Indépendence Cha-cha

Although I recognize and appreciate Independence Day in the U.S. where I live, I have to celebrate my own first. Well, I don't usually, but for once, I have decided to be slightly patriotic and rep my peeps... D.R.C. Baby! Today is the day and though I am probably not going to be celebrating it, I wanted to mention it.


My hubby will probably take out the giant flag my mom brought him last summer. I'm guessing he'll place it somewhere random in the house, but in retrospect, it is nice to show a bit of patriotism =) Here's to us hopefully moving in the right direction someday soon, and getting our country back to her glory days. Lots of hope there, but I chose to be more positive about it this year. Boom!

Sigh

This morning was really rough for me. My day started out very strangely. I got a call at work for a verification of employment but the lady sounded EXACTLY like a very good friend of mine who passed away last year. Talk about a cold sweat. I froze and thought I was in the Twilight Zone for a second...

I was literally speechless for so long that the lady had to say "hello?" a few more times for me to snap out of it. I have no idea how I made it through the rest of the day without curling up into a ball in some corner, but I did. 

Does this ever get any easier? Every time something reminds me of her, I get a horrible tightening in my chest and it feels like something is pocking my lungs with needles. I can't breathe, I get really warm, and sometimes my vision blurs.. *sigh. This is hard.

Recovery

Our 4th Game Night was a mad success and had the most amount of people it's ever had. I believe there were 18 of us total, but at one point there were 20 people in our tiny townhouse! It was loads of fun tho, but seriously, I'm getting too old to drink that much, blaaaaah. I was knocked out most of Sunday, even though I was wide awake from 10 am, I was not functioning. I don't know why my hangovers keep changing, but spacing out, is definitely not a fun one. Oh, and all my muscles and bones hurt as if I'd been in a fight! gaaaah... lol.

I spent the entire day on the couch, staring at my computer and books and homework, then finally snapped out of it around 8pm and did whatever assignments I could, and then went to bed at 1am.

Getting to work this morning was still rough, and it was difficult to stay awake at times, but I managed to get quite a bit of work done. The day went pretty fast actually, because I never noticed lunch time arriving, and I was busy most of the day after that. Now I'm just enjoying a short break before getting back to it. Before I even had a chance to stare at the clock and say "why aren't you moving, you impertinent clock?", it was almost time to go home :)

The Veronica Diaries

Hey readers! I know you've missed me, and I've missed you. OK, enough with the pleasantries... let's get to it! lol!

Over the past couple of weeks, I compiled a mini diary of happenstances from work. A friend (whom we'll call B.) at work and I thought it would be fun to make notes for our third musketeer who was on vacation for a couple of weeks. So I jotted something down every day, and I am now going to share with you the outrageous ones; just to show what type of nonsense some of us have to deal with on a daily basis. I named the Diaries after Veronica Bananahammock who was probably on the beach at the time of record, lol. I skipped over most of the days where nothing happened. Enjoy!





Day 1
Lame-oh! Nothing fun happened. We were bored out of our minds, ate at our desks and tried to stay awake. BORING!


Day 2 - Convo between two co-workers.
Man: I have the paperwork for the new hire
Woman 1: Is it a man or a woman?
M1: Idk...
W: ... What's the name?
M1: David something
W: Oh, David? That's a man.
M1: Oh, I don't know if it's a man or a woman, but the name on the paper is Dave, not David
The rest of us who are sane --> !?!?!?!?!

yeaaaaaaaaa, that happened.


Day 3
More boredom


Day 4 - Convo between same man and another woman co-worker.
Man: Is there a difference between sales and marketing?
Woman 2: .....
M: I mean, are they the same department?
W2: What do you think?

... Wow!

Day 5 - Meeting moment.
B sent an email to the team about some changes and updates she made, and where to find them on the share drive. She explained that she didn't print the new docs b/c they are constantly updated in HR so it makes more sense to print them as needed.

Man waits 20 minutes into the meeting to say "team announcement. We have some new documents which I printed and placed in our printer area". Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh!





Day 6 - Man sends email to a VP and copied to the team about something the VP requested

All set. 
I processed it. 
I think, It was supposed to processing "non standard excellence award"
Thx.

This is verbatim.

Day 7 - Rants
Woman 1 and Woman 2 spent 20 minutes having the same 4 line conversation over and over and over... seriously! I'm not exaggerating~!

Later that day, W1 went into a 15 min complaint about why she didn't like the fact that some countries write their names in a different order. An employee emailed us about updating her name in the system due to her recent marriage. She gave us her new last name but W1 thought the woman gave us ... get this... the wrong last name! Oh, the outrage!!!

