been out here. Between getting up every 2 - 3 hours to pee, the fact that my sinuses are ungodly stuffy, and the fact that I never can sleep out here, I fell into a coma the likes of which I have never seen. Aaaah.

Now, some of y'all have asked who Paula is. Paula, formerly referred to as Hobag, is the third wife of Joey's business partner, Malcolm. Now, I never met his first wife, but I heard that she was batshit crazy. The second wife and I got to be pretty decent friends - she was a very classy person whose downfall with Malcolm, I believe, is that she is a little too straight-laced and traditional for him.

Paula, on the other hand, is always interested in one thing - herself. Having a good time. She is always up for drinking, smoking, partying 24/7/365. Now, this is a good quality sometimes because she can be a lot of fun at times. However, most of the time she is really obnoxious because of the way she treats people. You see, she was a "career waitress" who hit the jackpot by marrying Malcolm who is pretty well off and from that point onward the sense of entitlement that she waves in everyone's face is too much to take. She is arrogant, rude, and obnoxious. Unfortunately, because Joey and Malcolm are not only business partners but family members, I have to get along with her.

So back to the story for yesterday. Paula had told me the night before that she wanted to meet for lunch before we headed to the spa in the afternoon. Well, you can imagine what happened...she ended up eating a late breakfast and then hung me out to dry for lunch. It would've been nice if she had offered to at least keep me company while I had lunch, but as I found out later she had other plans.

At 2 PM we were supposed to meet at the spa. I waited and waited for her to get there, and finally she came busting out of the hair salon located right across the hall. As it turns out, she had gone in to get a conditioning treatment (her hair which is naturally dark brunette is bleached platinum blonde and is so fried it's pathetic) and get her bangs trimmed. To the tune of $180, not including tip. We headed on into the spa, got our massages and facials, and then met out at the spa shop to check out the goodies they had out there. I think between what she had done and all the shit she got, she could've fed a whole town in another country for a week. It was pretty pathetic because instead of shutting her yap about it, everyone at the spa and in the shop had to hear her bragging about that fact. Remember, people, the moral of this story - you can take a pig, put it in a dress and put some jewelry on it, and it will still be a pig. Period.

I got back to the room around 4:30 to find the maid in here, so I went back downstairs to the coffee shop and waited for Joey to get there. I looked like a homeless person - sweats, dripping wet hair, and a red, raw face. Nice. I'm surprised that security didn't come in there and ask me to take my shopping cart full of beer cans and leave.

Last night we ate at the SW Steakhouse here at the Wynn and it was really spectacular - one of the best meals ever. But again, Paula the Pig was at it. She is about a size 2, and the annoying thing is that instead of ordering something off of the menu and just eating a little bit of it, she likes to eat off other people's plates. Now, it's one thing if someone offers you a taste of what they're eating, but to demand tastes and pieces of someone else's dinner? That's just rude, flat out rude. Get your own fucking dinner.

The funny thing is that apparently a lot of the other people attending the convention came rolling in yesterday (I think the thing actually starts today) and we ran into a lot of people that we knew at dinner last night. How odd is that in a city this big?

We hit the casino again, I won $125 (never mind the $40 I lost yesterday morning), and we headed back to the room.

I think everyone is starting to feel the effects of being here 4 days. The guys had a tee time this morning at 8:15 and Malcolm looked like he wanted to curl up and die. Hungover golf is bad.

Today, I meet Joansy for lunch! The one thing I've been really looking forward to for the entire trip. And I think tonight, dinner with the biggest supplier for Joey's company and then a manufacturer's party at the Bellagio, which this party is typically way over the top. Waaaaay over the top.

Off to hose down. Have a great day, y'all.

So uncool

What is it about Vegas that makes it impossible to sleep?

Yesterday was pretty wierd. I finally rousted Joey out around 8:30 and we got some breakfast and then hit the slots. Between the two of us we won $300, which would come in handy later on in the evening when we would donate a portion of it back to the slot machine gods. So I guess we're ahead but you know that will change today. And tomorrow. And Wednesday.

