On becoming a Blog Slacker: I started this Blog with the best of intentions, meaning to write a little every day. And then came the Great Move (across town) and the hours sucked away into school and suddenly, I'm lucky if I remember to write once a week much less once a day. Alas.

In any case, my father's visit went fairly well. I'm bloated and kind of woozy, but that's what I get for eating out with him every night. One night we stopped in a California Pizza Kitchen before going to see The Gangs of New York (wouldn't recommend it, but Dad loved it). Usually, if I have wine with dinner, I'll order a glass. Dad ordered a bottle of Chardonnay. As we finished our pizzas and I went for some lovely, lovely tiramisu, Father Dearest decided that we needed more wine. A whole second bottle of wine, that is. Come to think of it, maybe the reason I didn't enjoy the film was that I was so bloated with food and drink that I was concentrating more on not throwing up... hmmm. No, I think the movie was just that disjointed and my being intoxamicated had little to do with it.

I did see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with the old man and THAT was AWESOME. I'll have to drag Jay to see it when he gets home.

And with that thought, I am going to brush my teeth, wash my face, and fall into bed where I will delude myself that I can read just one chapter before putting the book down and going to sleep. Sigh. I know I'm just going to forget and read the last 150 pages.

Merry Christmas! My dad just arrived from Pittsburgh...and I'm at work until midnight. Not that I'm entirely sure that isn't the preferable situation, mind you. I'm tired and he's hyper. He also thinks it's weird that we don't have a TV. Or rather, that we have a TV but don't have cable so the only thing it's good for is watching movies with the VCR. I pointed him to the radio, the CD's the couch and my reading blanket (microfleece....mmmmm). There's 2 Dos Equis in the fridge and some good cheese to go with bread or crackers. He should be just fine until I can get out of here.

Weeney boy called from Jersey... they got a ton of snow, so he's all excited. Well good for him, I guess. He got what he wanted for Christmas.

Grown Men or Little Girls? I honestly can't decide which they are -- my co-workers. I have never seen such whining and drama from people over the age of 10 and not in possession of two X chromosomes. What's the problem? Did their mommas never teach them the phrase "Suck it up and deal?" I mean honestly!

We work with people... lots of different people, both employees and guests. Now, odds are you're going to run into some real winners in that line of work -- people who are wrapped up in their own drama, people who get off on manipulating other people, people who carry their homelife crises to work with them... etc... Two rules to survive in this industry: 1. Don't take anything personally. 2. Never lose your sense of humor. If you forget these rules, you will go insane. Very simple.

So I guess I'll have to remember them myself next time my 35 year old co-manager pulls out with his "she said I did this, but I didn't. I didn't! She's lying. Waaa waaa waaa." (Of course she's lying, she fricking INsane and everyone knows it. What's the big surprise?!?!)

Okay - more water, less sugar. Repeat. Dehydration has killed my higher brain functions. Sigh.

Oh shite: I just goofed. I bought our flight tickets for Detroit and I got them for the wrong date. Crap crap crap crap crap. I have us coming back a day later than I intended. And of course, the ticket receipt says in huge bold print : TICKETS NON-REFUNDABLE. I wonder if that means that they are non-changeable, also.

I swear I put January 12th as the return date. I swear. I hate things like this that make me doubt my own brain function. Sigh.

I'll have to check with Jay and see if that will work or if I have to call them up and beg them to change my return date.

Aaarrgh.

Oh yeah, one more thing: It's my Daddy's 65 birthday! Congrats on living this long, Daddy-O. I called to wish him a Happy Birthday today. Maybe he'll remember. Not sure though because he an d my fraternal unit were in the midst of beer consumption and Steeler game observation. Kerri can be my witness though--she's the one who answered the phone.

