I Make 31 Look Good!

So today is my birthday, and instead of calling in sick and having a day of pampering, I decided to be a good employee and go into work today.

The staff here is so good, they bought me lunch and got me a Carvel cake*. So good. Let's just say that Monday October 1 is the start of the diet. Almost better than that, the radio in my office was coming in so clearly today, that it HAD to be a special miracle for my birthday. Someone was looking out for me today.

Dirty sent me flowers to work, a really nice bouquet of Gerbera daises like this:

They are so colorful against the prison-issued paint color of my office. Still have no idea of the gift he got me, I'll wait until tonight at dinner.

Speaking of dinner, the fam and I will be going to Locanda Vini e Olii in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. It is located in an old pharmacy, the building is 130 years old. This restaurant changes their menu every day based on the chef's whims. We are doing the gourmet tasting menu, and I am really excited. Check it out here.

On another note: the best birthday gift of all is that my appliances are getting delivered tomorrow. The only things left are to get the sink and counter top installed. I am so close to having my kitchen completed I can feel it. I will post pictures once it is complete.



P.S.: Sidekick and TallTrees_ did not get a piece of my scrumptious cake. Suckers!

Go Me, It's My Birfday!!...Almost

Yes, at the end of this week I will officially be "in my thirties". Scary thought. While nothing can top last year's 30th birthday extravaganza, (go here to read all about it), 31 should be just as good. I don't really have anything specific on my birthday list, just some new stuff for my house, and maybe a pair of slippers for me. I have my eye on some big ticket items, but I'll save those for Christmas. As long as I get an ice cream cake, I'll be fine.I am not planning anything, maybe dinner with the fam, some alone time with Dirty and prezzies.

Have I mentioned that I love to get presents? They really do not have to cost much (last year being the exception), as long as they are thoughtful in nature, I'm a happy gal. Needless to say that a lot is riding on Dirty's gift. We soon shall see how well he knows me, and how good he is at picking up the hints that I have been dropping.

As a side note, Dirty found out about this blog on Saturday. Only 2 real life people know about this blog; my sister, and Penny. I have kept it undercover for the most part because I want to be able to write whatever I want and not have to worry that I am hurting anybody's feelings or being politically correct. I don't know how I feel about him knowing about it; I feel exposed somehow. To his credit, he didn't really push about it, or ask to read it or anything like that, so maybe it is me just being paranoid. Any thoughts?

Protest!!

I got my evaluation on Tuesday, and wouldn't you know it, I got a good one. Extremely contradictory to the memo the day before stating my lateness issues. When I brought this up to Sidekick, she really couldn't answer me as to why this was glaringly opposite. Whatevs.

So I decided to call in sick yesterday and today. Obviously, TallTrees_ cannot handle the unit on her own, as evidenced by the 6 phone calls to my cell phone from her and Sidekick, not to mention the other phone calls from the staff regarding my absence. I will say this about the staff that I supervise, they are extremely loyal to me, and have been since Penny left and TallTrees_ took over. Sidebar: I needed to be here anyway, as they were laying the tile in my kitchen, but that is besides the point.

I have spent the last 2 days updating the songs on my I-Pod, catching up on some much needed sleep and making lists for my birthday and Christmas. I also sent a resume or 2 out. :)

P.S.: About Thanksgiving; needless to say, Penny is right on the money.

Update

No, I didn't get a promotion from Sidekick; I got a "Final Warning" memo about my lateness into work. My evaluation is due on Wednesday, so I guess this was a preemptive strike, so that when she fails me on my evaluation, she can say that she gave me fair warning that this was an issue. Riiiiight. I would take that from someone who is here at 9am on the dot, not someone who strolls in later than I do, which BTW is only like 9:10am.

I will be changing my Blog template, which sucks because I loved the turquoise with hot pink. It will be done some time this week, when I find one that is feminine, but is not so girly that it will make me retch!

Kitchen is almost done, I can hardly wait. I will post pictures of the entire apartment once I am done with everything and do a massive clean-up. I'm thinking Thanksgiving at my house. Am I crazy??

100th POST!

So this is my 100th post. Funny that it took over 1 year to get here. I feel like such a different person from where I started....but not really.

On the other hand, I am sort of weirded out to report that Dirty and I have become THAT couple. The one that goes and spends the whole day at Home Depot buying crap like light fixtures, and spending hours picking paint colors and other such crap. I bought a tool kit for 20 bucks; I will be that DIY girl.

Haven't spoken to T in a while, she sends me BS emails every day, but I don't respond. I will have to see her soon at a function so I need to formulate a game plan about how to handle it.

Same crap at work, meeting with Sidekick today, so I will keep you all posted about it. I really am over the whole issue. I want to stay here until I take my vacation in March and then leave. If I plan it right, I will end this job and start the new one when I come back.

We'll see where I am at in another 100 posts.

BTW, I know my blog looks funny, I am working on fixing it without losing everything. I'll try to do it today, but these bitches actually expect me to work at work! Who do they think they are? ;)

9/11/01

I am re-posting what I wrote last year to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11. Please remember those people who lost their lives in a senseless act of violence.

