Calling in the Marines

Yes, you read that title right. Me, my blistered feet, my mother, and my friends had to be rescued from the clutches of the idiotic Siri. No joke. It was humiliating. I blush to think about what happened yesterday. But I'm getting ahead of myself. You haven't heard about it yet. After you hear about what happened, you will be embarrassed for me, too.

The setup: two of my dear friends came down from TAC to share Thanksgiving with my family. It was so much fun. On Thursday we had a big, fun photo shoot while the turkey cooked, we watched movies and had Karen over for leftovers and games on Friday, and for Saturday I had planned a good old touristy day in downtown for the Ohio natives.

As we were driving down the freeway, we passed by MCAS Miramar. I remembered that Liz had mentioned that her brother was a Marine stationed in San Diego. I asked where he was stationed. She said she didn't know. That kind of startled me, but then I guess I've grown up down here and realize the variety of places he could be stationed within the county. Mum offered to bring Liz to see her brother, but she declined the offer, stating that he was up in the desert visiting his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. She did text him, however, to ask where he was stationed (just to satisfy my curiosity, I think). He texted her back and said he was at MCRD and he was back in town. We were driving down there anyway, so we thought it would be silly not to have Liz meet up with her brother. We arranged to meet for lunch at Liberty Station.

We arrived at our destination somewhat earlier than our appointed lunch time, so we walked around to explore for a while. Chris (Liz's brother) told us to meet him at Tender Greens. Mum wanted to ask directions from the lady in the store that we were in, but being the man I am... I mean, the really stubborn, confident, independent girl that I am... did not want to ask someone for directions. I just searched for Tender Greens near our destination on my iPhone. It pinned it, gave an address, and we started walking. It looked like it was about a mile away, but we had 30 minutes to get there. The sun was out, but there was a beautifully cool breeze coming off the bay. We had a pleasant chat as we walked. We hit the condo part of Liberty Station, fully expecting to come to a more "foodish" area with shops and restaurants and things. We continued to approach the red dot on the map. Then we passed it. We walked back and forth, up and down side streets. There was nothing in sight except condos. Upon close inspection, it appeared as though the restaurant was in someone's backyard.

Uh. Oh.

I was absolutely flummoxed. I guess Siri took "tender greens" to mean garden plants? I have no idea. I called the restaurant, asking for directions. The lady just said to keep walking on the road we were on and we'd find it. So we kept walking... all the way to the edge of Liberty Station. I called again and I got some garbled directions about being across the street from a parking structure (which is not even in Liberty Station) and next to a Postal Annex (great landmark, right?) and behind (yes, behind, as in where it cannot be seen) the Vons. Great.

So we turned around and started walking the other way. I was very embarrassed. Siri had disappointed me. Made me walk miles in the wrong direction. That is the last time I trust that mean, nasty lady.

All this time, Liz had been texting her brother, giving him updates on our progress. When she told him where we were he responded with a "LOL, that's far." Way to make me feel better. I was so, so, so embarrassed. I am the sense-of-direction, get-us-where-we-need-to-go member of my family. I failed.

So I gave up. I sat on the corner and Liz called in the Marines. Technically, one Marine. Chris came and rescued us in his car and drove us to the restaurant, which was on a completely different street than the one the lady told us to walk along. And here's the kicker:

It was fifty feet from where we had started.

No joke. Right down the corridor hung a sign "Tender Greens."

I led a two mile excursion in the absolutely wrong direction, just trying to get almost exactly where we had started.

Oh.

My.

Goodness.

I went from failure to EPIC failure.

The girls weren't mad, and Mum and Chris thought it was hilarious. We had a delicious lunch and enjoyed a fabulous conversation. We sat and talked for a solid three hours. By the time we left the restaurant, got in the car, and made it to Cabrillo, it was all fogged in. Not exactly the view I was trying to show the girls, but it was still pretty and they seemed to enjoy it :)

On a lighter note, here's some of the pictures from our photo adventure :)

Hope your Thanksgiving was just as fun and less embarrassing than mine! :)

No Rest for the Weary

I went back to work today. It's like chaos incarnate in that building. Ok, maybe just the financial part of the building. Quite the welcome back for this little missy. "Hit the ground running" would be an understatement.

