My staycation is over. I know I should have updated the blog sooner, but I didn’t have any energy or inspiration or something. Not that I get inspired to write a post very often… or never… or I was just lazy… So I guess you are dying to know how my staycation was and how many things I have accomplished out of the thirteen things I had planned to do. Well, I’ll tell you.
I have to say I’m satisfied with what I accomplished. Looking at the list, I managed to satisfactorily complete more than half of the thirteen items; #1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11 and 12. You guys should be very proud of me, I tell you, even though seven of them are kinda the same thing, namely getting a lot of sleep, but do you think THAT’s easy? Just ask topsurf!
Out of the remaining four items, I completely failed at #9 and 13. It was too hot and humid to be outside pulling the weeds out, and not surprisingly, I really didn’t even try to start cleaning up my place. Item #5, recaulking is halfway done – it took me 4 days to remove the rock-hard old caulk. Now I have to apply some mold removing/preventitive product, clean the area and recaulk it. Item #7 - my car has been looked at by the mechanic, a friend of a friend, and he diagnosed the problem. I’ll see him again some time this week so that he can replace the parts. So I’d say I had a very productive staycation, eh?
But most of all, I had a great time hanging out with cajunvegan, perpstu and topsurf Monday evening. Then I had the most awesome time celebrating topsurf‘s birthday Wednesday night with the aforementioned three plus citizenjaney, andreadaigle and justjen. But I have to say, I was utterly shocked when I first met topsurf. If you know her through Twitter or Plurk or StumbleUpon or Flickr or any other social networking site, you’d be shocked, too.
HER EYES DON’T LOOK LIKE FIREFOX LOGO!!!!!! 
Anyways, I’m so glad I finally got to meet them and got to grope a couple of them (let me just say everybody should strive to fondle cajunvegan‘s ass and grope citizenjaney‘s boob), and I’m very very happy they ALL love the city I love and promised to come back soon.
It was a great staycation.
Well, what do you know, it’s a rare twofer day. I saw this a little too late to be included in my Wordless Wednesday post, so if you haven’t already seen it at Wild Hair, here is one crazy awesome white girl chair dancing in celebration of my becoming a US citizen.
Another big surprise came last night leaving me absolutely tongue tied. Since I was not expecting a package, I had not scoured the area around my house to see if there was a package delivered –for some strange reason, the postman (or some postman) sometimes leaves my packages somewhere other than next to the door under the porch, as if he wants me to go on a treasure hunt and I can’t figure out why he thinks leaving the package next to the gate to the backyard on the side of the house is a splendid idea. If topsurf hadn’t called me to tell me I had a package delivered today, I might have never known, but I digress.
I hunted down the package and found out several friends from plurk got me an absolutely beautiful watch perfect for the occasion – Citizen watch. Not only that, it’s engraved with the date 01-14-09, the date I am to take the oath of US citizenship. What a bunch of thoughtful and caring people!!!!!! I am truly astonished and humbled by this and seriously at a loss for words other than THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU GUYS, citizenjaney, topsurf, NewYorkJew, cajunvegan, MissRiss, NotAMeanGirl, CHiC, JustJen, MissAttitude, and perpstu!!!!!
Ain’t it a thing of beauty???
Oh, and I have to give a shout out to ALL the wonderful people on plurk who changed their screen names in support of my becoming a US citizen, so many of them in fact, I can’t list them all. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Now that I’m rereading this, this post reads a tad like a thank you speech after winning an Oscar for Best Actress or something… Feels pretty damn good, too.
Three days from today, January 14 2009, I will leave my house at the butt crack of the dawn and drive to Alfonse M. D’Amato U. S. Courthouse in Central Islip, NY to take the oath of U.S. Citizenship. When I got the letter of appointment for it, I announced it on Plurk and many people congratulated me and were proud. What happened afterwards completely floored me.
One of my friends on Plurk, topsurf, wanted to come with me to the courthouse to be there and share the joyful moment with me if she could manage her schedule at work and at home. And then two other friends also expressed their wish to be there with me, germaine and NewYorkJew. I wouldn’t have been THAT surprised by these kind and generous offers if they lived in Long Island, even in NYC. But topsurf lives in Pennsylvania about 4 hour drive away, germaine lives in New Hampshire about 5 hour drive away, and NewYorkJew lives in upstate New York about 3 hours drive away, according to google map, which means during the rush hour you add a coupe of more hours. I was humbled by these amazing people and their offer of great friendship.
But germaine has to go to court that day and so she is not able to come. NewYorkJew could stay with his fiancee in NYC the night before. topsurf was still trying to make it happen trying to arrange her schedule. She made me absolutely speechless. But the other day, she called me on the phone, apologizing profusely that it turned out she couldn’t make it after all because of her obligations at work and at home. I told her that I was relieved. Even though I really do want to meet topsurf in person, I had been worried she would have to drive so much fighting NYC traffic during rush hour, attend the ceremony, and drive right back without having time to sit down and talk. All on account of me. She is one of the most caring, kind and loving people I’ve met online AND in real life, and I look forward to meeting her in July, when she comes to NYC on vacation.
Another reason I’m thankful is that I was able to torture my friends around me with Some people I met only online want to come and congratulate me and share the moment, what’s YOUR excuse? what have YOU ever done for me? and so on. It gives me endless unspeakable pleasure to do that to my friends, you know.
Then yesterday, a bunch of beautiful flowers were delivered. Even before I read the card, I had a feeling it was from topsurf, and I was right. I cannot express with words how thankful I am to have made such a caring and loving friend online. She makes me want to try to be kinder and to love more and to love better. Thank you, topsurf. You make me want to be a better friend. I will strive to be worthy of your friendship.
Nobody, employees or consultants are happy about the ridiculously stupid move by the upper management. The only people happy about the move are the managers, who have offices rather than cubicles and reserved indoor parking spots for themselves. Because didn’t you know money is much better spent on getting reserved parking spots inside the building for the privileged few managers than on procuring enough parking space more than a hundred yards away from the building for the vast number of peasants where there is no street parking or even paid parking available anywhere close? Not that anybody’s surprised since what do you really expect from the management that gives out gas cards to the directors and up, who really don’t need them, when gas price skyrocketed, instead of devising a plan for people to either telecommute once a week or work more hours each day for 4 days a week or some such thing, right?
Today another consultant and I had to go to the data center and so the employees in our group decided to drive us to the headquarters and have lunch in the cafeteria over there. But the system started having problems, and we had to call support to bring in some parts and replace the parts. Since not all of us in the group could work on the single system, the others waited for me watching TV in the cafeteria. But then finally the person who drove the car had to get back for a meeting, the other employee didn’t have the car because he car pooled with somebody else today. So the other consultant had to go back to the building with the others, work at his desk until I called him, drive back in his car to pick me up. Even though it’s only a few miles away, the traffic pattern and such around the highway makes the round trip take about 20 minutes, not to mention the time spent on walking back and forth from the building to the parking lot, while I waited talking to the operators about dogs and houses and such not at all related to work.
So as a consequence of the stupidity on that part of upper management, the company lost about six hours of productivity collectivly amongst our group today.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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