Jet-setter

I took my first ever trip to the Big Apple yesterday, for a whole ten hours. I'm sure someone took a picture, but it wasn't me. I took a Yellow Cab, sat in a Manhattan cafe and ate a chicken salad sandwich. I looked at a meeting room, took another taxi, and had a Serendipity Frozen Hot Chocolate (I hear they're famous) with my boss before staffing an event for work. Mad dash back to the airport and that was that.

The stuff dreams are made of...

The Christmas That Wasn't

At least, it wasn't what we were planning...

It started so well, too. We had our shopping done, gifts wrapped, vacation days saved up. We breezed through the first two days of highway with nothing more than a light drizzle, and arrived in Oklahoma City right on schedule. The photo was taken from our hotel window the next afternoon (Christmas Eve). If you own a TV and turned it on around Christmas, you probably know where this is going. Bless their hearts, Oklahoma City just isn't equipped to deal with fourteen inches of snow in an afternoon.

We were fortunate in a number ways.

• My Mom had decided, at the last minute, to stay at the hotel with us. 
• We decided to brave the blizzard to pick up our pre-ordered Christmas dinner (we had volunteered to bring the turkey, stuffing & mashed potatoes) just in case the roads would be clear the next day. 
• We actually made it back to the hotel with the food. 
• Our hotel room had a fridge & microwave.
• We did not require a tow truck after all.
• We were able to get out of town and down to Dallas almost on schedule.
• We had no trouble getting to Ponca City to visit Uncle Herb, who had driven through the storm after his flight home from Chicago was cancelled.

We won't dwell on the ways in which we were unfortunate. It could have been so much worse, and it was for so many people that were not as lucky as we were.

OH! And those wacky Canadian sunflower seed flavors? They sell them in Oklahoma City, too.

O(nly in) Canada!

Yes, what you see there are snacks available at a convenience store in Montreal - Smoky BBQ and DILL PICKLE flavored sunflower seeds! I'm surprised there are no ketchup flavored ones (*shudder*).

Happy Turkey Day!

I am thankful for (aside from the obvious):

• the improvement in my career path in the light of the recent economy
• the excellent doctors who have helped/healed our respective families
• a year of many visits and reconnection with old friends
• the prospect of going home for the holidays for the first time in too many years
• Chipotle (yes.. you were saying?)

There's plenty more, but I gotta go pick up some guacamole at Malibu. Thank you Malibu!

Happy... Let's Just Say, I'm Glad You Were Born

To all you lovely people who didn't get a birthday card this year - Happy Birthday! Yes - I missed virtually every birthday on my calendar this year. Even my parents' birthdays were late. I'm sorry.

This is really embarrassing, but I still haven't quite adjusted to working Monday to Friday, 9-5. The rhythm of it just hasn't become natural yet. I just don't understand how everyone else manages to get stuff done after business hours or on the weekend! I have spent my entire adult life working the weirdest, off-balance schedules and just taking care of Life between the hours of 10am and 3pm. Usually on Tuesday and Thursday. Who knew Salvation Army is closed on Sunday?!

I'm not entirely sure why this has so affected my ability to remember birthdays, except perhaps that one thing that I actually have gotten used to (aside from dinner at home with the Mister AT DINNERTIME) is using the Outlook Calendar to remind me when to do everything but blink. No excuse, but a viable explanation at any rate.

I need to get iPhone to remind me of upcoming birthdays 10 days in advance, and then go buy the card. And the stamps. There must be an app for that...