AAAAAAAAAhhhhhChoooooooo!!! The rotten fools who lived in the apartment before us clearly left behind a large portion of their pet in the form of wads of cat hair stuck to the carpet and the blinds. Those bastards. It's not that I don't like cats, mind you. It's the steroid treatments I need afterward that get to me. Cat hair used to just make me itchy and sniffly, but in the last 4 years I've developed a more extreme reaction. Now I break out in huge welty hives that only go away after 6 days on a steroid. Yum yum yum.

I went to Fred Meyer today to exchange the broken bookshelves we bought last Sunday for unbroken ones and also picked up a curtain rod for the front window. (I hate the way it looks with just the white blinds there.) Before I'm able to set that up, however, we need to clean the whole window--blinds, sill, glass, and screen. And I'm useless at it because I can't stop sneezing and I have that awful itchiness in my ears and throat. So I'm sitting here waiting for Jay to finish, but by the time he does I'll probably have to leave for work. Splendid.

And wonderboy's bugging me about when we'll go hiking or something again. How to explain? Gee, hon, maybe when I have more than 15 minutes to rub together at a time. Maybe when our place is livable enough that I don't feel like I'm living in a shoebox. How about then? Yeah, how about then.

okey dokey pokeys, time for me to work on transforming myself from sunday bum to mostly professional manager girl. It's quite the shocking procecss, I assure you.

It's finally happened: I'm slightly mad Ach, well, maybe not just slightly, eh? Finally, after a 5 hour ORDEAL, we have internet access at the new apartment. Took for frickin' ever. The poor installer guy was about to shoot himself. Strangely, I found it all quite funny--especially when he had his ladder balanced on the roof of a shed to lean across to the filter box on the powerline pole with the neighbor's dogs barking at him. Heh heh. But I do have a sicko sense of humor, I suppose.

So...interesting day at work. Creed is in town for their concert on the 12th and their crew is all staying at our hotel. They, of course, are not staying with us, because we are not glitzy enough for them. Their tour manager is a hoot though. One guy got all pissy with me because his room wasn't ready yet (we were sold out last night and they arrived 2 hours before our check in time). As he walks away to sit down, the tour manager says "Yeah, sorry about him. He's new."

Honestly, I've never had a group check in so smoothly with so few complaints. So here's to the roadies and the tour managers and the video technicians, et al. Creed may be a bunch of big babies, but their support staff ROCKS.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming....zzzzzzzzz

People who do not work: Or people who have never held a real job. Yes, that's right. I'm talking about professional grad students. People who get paid to go to school. People who have, other than summer jobs, never held a nine-to-five kind of employment. Not that I work 9 to 5... more like 7 to 5 or 3 to midnight. But anyway.

I go with Jay, who also happens to be one of the above, to a dinner party at one of our friend's houses. And she is *our* friend, not just Jay's. However, I don't know everyone who was there and even the ones I do know have similar reactions. I'm sure they don't even realize it, don't intentionally put that tone in their voice. That tone = pity mixed with condescension.

"So, does work still suck? And I hear you've gone back to school... the University of Phoenix...oh, I see. Sooooo, how *is* that?"


First of all, all work sucks at one point. That doesn't mean it sucks every day or that it even sucks most of the time. But anything you *have* to go to whether you want to be doing it or not, sucks at some point or another. Yes, I'm going to school, but for godssakes, don't talk to me like I'm starting kindergarten instead of a Masters program. And I'll tell you how it is: It sucks up most of the "free" time I have. It puts me in with people who clearly had an undergraduate education less rigorous than my own. It pairs me with people who are only doing the program so they can move up on the salary scale--people totally lacking in enthusiasm and occasionally, integrity. BUT, it also puts me a lot closer to the career of my choice than I was just a few months ago. So I'm exhausted and cranky, but I'm doing what I need to do. Just don't be surprised if I don't want to talk about it. OKAY?!?!? OH - and yes, I work at a hotel. And yes, I have a BA from an ivyleague school. Want to ask me why one more time?!?! Because I really never get tired of explaining it to you freaking stuffed academics, really I don't.

Gosh, but I'm hostile lately. Must be hormones. Yeah, that's it.