Officially On Short Timers

Back in '06 I left a relatively cushy job in corporate America to take a chance on a start-up with a unique business model. As a 26 year old, I was expected to act like someone twice my age with the experience, maturity, and self-discipline required to make it in the start-up world. I'd work out of my house 60+ hours a week, travel across the country, and crawl way out of my comfort zone almost every second of every day in order to be successful. It worked, and for a while I was absolutely unstoppable. Then the economy collapsed, budgets seized, and the walls around me started to slowly cave in. Faced with a pay cut, a pile of IOU's, and a mortgage that I had to pay regardless, I did what anyone in my position would be expected to do: I threw my resume into a pile with the millions of others currently looking for work.

After searching for about three weeks, I was given a job offer at a Fortune 1000 company. At first I felt bad about receiving such a kick-ass job offer so quickly. After all, I have a lot of friends who have been out of work for months and here I am, casually looking for a job when opportunity literally knocked on my door. As a hard-core worrywart, I was really torn as to what I should pursue. Take money off the table, and working in sweats while your boss sits in an office two states away beats waking up at 5:30am, wearing pantyhose, and sitting in traffic any day. However, after reading over the benefits package (health insurance! vision plan! 401(k)! oh my!) I reminded myself not to be a fucking idiot and take the money and run. Such is the life of a professional sales rep.

Since my new employer insists on calling my current employer before I can start, I really had no choice but to give my two weeks notice about one week earlier than I had planned. After some deliberation and in the nicest way possible, I was told to finish out the week and then take a hike. Despite the constant stress and uncertainty, my current boss is the best sales person I've ever known and just a fantastic person in general. Unfortunately the situation just didn't work out and it was better to weigh my options while I still had options available. As the Yiddish proverb states, when God closes one door, He opens another. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I'm working with him again at some point.

I start my new job at the end of this month and I'm really looking forward to it. After being so isolated for the past three years it will be nice to encounter other living, breathing human beings (aside from Manny) on a daily basis. Despite my short timer status, I do have a number of things to clear up before I can move on in good conscience, including a conference call in 30 minutes. Shortly thereafter, you can expect to find me either at the gym, the beach, or Brooks Brothers. After all, all work and no play makes for a very boring pahkcah02.

Fantastic Fourth

I rarely get a real three day weekend so I definitely took advantage of it this July Fourth weekend. I had some friends in town, as did Wellesley, and managing to see everyone and do everything in a non-stressful manner was definitely key. The weekend started at 9:30 Friday morning when I picked the always-fashionably-on-time Queen Dee at Quincy Adams. We headed down to Westerly, RI to hang with the Republican, her husband, and their wicked adorable 7 month chocolate lab for a fun day at Misquamicut Beach.

Despite following Brenda The Aestician's advice and lathering on gallons of sunscreen, I managed to get a great tan which is the one thing I miss from my 5 summers of lifeguarding. I also got a little jealous about the amount of fun Queen Dee was having riding the waves, and headed into the water myself. The water was surprisingly warm, and is seriously tempting me to check out Newport this upcoming weekend. After the beach Dee and I headed up to Federal Hill in Providence to pick up some pasta at Venda Ravioli and delicious pastry at Scialo Bros.

Our original evening plan was to head over to the Canton fireworks, since I figure I should get something from my property tax dollars. However, we later learned that those fireworks were cancelled and headed over to Stoughton, aka: my ancestral homeland. Ikea ponied up sponsorship for the event, and it was a massive improvement over the poky firecrackers of yore.

After a brief detour to a suburban pool party on Saturday, I headed into town to meet Wellesly and his friend from Chicago for dinner. We ended up at Prezza in the North End, which was excellent, before heading over to Wellesley's mom's place to watch the fireworks. We got an absolutely breath-taking view from a Back Bay balcony and I briefly met his mom for the first time, which was really nice. We finished up the weekend by brunching at Audubon (eh, it was ok) and then headed to our Green Monster seats to watch the Sox take on Seattle.

With the week already off to a great start I hope to follow up it up with lots of other good news :).

