Feeling better

Much, much better. I did awake with a sort of headache today, but I don't think it is related to the cold and could've happened any day (or that is what I am deciding).

I am at work today, at the 9-5 M-F work. What you say? Today is Saturday? Well, how right you are. We "get" to work Saturday in order to take Monday off. Yippie! I say with great sarcasm--although I suspect I will relish not working on Monday, so there is that.

The agenda is clean Jamie's desk (so she does not kill me on Wednesday when she is back at it) and then clean my desk and then do all the work that would create. Then I do the work that Maureen left me and then help Sonia file and then invoice. Yeah that will be just as much not that much fun as it sounds.

Ok, well the good news is that after today I get like three days worth of unbroken time with the boy who I have missed very much in the last two weeks where I hardly got to see him. (PS he got me a really nice Christmas present that I will get to enjoy for the next six months--wines and cheeses of the world every month).

Christmas for tomorrow

Here am I wrapping presents for Sam and my Christmas which we are celebrating tomorrow. I am also watching "The Last King of Scotland."

My cold seems better today. I don't know if I have zicam or robetussin to thank for that, but I am glad. Who knows how long I will stay feeling better--I have this premonition that this is just a brief holdover.

Blech. I hate being sick.

Sick

I am full blown sick now. It isn't awful. I can still function, but it is niggling, constantly a little unpleasant, and I get to play receptionist all day like this, and it is no fun. I also Pier 1'd tonight and will do so tomorrow night as well, and it makes me miss my associate days when I could just call in sick because in fact I am sick, but now I cannot call in. No one can cover for me-not this time of year and not with as few managers as we have on schedule. So I work, and I work some more. However, easy work on Saturday and Sunday and no work on Monday and Tuesday, and I look forward to napping a lot on those days. They were going to be days of fun, but now they look to be days of napping.

Sam, I think, feels bad because he was sick first ergo perhaps he got me sick. But Kathy in my office was way sick too. There was no way I am escaping it. Plus, it seems like Sam and I will be spending more than enough time together in the foreseeable future to keep getting one another sick which is a weirdly happy thought.

Merry Christmas

Yeah I know for like twenty more minutes. I had a nice Christmas and the Branson-Schlegal-Peterson-Plummer residence (but without the Plummer). I definitely fell asleep on the floor after two appletini's on Christmas Eve, and there was napping today.

The crap thing is that I have a cold. Scratchy throat, runny nose, coughing. I might have had a fever earlier in the day, but I was really, really hot in my coat while walking home--although that could've just been the temperature.

I am apparently too sick to be interesting this fine holiday. Oh well.

I miss Sam. Hopefully I get to see him day after tomorrow.

It works!!!!!!

My internet works. FINALLY!!! Seriously, I can't believe how hard it was to get my aircard to work, but now there is internet everywhere, and I am happy with it. It did take a half hour on the customer service line and 4 different customer service representatives--including one of them that was stumped for a while--for it to work. But it now works and I can have a very merry internet filled Christmas.

Why am I still at work?

Being here at regular day job right now seems pretty pointless. I mean, I did get to meet and talk to a woman named Santa (no joke) and girl Santa is awesome! I also got to play with a puppy, and we had a secret Santa giveaway that was great (and I got Amish peanut butter and raspberry jam--super tasty!). But seriously, I have basically no motivation to work for the next hour. At all. None. I want to go home. I no longer want to answer the phone--which has rung far more than I expected. The puppy who just left was the best part of the afternoon, also messaging Sam who is sitting at home, since he took some vacation that he has to use up. Although it totally is unfair that he is sitting at home and I am working, and later I am working some more at job the second. I am getting a little burnt out from the psychotic amount of work I have given myself.

Good news though. I get the 30th, the 31st, and the 1st off and probably have only a short day on the 29th. This will be awesome! Especially since Sam has all those days off and will be back in town. Yes!

On a not-so-much-related note, I am getting curiouser and curiouser about what he is getting/has gotten me for Christmas, but we aren't going to be having our Christmas until after he comes back. So I have almost a week to wait before I find out. Hmmmmm. . . I have some ideas (and basically no clues) as to what. But I was always the kid who liked to ponder and reason out what was in a particular gift, and I got really good at it--using the package itself but also my knowledge of the gift giver to guess.

Don't worry. I will spill the beans here as soon as I have beans that it.

Last night I was at Sam's going to blog as soon as the air card was up and running, but it has not yet been activated because I have to call, and I didn't have it in me last night. This weekend. I will call then.

What I did have in me was pizza with walnuts and Gorgonzola and pears on it and polenta fries and a nice Chianti. They were yummy and what Sam and I had for dinner at this great little Italian place in the Near North River North restaurant district because Cafe Iberico does not want me and Sam to eat there ever again.

