Woo Hoo
Category: Hurricanes
So, what’s happened to me this year, huh? Oh, you mean you don’t know? Ok, I’ll fill you in.
1. My belief in the adage "everything happens for a reason" is tested when I get back to work after New Year’s and am given the heartbreaking news that my good friend and co-worker has lost her 2-1/2 year old son on New Year’s Eve. **Today is the anniversary of his death, and I hope and pray she is surrounded by loved ones to help her through this difficult day.
2. Lots of work upheaval. We move our offices to another building, get a new boss, hire two new co-workers, and hire one guy who quits after one week – wussy. My boss is now on maternity leave, so I’m in charge until she comes back (if she comes back – could YOU leave twins after only 3 months?). My other co-worker that lost her son, is now 8-1/2 months pregnant with another child, and will probably give birth within the next two weeks. So she will also be gone for 3 months. I just LOVE being short-staffed!
3. Jesse and I take a short trip to New York in May. We are delayed for six hours in the airport in Tampa because some stupid person has stuffed a baby’s diaper down the toilet and it has clogged up the pipes. Of course, the airline could have just sent us on the next flight, but that would have made too much sense. We did get free round-trip tickets out of the deal, so I guess all’s well that ends well. Oh yeah, and we get engaged in Central Park on Saturday, May 22nd.
4. We take another nice trip to Savannah with our friends Lisa and Sean. What a beautiful city – would love to move up there (actually, we would like to move anywhere, just to get out of Florida). I decide I do not like ghost tours, or darkened cemeteries.
5. My sister gets a promotion at her job (finally!) and moves to Virginia – her first time out of Florida. I am very proud of my sister!
6. Go back up to New York in July to meet with our photographer, scope out ceremony locations, and test out our restaurant choice for the reception. My sister is up there as well, in the process of moving to Virginia, so we get to hang out. Lots of text messaging ensues. Where R U?
7. Try to throw Jesse a surprise 30th birthday party in August. Of course, Mother Nature consipres against me and decides to throw a couple hurricanes our way. Reschedule the party with limited success.
8. New TV season starts, and I become addicted to The Amazing Race. You got a problem with that?
9. Get married on October 8th in Shakespeare Garden in Central Park, New York. It is a perfect day, and I am so glad Jesse and I have chosen to start our life together in our favorite place in the world. I am also extremely happy that Jesse and I found each other (I guess that goes without saying, huh?)
10. I turn 32 on October 13th. I’m not scared of being in my 30′s anymore – it’s sort of fun, actually. I like myself much more now than I did in my 20′s. I now think I am one hot mama, and I still look like I’m in my 20′s, so ha ha!
11. Jesse and I take a mini-honeymoon to Sarasota. We enjoy our slanted room.
12. The holidays happen, and I just can’t get it up. Too much wedding stress this year.
13. It is now New Year’s Eve. My resolutions are nothing major: get pregnant at some point next year, get promoted at work, buy a house, and redo my blog.
I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe and healthy 2005!
Yes, folks, we have another hurricane on the way. Jeanne, you crazy bitch, stay away from my house!
So I guess Hurricane Ivan is not going to hit us at all – at least, that is what they are predicting now. I really hope that is the case, because otherwise we would probably have to evacuate, and I don’t know where we would go, with myself, Jesse, our two cats, my mom and her two huge dogs. Plus, I bet my mom wouldn’t go because she wouldn’t want to leave my grandma, who is in a nursing home. As Mary J. Blige says, "No more drama!"
Yesterday, since we assumed the hurricane would hit us and we would be stuck in our house for at least a week, we decided to do what anyone else in their right mind would do – yes, we went to Busch Gardens! Hey, if I’m going to be holed up inside for a week, I may as well have some fun while I can. It was a beautiful day (always is before a hurricane), and me and Jesse and our friend Lisa went and had a great time. We rode all the water rides and a couple of roller coasters, looked at animals and watched a bird show.
It was a good time. And the craziest thing all day? We saw two huge tortoises having sex! It was disturbing – very National Geographic, up close and personal. The male tortoise chases the female (they can move pretty swiftly when they are horny) and when she slows down and submits, he climbs on top of her and his penis comes out from under his shell and goes under hers. It’s pretty ugly – the penis, I mean (although the sex act was ugly too). Worst of all, he makes this noise while he is thrusting – a deep "uuhhh". And at the end, he started to drool. It was pretty mesmerizing. We couldn’t take our eyes off it. The guy that worked there said that they have sex all the time, but have never produced any babies, in the 50 years they have been there. So I guess they just do it for fun. I, of course, had to make every sex joke in the book while it was happening. While he was chasing her, I yelled "No means No!" and "Run for your life, little lady!" Afterwards, I clapped and asked them if they needed a cigarette and a hug. I am a walking cliche, I guess.
