I have had the most pleasant Thanksgiving.
Harry went hunting on Wednesday morning, and Wednesday evening he went down to Jerryville to hunt this morning. Since he was already down there and I would have had to drive to Jerryville alone to get to his parents' house I decided to just stay home and have Thanksgiving with the dogs.
I got up at 10am, and made myself chocolate chip pancakes. Then I made pumpkin mousse and put that in the refrigerator to chill. Then I maxed and relaxed and found a Doris Day movie marathon on cable. Around 1pm, I made some turkey cutlets, stuffing, gravy, and a sweet potato. All three dogs had a little of everything I had, and we sat in the living room and ate and watched Doris Day in amusing, yet totally sexist movies.
If you haven't seen a Doris Day movie, basically all of the plots revolve around Doris either single and acting all independent until she falls in love and gets married and no longer needs a life of her own, or married and events lead her to act independent and her husband objects and finally she realizes her role in life is to be a wife and mother so she gives up whatever gave her some shred of independence. And all the while, hijinks ensue, and she wears gorgeous dresses. And I can't stop watching them if I find them on t.v.
So anyway, that was my Thanksgiving, and it was nice and peaceful and fun and full of champagne. I hope everyone else had a nice day!
Yeah, it's been a while since I updated. I was hoping to write about that job I mentioned earlier, but after a few phone interviews I was not picked for the job. It took a few weeks to go through all of that, and then this past week after I found out I didn't get the job I just didn't feel like posting.
In between phone interviews we had another family birthday party. The party was thrown together in one week, complete with family members leaving out key information concerning the party like, who was actually coming, and whose birthdays we were celebrating.
Snow Flake brought an old Jamaican lady with her and the 3 little bastards. Somehow this woman is friends with Baby Daddy and she recently moved to the U.S. and is now a nanny for a family that lives down the street from them. I don't know much, because I didn't bother to ask many questions. All I know is that when we got to the house Scooby Doo and his father were outside and SD's dad had a smirk on his face when he told me I'd get to meet "Irene" in a minute. I seriously thought Snow Flake went lesbian and she was introducing us to her new lover, but to my surprise when I walked into the house I saw someone that looked like old voodoo priestess sitting in the living room looking completely unaware of the conversations going on around her. Honestly, if I were a little kid this woman is now a nanny to, I'd be freaked out. She seemed nice, I didn't hear her say more than 3 words, and the little bastards seemed to like her.
No one bothered to tell Harry's mother (the HOST of this party) that Voodoo Lady was coming, and there was really no more room at the dining room table, so Snow Flake ended up eating in the kitchen with the little bastards. Also, no one bothered to mention that the Canuck's daughter (who I'll call Timbits) has moved from Canada and is currently living with her and Flash, and that she celebrated her birthday 2 days before this party and was therefore one of the birthday girls. I only found out a few days before the party because I sent out an email specifically asking for the names of the birthday girls and boys so I wouldn't feel like a fool like I did the last time when no one told me we were celebrating the Canuck's birthday. Harry's mother didn't know about this either, and fortunately I brought 2 gifts for Timbits because I hadn't seen her since her mother's wedding, in 2001 and I didn't know what she was like now, so I gave Harry's mom the gift I decided not to give Timbits to give to her. And boy, has she changed! Last I saw her, she was sort of hippy-like, long hair and long flowy skirts. Now she is all punk rock with a mohawk. But her personality is still the same, she is really sweet and friendly, and it was nice to be able to see her again.
I was one of the birthday girls, and I am happy to say I got good gifts! Gift certificates to amazon, and good wine - you really can't beat that combination.
At the party we all picked names out of a hat for Secret Santa. AGAIN, we got Snow Flake and Baby Daddy. I can't for the life of me remember what we got her last year, and I'm afraid we'll end up getting her the same thing we got her last year. Oh, wait, I just remembered - I don't care.