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Every New Yorker has their own 9/11 story, here is mine. 5 years ago I worked in a hospital, in an outpatient clinic. I was just about to leave for a morning meeting when one of my co-workers started screaming for me, calling me back and into the conference room. She was eating her breakfast in there and was watching television. We both saw the second plane hit the tower, and looked at each other in shock. We just stared at the television thinking it was something out of the movie Independence Day. It was totally surreal.

About an half hour later, we were called by the hospital Chief of Staff and told that the hospital was on lockdown and that all management personnel were needed in the Emergency Room to assist with triage. NYC buses were transporting firefighters, police officers and EMS workers from our ER downtown, and bringing back people that had minor injuries. The most vivid memory I have of that day is that all of the people coming into the ER from the site seemed grey and were covered with soot and debris. Towards the end of the day, the National Guard had set up camp on the hospital grounds and were Medevac-ing severely injured (mostly burned) people from the WTC site.

At this point, I was unable to get in touch with my parents or siblings to let them know that I was ok, just unable to leave the hospital. I tried to get in touch with my cousin and my roommate who both worked close to the towers, my cousin at 120 Broadway, my roommate at One Liberty Plaza. I didn’t find out about either of them until 2 days later, both fine, they found each other and walked uptown together. I was able to leave the hospital at about 11pm, and while traveling home, I couldn’t help but notice how quiet the streets were. Eerily quiet. No cars on the road, hardly any traffic. No hustle and bustle. Just silence.

It was weeks later before I found out definitively of two friends that died, both of whom worked at the WTC. JFQ and PC. You are always missed.

Please go here to to see the list of victims from that day.

When Hater’s Attack

I don’t know if it is just me, but I feel like lately I am surrounded by female haters in my life. Forget about the bitches at work, this is personal.

I may have mentioned before about a close person to me who with whom I have had issues with in the past, and I am not trying to seem like a whiny bitch about this but something happened this weekend that really pissed me off.

This person, let’s call her T, came out with me this weekend with the intent that she would stay at my apartment. Dirty was meeting us at the apartment later in the evening. This was supposed to be a “Girls Night Out”. Anyway, she proceeded to get wasted, which I don’t really care about, but what happened next was. She proceeded to call all of her jump-off’s, to see which one would come to my house to fuck her. I told her that I didn’t want any strange people in my house and that if she wanted to hook-up, they could come to get her and she could go with them. I knew that she would just wind up passing out when we got to my apartment; which is what happened anyway. No big deal. Dirty was there when we got home, she was all up in his face; punching him in the arm, making dumb comments about not wanting to hear us having sex while she was in the next room, stupid shit like that. He didn’t say anything about it, but I could see he was getting a little pissed off.

Fast forward to the next morning, Dirty went to get us breakfast, and she lit into me about how since I started dating Dirty I’ve changed and all I care about it myself now.

A little history: She has always been in a weird one-sided competition with me about everything in our lives. When she found out that I was buying an apartment, she decided that she needed to move out of her house and into her own place. When I was looking for a new car, she went out and bought one first. So on and so forth.

She has also been the one that always had a steady boyfriend, where I was always the single one. A few years ago, the guy that she was dating broke up with her because he didn’t want to get married, however less than a year after their breakup, he was married with a kid on the way.

So now that she has been sleeping with half of the population of NYC (unsafely, I might add), she thinks that she has the right to comment on my relationship and how I have changed. I asked her to tell me how I have changed, and she couldn't give me a straight answer. Is it because I don’t feel like putting up with her slutty behavior any longer? Is it because I have finally realized that she is one of those people that are only happy when others are miserable?

It came out that she thinks all I do lately is stay home, cook (when I had a kitchen), and watch wrestling and ultimate fighting with Dirty. **

Now, deep in my heart I know that most of her shit comes from her having a really crap self esteem, and still not over her ex, and being a little jealous about my life, but are these valid excuses anymore for someone who is 32 years old? Is this just someone that I have to cut off and call it a day? I’m interested in your opinion.

**Newsflash: I did the same thing when I was single. The only thing that has changed is that now I get some booty while doing that stuff.

What Team Do I Play For?

Well according to SK, I don't play for any team. Yes, that is right, not only am I doing the job of two people and covering for a third who is out on vacation, SK had the nerve to tell me that I am being resistant to TallTrees_ and training her, and that I need to be more of a "team player".

I hate to admit this, but she made me cry. Luckily, this whole conversation took place over the phone and she couldn't see me. I would hate to give her the satisfaction of knowing that she got to me like that.

Normally I don't give a fuck what she says or does, I just continue about my business, which serves two purposes: a. to drive her crazy; she cannot stand not getting a response, and b. so that I do not make myself crazy.

Needless to say, I lost my shit with her after that, (partially because I was pissed at myself for crying like a bitch), and told her she really needs to re-evaluate her perspective on the supervisors in this unit, and make sure that she is really faulting the person who deserves it.

So that is basically where I am at now. Re-doing my resume, still pissed off, and definitely biding my time until I can really screw them big time.

Cough.... Cough..... Cough..... Hmmm, I think I may be getting sick.