Dear Darla Diaries

they said what?!?

Here's my favorite two memorable quotes from the Enron picnic:

From my dear 55+year-old-coworker after being asked to stick my power drink in my backpack on my backpack because my hands were just plum full ...

"God I'm glad I'm not married to you!"

(Thanks ... since I'm old enough to be your daughter.)

From another co-worker as I was standing between my husband, his buddy and a 16-year-old daughter of another HR member.

"Is this your daughter?" (As he's pointing at the 16-year-old.

(Err ... NO ... but in my hometown in southern Oregon it wouldn't seem all that odd.)

From my husband after I whined my my around the house after the picnic ..

"Honey that overtime will look real nice on your paycheck!"

(So will my foot up your ... )

oh a piece of the pie in the sky

Boys can be so delightfully easy sometimes ... and I love it. For instance mine received some much appreciated sex and didn't sulk nearly so much when I sent him spouse-less to tonight's spouse UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fight night. That isn't to say I wouldn't have normally gone, because I love a good aggressive knuckle and testicle sport, but I couldn't physically hack it after the day I had. Like I said already, gotta love the simplicity in fixing a pouting problem sometimes.

Today's day was crammed full of work. Let me tell you, sometimes there is nothing as ruining for a much needed restful Saturday morning as that dreaded four letter "w" word. See, if you look at all the pieces of today and this past week separately, it's not such a big deal. It's when you layer that big fat sauerkraut, baloney, gouda, hollandaise, hot dog burrito together that it gets ugly. Capiche?

Piece one: Today was the Enron picnic party. (No I don't work for the actual Enron but the company does tend to always be 3/4 of the way towards a catastrophe court battle that they really shouldn't win. The phrase "they keep rearranging all the deck chairs on the Titanic" should clue you in to how our former HR director saw it's eventual demise.) If you didn't read Monday's post you may not realize that not only was it thrown together last minute but, after the HR department fairly successfully planned a salvage operation, the owner's did a brilliant job of cutting our legs right out from under us in a money saving suicide mission. (Deep breath and exhale.) When 850-900 employees are involved you can't always think that would be the best of ideas. But than again I don't own Enron so where does my opinion really matter?

Piece two: Since I am the HR front desk person I did, unfortunately, get tangled into this planning and hosting against my better judgment and will power. Naturally, since I am a controlling, party planning, aggressive neurotic person, I was nearly bald from plucking single hairs from my head in the last two weeks to assist in self restraint of my mouth. Another type A had it under control, so to speak, until the other 8 people would add, disagree or sabotage her plans. She didn't seem to need, nor want, my help no matter how much I begged, pleaded or explained my past job experiences and pedigree. Thus the plans were kept in a secret safe place that for some reason I, of the entire seven person department, couldn't be trusted to keep. So I was already a little cranky uneasy and disillusioned to work an undetermined task for eight to ten hours today. Yet I'm trusted to file, organize and manage the financial and employee files for nearly 90% of our staff. Hmmm? Bizarre you say?

Anyhow, moving on before the trail completely derails. Do I sound bitter? Perhaps it's the last 9 hours standing on my feet dressed in long pants and two shirts in the 85 degree shadeless grounds talking?  Or how about the forced daily 7-5 with short lunch guilt trip scheduled instead of my hired 7-4? Or maybe it's the fact that where all SALARIED employees were required to attend today's function, yet the ENTIRE HR department, hourly and salaried, were DEMANDED volunteered to setup, attend and clean the entire shebang in 50s, 60s or 70s period dress. Should I let it go? Perhaps ... but than where would all the fun be!

Piece three: My job for the day turned out to be babysitting a giant inflatable climbing wall slide thing. The child ants scored that thing like an ice cream sundae by the droves for nearly the entire seven straight hours. Lucky for me five young teenage girls took it upon themselves to be bossy and micro manage the other kids climbing, scaling, sliding and accessing the thing for the second half. Like a good exhausted adult I let them. No blood, no foul, right? You can bet your butt that after chafing my thighs raw [piece four] by my homemade bell bottoms, being fully dehydrated, getting sun burnt and having sore feet that I was good and done about an hour into it so might as well let the varmints kill themselves. The whole day and lack of support and appreciation for my entire department, and some very hard workers I might add, had me feeling very bitter and angry on top of the pain. My wounded pride did get salvaged near the end when I won this, but you really can't throw a starving dog a bone and forget to feed it. It'll cherish the bone and still hate your guts. Oh Enron why won't you ever learn? Forced overtime [piece five] and under management [piece six] doesn't make a company run!