Unbeknownst to me (and about 90% of the other employees), our company was sold. That sale is finalized TOMORROW. Yeah, tomorrow. If you have even a smattering of an idea of what goes into a business sale, you realize the enormity of this situation.

From a financial perspective, this event is treated like the "end of fiscal year." To give you an idea of the importance and stress involved with that event, let's compare it to the "end of fiscal month" that comes around on the last Friday of every month.

It's like the end of the world.

And I'm not even joking.

Basically, millions and millions of dollars have to be analyzed, balanced, unapplied, overapplied, reapplied, adjusted, and tweaked into perfection. They should thank their lucky stars that, in spite of the fact that one fourth of their accounts receivable department (read: me) has never taken any accounting classes, she happens to already be adept at math and (solely by the grace of God) a fast learner.

So this is always a stressful event. In this particular case, we have a few added elements to add even more adventure to the scenario.

1) It's busy season. We are processing thousands of payments a day, with hundreds upon hundreds of those requiring manual entry. EVERY DAY.

2) Tomorrow is Tuesday. The amount of payments processed on Tuesday is double (on average) what is processed any other day. It usually has to be carried over to Wednesday. This is not an option tomorrow, since we have to "close out" at 4 pm. We had to start Tuesday's batch today, which isn't easy when you don't have customer or account numbers: all we have are scans of the checks until the real data arrives in the mail tomorrow. What this means (for those of you who don't know anything about accounts receivable) is that we have to search for each and every customer or account in our slow-as-a-snail, horribly antiquated, out-dated database. My average rate for posting payments is between 60 and 100 checks an hour. When we have to do it the hard way, I get (at most) 30 done an hour.

3) The Credit and Collections manager - my boss - is gone all week. He is the one sane person in management. And probably one of a dozen (and that's a generous estimate) sane people in the building.

Fun stuff, eh? ;)

The Road to Christmas is Paved With Thanksgiving Intentions

I was a prisoner in my own home this week. I couldn't go in to work since they sprayed our office with some chemical that gave me a horrible, miserable asthma attack. I felt rather ill for the first couple of days, but I began to perk up a bit by the latter half. I dragged asked my gracious mother to bring me to her personal purgatory the craft store to get Thanksgiving decorations.

I was thwarted in my endeavors, however. Thanksgiving seems to be over in the world. Everything is green, red, gold, silver... in a word, Christmasy.

So, Christmas it is. I dove in with a great deal of zeal. I may have overestimated how healthy I was... I definitely crashed at the end of Thursday and Friday. But our house has many sparkly, bright, Christmasy things around it.

Enjoy some glimpses of our house in its festive garb.

I wrapped all of our wall art in Christmas paper. Yes, all of it. 

 I made the pointsettia curtain a few years ago and it has become an annual staple.

This combination was my mama's idea. And I love it.

 This garland was super fun to make. Although I would advise against buying glittery snow flakes at the dollar store. I was concerned that there wouldn't be any glitter left on them by the time I was done with the assembly.

 My sister super-glued the ribbon bows to the thumbtacks because, as she said, she isn't in danger of gluing herself to anything. haha!

 The wrapping paper is literally everywhere...

 A holiday bouquet.

 Now we just need an actual Christmas candle to put in the middle

 Another bouqet of shiny sparklies.

 Look what we have here!

 

 And no, not even my brother's sword escaped a bit of festive cheer. :)

3 Siblings

We've grown out of the fighting... but not out of the sillies.

I love this layout... hope you do too. :)

My bud, the CFO

I work in a multi-million dollar industry: promotional products. The corporation I work for pretty much has the monopoly on that multi-million dollar industry. Within the one corporation are several companies, each of which caters to different types of businesses (for example, one of them works with Disney, another works with elementary schools). One huge corporation that is comprised of four big companies. We have facilities in Tijuana, Tennessee, India, Michigan, Ireland, and San Diego. I work in the corporate office with about 150 other people, including the CEO, the CFO, and the CIO.