I am also super busy at work (not that it is stopping me from this right now--whatever) being multiple people, and that means I am sitting at the receptionist's desk. Her desk has a different keyboard than the last time I did this. Her keyboard rocks! The old one used to not type w's, i', r's or 8's which got really old, really fast. This one makes a very satisfying clicking when you type. I like that.

I was also going to post about how snow is pretty, but when you live in a neighborhood full of dogs its poses a problem if it does not melt off the sidewalks right away. I live in a neighborhood of yellow snow. Everywhere. Since last Saturday night we have been coated. And the twenty or so dogs I see getting walked around my block have turned the snow yellow. The little melting that has occurred has unearthed some poo too. That's awesome for walking in, except that it is not. I really do not like yellow snow. It grosses me out. It's oookie. I no like it.

Jim sent me more DVD's of TV in the mail. I think that is awesome! Renee gave me a speaker thing for my ipod to dock into, its also an alarm clock, and it is little enough to fit into my bag, so I took it to work and now the dixie chicks are serenading me (among others, punchline was the last song).

Sometime soon, I get two days with no work off in the space of a week. Also I might get some sleep. That will be a nice change.

Sam's morning doorman called me sweetheart today and told me to keep warm. It was sweet, and then I saw my coworker Brad at the bus stop. He asked if I was going to work or home. I was going home briefly before work. Yeah, that was awesome. No, Brad is my friend and just teased me about it a little.

Steve McQueen went to the vet. He is getting to be a very spendy free kitten, but he no longer has ear mites and he does have his rabies shot. He just has to be neutered and we need to make sure we have killed his worms. He has decided he does not like Dr. Amy our vet because well she pokes him with things and sticks stuff in his ears, and so he hissed at her. Then he would come and sit in between my arms whenever she let go of him like he wanted her to know that he was mine and that I was going to protect him, but really I kept letting her fix him. He should be fine for a long time though. He's pretty healthy.

That's all for my long ADD post today. 5 days until Christmas!

So no magical internet yet

I have to convince my computer that it can use the aircard and the aircard that it can use the computer. I was supposed to do that last night, but it had a battery that needed to charge and I started that process too late.

Plus Sam and I have been enjoying some of the last of our pre-Christmas time together. I work my butt off for Pier 1 this week (our holiday hours are out of control), and then he leaves for Oklahoma. Sometime after that we get to hang out. We even have a whole day off together!

In lieu of real posting I am going to include the teaser to "Don't Clown Around With Love" with the disclaimer that NONE of it is real. It is a fantastical representation based loosely on some facts about the lives of friends of mine. It all started when Jamie (one of said friends) would say something and I would joke about it and she would squeal thus exponentially increasing the likelihood that I would continue to tease her about it and the teasing would get more and more ridiculous ending up with this wild stab at silly trashy romance novel. Here we go. It is awesomely bad.

Don’t Clown Around With Love
By Heather
Chapter I.
Janey’s Arrival


“Well, Marilyn Monroe, I guess this is it,” Janey said to her fluffy gray cat as she pulled her car up in front of the non-descript graystone. “We sure are a long way from Idaho.” The trip took almost three days through mountains and deserts and forests and plains and ended up here on the northwest side of Chicago in a neighborhood that was Starbucks and gentrification-free. It may not be very trendy, but Avondale fit her budget.
Janey got out of the car and looked around. The car was filled with all of her possessions- her furniture had come with her roommate and fellow newly-christened college graduate the month before in a U-Haul. The apartment on the second floor was inexpensive, clean, and roomy. “What more can a girl ask for?” she quipped to Marilyn Monroe as she picked up his cage, her blond ponytail bouncing with each eager yet apprehensive step. “That’s a good boy,” she cooed. (The name Marilyn Monroe was the result of an unfortunate kittenhood where no one had managed to notice he was, in fact, not she.) “We’ll go inside as soon as I find the landlord.”
And that is when she saw him, coming from the backyard, his forehead glistening with sweat on the bright, late summer afternoon. His biceps bulging as he carried a large box to the curb. Her throat caught – there was something about him, something primitive that caused her stomach to stir…or was it her stomach?
“Hi,” he said, extending his hand, “you must be Janey. I’m Pete.”

Chaos

At work. All day. It won't stop.

Sam's work party was great fun! I met lots of wonderful people, and I won a $25 gift certificate to linens and things.

Now I leave for home. More laters because magical internet box has arrived!!

Cinderella

I feel like that sometimes when I go back to the ladies in embroidery. They are all so excited to see me and help me steam the camisole I am wearing under a cute little shirt/wrap for Sam's work party tonight, and they ask me all sorts of questions and demand that I come back and tell them of it. Maybe Cinderella isn't the right fairy tale, but if they are not the funny little mice who would they be? Fairy godmothers? Speaking of, still have not seen enchanted. I will do that while Sam is gone for Christmas, or maybe I will drag him along this week.