The 5 Day Forecast

Zayde Getting Married

The Troll *finally* closed on her condo on Thursday and since I'm a little up in the air right now as far as free time, I figured I'd hop the Saturday, 9am flight down to Baltimore to check out her new digs. I was immediately put to work schlepping boxes up three flights of stairs, including a 100lb+ TV stand in the summer Southern heat (91F and climbing). After the schelpping came the fun part: Chic-Fil-A and watching her spend lots of money on a TV and living room set. As an extra bonus the Troll let me use my rude Yankee ways to beat the crap out of the furniture salesmen (she saved 10% on some of her furniture). We then lugged a 42" TV up the 3 flights of stairs except this time there's was an extra bounce in our step. After a long day of running around like idiots in the oppressive humidity (honestly? How do people live down there???) one undeniable fact remains: the twins from Toughtown are totally un-fucking-stoppable.

Zayde called us a few weeks ago to announce the happy news: he and Bronx were officially engaged. The wedding took place on Long Island yesterday, which made the trip to Baltimore extra convenient since the Troll and I were going to have to drive there anyways. Since Zayde and Bronx didn't want to change anything legally, they spoke to the rabbi and he agreed to do a committment ceremony. To my surprise, it was a full-blown Jewish ceremony complete with a katuba (religious marriage certificate) and everything.

After the ceremony they brought out platters of kosher deli, which is probably the only redeeming quality about Long Island (besides Bagel Boss). Tons obnoxious people crammed one hour outside of NYC shell out huge bucks for a 1950's era three bedroom home on a quarter acre lot. On top of that they all park on the street (why park in the driveway when you can inconvenience everyone else?) drive like dangerous assholes because if they don't manage to kill someone they may save 2 seconds, and walk around like they're constantly looking for a fight. Fran Drescher's family in the Nanny? Yeah, she seriously wasn't making that shit up. If a Bostonian goes to Long Island and doesn't immediately think "what the fuck is wrong with all of these people?" then they certainly don't deserve to live in our beloved state.

That being said, Bronx's friend and relatives all appear to be very nice people. One woman was a dead ringer for Susie Essman (Jeff Greene's wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm) - it was seriously the funniest thing that I've ever seen.

On a totally unrelated note, I'm hoping to spread other pieces of fun news throughout the week. Stay tuned....

Good Times at the Wholesale Club

One of the things I enjoy most about living in America is the unprecedented access to wholesale clubs. In the war of wholesale clubs, there are BJ's people and Costco people and each are fiercely loyal to their respective clubs. Personally I'm a BJ's girl, mostly because I like to support a company that's headquartered in Massachusetts (plus their liquor selection in Stoughton is unreal).

Sure places like Target and Wal-Mart may offer deals similar to those found in wholesale clubs, but the experience is totally not the same. Although I've logged many hours walking the aisles of Costco in D.D.O., Quebec, the art of the wholesale market is such a uniquely American experience. If our regular supermarkets are enough to impress foreigners, they would go absolutely berserk if left loose in a local BJ's. In fact, if a Sam's Club were built in Afghanistan I'm fairly confident that jihadi activities would cease immediately. After all, life is so worth living once you've discovered Prada purses, Sony TV's, and a family pack of Kleenex at cut-rate prices.

The science of cleaning house at a wholesale club is to know exactly how much everything you're buying actually costs. For example, buying 5 lbs of steak tips at $5.99/lb is no bargain but snatching up 3 DiGiornio pizzas for $10 is. $14 for 12 rolls of paper towels? Eh, you could do better. However, a bottle of J. Lohr chardonnay for $8 is worth celebrating. Forget about getting an alarm system or keeping a .38 in your sock drawer. When you're living alone, nothing screams "security" like having 36 double rolls of Cottonelle you recently picked up at BJ's stashed away in the coat closet.

In practical terms, there's really no reason for someone like me to be a card carrying wholesale club member. However, membership has its privileges and I enjoy the camaraderie of hob-nobbing with my fellow suburbanites. The car culture, the larger than life parking lots, the excitement of buying Family Packs that are clearly marketed to the Jon and Kate plus 8 crowd instead of yours truly. It doesn't matter if it will take me 3 months to go through a packet of BJ's brand coffee nor do I mind that I'll never, ever get away with spending less than $80 on cleaning supplies, ice cream, and trash bags. For me it's all about the thrill of finding something at a decent price and subsequently buying a year's supply of it. As someone who clearly doesn't understand the word "boundaries" when on a wholesale club shopping sprenzy, I can only offer you my enthusiastic support for this bit of Americana. I can also offer you an extremely large bottle of toilet bowl cleaner. I recently picked up a 4-pack for the bargain basement price of $5.99.