I am accident prone. My body... breaks. All of the time. Joints do not stay in socket for more than a few hours at a time. This is simply a fact of my existence. Yes, it does hurt. Not as much as it would hurt you, so stop squirming. My joints are loose, so dislocations are not as violent to my connective tissue and muscles as they would be to yours.

When you combine the important people, my medical problems, and top it off with my luck, bad things happen. Sigh.

The CFO is a particularly uptight individual. And that's a generous description. He is the CFO of a multi-million dollar corporation. He is paid to be uptight. And every time he walks by the cubicle of a certain minion, she's on the floor. Oh yeah. That minion is me. He walks by every day. Every day I'm having some sort of problem. It varies: some days I'm simply popping a hip back into socket, some days I'm stuck on the floor because I threw out my back. But every day, he is the one to find me.

Now, he might not care if I were a minion in customer service or marketing. But I'm in accounting. I personally handle thousands of dollars every week. And I technically fall under (way, way, way, way down at the very bottom of a pretty long chain of people) his jurisdiction.

Today was no exception. My ankle bone was sticking out of the side of my foot. It hurts to walk on that. So I was crawling back to my desk from the sink (where I had been dutifully washing out my coffee cup). The CFO magically appears out of nowhere and starts flipping out. He frantically asks me if I need him to call someone or carry me somewhere. I keep repeating that it's only another ten feet to my desk and I'm fine. I just need to get back there to pop my ankle bone back into place. He wasn't listening though. He ran off to get the HR lady and to call 911. Yes, I'm serious. 911. I don't do 911. Don't get me wrong, I'd use them if I thought I'd need them. But I don't. This is normal.

Thankfully, my boss came to my rescue. He quietly appeared around the corner with a wheeled office chair. He just pointed at me, pointed at the chair, and raised his eyebrows in a way that brooked no argument. I mouthed thank you (the CFO was within earshot), pulled myself into the chair, and he wheeled me back to my desk. "You'd better go calm the CFO down now, " I said. "Yeah, I'm on it." and off he ran to intercept the panicking man and prevent him from calling the paramedics.

Just another day in my life.

5 Facts About Being the Child with Allergies

(Earlier today I read an article called "5 Facts about Raising a Child with Celiac Disease." Or something like that. This is my version. I figured I'm entitled since I actually have the food allergies and my perspective might be helpful.)

1. Eating is really boring.
Really, really boring. If I could get away with not eating, I would. I've actually tried it on occasion. It usually ends badly (since I'm hypoglycemic... and human), but it doesn't really stop me from trying. When something that should be pleasurable requires quite a bit of effort, it severely cuts down on the attractiveness of the activity.
(I realize that sentence could be interpreted as kind of scandalous out of context, so please don't quote it out of context. Unless you want to make people laugh and make me turn red. Which is your prerogative, I suppose.)

2. It doesn't mitigate fussiness.
We didn't discover my dairy intolerance until I was about ten and I didn't become soy intolerant until I was in my mid-teens. With these discoveries came a lot of adjustments to my diet. Unfortunately, ever since I was a wee one, I have been a famously picky eater. For some reason, though, many people assume that since I am so limited in menu, I'll gratefully eat anything they put in front of me. I might, out of politeness, but I don't usually like it. I like plain, simple food. I like it to be tasty, but tasty does not mean adventurous. I am not an adventurous eater. So for future reference, don't assume that the people that you know who have food allergies aren't picky eaters. We're still human with individual likes and dislikes. Just saying.

3. It's less scary for me than it is for you.
I know, I know, this one sounds kind of backwards, but it's true. It's a lot less scary to be the one with the allergies than the one watching an allergic reaction. Don't ask me why. Maybe because there's more of a sense of helplessness when you're watching someone suffer, maybe because it's less unpredictable or unusual from our end. I'm always reassuring people: this is normal for me. It is. I pass out. I get up. I move on. I don't like throwing up. I don't like having splitting headaches and dizziness. But I know it will pass, that I'll (most likely) live through it, etc.