I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure the woman knows her own name, wouldn't you think? I tried to explain this to W1 saying that in that employee's country, her name is written in a different order than the way we write them in the States. Case and point: in Japan, and many other countries (including my own), people write their last name first when making introductions. W1 flipped out, said she'd never heard of such a thing, called me a know-it-all, and then sent an email to our supervisor asking her what she should do about updating the name... wow!


Day 8 - Rants
W1 is still talking about the employee's name change and complaining that her request was "inconsistent with her marriage certificate"... which coincidentally, listed the name the EXACT WAY the employee asked it... SIGH!

Day 9 
Man once again repeated useless information at the team meeting and things that other people already covered to make himself sound important.



W1 asked yet again about the woman with the name change, thinking that the outcome would be different in a group setting. What's the definition of insanity again?

Insanity: 
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.


Albert Einstein.

And here's a definition I found on an online dictionary.



I rest my case.

Day 10
Man randomly left work at 3:30 w/o telling anyone...just packed up and walked away huffing. Weird.

Day 11 - The Final Torture
We have finally reached the final day of your [Veronica's] exile! You will need this diary to keep from crying the loss of beach time when you return, LOL!
B is leaving work at 3, Man is leaving at 4 and W2 as always, leaves at 2... that will leave, you guessed it: me alone with W1 for an entire hour... Yay.

--- The End ---

Hope you enjoyed this one time only release of "The Veronica Diaries". ;)

Home again

I had the best weekend with my new & old nieces and nephews. The little one is so adorable and so quiet! My sister says it's because I was holding him the entire time, but that when you put him down he cries. I guess I did her a disservice then? Ummm, sorry sis'. He was too cute to let go of!!

I found out my 15yr old niece posts on her wall... literally. She writes on her wall, and I didn't make the cut, soooo I am mentally disliking all her posts now (and since she doesn't read my blog she'll never know) Sooo this is for you Mini Slice: *sticks out tongue and wiggles moose fingers* na na na na nèèèèèèèèèreuuuh! LOL, psych, you know I love u!

The drive home wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I picked up the drive from New Jersey, and we made it home by 8pm or so. Only a little bit of traffic on the turnpike and in the Bronx, then it was pretty mellow. As soon as I got home, I went into homework mode and did a bunch of assignments for my Design class. I was exhausted by 1am so I left a final assignment and some reading for today.

I finished Catching Fire last week (I'll review it on my Readology blog but it was so AWESOME!!!). I'm kind of behind on my other blogs actually... In addition to this, I think I still have to review Hunger Games, and Ten Big Ones. I am so excited to get caught up with all the Stephanie Plum books, so I can catch up on my In Death series... yes, it's an obsession. Accept it =p.

I can't figure out Pinterest yet, but I think it's because I haven't actually had any time to get on it. I have a feeling I will be harboring a new addiction if/when I start with it, lol... all my friends are on it. It seems I always join the party later than everyone. I think back to cell phone, email, messenger, Xanga, Hi5, MySpace, even Facebook... I was always told to join, join, join and I didn't until almost everyone moved on...Oh well, I can't get rushed into things I guess... just ask my husband! :)

A friend from work got married on Saturday and is probably cruising the Caribbean sea on her honeymoon as I type. Congrats again love birds!!! Enjoy every minute that you are not in this wretched place counting down the minutes til we clock out, haha!

Finally, I need new guitar strings. I have no idea when I'll even be able to play again but I seem to blame it on the strings a lot, so I think I should motivate myself and buy new strings. Then if I really don't play at least once a week like I should, I would have no choice but to give it away and mama needs her guitar!

Tootles!

Welcome Baby YLE!!!

He's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My baby nephew is here at last! 7.12lbs, 20.5 inches of joy :). I talked to my sister and they're both doing well. She should be going home from the hospital today. Hubbs and I were planning on doing to 7hr drive on Saturday because we thought he'd be born then, but the little joker made us wait until Sunday morning. We'll be going there this weekend though and I can't waiiit!

My brother-in-law sent a few pictures, but really, I should be there making this a full on photo shoot! I mean seriously, we need pictures from every angle, and in every position imaginable!!! Sighhhh, I have to do everything myself ;p

Thankfully, I got permission from my new boss to make up time so I could leave early to visit my family this weekend and welcome the new member of the family, so I came in to work early and will be doing so all week. I won't get any sleep but my little "Scott" is worth it :)

Toodles!

