Shoelaces for Josie

Good news!

I’m not fired.

Really Old Lady, after “firing” me, has decided she isn’t moving and wants me to work for her again. So - I’m rehired which is….exciting?

In other news - there really isn’t any. News, that is.

Oh what to say about this day?

I slept on the floor in an old-school slumber party. Although our age definitely showed. None of this “let’s use sleeping bags on the floor” crap. No - we definitely pulled all of our mattresses out on the living room floor. We rock.

Then I did a lot of stuff like go to my roommate’s graduation and party like a rockstar - er - an already graduated person. I cut fruit and filled the cheese tray. That pretty much says it all.

And then - after cleaning - I was all set to veg out when a friend called and guilt-tripped me into going to my church’s Christmas party. I know. Guilt-trip and church shouldn’t be in the same sentence.

Long story short and all I really wanted to say in this post is that I’m a really nice “sweet” person and helped the friend who guilt-tripped me into going to the party get the gift he wanted during the white elephant gift exchange: Ghostbusters 1 & 2.

I definitely left with a bag of used bubbles and a scurvy whale bath toy. Oh, and four kazoos. Thankfully those were new.

Today is Thursday so I know you’ve anxiously been sitting on the edge of your seat to hear the next rendition. And I actually have an entry that might surprise you (or not, depending on how you interpret the title).

Thankfully, Really Old Lady (ROL) isn’t dead. Although I showed up early to clean and the house was locked. After ringing the doorbell, knocking and calling her, I was seriously wondering if she had cashed in her chips. She hadn’t which spelled all kinds of relief for me.

The first thing clueing me into this day being different was the “no groceries needed” at the top of the to-do list. No groceries?  She’s religious about having her goodies each week.

I didn’t pay it too much mind, figuring her daughter had purchased them this week or something.

About halfway through my three hours, somewhere between the toilets and the vacuuming, ROL gestured to the chair and told me she had some really bad news for me.

With much trepidation, I sat - wondering what the bad news might be.

I’m not working for ROL anymore. Basically - I got fired. In a roundabout sort of way. ROL is moving to an assisted living place - she is really old - and won’t need me to clean for her anymore.

I know I’ve been a complete pansy and whined about this or that when it came to ROL, but let’s be honest, she was a great source for Thursday blog entries. Who can forget her impaling me with the education talk or being called Miss Crabtree or whipping out the ghastly tan coin purse?

I’m going to miss the old bird - and my end-of-the-week cash flow.

Ah, Really Old Lady - the end has arrived.

This is going to be short and sweet and very blunt.

I don’t like people who name-drop. I don’t like it at all. There are a ton of people who work with well-known people and you think you’re brief moment of directing them down the hall put you on their top friends list on MySpace.

Yeah right. They don’t remember your name, and you look like a cocky knothead for dropping their name and pretending to be best friends.

Get a real life.

Okay. That was harsh. That was really harsh. I sometimes am guilty of the same thing and, believe me, I’m doing my utmost best to pull a cloak of humility around me because it’s a thousand times more classy.

Anyone who knows me half as well as they think they do know I’m not afraid of change. I can tackle it. I embrace it.

Sometimes.

There are times I’m not so happy with change and I find that mostly occurs when I look at the people around me. I get it. People change. I’ve changed. You’ve changed. Everyone has changed. Life does that to a person. But sometimes, I see the changes in the people around me and it makes me a bit sad inside because those changes aren’t good. Some of them, in fact, are down right ugly.

Sometimes people turn into these twisted, bitter shells of themselves. Sometimes they get a taste of success and the person they used to be can no longer be found. Sometimes people draw themselves in and become a self-absorbed jerk. Sometimes - sometimes people change so much you can no longer see the person you first met. That’s when it gets sad, really sad.

But since I know people change and since I know people can come back from that not-so-good changing path they have taken, I try to convince myself to stay. To keep on being there in the moments of selfishness when they turn to me and need something. To allow for the “life factor” that plays such a huge role in people changing.

And sometimes I’m bad at that. Sometimes I’m not great at always being there because when people are jerks to me, I tend to get a little bit peevish about it. But I’m trying. I’m trying and that’s what counts.

*Disclaimer*: The following must be read in a cowboy hick drawl.

There have been moments when I thought I was on the edge of civilization but never so much as this past weekend. Driving four hours into the barren, snowy wilderness of nowhere will do wonders for your perspective on what the edge of civilization really is. With my perspective adjusted, I can stoutly say I was there this weekend.

But, I tell you what, it was a good experience. There were many moments of laughter, even more of awkwardness and countless instances of “was that just said?”

It’s not often that the following is all said in one evening of Pendleton and backwoods folks:

“Which ‘uns is ya pointing at?”

“So you graduated college in four years. Wal, thet must make you 24?”

