Caterwauling

So, yay I had weight loss this week. Boo that it’s taken me a damn month to lose five-ish pounds. The hell? The first time I did this Weight Watchers thing, I lost five my first WEEK.

Of course, I was also about 30 pounds heavier when I started it the last time. It’s easier to lose weight when you’re super-cali-pudgalicious. Just waddling across a room burns mad calories. Now I run six flights of stairs at home and do sprints to the restroom after-hours at work yet nothing good comes out of it.

I saw the mahogany hallway has been rearranged a bit during tonight’s sprint. Their logic at who gets nice offices continues to baffle me. But I don’t measure my worth based on corporate real estate. Pay me more any old day. But I did get that kick in the head feeling I got awhile back regardless.

Anyway, pudgalicious. I swear I ate my points and half of Broward County’s and I managed to lose. I have no idea how. I got to eat out a lot and I ordered whatever I wanted … just less of it. French food, German beer, Mexican twice (tequila!), sushi, Korean BBQ … I had quite a selection. And enjoyed it all.

Look, the way I figure, I could have ordered (and eaten) everything I wanted. And I would have gained 12 pounds instead of losing 2.6. This week is back to boring salads and froots and such. *shrug* Last week was extraordinary.

Glad I get to have a little dose of extraordinary every blue moon or so. Not too much, though — I wouldn’t know how to act!

The title sums up the week.

It was a tough one. My 17-hour Monday workday was the longest. A friend came in from Thailand Tuesday and I got to spend quality time with him this week. Another friend who recently left Florida for my “home state” of Virginia (shut up, D.C. is my adopted home. Although I really have been missing Pittsburgh of late) came back to town and it was so good to have him back.

And today they both said goodbye.

I cried the first part of the ride home. Usually I cry on the way to work. But this week I looked forward to seeing my friends, and to hanging out with them and our colleagues after-hours for a change because I managed to leave before 7 for the middle three days of the week.

Even the security guard almost fell over dead when she saw me skate out yesterday. Well, “skate out” after 6. Isn’t it sad that my “leaving early” is others’ “working overtime”?

Anyway, work was hard this week. I discovered pockets of rage I didn’t know I had. I mean, I almost broke my phone after one particularly frustrating call.

And I felt the bus tracks on my back Monday. Which manifested in me feeling the ice and wrath today big-time from someone I didn’t mean to get thrown under with me.

It was nice being at home Monday but I fear my presence stressed mom out to unprecedented proportions. And she’s frail already.

I did get validated by the smarty-pants people in tech this week. The head of the department wanted to learn all the systems I have to use. (I swear I spend 2 hours a day editing and the other 10-15 being my own software and systems support.) He said no reasonable human being probably could remember all the steps to all the systems I use. I really do have my own unique role that no one can replicate. I guess it’s job security but I do get those “two months before leaving Ye Olde Employment Establishment” twinges when I started to stop caring about abdicating my title of Goddess of All She Surveys.

(If not for the Great Recession, I wonder if I would have ever left D.C. I genuinely don’t think I would have.)

Anyway, the good outweighed the bad this week. And there were liberal heaping steaming piles of both.

I hope I can look forward to days and weeks like these again. Because if Ye Olde Employment Establishment did anything right, it was to ensure we played as hard as we worked. We didn’t play often but when we did, we didn’t get an ounce of shit for it.

Anyway, goodbyes. My boys are off to their next destinations this weekend. And here I sit, stuck in neutral and living a mile from the airport and watching and wishing I could be on one of those flying birds, too.

I had trouble with today’s goodbyes. I mean, I was cheerful and full of hugs and happy thoughts and “can’t wait till next times.” But I’ve said enough goodbyes in my life to last ten thousand lifetimes. I miss my D.C. family. I miss my college friends from Pittsburgh. I miss my blog friends from Long Beach to London. I miss the colleagues who saw me more than my family. I’d say I miss the people I’ve dated but my jobs never let me get to know them well enough, anyway.

After I wiped my tears away and went to the gas station that serves as the halfway point between the alligator farm and the beach I only see for three minutes during the morning commute, I decided it’s time to find my great love.

Mom often asks me, if I met the right guy, would he put up with the fact that I work all day and do far too many favors for friends in my free time? And you know what? I would cut back. Way back.

I don’t want to imply I have a choice now and I choose to drive myself into an old-age home sixty years too early. I just mean that if I weren’t SO worried about money and security because I’ve got mouths to feed that can’t feed themselves. But once I can evaluate whether I”m doing it for the love of something more than the rent check clearing, I would be a better asset to everyone.

So, love. Count me in. It’s time to stop saying goodbye. Time to find someone who wants to stick around, whom I WANT to stick around. What the hell, right? I’ve done everything else. Time for a real challenge and I’m thinking this is it!

Well, car appointment in the a.m. since Car Clinic once again failed me on their repairs. Good times …

Worked from home today. Still working, actually. I’m never ever going to be caught up and I don’t know why I even try.