Last night, I went through all my wedding stuff, to see what still needed to be done, and surprise surprise, there is not much left to do at all. And we are very close to sticking to our budget, about $500 over. I am so glad this has been easy. I’ve planned it mostly by myself (Jesse isn’t too much help but I’ve come to accept that) and it has been very simple. All brides should do it this way – a small, intimate wedding is the way to go. Planning an elaborate wedding is basically saying, "Hello Stress, please come in and make yourself at home. Stay as long as you like." I have enough stress in my life, thank you very much.
Three hurricanes in 4 weeks – this is very annoying. Not only do I have to panic at home, but I have to panic at work as well. So, I work at an electronic retail network here in St. Petersburg, and everytime a hurricane threatens us, we have to pack up the show and go to Nashville, Tennessee to do our broadcast from there. I work with all our guests, so we have to call them all, tell them either their show is cancelled or they need to go to Nashville. Either way, it’s panic mode and I hate it.
Then, Jesse calls me:
J: "You need to call the condo association and your mom to see what they are planning to do."
K: "I’m at work, I don’t have the condo association’s number."
J: "Well, then you should call the management company."
K: "I don’t have that number either because I’m at work."
I call my mom:
K: "What are you planning to do?"
M: "Well, I need propane for my gas tank so we can barbeque if we have to. The only bad thing about last time was that I was all alone." (Oh, the guilt!)
K: "Well, we’ll come over this time."
M: "Because last time, I was all alone." (I get it, ma!)
K: "Are you going to board up the windows?"
M: "Who, me?"
K: "No, I mean dad." (my parents are separated)
M: "Yeah, right. Your dad didn’t even call to check on me until after the last hurricane passed. Meanwhile, he had power the whole time, we could have gone over there."
K: "Ok, so … no plywood."
What a long day it’s been – if this hurricane hits us, it will definitely be bad news. Man, this sucks!
The first time I ever saw a blog, I was extremely confused. I didn’t understand what it was – why was I reading some stranger’s ramblings? Why was I supposed to care about what some average Joe thought? And why couldn’t I tear myself away? Blogs are addictive. I think the reason I wanted to start one was because I have always enjoyed keeping a diary, but I’ve never been one for follow-through (meaning, I always kept a diary for a few months and then got caught up in other stuff and stopped writing). The great thing about a blog is that it’s online, where I spend most of my day anyway. And here, I can update it just by sending an email – even easier. Since I’m on the computer everyday, why not jot down my thoughts during a workday lull?
I’ve always said I have "diarrhea of the typing", so if you enjoy rambling, you’ve come to the right place! I’ll probably talk about my upcoming wedding (don’t worry, though, I’m not a "bride" bride – it’s all pretty overhyped, if you ask me), my job, family and my favorite thing ever, the new tv season! I am a tv addict, although in my mind a recovering one. Compared to how I used to be, I’ve really cut back on my tv watching (although my fiancee would disagree). When I was a freshman in college, I had a tv show for every night of the week. Now I’ve cut back drastically, but the new tv season always excites me – just the prospect of finding my new favorite tv show makes me happy. I’m looking forward to two in particular – Lost and Desperate Housewives. Lost looks pretty good – the concept seems fresh and exciting, and the reviews have been pretty favorable. Desperate Housewives also looks interesting – it has two of my favorite actresses, Teri Hatcher from Lois and Clark and Felicity Huffman from Sports Night, two of my favorite shows. The promos for it on ABC are very intriguing, so I hope it lives up to the hype. My very favorite website, Television without Pity, will probably be recapping the shows, so I can’t wait to read what they think (if you’ve never been to their website, and you love tv, you have to look them up – it is so funny). I’m also looking forward to some returning shows, Joan of Arcadia and Gilmore Girls. Both shows ended last season with interesting loose ends, so I can’t wait to see how they tie them up – I hope they don’t disappoint me.
In case you are a weather geek, I live in Florida, where we are in the middle of a pain in the ass storm, Hurricane Frances. It sucks. We were without power for 21 hours, and let me tell you, you don’t realize how much you rely on power, not only for basics, like food and light, but just for sheer entertainment. Jesse (my fiancee) and I were bored out of our skulls. Just imagine, no tv, no video games, no Internet, and you can’t leave the house! Man, did we have cabin fever! We played Scrabble, Dominoes, Poker and Rummy until it got so dark we couldn’t see (he beat me in everything but Rummy, which I rock at). Also, a little advice – if you are ever without power, get taper candles, not those stupid thick ones everyone puts around the house for atmosphere. The taper candles are better for seeing. Those thick ones burn down into the candle, which really doesn’t give you much light. But watch out for dripping wax – it is all over my house now. And make sure to charge your cell phone before a storm. That’s all the advice I have, for now.
Well, that was fun. Hopefully, I will remember to post at regular intervals, so people who are interested in my little corner of the world will not have to wait months and months to see what I am up to.