Close to what normal people would call lunchtime, we paraded over to the Forum Shops at Caesar's. This was the infamous scene of the Bling Incident last year, when Paula in a little snit decided to throw me out of the store since "you're not going to buy anything" and I guess she didn't want me finding out that she was buying something using a credit card that apparently Malcolm knew nothing about. This pissed Joey off so badly that he took me back to the store later and bought me a gorgeous bracelet, which then made Paula cry because apparently it makes her unhappy when other people get things. Especially things that they don't have to hide from their husbands until the credit card bill comes. A sense of entitlement really sucks, doesn't it? So I was prepared this year for another tantrum and for her to treat me like dirt. Because that's how she is.

I bought two really cute tops at Anthropologie, Joey bought himself some shorts and a shirt at the very cool (and great smelling) Tommy Bahama store, and we grabbed a little lunch. And then, my friends, the meltdown happened. We went in to see my little friend Susan at David Yurman, a purchase was made, and then Paula went berzerk.

I love predictable people.

One thing I've noticed about Vegas is the plethora of women who have had boob jobs. I am definitely in the vast minority here. Although some of them really should consider downsizing a bit, because their backs must be killing them.

Last night we went to dinner at The Palm which is in the Forum Shops. Excellent restaurant, by the way. And then, the uncoolness started.

What you find in Vegas is that if you look like you're gonna spend some money, you can score free passes. Last night it was to Pure, where Paris Hilton had her last birthday party and is one of the hot spots in town. Or at least until we got there.

The other thing is that money will buy pretty much anything in this town that you want. And you can plunk down a few hundred bucks on a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and end up with a VIP table for the night. This is what Malcolm decided to do, you know, because he has apparently a lot of money to spend on stupid shit like this. Yeah, go ahead and make fun of us, we deserve it.

Joey and I sat there on the white leather couches with our own personal big-breasted waitress to mix drinks and squeeze limes and rub our feet for about an hour. We scanned the crowd as the dance music pulsed on. I felt like I was about 80 years old. Joey was wondering why he didn't know any of the music. I swear, there is nothing worse in his opinion than dance music.

So we left. I bet Malcolm was pissed. But you know, that's just totally not my scene, and even moreso not Joey's scene at all.

We came on back to the Wynn, donated some of the aforementioned winnings back to the slot machine gods, and called it a night. I took my Geritol and put my Depends on before bed.

Today I am meeting Paula at the spa around 1 to use the steamroom and then we have massages and facials scheduled. I can hardly wait to spend time with my new bestest friend forever(notice the heavy sarcasm).

And now, I present, Joey Top:

Thanks, GMan, I've had nightmares ever since you emailed this to me. Thanks a lot.

Let's get this party started

We're here.

Actually, we got in around 2 PM Vegas Time and I think we went to bed around midnight. I was up almost 24 hours, which if you know me well you know lack of sleep does not bode well for me. By the time we got back to the hotel last night I inwardly felt like ripping someone's head off. Maybe I should've drank more to take the edge off instead of switching to water after dinner, but then I probably would've been doing some not-so-nice things like flashing my naughty bits to all the other touristas.

The hotel is amazing. Our room is really nice and the bed is really the most comfortable bed I've slept in ever. The funny part is that we got a convention discount (even though they're not the hosting hotel), and our other friends David and Jana are staying at the Hilton which is the hosting hotel and their room is like something at the Super 8...and they're paying the same amount that we are if not a few bucks more. I think they're moving over here today.

We went to see Carrot Top last night over at the Luxor. I've never been a huge fan of his but his show was hysterical and we all had a great time. And ladies, Carrot Top has a body like you would never believe...the guy must work out all the freaking time. If I could cut his head off, he'd be the perfect man. But don't tell Joey that, or he'll try some kind of Frankensteinian experiment and that would be bad, very bad.

So who knows what's on the agenda for today...I have zero clue. I probably need to get motivated and showered though. Or just crawl back into bed.