Life isn't always as simple as being involved in that kind of shindig, than coming home to collapse in a puddle for the remainder of the night though is it. Mr. Darla had his own plans. [pieces seven and eight respectively] (Speaking of who showed up with a friend 15 minutes before the free chow was served than exited the premises. S'ok, he wouldn't have been useful for once anyhows.) He had half-assed mentioned this UFC party that would be happening tonight and tried to pin on the "you promised we'd go after the picnic" crap on me. No, I'm fairly sure I said it sounded great but I couldn't predict AT ALL the state my body would be in at 7 pm. Emphasis on AT ALL if you please. Thus the need to pacify him and get him out of my cool, quiet, happy abode for a few hours was a bit necessary. I just had to convince him first that I really wasn't ditching because I didn't want to me new people. As I always tell him, EVERYTHING IS CIRCUMSTANTIAL. If people looked at every situation with that mindset wars and bloodshed could be avoided in some situations.

So here I sit, pouring out my soul and showing you readers that I haven't disappeared (although the husband's monopoly on my laptop of late is crippling my blog style) but was merely detained. Damn pieces of my day.

half past a freckle and a quarter to a hair

Here I blog with burgundy chipped finger tips, a razor blade wielding husband and a pouting dog. All is well and not too terribly difficult in Darla's house.

In house news the husband is deftly removing stickers off the last 35 clay pots I need to paint. With the 30 day countdown on the move for my friends wedding I really need the wedding favors to be completely dry, finished and delivered neatly to the bride-to-be no later than Wednesday. Mr. Darla is pulling stickers of unpainted pots, instead of I, in exchange for dinner. I love having my barter power back and a husband who doesn't mind shrugging and lending a hand. This man has been lending a hand unexpectedly and all over the place. Did I mention how much I enjoy him compulsively emptying the dishwasher each time it runs through it's cycle? When he was gone that didn't generally happen. I'd reuse all the dishes, rewash them and stick them back in that same black hole. Dishes and laundry are only a couple of ways that I get daily reminded how much I love him. I suppose it compensates for him gluttonously using my laptop for his Sim-style conquer the Roman empire game. In large lengthy amounts.

Enron has been sufficiently occupying my free time. The 850+ company decided to pull a rabbit out of it's arse and plan a company picnic in less than two weeks. What really sucks is that the Human Resources is usually the muscle behind the movement. That means not only are we held responsible to for thinking lightning fast and hopefully planning something with a set budget that the whole company will enjoy but also doing it perfect. The first time. Naturally that is physically impossible so it can be a little strenuous when Mrs. Enron strolls her perfectly manicured self into today's meeting and decides to cancel, deny and resist the majority of the plans for the party that is now a mere 5 days away. The security head and I are both hoping that it rains. It would be crazy to see all the tents, bouncing castle and decorations dripping in the wind. And it would show Mr. and Mrs. Enron that screwing the employees too improve the company morale doesn't distract from current public lawsuits or encourage anyone. I'm really amazed that my interim boss hasn't cracked yet from all the stress.

I wish I could dredge up some delicious drama to feed the readers but I really am enjoying leaving the stress at work and lolling around the house with the Mr. in the evening. He's warm, cuddly and sarcastic. A tasty snack that smiles back.

I almost forgot to discuss a mighty fine subject around here: Why is the dog pouting? Sue is a little sad because the neighbor moved and took her entertainment, the two full size pure bred black German shephards with him. So now she's lonely and doesn't have someone to pace the fence with. I've also neglected her weekly walks a little bit the last few days and though she's happy that Mr. Darla's home far more than I, she doesn't get the same attention. Today's rain didn't help the fair weather hiker at all either, but that's just another excuse for my lazy ass. Let's face it, it really is.

the toilet seat's being left up again at the Darla house

Monday is feeling like Monday. The plus, for once in a very long time, I have a cozy warm body on the couch with me. He's buffing away on his combat boots and I have never loved the smell of kiwi as much as I do right now. The Monday factor, I've spent the day feeling like a tooth pick was neatly placed in my cornea. If it wasn't nudged much it only slightly itched. If I touched my cheek, eye or eyelid in any way, shape or form, it wouldn't stop watering and all I wanted to do was tear it out and throw it on the floor. The shitty part is that I'd prefer to attend a job interview tomorrow instead of fixing my vision problem. Too bad I couldn't tell my boss that I had a huge vision problem. I couldn't see myself being there.

