Pink Flamingo on Toast

Since starting my new job I have discovered something that I had always wanted to happen. Reading... Both my parents are avid readers as well as my husband. In the past 3 weeks I have finished 3 books. Usually it takes me months, not a couple of months but like half a year for me to finish a book. It's not that I don't enjoy reading its that I don't make the time to read. This job has lots of down time. I did take my homework the other day but finished it in record time and had plenty of time to read. I even put off doing laundry today to finish a book. I know, just another excuse not to do laundry but I wanted to see how this book turned out. So it's not my fault that the laundry isn't folded and stuff, it's Nero Wolfe's .

This new schedule is both a blessing and a curse. I'm actually liking getting up and doing something before noon. The bad part is that I'm up before noon. After work I headed over to Campus to get my video tape of my sign story done. We have three due this semester...this was number two. I don't know if I'm just obnoxious or what but I was the only one in class to turn it in. It was due today. I don't know why no one else had it done. I guess I just don't understand people priorities. I mean....they are paying for the class. We had three signing quizzes in class. Much easier than taping them and waiting. I think I did well. A few handshapes were sloppy but I corrected them. I must have done well because after class the professor stopped me and said "You're doing really well" I know..I shouldn't brag but I'm just giddy about doing well in school. "Teachers pet...." I know...

Well, we've been home for about 51 hours. I love coming home. I love being able to walk around aimlessly in my house with my stuff. Let me go back though. On Friday night the waves on the sea were 7-13 feet. That's pretty rough. The ship was rocking and rolling all night long. This is the first cruise, I've been on eight, that I got sea sickness. It's a terrible thing. I'll never mock anyone who gets it. I'm still not 100%. If I stand or whip my head around too fast it feels like I'm on the rocking ship again. oof! Yesterday I had to work, I thought it would be like the other Sundays, very slow, infact so slow that they would let me leave around noon. No such luck. I was there for my entire shift. No fun when you feel like you are on a rocking ship and watching text scroll on a screen makes you queasy. I am feeling a little better although I still have episodes. I think a lot of it is just catching up on sleep. Or that's what I'...

Well all things have to end. Even a wonderful vacation. We got home around 1:30pm today. Traffic from Tampa was awful. I don't know if it was spring breakers or what but on I-75 traffic crawled at..hmm...around 50 mph. Not very fun at all. While we were gone, a friend of Jerry's took care of Tabitha. She was quite meowy. Happy to see us, that's for sure. An odd thing about the week is that stopped the mail through the USPS site . Yet it was delivered all week long. I wonder if the post man is just dense or if they got the dates messed up. I did double check the confirmation and I did do it for the proper dates. *shrug* TiVo, what a wonderful thing. While we were gone TiVo took care of our viewing needs. We have a weeks worth of our favorite shows to veg out with

Yesterday we went to Cozumel. It was a blast. We did notice quite a bit of hurricane damage from Wilma. Apparently the cruise ships didn't come to the Island for almost a month while they rebuilt. There were still some buildings that were hollow shells of what was once a souvenir shop or a bar or something. We had an agenda, FUN. We stopped by a few shops and looked at some lovely jewelry but didn't buy anything. None of us are big shoppers. We hailed a taxi and headed down to the Havana Club to buy a Cuban cigar. They were having a deal so we got a beer and sat out on their balcony and smoked our cigar as we looked out into the ocean at the five cruise ships docked. One of the crew on our ship said that there would be 12000 cruise ship vacationers on shore today. It was a bustle of activity. After our relaxing beer and smoke we hailed another cab and headed to Charlie and Carlos'. OOF! What a fun place. I ordered a big beer....It took two hands for me to...

It's day two and we are at sea all day. Yesterday was great. We left Jacksonville around 9am and arrived in Tampa around Noon and quickly unloaded our bags and came aboard the ship. I have to say that it was one of the easiest embarkations we've ever had. It's such a lovely boat....sorry, ship. Its bigger then the ships we have been on the past couple years. I don't know what it is about being at sea but it's just ... romantic. I could sit and stare at the ocean for hours. I hope to do that later today. I think I am becoming a morning person. I was awake at 6am this morning. I had to fight to stay in bed another hour. 6 am is just too early especially on vacation. We did have a lovely breakfast around 8am though, stared out at the ocean as we sipped our "Seattle's Best" Coffee. mmm...yummy... Well..it's time to go find the family and drink coffee and stare into the vastness of the ocean.

The title is the part of the opening lines in the Academy Award winning Crash . I'm shaking because of the effect it had on me. I couldn't talk for several minutes when it ended. I simply went over to Jerry to have him hold me. Even now as I post, tears stream down my face. This movie is upsetting and familiar. Comments you hear as you walk past the outdoor cafe or employee break room. Little quips from relatives who grew up "back when". They should watch this movie. They should see the damage...But I don't think they would be able to sit through it or if they did manage to sit the entire time they wouldn't get it. The last movie that hit me this hard was La Vita è bella (Life is Beautiful) which also won an Academy Award for best foreign language film. If you haven't seen this movie, you need to. It's one of those movies that make you realize that your life is what you make of it. ... and it's up to you to make it good.

So this morning I woke up before the alarm went off. I was excited to head to the first official day of being on the job. I got there way too early. I don't know why I thought there would be traffic at 6:15am. I guess I won't have to wake up as early tomorrow. Work was good. Quiet. I read about 100 pages of my book. I signed up on the list to voluntarilly leave if they were slow. About 11:20 I went to lunch and then headed back into work. About 30 minutes later I was sent home. I know...first day and I'm already asking to leave early. The thing is that I really only want to work about 4 hours a day. So these 8 hours shifts that I have to pull until after the cruise are just that...something I had to do to take the job. Me leaving early won't effect my time. I just don't get paid for leaving early. No big deal. I also got my new schedule. I'll be working 7:00am until 11:00am on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That's not too...