Things have really changed with my job lately. It seems that the owner of the store is in a heap of debt, and he is taking his stress out on the employees. He has said some really nasty things to me and other girls in the store, and he has cut the store's hours which therefore cut every employee's hours. We are all walking on eggshells, afraid to say anything to the owner for fear we will get our asses chewed out. He has told people that do business with us that most of his employees are worthless - and he said that in front of me! I can only imagine what he has told people when he is not around any of his employees! I know of three people actively searching for another job, and I'm now a 4th.
Last week, after a ass-chewing which everyone in the store heard, he screamed out loud that in January he was going to hire someone with an accounting background to do my job. Honestly, I don't blame him - I should never had been offered the bookkeeper job. I don't have the experience needed to do the job right, and with the mess I was dropped into I had no idea how to get the books up to date. And also because of the mess I was dropped into, I really haven't been enjoying my job - it seems like for every step forward I've taken, I end up taking two steps back after I find something else that I was never trained to do or I've found out what I've been doing for the past 5 months is wrong.
So after I got home from work and realizing I'm going to be unemployed in January, I updated my resume and posted it on a job board. The next morning my boss told me that he wouldn't fire me in January, he would have me doing what I was originally hired to do. Since I was still hurting over what he did the day before, I still thought about looking for another job. About an hour after he spoke to me, I got an email in response to my posted resume from a recruiter, and this Wednesday I have a phone interview. If things work out, I'll post about the job. If not, well, then, if you don't hear anything then you'll know I didn't get it, right?
Harry has been trying to buy a car for a month, but wants it at the price he wants and not what the dealers want. He is interested in a Hyundai Sonata, all decked out with leather and fancy stereo, and all the bells and whistles you can get on a Hyundai. This one dealership had a demo 2006 Sonata which was exactly what he wanted, but they wanted to sell it to him at a new car price. It isn't a new car - it has over 1000 miles, and when you sit in it you can clearly see that it has been driven for a while, since there are coffee stains in the cup holder and dirty foot prints on the floors. So he walked away from that deal - that was the weekend before Labor Day Weekend. Yesterday he checked that dealership's website and saw that the demo car was still in their inventory, so we decided to drive back to that dealership to see if we could get a better deal. On the 45-minute drive to the dealership, I tried calling the saleswoman who we dealt with last time, but she never answered her phone the 3 times I called. I finally left her a message letting her know we were on our way over there, but she never checked her messages. When we got there she was talking to another couple, and she told me that she thought the demo car was sold, as were all the other 2006 Sonatas. I went to the lot to find Harry and tell him that, and he decided he didn't want to look at 2007 models, so we left.
Harry had some business to take care of this morning in the area of that car dealership, so he drove back over there to check out what cars they had on the lot, and the demo WAS STILL THERE. When he called me to tell me I was all, "Bitch LIED to me and tried to scam us into paying more for a 2007 model!" and Harry was all, "Don't jump to conclusions, she may not have known it wasn't sold." Which made me think that she is a dumb bitch, because if you don't know if a car is sold, don't say it is. She didn't make a very good impression with me the first time we met her, and now if we still choose to do business at that dealership I really don't want her to sell us the car.
We are in the position to walk away from any deal we aren't 100% happy with. We have 3 vehicles, it is just that the car that Harry drives is almost 19 years old and he'd like something newer and nicer to drive. We don't NEED another car right now. I like being able to walk away from annoying salespeople.
This past Sunday I went to my first polo match! My boss advertises in a magazine that was a corporate sponsor of this match between a Virginia polo team and a team from England, and we all were invited to go to the match and hang out in their corporate tent. I had never heard of the match, but it has been going on for over 20 years. Not that I should know anything about it, since I have never really been interested in polo. But they had about a half dozen wineries there doing wine tasting, and there were a number of vendors selling pretty cool stuff. Only 4 of us RSVP'd, and 2 of them punked out at the last minute. My coworker then asked if I minded if we gave the 2 leftover tickets to her parents since they were very much into horses. I didn't care. My coworker drove me to the match (which took about 1.5 hours to get to, and I'm so glad she drove me because I didn't want to have to fill up my gas tank!) and her parents met up with us later on.