Speaking of not being at Enron, I have a job interview tomorrow. What's so said is that I'm loyal like a dog. It's not that I haven't been willing to work 9.5-10 hour days for the last month. It's not even that I'm terribly cranky about the crazy commuting times.  Even though you treat me like shit, I still feel bad about booking a job interview. For a job that hopefully will treat me with what they call respect. Enron blind sided me with a huggy family feel good facade that was covering the smoke and mirrors and manipulative back stabbing. Sure every job has politics but do the majority of clerical jobs make you feel like crap for going home after you've worked 8 hours? Or do they make life impossible to even schedule an eye repair because you should be at work? Or my favorite, make you cancel a day off, you had scheduled to reunite with your husband who's lived in another state for four months, because a person who has a job that doesn't effect you has vacation booked. Right and yet a person that has absolutely nothing to do with my jobs is giving me lunch breaks. Lunch breaks that are squeezed out day to day as if me eating is an inconvenience. It's illegal for crying out loud. So yeah I could do it for the next year but the question is ... do I want too? Why not. I hear sanity is way overrated these days.

In the blogging front expect the Diary to be spotty for a week or two while the world resettles itself into a married-married cycle. The boy is back and it's probably going to take more than sex, sleep and cuddling to reinvent the physical communication wheel. It seems odd to not have a relationship via a cell phone and it's still startling to have someone at the house again. You don't realize how well you've adapted to solidarity until you catch yourself talking to the dog when you could actually be talking to a real live human being. It feels good to have the amputated limb reattached to my body. This phantom pain that I had adjusted to for so long is just so jarring. I'm sure I'll get used to it ... one way or another.

One last random bit. This weekend was a horrible tornado of unexpectedness with Shaun's return. A five-hour scheduled flight turned into three randomly retarded layovers, missed flights and eventually a last minute 10 hour road trip to rescue him from Seattle. We did learn a very important lesson. I love low-carb Monster energy drinks. There is a reason that you're supposed to exceed three in a 12 hour period. If Shaun had his way it would be three per year or perhaps decade. Doesn't everyone speed talk and sing off key to every random bit of music for hour after hour while they freeze out the interior with the a/c jacked up at a ridiculous level? My hump. My hump my hump my hump.

sunday's snapshots from thursday

BemilyJane and I strolled through downtown Spokane Thursday. Here's a few snaps of our MisAdventure.

I love the contrast between the old brick highrise and the No Pedestrians ramshackled lot.

The view of hide-a-way Bistro from a sky walk crossing over downtown. It wasn't until a few blocks later that we realized we were locked into the sky walk and had to find a window washer and plead on his mercy to let us out.

From Macy's to the beginning part of the skywalk.

The entrance to the front of the famous RiverPark Mall.

The top two stories are only cinema. The tip top is just the cinema screens. One of the last time Shaun and I were in this mall together I had an attack of vertigo midway up the 4th escalator after purchasing tickets to a show. Midway through the next level Shaun kept teasing me with comments about how far the drop was, the survival rate, the creaking and my favorite "Honey, is this moving sidways??". Stop it you big jerk!

As BemilyJane chattered away to her Aunt on the phone I couldn't help but let my attention get drawn to the woman on the left side of the bench. As many of Spokane's hoitiest and toitiest pranced by this woman of somewhat meager means just kept floofing her hair and nervously twitching around. It is the simple people like her that I would rather spend the day with than the shopper and wasters and surfacely challenged individuals in that place. She would have an incredible story to tell with warmth, depth and muscle.

will the a-dolt take a bow?

Everything seems clearer after a few hours of sleep and contemplation — Darla

Why is it the world seems sharper and clearer and more regrettable after a few hours of sleep? Than you realize you're the adult and not only can you happily sign your life away for a very pretty car but you can also humbly hand it back and say "no thank you" politely as you walk out of the store. I'm sorry, getting a bit jumbled am I?

Yesterday I had the forethought to bring home a semi-free car, at the time. Semi-free meaning the paperwork hadn't been fully signed and the first payment wasn't due for six weeks. It was pretty and shiny. And I fought so hard to not be overcome with greed and be content to the fact that someone sold us a car in a package we could handle. A package we can handle ... on two incomes.