Anyway, marathon of Christmas parties are about to start. One tonight, one tomorrow, two Saturday (really three but I can't go to Katie's there is just not enough time). Also, Sam comes back from Miami where he has been all of two and a half days, so I feel kind of lame missing him, but whatever. Turns out I am lame!

The novel will come soon, or the teaser of it. As soon as I have time to write a disclaimer to preface it.

Christmas me!

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Public transportation and walking

I do so much more of it now that I am dating a boy. I mean I did a little before boy, took the train to and from work, walked to and from pier 1. But new place has much shorter walks in between these places, so the walking is less, and the bus is less because it is a faster street (more lanes and more frequent buses).

Since the boy though, there is walking to the red line and walking to his place. And after an initial few weeks of being very, very bad with the cab taking. I have generally shaped up, and we even don't cab it together if we are eating near his house--although lately that means crowds of Christmas shoppers making me angry.

I may need more books to read, or actually I need to buy a little notebook because I am going to write a trashy romance novel in installments about Jamie (my UI friend/the receptionist at work). I have decided her landlord is in love with her, and in my fictitious world this will play out in a very harlequinn romance formula. It will be awesome. I decided I am going to write them on the bus, and then she can type them up, and it will make us both happy (and yes UI types, Paul is her landlord HA!).

PS I am ridiculous in case that was not formerly known.

More on ice

I told Sam about the almost dying on his buildings grounds the other day, and his response was, "Oh, you mean you didn't grab on to the ropes?" Because apparently they put up a guide wire (which I have seen and never dreamed was for this purpose) in the winter, so "the little old ladies to hold on to when it gets slick." That last bit was a quote from one of his doormen.

I like his doormen, they are an interesting crew. Two of them are very nice and friendly with me, but they are jovial sort of men. One of them is less so, but I am not sure he is jovial. He has kind of a Gothic personality (and I mean that in more of a Byronian sense than in a Mansonian sense), so maybe he is being a friendly and jovial with me as he can get.

I must admit, it is weird that Sam's doormen now know me. I mean, they see when I arrive and when I leave and who I am often with. That is a whole lot of two and two to put together and kind of a lot of bidness to know. It is just an odd situation to be in. My house is a regular old house. The only person who KNOWS bidness is my roommate. But she would KNOW the bidness anyway. Strange. The world of doormen is strange.

Negativity

I have been kind of that for no reason in one facet of my life, and I can't seem to stop it. The thing is, bitching about what I keep bitching about is kind of making me complicit in it. So I decided yesterday to stop it. To follow my grandmother's advice of, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Done. I am shutting my damn mouth, and changing the subject to something happy like kittens that poop rainbows or something. It mus be so since I have declared it to the Internet.

Also there is snow here, lots of it. It was beautiful falling downtown last night. The bridges are lit up for Christmas as are some of the trees and big flakes were falling softly. It was nice. And then this morning it was super slick outside Sam's place with a knock you over wind blowing off the lake. I almost died by the wind smashing me into the concrete/polished granite or marble slab that is his walkway. It wanted to push me down, but I stayed up. Then I walked past the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and it hadn't been swept clean of snow, so the whole steps were a big white blank as was the big entry in front of it, and the sculptures that live a top on of its low roofs were dripping in big snowy hats and capes. I wish I had had my camera to take a picture. I love Chicago! Even in the snowy-cold winter.

Interesting

I met a good number of Sam's friends and coworkers at a party he threw on Friday. I got there while they were already wasted because I was three hours late since I had to work at Pier 1. Sober Heather, blitzed Sam and everyone he knew. I also managed to break something as I walked in creating a large crash (fortunately it was just the box encasing 3 bottles of wine in cute excelsior all decorated gifty). It was a present for the guest of honor who I met as she helped me clean it up. She's one of his best friends. She wanted me to know he is fantastic (I've noticed), later when she was even more intoxicated she kind of threatened to hurt me if I were to do him wrong. That was odd.

Others of his friends scolded me because he had not yet introduced us. I don't think that is my fault. All in all, it was really cool to meet Sam's people. It was interesting to hear their assessment of me. Jess (a fiery red-headed bombshell who works in Sam's office) asked if I was Sam's bitch--much to his horror. It was actually quite funny because I think she was referring to me being his bitch in the style of rap guy's girlfriends not in some other way. They also kept telling me how much he talks about me and how happy he seems to be since we have started dating--which since he apparently was a happy person long before me brings forth other questions (like how do you tell? for one).

I also enjoyed hearing how they speak of him. They like him. He is, it turns out, a good guy and maybe the good guy everyone knows but never seemed to be able to find the right good girl. Plus we seem to have become quite firmly a couple. He was asking me in email today what 'we' should do about New Year's Eve because he is planning on throwing a party at his house, and he is thinking of it as 'our' party. All of this I find kind of lovely.

Oh, and for whoever (Alan?) asked about the car. Toyota 4-runner, early 00's. That is what he drives. He drove me to the train the other morning because it was raining quite hard, and I had left my umbrella at home.