The wine was okay - Virginia wineries are hit-or-miss as they have really only been getting serious winemakers from California and Europe to come in and work their magic in the last 10 years. Some wines can seriously compete with the best California or French wines, and others taste no better than ripple. I got a small buzz over the wine tasting, but then went back to the corporate tent to their open bar and got myself a few glasses of champagne and had some fancy finger foods they were serving. I had gotten a lot of sun, filled my belly with various types of prepared chicken, and was enjoying my second glass of champagne when the match finally started.
I think the match would have been more interesting if the guy announcing it didn't sound so bored and actually paid attention to the game. We decided to leave after the announcer said that there was a foul on the field, then realized there was no foul and that the British team actually scored, and then couldn't figure out what the score between the two teams was. But it was fun watching the horses run around.
I bought this bag from one of the vendors. I got it in a dark brown, and I really like it. This company only sells their bags through home parties and vendors booths like the one I got mine at. I had never heard of them before, but the bags are really well made and the styles are cool. If I actually knew a bunch of women in this area, I would consider having a purse party at my house. Oh well, I guess I'll have to follow the polo match circuit to see when I can get my hands on another bag!
I forgot to post this story last week, but I think it is funny and should be posted, so I'll do it now!
Over Labor Day weekend, we had a party. Our friend T and his girlfriend were invited, and planned on sleeping over and going home the next day. I've only met T's girlfriend once, and that was when we went down to the Outer Banks for New Year's. We all call her Smart Girl, because during one of her many drunken stupors she desperately tried to convince us that she was smart. She kept yelling/slurring, "I'm smart! Really! I'm really smart!" Of course, no one believed her, because she never learned that after drinking only 2 beers she gets hammered, and didn't need to keep up the drinking with everyone else. Let's just say that her first impression didn't go over very well with the group we were with.
So Smart Girl and T were the first to arrive, since T and Harry and a bunch of other guys played a round of golf before the party. Harry came up with a genius plan - he knew that Smart Girl drank more than she needed to and he didn't want to waste good beer on her, so he told me that after giving her 2 regular beers I needed to start giving her non-alcoholic beer. This way the booze could be saved for those that deserved it, and she wouldn't get so wasted that she made a fool of herself. I bought St. Pauli Girl N.A. to serve her, and decided to give her a story about the N.A. meaning St. Maarten Netherlands Antilles, where I used to vacation when I was a teenager. I told her that there was beer made just for the islands in the Caribbean so people could drink in the strong sun and it wouldn't kick your ass. She totally believed it. She got a nice buzz off of some frozen drinks I made, and when Harry and T and the gang finished playing golf we brought out the N.A. and she drank that for most of the afternoon. She was able to speak clearly and didn't make an absolute fool of herself, and everyone enjoyed her company. T must have thanked us a dozen times that afternoon. After everyone else left and it was just the 4 of us, we busted open some wine, and after 2 or 3 glasses she got drunk but insisted on keeping us with us, and about an hour later was bugging the crap out of T and I started ignoring her. T put her to bed and the two of us had some more wine and watched The Flavor Of Love. (Harry at some point decided he was ready for bed and just got out of his chair and went into the bedroom and passed out. He does that when he's wasted - he doesn't tell anyone what his plans are, he just goes to bed. And he had been drinking on the golf course and never let up when he got home, so he was quite toasted by the time the first [of 6] bottles of wine was opened.)
The next morning Smart Girl was feeling okay, and again T thanked us a dozen times for making sure she didn't make a drunken mess of herself. We told everyone at the party what our plan was so they were all in on it, and some people even had an N.A. beer with her. I just hope no one tells her what N.A. really means!
Okay, so I'm experimenting with a new blog service, because it is new and free, and those are two things that I love. I can post messages to the new blog and have them post to my existing blog, which I think is really cool.
So I'll be playing around with the new and old blogs, seeing what kind of fun I can have with them.
Testing, 1..2..3...
Just making sure my new blog is looking the way I want it!