There is one thing in the world that I want as badly as Shaun coming home today and feeling like a real  two person marriage for the first time in a year. That would be to finally, after six years together and nearly 30-years-old, to be pregnant. Than it would be to take a few years off from full time work to wallow or collapse in it. That's where the tricky status with the car comes in. It's one thing to drop $1k on a beater car that runs fine around base, but we own, and another to inhale second car payments. Following? And I really really really REALLY want a baby and couldn't care less if our second auto was a dented Chevy Cavilier, a Geo Metro or a 2006 Chevrolet Sebring. I'm not too pretty for a pretty crappy car.

When we first got in engaged I remember very clearly Shaun rolling up on my job in this ugly dented blue Cavilier. It was missing a passenger door handle and a good chunk of paint. He had just dropped $1,500 on that car. I hated that car. I couldn't even believe that he bought it in the condition it appeared. That old girl lasted nearly four years and 100k miles. She was worth every dime. Fast forward six years. If Shaun rolled up in that car now I would pat him on the cheek and say AWESOME and completely mean it. Wow, how time changes a girl.

This marks a huge milestone in our relationship. After a year of military living and pushing pennies from one pile to the next my husband actually follows an allowance and trusts my judgement. I can almost completely guarantee that I can gently pull the new car out of his grasp tonight and he will be ok with it. Life hasn't always been this way but I'm glad to say it is now. Sometimes I just hate being the adult and handing back the big shiny toy. Don't you?

ooh la la you say

Insomnia. Please remove thy talons from my cranium so I can get a few moments of sleep before dawn — Darla.

My husband is returning tomorrow from a four month hiatus training in Missouri. Naturally we will celebrate his return with copious sex and napping before we return to work on Monday. I get to give the coolest present ever. This lovely little beater I picked up at a car lot this afternoon.

Did I say beater? I meant beauty. She sure is. The reality we were facing was that I would either have to have a drastic change in work schedule or quit my job to accommodate his return to a working class society as well as his wife's current out of town job. This was not looking pretty and giving me an ugly bear of a stress headache. On a whim I agreed to meet with BemilyJane's car man. I wasn't really holding my breath on it.

My husband and I have history with car dealers. Our track record literally reads close to 15 to 1 for the ratio of busted car dealers to an actual purchased car. I'm so used to getting denied that for once I didn't even set my hopes high. I figured if there were a slim chance in hell I would get it, I would probably end up with a manual everything hatchback Ford Focus. Oh you know the kind. It's a half step up from a Geo Metro and a hair down from the 1980s passenger vans that you would stuff three families into at once. Y'know before seat belt laws were legal and rarely ever enforced. That was seriously the level of car I was anticipating on getting. I figured it was alright. It would just be a base beater car that could survive the winter and allow me to stay gainfully employed and not miss the cable payments each month. Boy was I wrong.

Did you know that car guys have hearts? Finance Rick showed me a different side of the evil antichrist pariahs that parade around the car lots. He didn't leer, blackmail, coerce, manipulate, bribe or cheat. It was far less painless than buying a gallon of milk at Wal-Mart. I said I need a car that costs X amount of month and with no money down. He ran my credit and I think gave me someone else's credit score because I don't hear the word "decent" attached to it unless you meant you're going to be decently disappointed as the door hits your ass on they way out. He than surprised me even further by not only hitting the price range I wanted but letting me get the car without any down payment AND letting me keep it for the weekend before my boy signs his half of the paperwork. Did I mention he hooked me up with a 2006 Chrysler Sebring, V6, 2.7Liter with 22K miles? Yeah, I told him to shut up too. He just handed me the keys and said I'll see you tomorrow for your $100 in free Schwan's food for picking it up.

Thank you sir. If there's one thing that helps distract from the longest 36 hours in my life, I'm sure it's a brand new fancy car.

snap happy

I've really truly got a small addiction to my cell phone. It is literally an extension of my arm. If I don't randomly and routinely snap photos of something the twitching and convulsing begins and it isn't appeased by sweets or caffeine. I downloaded my flash card to my laptop and, while the summer nonsense and the 7 day countdown until my husband returns distracts me thoroughly, I thought I'd share. (Sorry if I've posted any of these before. They really are my favorites.)

 

PIECES OF LOVE:

Here's one of my favorite snaps of my nephews. It shows both the spontaneous joy of a loving little brother and that snarky little attitude the 8-year-old is starting to embody.

PIECES OF WASH:

The car wash was very entertaining. I sent a friend the first picture and she was completely clueless as to my location. And the washers on the car go up and down. La-lala-la-la-la.

 

PIECES OF A PARK:

Spokane's Manito Park is breathless. It is a surreal oasis of asian inspired beauty complete with dozens of huge koi in the middle of a bustling busy city.