Lost In Translation (Just this once)

Mikolo oyo, batu mingi ya motema mabe ba za na nzela na nga. Epayi nyoso na kendaka, ba landaka nga. Ba mikomisaka mininga kaka po ba monisa nga pasi. Misala nyoso na zuaka, bango yeyo... ata to yokani mikolo ebele, na yebi ke mukolo moko eko ya, ba ko monela nga. Na sala mokili nini??? Nani a loki nga?

Na moni kaka il faut na zala lokola machine. Na loba te, na seka te, na sepela te. Ba za pene pene, kasi bazo sala nyoso po na yeba ke ba lingaka nga te.

Donc c qu'des cracs tout ca... du semblant, de l'hypocrisie... et dans tt ca j'dois attendre chais pas combien d'tps pour me tailler d'ici donc... a la mienne!

Blooms

The trees outside my office window finally have leaves again and I am just noticing them. It may be that I'd forgotten they were bare, because this winter was not a winter at all, or that I've been too sick to notice...

Yes, indeed... I have been feeling off my game for the past couple of days and yesterday was the worse. I didn't think it was possible to throw up as much as I did, but well... it happened. I am better today, still a bit weak, but at least my food's staying down. Yesterday was my first day ever working from home (I know... I'm such a grown up!) and I wish it had been for a different reason.

I'm just going to take it easy for the rest of the day and probably the rest of the week. I know I should be drinking water and stuff, but maybe I'll do Gatorade or Ginger Ale this time. ugh... I hate feeling like crap!

Sick again

I'm not feeling all that great this morning. I almost turned around and went back to bed about 5 times on my way to work. I probably should have called my boss and told her I wasn't feeling well. It's a combination of nausea and dizziness... fun stuff. Especially when there appears to be two steering wheels in your four hands =\

Anyway, I am sharing something my mom sent me via email that I found pretty funny. Sadly, I don't have the strength to laugh at some of these today, but I'm sure tomorrow, they will hit the spot :)

Enjoy!

English - brilliant!

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and there would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England.

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
What do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English

Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship...
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out,
And in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing..........

If Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop.???

All kinds of stuff

Today's not going to be such a good day, well it may be okay, but not good. My two partners in crime at work are out for Boston Marathon and I now wish I had thought to be out. Not like I was going to run or anything, but I could have used the time to relax or spend w/ my hubby... sighhh! I'll just have to put up with the ridiculousness on my own at work. Maybe if I get lucky, it will be so busy that no one will have time to loudly chat about their son's rash or their daughter's constipation.... really people? keep that ish to yourselves!!!


Well, a few things happened since I last posted. I found out on the day I returned to work about changes in my department, which I think will make a world of difference (in a good way). I have a new boss, and I have worked with her a little in the past. She's a no-nonsense kinda gal, and that's just what we need! Some people in our team will have to start their ass-kissing acts all over again... They've started to, or at least tried, but I don't think new boss is falling for it, HA!




Also, there were tons of coupons in the mail from Delia*s, Alloy, New York & Company and Target sooo, yes I went shopping for summer clothes over the last couple of weeks. Mostly for summer work clothes though, because I didn't have any, and there still aren't enough shirts in my closet somehow. I wonder if I am unconsciously competing with hubby's 30 hanging shirts in our closet ...



Third, I read the Hunger Games! FINALLY!!! I really enjoyed the book. I had already watched the movie with some friends the weekend I got back from Florida, but it was nice to get the details. It was especially nice to see how well they cast the movie, in terms of "likeness". I mean, Effie, is EXACTLY how she's described in the book! I started Catching fire, but really only got a few paragraphs in because I had to finish my group project for school.

Speaking of school... I am changing majors again (I know). I couldn't deal with Business Admin so, the only thing I could switch to that lit a spark was Illustration. I think it will be good. I'm excited about it. It all starts next Monday, so fingers crossed, this will be my last change! I just missed art too much and couldn't wrap my head around management, marketing, accounting, and all that stuff. I tried, and got good grades, but it really didn't do anything for me. I just can't see myself doing that for the rest of my life. I need something more... colorful. :)

Let's see... what else?!?!?! Hmmmm yeah, we're looking at houses. Well, not literally yet, but just browsing the net for types, acreage, floor plans, etc... just to get an idea of what would suit us so when it's really time to hunt, we'll know what we want.




My replacement for the front desk receptionist has been filled and the new girl starts today. I hope she survives that desk longer than I did, but who am I kidding, she'll figure out soon enough that it's just a step stool and she'll move on up if she has any brains at all ;p. We'll see tho, she seems nice enough.