The internet is an entertaining place

Well, I'm pretty much packed except for my makeup and hair stuff, and I know y'all are sick to death of my whining about packing and airplanes and stuff, so I thought I'd throw this out there.

You know how sometimes you can go years without thinking about someone or something, and suddenly your brain gets triggered and you start thinking about them/it again? This happened to me today. I got to talking to someone about this guy we know and it made me think about my old boyfriend Jay.

I met Jay back in October of 1993 - I was freshly out of college, single, and not really looking for anyone. He was a pretty smooth-talking guy and within three weeks of us meeting he proposed. Yup, he wanted to take that waltz down the aisle. I was totally smitten with him, but knowing that he had already been divorced once (and by all accounts it was totally all him - his first wife was a lovely lady) my skankball radar went up just a teensy bit. But he was charming and funny and I thought he was very handsome.

We ended up together for two years. The first six months were fabulous. The next six months were...eh....The next year was sheer hell. He took a traveling sales job and was gone a lot, and when he was home he drank a lot and stayed out all night and we fought constantly. A few weeks before we broke up, I found a note laying next to his wallet from someone who lived in my apartment building wanting to hook up with him. Obviously, he was either THAT stupid or wanted to be caught...but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and stuck it out. Then one night we went out to a club with some friends - both of us had way too much to drink and when we got back to my apartment we got into a heated fight and he tried to hit me and then I threw the Yellow Pages at him. Not one of my prouder moments, and it was kind of one of those "What the Fuck am I Thinking?" moments.

So I broke up with him. He stalked me. I almost lost my job over it. And the funny thing was, my boss ended up calling his boss and insisted that Jay was transferred out of state. So the next thing I knew, he was calling me and begging for forgiveness and for me to move with him. I laughed in his face.

So that was in April of 1995. He moved out of state and I ended up meeting Joey in June and was ecstatically happy. (And no, Joey wasn't my rebound guy - I had several of those, ha ha!)

Then in October, I was reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning and I saw his wedding announcement. He had gotten married to the sister of a friend. I was shocked and devastated...what had SHE done that had fixed him? Why had he chosen her instead of ME? It was horrible, I think I cried for three days.

About six months later, I was at work one day when he called me. He wanted one of my chicken casserole recipes so he could fix it for his wife. Then at the end of the call, he told me, "Giving you up was the worst thing I ever did." And then I hung up on him.

One year later, he was a father of a little boy and he was getting a divorce. Rumors came back to town that his wife had a lot of mental health issues and that she had gone completely batshit crazy after the baby was born. Of course, having known him for as long as I did, I feel pretty confident that he drove her that way. Because he did it to me.

I eventually realized that I was carrying some serious baggage that Jay had burdened me with. See, I found out after we broke up that he had cheated on me pretty much the entire time we were together. And I was totally clueless. Therefore, poor Joey had to endure a lot of my trust issues for no fault of his own. But I finally worked through them all and God bless Joey for not giving up on me, especially when I was conducting my own version of the Spanish Inquisition when he was 15 minutes late coming home.

About two years ago, we were at dinner at David and Yvonne's house and they mentioned that Jay had been in contact with them recently. Apparently he is married to Wife #3 and was trying to draft them into selling Amway under him. He drove up here to meet with them and they said he hadn't changed a bit - still charming, but totally up to his usual bullshit.

And you know what? He asked about me. It made my blood run cold.

I hadn't given it much thought since then. Joey ran into him in the airport out in Colorado one time and I think he called on Joey one time trying to sell him something, but other than that I have been happily Jay-free for a long time.

But today, after thinking about him for a while, I decided to do a little internet snooping. It was pretty easy to find him - I know what he does, I know about where he lives, and so I was able to find a picture of him online on his company's website.

Damn, he is OLD. Time has not been kind. And I guess two ex-wives might do that to you too.

I hate to admit it, but I walked around with a pretty smug look on my face all day. Because not only am I married to a great guy, but I don't have to use Amway products either, which is a win-win as far as I'm concerned.