Putting out Fires

Its National Engineer Week.  Have you hugged your engineer today? 

For the second time in two weeks I went out to the bars on a Wednesday night! I’m out of control! With Ryan working so much I’ve decided the best way to cope w/ the loneliness is to go out and be social.

Last night I went to this place called Graham Central Station w/ some of my guy friends. Not knowing what to expect, I threw on the cute capri outfit I’m wearing in the picture below w/ some adorable tan heels that I just bought. I pulled into the parking lot and there are guys in sperm-count reducing tight jeans and cowboy hats everywhere. The beers are a nickle on Wednesdays, and its ‘Ladies Night’, which automatically means wet t-shirt contest evidently. This club is set up with different rooms: a big central country dancing room, an ’80s room, a club music room, and a REALLY scary karoke bar w/ backup dancers. I swear. Backup dancers. With tamborines.

Now I don’t listen to country music, but the country bar part was by far the best opportunity for people watching. (that is, after we got tired of watching two really drunk, really un-cute girls making out with each other and showing their body parts a la Girls Gone Wild in the ’80s room to get the attention of the REALLY un-cute guys in the bar) We stood there stupified at all the line dancing craziness. Then the lights went down, the disco ball came on, and ‘Brick House’ started playing. YEAH! Joser and I waded through the crowd of totally confused country dancers to shake it on the dance floor. Do you think the country dancers quit? Oh no sister, they CONTINUED TO LINE DANCE! TO BRICK HOUSE! My funk-loving husband would have keeled over if he’d seen that. And the poor old ladies in the black tights, fringed vests, and white cowboy boots nearly fell over trying to apply the tush push at light speed to The Commodores.

After getting thrown around the dance floor (no seriously, THROWN) by my friend Rich, and getting’ down to Informer by Snow, I decided it was time to head home (at 9:30). I left the boys to attract their own women (a feat considering it seems that most of the girls there were, um, into each other) and went home. This party girl thing is killing me. Sad to be at 26 and too old for this stuff…

Ryan and I had a great time in Sonoma and Napa this weekend!  We were really sad that our friend wasn’t able to join us afterall, but it was just the thing I needed to unwind.  Below I’ve provided further evidence to our alcoholism. 

Here we are at Limmerick Lane Winery.  They’re known for their Zins, which are to die for!  Loved this cute new outfit of mine!

Outside Limmerick:

Sterling Winery:

And all this we managed to actually CARRY on the plane with us:

Yeah, OK, I know, we look a lot alike, and sometimes when we go out our outfits somewhat resemble each others’, but this may be too much.  You know you’re too much like your husband when he buys a new shirt for the trip to Sonoma/Napa, and you think it looks vaguely familiar.  Then you go home and search through your closet, and this is what you find (his on the left, mine on the right, Mika dog in the background):

I am blessed to have many different kinds of friendships. I have superficial work friendships, old comfortable friendships, going camping friendships, drinks and pizza on Friday nights friendships, keep-in-touch by email friendships, and we’d do anything for each other forever friendships. I really wish I had more of those, don’t you? But, is it really that you’d do anything for each other? I’ve found at a few hard times in my life that I really have been all alone, and I hate to feel disappointed like that. So isn’t it just much easier to sometimes hold people at arms length so you don’t get to expect too much?

I have a friend who’s in trouble right now. Boy trouble. I worry about her a lot, but as I am so far away from her in many ways, its hard to actually do anything for her. And I know she doesn’t want to worry me, so sometimes she doesn’t tell me everything that’s going on. I can understand that. Arms length.

When she called me yesterday, I knew it was time to stop that. She needs a friend, and I love her. So, disregarding plans I have this weekend, I’m flying off with her to wine country to celebrate her new independence. Not that it took a lot of convincing, but I’m not really the spontaneous sort, so this is a stretch for me.

But really, she’d do the same for me. Wouldn’t she?

So here’s cheers to friendship, and may you all find deeper love and trust in each of yours.

I had a crap ass day today.  I’m still unhappy with  my job.  My working conditions have gotten to be almost unbareable.  The program management always insists on calling me after the time I’m to have already been home just to yell at me.  And to boot it was pouring out when I finally left work, and I had no umbrella for the 1/2 mile jaunt to my car. 

I knew that seeing Ryan would cheer me up, so I dropped by the station.  The guys are so sweet to me, and its really a boost just to be there around all these guys who so obviously love their jobs.  I make sure to never over-stay my welcome, and to always show up with treats.