And offsite meeting tomorrow. I think, anyway. I’d say yay but the mechanic was being a dick and said he had to order a part for my car. The car I dropped off at 9 a.m. Where the fuck does he have to order it from … 2004?

Everyone in the company gets to work from home. (I don’t think that’s true for me — this was my first.) I loved it. Stressed mom out with all the drama and decisions and multi-tasking and stuff that interrupted the interruptions I was working on.

Like, I mean, she started taking dizzy spells right in front of me.

Was it me? Was it the stress I brought into the house? Or is this what happens when I’m not watching? Methinks it’s all of the above. She told me my stress is killing us all.

I don’t know how to get the car tomorrow when the mechanic claims it will be done. Everyone was already on edge that I didn’t have the means to drive out to West Egypt. I’m pretty glad I didn’t have to go out there, since I got a call from the top of the food chain about a conversation that I wish I hadn’t repeated. Fuck me for ever being honest and trying to show a little loyalty. Seriously. As my friend Kristin used to joke, “Shut yer goddamn trap!” Oh, sweetie. So. True.

So, I guess I have to thank the gods that I could stay home today. But … if the car isn’t done till tomorrow … how the fuck am I going to get there before 5 to pick it up? Seriously? A good friend is in the country from Asia and said he’d be glad to chauffeur me around tomorrow. But how do I pick up/pay for the car when I’m back in captivity?

Oh well. Enough blogging. Can’t enjoy my day TOO much (enjoy? huh?) because I won’t be able to get through the rest of the days that all run together because they’re all exactly the same.

So I pulled over last night in a questionable part of town to get something out of the trunk. I got back in the car, turned the ignition and shifted the car into drive.

Unfortunately, a screw or something is loose because the car? Can’t be shifted. It sits there and basically looks at me when I throw it into first or reverse.

I noticed the gearshift was falling apart last week. About the same time something plastic came out of one of the windows that seals it shut. And long after two other pieces of plastic on the dashboard have come loose and I have to pound them into place at least three times per commute to work.

This is Mom’s car. Mine is pretty unusable, as the tires sound like the Three Stooges (with a constant “woop woop woop” sound). I drive that thing up and down U.S. 1 but I wouldn’t dare put that sucker on I-95.

So, yeah. Had to get the POS towed back home, since it was a Saturday night and the mechanic isn’t open till Monday and Mom wouldn’t let me have it towed there because it would be stripped.

The driver was nothing like my Howard who rescued me at Ye Olde Alligator Farm. Howard brought diagnostic tools and got Samantha working long enough to get me home and back and home again. Carlos laughed in my face when I asked if he could make the repair. Carlos was kind of an idiot in general, especially when he thought he could ask me out and I’d accept.

I could point out the many things he did wrong, but when he said the car wasn’t going to stay still in its parking spot here at home and what could I do to help, I lost it. I said, “Emergency brake, moron.” Although since the car is in a perma-“park” state, I didn’t see the point but whatever. Maybe I made him nervous. And he would have been cute if he could have been HELPFUL. But alas, he was no Howard.

So I get to get the car towed AGAIN tomorrow morning. Oh I cannot wait. This will be Stewie’s third time on a truck. (I call him Stewie because his red paint is peeled and he looks like a stewed tomato. Fucking Florida weather has killed my paint jobs.)

I don’t know how to “work it” with work. The mechanics are only open 8 to 5 weekdays. Somebody has to be here to fetch the car prior to my normal 9 p.m. arrival time at home. I just hope they can get it done tomorrow and that nobody has a problem with me working from home. (Oh, to be able to use vacation time …)

The good news is that I’ve been needing to get to the mechanic anyway and I haven’t had time to drop off Samantha to get new brakes so that I could drop off Stewie to get his work done. So, Stewie gets priority.

There’s a car I’ve been eyeing at one of the dealerships on my way to the satellite office. And by eyeing, I mean drooling over. It’s out of my price range but the spoiler and sunroof are so very worth it. But I am so terrified of taking on a loan. I need a damn vacation before I get a car.

Oh well. Right now I’m thanking God that I was somewhere safe (well, morons shooting off fireworks nearby aside) and had a full tank of gas and plenty of A/C while I waited for help. But the car is such a metaphor for me — it’s going to take going into total breakdown mode for me to deal with the sneaky hate spiral of escalating problems. It’s just a shame that I have to take care of the car first.

Thank you, God, for helping me to hang in there till it’s “my turn.”

Well, I dragged my pudgy pork roast ass to my meeting today. I felt like I hadn’t lost *much* but it was a nearly pound and a half gain.

Fat. Ass.

The gal who weighs me in looks and talks exactly like my girl Vitamin D. The meeting leader always brings her up at the end of the meeting to hawk products, as there is an on-site store full of overpriced, cardboard-tasting treats. You can tell she hates to make the sales pitches, so she always says how good the measuring cups are for vodka and how wine goes well with everything they sell.