4. STOP FREAKING OUT.
So I know it's hard, but please STOP freaking out. When you freak out, I feel like I have to take care of you. From the floor. It's difficult. Help if you know how, but if you don't know how, don't ask me how you can help. I'm not in the mood. If you really want to know, ask for some instructions when I'm not having a reaction. Then I'm happy to inform you.

5. Don't harp on the subject.
We know we have allergies. I understand that with little kids, they don't understand the connection between certain foods and getting sick. They may not think through the consequences. That Reese's Peanut Butter Cup looks reeeeaallyyyy good. So I understand some hyper-vigilance in that situation. But by the time we're a older, we are more acutely aware of our allergies than you could ever, ever, ever be. I'm serious. I check and double check labels. I'll won't eat something if it doesn't have a label that I can check or I didn't watch the person make it (because most people don't think of using Pam as a problem or something to list among the ingredients when I ask). I bring PB&J when I go to a party. I know how to take care of myself (and I'm getting better about actually doing so). But we don't want to be reminded all of the time that we're different. WE know we're different. And it's hard being the kid who can't do everything. Who can't eat at the party. Who can't just eat like a normal person. Sure, we get used to it. But some days it isn't easy. And when, on those days, we're repeatedly reminded of our problem and how we can't eat something, we do the typically human thing. Think Adam and Eve. "Don't touch" is like a challenge to touch it.

I realize that these have varying degrees of seriousness, but life has varying degrees of seriousness. And while allergies and intolerances are serious things, it's good to learn how to have a sense of humor about it. Because we're human too.

Breakfast Dessert and Other Shenanigans

Last night, two of the awesomest people ever came over for dinner. Of course, when you have awesome people over, awesome things happen. Awfully funny awesome things. For example:

This one needs a little background: Dan (awesome person number two) insisted that he bring something over with him. I challenged him to make a "Bridget-proof" dessert. When discussing options, he asked if I was allergic to goats' milk products. On receiving a negative, he expressed relief because he wanted to bring goat milk yogurt. I raised a quizzical eyebrow or two, but I, being a gracious hostess, didn't actually vocalize the concern.

At least, I didn't tell him. I did call Karen last night (awesome person number one) and ask her if I should surreptitiously bake brownies because Dan was bringing breakfast for dessert. She said no; she thought it would be ok. If he was still hungry, he could eat when he got home. Kinda a strange answer, but I let it go.

When Dan got to our house, he asked for a pot so he could start our "breakfast dessert." Incredulous, I looked at Karen. "You told him??" She conceded that she had and I turned a bright color. He is never, ever, ever going to let me live this down. Especially since we weren't having yogurt for dessert. We were having some fancy dessert that consisted of apples boiled in wine with cinnamon and sugar and stuff of that sort, garnished with the plain yogurt and the wine boiled down into a syrup. He did graciously leave the left over goat yogurt for our consumption. It made a tasty breakfast.

The second event worthy of mention is that our family failed to live up to Italian standards: we had no garlic in the house. Ok, maybe not strictly true. We had a quarter of a teaspoon of garlic powder. That's it. The spaghetti was... not garlicy. I may or may not have panicked. Dan may or may not have tried to put a chili in it. And pepper. He's clearly not Italian.What was probably the funniest part of the whole thing was that I called my sister, hoping that she could pick up garlic powder before she got home from Mass. I didn't quite succeed. We had a phone conversation while she was in our garage. Ha! But no garlic powder. Which merited a cheeky comment from one of our guests that was to the effect of, "It needs garlic."

The third thing was not really something I can explain. It was just hysterical to watch. Karen, Andrea, and Dan were all involved in the vegetable cooking. There was a great flurry of pot holders, spoons, spices, etc. The oven was opened and closed, shelves were repositioned, and there was just general chaos. It was quite the project. And it left me laughing hysterically.

My Squishy

We never managed to come up with a good name for our room. We had some good material to work with: out initials are the first two letters of the alphabet. But nothing came. There was similar situation with this layout: I couldn't really think of anything to say about it. That may be because I'm tired and feeling a whole mix of emotions that I didn't know could co-exist in a person. Or it may be because my friendship with my roomie is beyond description. I'll let you decide :)