I was sitting with Ryan in the lounge when a call kicked out.  As I was leaving, the captain, knowing that as a wife new to this life I would be curious, invited me along.  That’s the second time in a week!  It is just so surreal sitting backwards in the engine and looking over to see my husband doing his job. 

The call was for an elderly gentleman who dispatch seemed to think fell in the laundry room.  Sounded benign, so I figured it would be alright for me to tag along.  When we got to the house, however, an entirely different scene met us.  The 90 year-old man’s wife with Alzheimer’s had found her husband lying in a pool of blood; with a gun.  The neighbors had called 911, and as I stood outside the house, the distraut woman from across the street was putting it all together.  She’d wondered why he had come to her house a half hour before with a box and instructed her, frantically, to give the box to his son when he came to get it. 

This man, it turns out, was married to the love of his life who had died of Alzheimer’s 6 years before.  When he found a second chance at love and marriage, this wife developed Alzheimer’s too. 

As I sat in the fire truck in the freezing rain watching the scene unfold, I thought that it looked just like a scene from the 6 o’clock news, but this was not a story that would interest people.  Just a sad, old man at the end of his life anyway.  But what of his wife, who was too confused to understand that she had no one left to take care of her.  And what of the son, who did indeed show up while the coroner was contemplating how to remove the bloody body.  And what of the firefighters who had to deal with the fact that they couldn’t save yet another one. 

On the way back to the station I looked over and saw that despite having to see horrible things like this on a daily basis, it had affected my husband.  It had affected them all, which made me glad that they haven’t become too desensitized with all they’ve seen.  As they joked about the dumb police officer with the retainer in his mouth who’d given them a problem at the scene, I realized that this defense mechanism is the only thing that keeps them going to the scenes where there’s no hope.  Suddenly my job doesn’t seem so bad after all.

1. Black jeans are not considered business attire

2. Don’t use job-specific jargon which makes no sense to any of the interviewers

3. Don’t make fun of the state you’re applying for a job in.

4. Don’t tell the interviewers that you’re looking for a  job to get you ‘in the door’.

5. If its on your resume, you should at least remember that you did it.

6. Picking at invisible specs of dust on the table in front of you does not convince us that you are relaxed in a speaking role, which is basically the MAJORITY of what your new job would be.

7. If you got ’let go’ at your previous job, don’t go into a 15 minute story about how it happened.

8. Learn how to use at least ONE Microsoft Office application. It is not good when you can only admit to being able to use Word if someone sets up the format for you beforehand.

9.  Don’t call the hiring manager and leave a message requesting that your interview time be changed for the THIRD time because you have to take your pet to the vet. 

10.  At least read the job req so you have a basic idea what the job is that you are interviewing for.

OK, so not that the Internet noticed, but I’ve been gone SOOO long.  I know, I know, its been since Sunday, but it felt like FOREVER when I had so much stuff to say of little interest in the past few days. 

Of no interest right now:  my utter revulsion at the fact that Aaron asked Hayden to marry him as they got their collective asses kicked off The Amazing Race. 

Alright, so the dogs and I decided that football is crap, even when punctuated by a funny commercial or two. 

I spent the early part of my evening making the infamous bean dip for the guys at the fire station until the alarm went off, then they invited me to ride along!   OK, so we went about 5 miles before they were told by dispatch to cancel the call, but it was so exciting to be riding backwards in the fire engine next to my husband with the lights and sirens going. 

Back to the football.  I got beer for myself and decided to watch the Super Bowl solo with the obligatory beer and chips.  Until I realized I hate football.  Turns out Animal Planet (otherwise known as Tear-Jerker Planet) has Puppy Bowl on this year.  Its just like the Super Bowl except for the fact that it is puppies running around on a fake field playing for 3 hours straight.  There are refs, but they only come out to declare ‘fouls’ (read:  dog poo) and to clean it up. 

Here’s my puppies drinking beer and watching the Puppy Bowl. 

Ryan and I were listening to NPR yesterday (as if my radio dial ever changes to anything else, except between 5am-10am it is firmly tuned to Howard).  They had a slew of stories about indecency at the Super Bowl.  My personal favorite was that The Best Damn Sports Show has now been renamed to The Best Darn Sports Show.  Now seriously people, don’t you think this is getting a little out of control?