(Miss you, Vitamin D! *waves*)

She was concerned about my gain but she also said that she’s happy I came back the day after a “food holiday.”

I felt like crap for most of the meeting, until they said that our collective group lost 25 pounds this week … and it’s a group of 50 people. And two people lost five pounds apiece, so what does that tell you about all of us? That we are human. That losses were small if they happened, and more people either gained or maintained.

So, we are all fallible together.

Normally I stop off at the Brooklyn bagel shop for cawfee and a bagel. But I realized last week that my whole-wheat everything is actually the most-fattening thing they have on the menu. So, we’ll be taking a hiatus from THOSE for a while!

I think bread was my saboteur this week. I didn’t eat much bread but I felt like I had it with everything — a bagel, a tortilla, a hot dog bun, a slider bun. Even though I always throw away half, I felt like I had more bread-centered meals than normal.

Another thing I feel like I do wrong is the electronic points tracking. I did very well when I did paper tracking. I think I was more honest about it. Now that you can pull out your phone and find four million listings for whatever soup you had, it’s too easy to randomly pick the item with the point value you think it is.

We already know I don’t know thing one about portion sizes, so I might just select a six-ounce veggie soup for four points when we all know it was more like eight or 10 ounces and it had cheese in it and was probably more like nine points.

Like I told my meeting leader today, I am a budgeter. Time, general ledgers, etc. I make shit work on paper. And I feel like when it comes to tracking my food, I find my victory more in “I ate all my points today!” rather than in facing just how many points I did (or didn’t) eat. Because I do go over and I certainly stay under.

We talk a lot about NSVs. No, not Net Asset Values (I know, wrong acronym, but I really do read balance sheets an awful lot), but Non-Scale Victories.

Mine? I don’t go trick-or-treating from colleagues’ desks at night when I get hungry. I haven’t had a piece of candy in three weeks. And I don’t actually miss it.

My big “slip-up,” if you will, is that I hit the vending machine yesterday for a granola bar — which was a disappointing five points. But meh. I felt a lot better about that choice than grabbing a Reese’s cup from the skinniest person in the office’s candy jar.

So, this week it’s all about the NSV. Next week, onward but NOT upward on the scale!

I used to go to The Point in Pittsburgh to watch Fourth of July fireworks. WDVE always blasted the guitar version of the Star-Spangled Banner.

I stopped going to fireworks when my grandmother died on this day 14 years ago. While the fireworks were going off. Appropriately enough.

I swore to avert my eyes every time a firework occurred within earshot after that. And did.

When I moved to D.C. a few years later, I Metro’d my happy ass to the National Mall to see their spectacular display. Nothing beat what the Zambellis did in Pittsburgh because it was what I loved most, but I did have to admit the capital put on a hell of a show.

In Florida, I stay on my balcony and watch fireworks from six different communities. This year’s were kind of meh, probably because of the rain. They will never compare to what I saw up north. And if I’m being honest, Walt Disney World does fireworks like no one else on earth.

But no matter the quality of the show or the location or the company, I’m glad I let myself enjoy fireworks again.

Tomorrow is going to be sheer hell at work and I’ve spent the day worrying about it (but not doing anything about it). So I’m happy that for the two hours I spent at the beach today and the 30 minutes I spent watching the illuminations in the sky, I can say I had a good day.

Love you, Gram. Miss the shit out of you, lady. If anyone has found a way to give ’em all hell up in heaven, I know you have. Shine on you fabulous firecracker, you.

I know of a lady from Pittsburgh who was recently vacationing in Hawaii. There, she had a massive stroke.

She was with her 19-year-old daughter, and they managed to get her home.

Once home, her health continued to decline. The daughter lost her job, having to take care of her mom.

(I worry about that too. Mom has mini-strokes and I am terrified that I will have to take care of her if the big one hits. Who would pay for this palace … or for her care?)

But it gets worse.

The diagnosis has changed for this woman. Now, it turns out that she has lymphoma. I’m unclear whether there was even a stroke at all. But her doctor said to get her affairs in order.

From what I understand (I know one of the daughter’s friends so this is all thirdhand information), the woman really lived life. Didn’t let money or problems really prevent her from having a good time. So while there is nothing OK about this situation, it sounded like her life was one big adventure in crossing things off the bucket list anyway.

I guess I type all of this to say that I’m going to book a vacation. So what if I don’t have help. So what if I can’t even take a lunch hour, let alone spend a day on an airplane. So what if the world comes to a merciful end without me. I’ll bet it won’t.

I’ve started noticing the same sharp, flash, pulling pains in my head that my mom describes. Lord knows I carry more stress about my job than the owner of the company probably does.

And preparing to be away may kill me flat-out. But … I’m not going to ever be OK if someone tells me it’s time to get my affairs in order — because I haven’t had enough affairs to justify this existence just yet!

Expedia, here I come …