How come there aren't St. Patrick's Day Sales at the stores? I mean they have sales for Presidents Day...it's because they are Anti-Irish isn't it..... bastards So in the past few days I have been a shopping fiend. I needed pants....badly. The ones I had were droopy and would fall as I walked. I found some cute capris and a couple of tops. I didn't need tops but they were cute and really cheap. I also needed panties, for the same reason so I got some of those too. Also, Target has lots of cute little socks. I don't know why I like cute socks, but I do. (one pair has a cute little embrodiered cat on it) Jerry needed some shorts, so I got some for him too. Shopping....*sigh* it's fun I find things. I thought about making cornbeef and cabbage for dinner but for serveral reasons I'm not. First, It's friday and we have to go do the payroll for Jerry's parents barbershop. Second, It would make my house all stinky. Third, I'm not sur...

Jerry gave me an iPod for my birthday. He gave it to me last night because he knew I would want to load it all day today. He was right! So far I have a dozen videos and over 1200 songs on it. I'm not anywhere near having it full. I can't get the calendar to update but I haven't hit the support forums yet Nothing else is new. School is good, Spring Break is next week and I'll be on the cruise ship enjoying fruity frothy drinks with umbrellas in them. Work, well...I haven't gone all week. So far I only work Saturdays and Sundays until I get back from the cruise. I'll pick up my new schedule when I go in on Saturday . 7am...oof!

Last Friday on the way to work my "check engine" light came on. I thought about going to the garage this weekend but didn't know if they were open. Yeah, yeah...I could have called but I didn't. So today after class I stopped by to get it checked out. At 3:30PM they told me that it was too late for it to be looked at tonight. So the guy, Eric, asked me to bring it in tomorrow first thing. So I guess this means I'm up tomorrow and out the door around 7am to get there before 8am. I guess I'll take a book and just chill. I have a hair appointment at 2pm, I hope I'm done. Jerry said he'd come get me if I wasn't. I told him I could get the garage to cart me around in their courtesy van. *shrug* I also have a mountain of laundry to do before Thursday. Why before Thursday? Because that's the day the maids, yes maids I'm spoiled, are coming in to scrub the bathrooms and kitchen. I can't have my home looking messy when they show up. Oh yea..and ...

I've been working gknee dot org . Some of it is still a little rough. Also moved my blog to blog.gknee.org . So if need be please update your bookmarks.

GAH!! I had dreams of phone calls last night. Very weird. This happened to me when I was training at AOL for Tech support. I would dream of com port shifts. I do have to say that "phone dreams" aren't nearly as frantic as a "com port shift dream". I still woke up saying "What the...?" Just two more days of training. Tonight we have our last written test, number 5 for those keeping score, and a "side by side" which means we take a call with the trainer lurking over us. And then I'm done with training!! I'm ready to be done too. I think we get cake tomorrow at our "graduation". YUM!

There are days where it's just best if I'm quiet. Today was one of them. I was so quiet that even my professor commented on it. I was tired of people not doing their homework that I didn't say a word. It's college, be responsible, and if you don't do it don't make the rest of the class behind by whining about how unimportant this class is. I guess that's what really got to me. I have it done, so I don't have to worry about it. So I have that going for me. Work was good, Took more calls. I think I have the flow down with the macros and coding. I barely had to refer to my training book tonight. I'm tired of going there though. Six days last week of that training class has me "pooped" out on the whole training experience. Just a few more days. Watched the Academy Awards last night. I thought Jon Stewart did a great job. He's a cutie in dorky way. I could see having some beers with him and laughing. Over all I wasn't impressed with the ...

So I'm watching the Daily Show this morning and laughed SOOO hard. Check out this Trendspotting segment. In other news... Yea..nothing can top that today...

I think I'm cursed. I mean, I went to Target to shop and didn't buy a thing. I had things in my cart and slowly ended up putting them back. This is the second time I've been out shopping and haven't gotten anything. *whine* I did take Jerry to lunch at Buca Di Beppo . It's a neat place. I had been wanting to go and a friend at work had a coupon for lunch. I could totally see a group of people drinking too much wine and eating dinner there.

I can't wait to get to some kind of a normal schedule. I'm starving and it's 11:30ish at night. I should have had something before my 6pm training but I wasn't hungry. Work was kinda fun today. We took a test, ok..that wasn't fun, and then did a "side by side" which is basically a monitored scripted call. I did good on both. Then the call floor was slammed with calls so they decided to put all of us trainees on the floor. So we grabbed headsets and did our best. It was kind fun. Sure, I messed up but that's okay. For the most part I did a great job. All in all, not a bad first time. My ears are starting to clear a little. It's only if I yawn or something that they get plugged up. I wish you could get some kind of a vacuum to suck out all the gook in your head when you are sick. Probably not good though, would break down your immunity or something. All the cool ideas never work out. Ok...I'm starting to ramble. I'm either hungry or tired.

Nothing like waking up to the sound of jack hammers outside your window. *smirk* The city thought they should replace the sidewalks so the neighborhood gets to wake up to the sounds of workers hammering and gossiping at 7:30am every morning. Class was better yesterday. Not as much time spent on talking about the latest reality show and more time spent on learning actual signs. Work was more productive too. Maybe the stars and planets are aligned again...