PIECES OF WORK:

I staple a lot.

My fingers are permanently curved in a type t-y-p-e TYPING position.

The bathroom. C'mon we're all adults. Who all doesn't have their favorite bathroom if they had a few to choose from.

PIECES OF THE CITY:

The view from Ella's is great. Especially when the night black-and-white movie's play on that brick building across the street.

A stray intersection on Division Street. The clouds and traffic and a flag fluttering in the breeze.

PIECES OF ME ...

That's my boy at his best. He knows what the phrase "C'mon and SMILE for the camera damnit!"

That's my pup in her tent. That would be an Oregon girl's $20 fix to not having a spacious enough dog house for her 85lb beast. Nothing's too good for my Sue!

172 burgundy hand-painted pots. Step one: down. Check. Step two: add little white detailing to every pot. I do believe they just may be the prettiest wedding party favors ever. Oh yes. I believe so.

the continued drudgery

I'm pretty sure I work for Enron. The location is known for its smoke and mirrors . To be an employee is to understand the lies within lies, nepotism and secrets that get passed from hand to hand. For instance, how can a company afford to pay two of it's highest ranking production directors to only work from it's location two to three weeks a month and fly home to Indiana and Virginia respectively for the following two to three weeks in a continual cyclical basis? Yet the standard rate for any and all entry personal is a mere $9.25/hr and those employees are barely trained, work in understaffed departments, have horrible healthy benefits and work very erratic and temperamental overtime.It's silly to me that they actually question why every 8th or 10th employee hired doesn't actually return to work their first full day or manage to stay with the company more than a month.

I'm supposed to work in Human Resources yet I find it hard to welcome in new hire applicant after applicant. I try to look at the bright side of it. The side that says that probably 80% of them just need a steady income and a low stress non-food vendor kind of job. It just gets hard not to be cynical. Not to say things like "Really? Another one bit the dust? We didn't see that coming!" I'm suppose to have energy and happiness and stay calm amidst. The thought of continuing in this circle for 12 hours a day after Shaun gets back is actually a little depressing and sad. As I become acclimated to a new environment I fall in love with having these friends and coworkers and a busy environment. It's just that the low stress busy office work I foresaw isn't so painless after all. But isn't that the real story of life?

I crave something different. I crave a job that may be exhausting during the day but is also contributing to the social environment around me. Like a volunteer at a homeless shelter, hospice worker, missions helper, red cross worker in a disaster home or a manual labor assistance in an area like New Orleans, Africa or a 3rd world country. It just seems so mundane, pushing another paper clip just to make a buck. But what can a girl do? At this hour ... just get another bit of sleep so she can return to work tomorrow.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Dear Darla - Where you been hiding? I need someone to chase around the yard with a stick. Won't you come out and play? - Alfalfa

Sorry my absence from posting the usual daily nonsense about life's little blatherings. The closer it gets to my husband's return from Missouri the more anxious I'm feeling. The funny thing is I'm not completely sure of the source. After only two months at NewJob I'm already starting to feel the compression of too much to do and not enough time to do it. Similar to the callous that I had achieved after five years of running/managing/creating the content for this website. For some ignorant reason I had convinced myself that a 5 month sabbatical from clerical work had eased the strain and tension that would creep up while trying to balance a two hour commute, bills, pet, housing, military regs and out-of-state husband. Surprise! It didn't. (I don't mean to sound petty but their must be a better solution that keeps me earning an income and doesn't pigeonhole me with the stay-at-home kidless loafing mom's around here.)

Now I'm starting to feel to tunnel I'm traveling down get smaller and smaller. The light at the end is so barely discernible. The few hours of sleep between unproductive evenings and over-scheduled days just seems to get shorter and shorter. The first month seemed so successful. I could balance the workload and come home to get the daily grind done. I could leave work at work and deal with home at home. Eight hours of sleep was a breeze and I was even able to pack lunches, and exercise a little in the evenings. How odd that 60 days later that little line just seems to be crumbling more and more. Even with shorter lunches and longer working days my work desk just gets buried more and more. Than I come home and I can't focus to wash a dish, balance my checkbook, pay the bills on time or walk the dog in a steady pattern. Sure, I eat. She gets some love and I watch an occasional show but my brain just wanders in confused little awkward circles again and again. The conversations with my loving and devoted husband are also just getting shorter and crisper. Will someone please stop shaking the snow globe I live in, JUST A LITTLE BIT?