Stay Local. Staycation. Stay Stoughton.

My parents are celebrating their 30th anniversary this week in San Francisco. Since I'm pretty excited that my mom actually convinced my dad to hop on a plane (going to Marblehead is a big excursion for him), I really wanted to make their trip transition as smooth as possible. I volunteered to drive them to Logan on Thursday morning and checked in on Minnie throughout the day. Minnie gets pretty skittish when my parents go away so it's important that she's constantly reassured that mom and dad are coming home.

Pee Wee helped me out by feeding Minnie her breakfast on Friday morning. I planned to spend the evening over there so Pee Wee and I did our "parents are out of town ritual", which involves trying out a new Indian restaurant. I had a restaurant.com certificate for a place up in Medford (Kabob Factory) which was decent but probably not worth the trip. On the way back I was rear-ended on the Expressway by a guy driving an SUV while gabbing on a cell phone. The driver in questions didn't seem overly concerned that he hit me and actually continued his conversation before getting out of the car to exchange insurance information. I was driving my mom's car at the time and aside from the bumper being cracked up, nobody was hurt.

Saturday I hosted a suburban excursion with Fearless, Nay, Mama T, and Denise. We hit up the Wrentham Outlets and BBQed, watched ABC Family movies, and poked fun at people from Wisconsin (Denise's accent was dead on - hilarious!). Since I bought way too much food (as always), the Gesher South Shore crew hoofed it to Stoughton for a second wave of grilling. Wellesley was put to work grilling and performing minor house maintenance (one of the perks of having a tall boyfriend? Changing lightbulbs is never an issue!) and Minnie was in her glory because she thought that the party was for her.

Since I had been up since 6:30am, I really wanted to sleep in my own bed so I went back to Canton with the intention of going back to Stoughton on Sunday morning so I could give Minnie her pills (not a fun task). Minnie was kinda pissed about my "love her and leave her" attitude and decided to poop on the rug, which I got to clean up. I had a great lunch at Wellesley's tennis club and then lost a tough, rainy softball game.

Back into the swing of things. I'm gearing up my gym class tonight followed by a late Logan drive-by to pick up the p-units. The reunion between my parents and Minnie will likely be a happy one.

The Difference Between Chestnut Hill and the South Shore? Oh Let Me Count The Ways....

South Shore Example numero uno: I tried a class at my new gym for the first time last night called "Hard Core Results". Basically it's a 60 minute class that focuses on strength training, conditioning, and cardio in 3-4 minute spurts. I took a similar class at Healthworks by instructors that encouraged us with a challenging workout chock full of self-esteem ("It's ok! You can do it!" "You're doing great!"). The instructor on the South Shore is a bit more blunt, giving us surley pep talks ("Excuse me? Why are you stopping? Did I ask you to stop?") whenever one of us dared to fall out. Motivating, yes. Self-defeating? Just a little bit. I'll be back next Monday.

My Dell laptop shit the bed again. On Friday the keyboard and touchpad randomly stopped working. It being a Dell, it is obviously out of warranty. Rather than call Dell just to be jerked around by a well-meaning but somewhat condescending tech rep, I took Dad's advice and brought it to New England PC and Web in West Bridgewater. Anyone's whoever been stuck in phone tree purgatory and then put on hold for 2 hours can appreciate being asked to "hit 3 to speak with a wicked smart technician". I dropped my laptop off yesterday and was told that it would be ready for pick-up this morning. Wicked smart techs with a wicked fast turn-around and wicked reasonable prices makes for a wicked happy pahkcah02.

My parents are leaving for San Francisco this weekend which means that I get to dog sit Minnie. I often watch Minnie while they're out of town and we have lots of fun going for rides, grilling burgers, and watching TV together. Of course when my parents come home she goes back to ignoring me (unless I have food), as if our special moments never even happend.

Then again, Pee Wee generally goes back to ignoring me as well. At least the washing machine still loves me.

Happy 28th Birthday, KnitPurl! I'll call you later.