“It was called the Full Gospel Country church. Full Gospel means the whole Bible, cover to cover, front to back.”

“Well, I tell you what, my middle name is Joe. But my mom didn’t give it to me; I gave it to myself.”

“Wal, I’m not gonna quote scripture cuz I’m drunk.”

I wish I could remember more, because there certainly was more but the more I speak of this weekend, the more I think it was necessary for you to have been there. And believe me, I think it would take a special breed of hardiness for most people to have been there.

I tell you what, I’ve known my share of backwoods hicks. But cowboys are a special breed of people, for sure and certain, and I be thinkin’ the Pendleton only plays a minor role.

I grew up in a large family. Somewhere in the mumbo-jumbo of this blog, I mentioned I had four sisters and a brother. Consequently, I was never called the correct name growing up. In fact, whenever I make the pilgrimage back to me ole haunts, I’m still not called by my given name. It’s ok. It doesn’t bother me. In fact, I’ll answer to most anything - even Miss Crabtree, apparently.

Elaboration - today I cleaned for Really Old Lady (ROL). Once again, Safeway was graced with my presence, shopping list and “vintage” coin purse in tow. After racing quickly through the list - and by quickly I mean at the speed of grass growing in the desert - I checked out. I always use ROL’s club card. It’s her money. She should get a discount if it’s there.

Today was no different, however, after I batted my eyelashes at the cute sacker-man at the end of the counter (what is the correct terminology for them, anyway? bagger? sacker? probably not sacker-man now that I think of it. Probably a more PC term would be sacker-attendant.) and held my hand for my change, the cashier politely handed me the bills and said, “Thank you Miss Crabtree (aka ROL), have a nice day.”

You’ll be proud of me. I didn’t miss a beat. I looked her dead-on and thanked her and bid her a good day as well.

I laughed the entire way out of the store. People looked at me funny. Apparently walking through Safeway with a goofy grin and erupting chuckles is not deemed acceptable. What do I know? This is Name-Game Thursday and Miss Crabtree is in the hizzouse.

You know how there are just some days where you can’t make a decision?  That was today…Wishy-Washy Wednesday. The one thing I didn’t have to decide on today was when to be at work (thank you all-staff meeting - a week is not complete without being bored completely out of your mind for a good hour).

Other than that, how do you decide when to leave work? How do you decide whether you’re going to take a couple days off or not? When your roommates ask you to go paint pottery and you show up, how do you decide what to paint when you’re not feeling creative? (I found the answer to that one eventually: don’t paint.) Later this evening, it was the decisions about whether to answer the phone, what to eat or not to eat, what to wear…Wishy-Washy Wednesday.

Which reminds me…I may have told this story at one point in this blog but new people are reading now and it’s worthy of a second-telling anyway. Sometime soon I shall relate the story of Ian, and it shall be grandly glorious.

Wishy-Washy Wednesday - I bid you adieu.

Work today, as my old high school chemistry teacher would say, vacuumed. (Schneider, you finally made it into one of my posts! Not that he reads this…that would be weird and creepy…but if you are - ah - what up dude?) So I’m not going to talk about work today. I’m going to talk about Birthday Party Tuesday - BP Tuesday for short.

This evening, me and the ‘mates tossed a little gathering for one of our friends who was turning into even more of an old man than he was before. Yes, it’s true. He’s 24, henceforth christened Oldies. Quite the ancient one amongst us young’uns. But age - it’s just a number, right?

It was quite delish. Pulled pork (or cold pork if you’re Oldies family), potatoes, salad, cake…basically we rocked the cuisine.

So…awkward pause.

And that’s all I’ve got. Go BP Tuesdays.

There’s a little phrase I attached to this day: Damage Control Monday.

There are days in my line of work (saying line of work makes me sound like a prostitute or a drug dealer…it adds an element of scandal to my otherwise pristinely-white job) when things are best describe as mute. Or lacking the cels of life. Or autopilot.

Today was not one of those.

Today was one of high energy, stress, people running amuck, press releases written and press conferences held. Today was Damage Control Monday. That’s what happens in athletics when personnel changes, or scandal occurs (in America? *gasp* how dare you insinuate such a thing!), or a variety of other newsworthy, unexpected happenings. And that’s when my rather stodgy job becomes a live bomb.

What to say to the media? The media is like a pack of starved wolves, snapping at your feet, leaping up and reaching for a piece of meet, getting whatever they can take however they can take it. That’s the media. I may have been a member of the media at one point and technically I am a member of the media right now, but I certainly am not walking around with a rose-colored picture of what said institution is about.

Thankfully, in today’s case, I didn’t have to slave over a statement to the media. There are certain advantages to being low bowl on the totem pole and today that meant I only had to answer the phones.

“Damage Control Monday Media Relations, How may I control your damage today?”