This & That

+I took the bus this morning!  I don't know why, but the thought of taking the bus was so overwhelming to me that I thought it made more sense to pay roughly $200 in parking over the course of three weeks.  Today I paid $1.75 and will be paying $0 once I can get my bus pass.

+I have been trying to remember the last name of a kid from college for 6 weeks.  I mentioned it to an old roomie last night on the phone and she sent me a text this morning revealing the name.  I was so happy because it was driving me nuts.

+For some reason I had Clay Aiken's song Invisible in my head all morning.  It was torture.  Is that not the creepiest song ever written?

If I was invisible, then I could just watch you in your room.

Creeps McGee.

+I don't like Quiznos. I keep trying to eat it (mostly because it's the closest restaurant to my building) but I just don't like it.

+I saw a man on the street in a long, flowing skirt, belly shirt and what appeared to be pig tails yelling to no one in particular, "Haven't you ever seen a white man in skirt in this part of town before?" as he was crossing the street. Oddly enough my co-worker had, in fact, seen him recently on her bus.

+I had a work dinner at a "cafe and wine bar" tonight. It was on a street corner with floor to ceiling windows and we had the corner table.  I watched the city pass by for three hours. It was brilliant. 

+The publisher that took us out with was so sure I needed a drink.  I was so sure that I did not. Good times.

+My co-workers and I shared a cab home from dinner. We may or may not have sung New Kids on the Block songs while in the cab and I may or may not have burned them each a New Kids Greatest Hits CD when I got home.

+I have to get up at 6:30 am to catch the bus and get to work by 8:30.  I told a co-worker that getting up 30 minutes earlier might not be worth the $10/day that I will save.  He told me I was crazy and I had to agree with him.

+I like my job but I still get nervous every night before I go to bed.  Hopefully that goes away soon because I may develop an ulcer.

+I'm excited for AI tomorrow.  It's going to come down the David's and I'd be happy with either outcome (even though my AI heart really belongs to sweet, innocent, Little David).

+I realized last night that I've been missing new episodes of House due to some TIVO issues.  I have some catching up to do!

Boys and Girls

Words cannot describe how much I love this picture of my brothers.

I'm the pasty one on the right. Boo.

Is It Morning?

I'm not quite sure why this week was so exhausting, but it was.  I have been wishing for the weekend since Monday! So when 5:30 rolled around all I could think about was how great it was going to feel to do nothing for the rest of the night.  

My original plans were to sit on the couch and read or watch TV while enjoying an ice cold Diet Coke and some sort of junk food, but when I got home I walked directly to my bedroom, cleared off my bed and crawled into it.  

This was where Lindsay found me when she got home a 20 minutes later, where I found myself at 10:20pm when I finally woke up from a great nap and where I find myself now at 11:40pm as I'm getting ready to turn out the light for the night.

Isn't life without real responsibilities great?

Mallory

Did anyone see Justine Bateman on Desperate Housewives this week?  Girl's lookin' OLD.

Time Waster

I have a lot of work to do tonight. I set up my VPN, brought my laptop home and was determined to work (while of course squeezing in a little AI).  

It's now 10:15 and I haven't even pulled my laptop out of the bag.

What I have done is gone to dinner at a trashy Mexican place in Magnolia (and loved it), drove 20 minutes to Beacon Hill for Dairy Queen only to discover that Buttface (my GPS) did me wrong and there was no DQ to be found, had a family jam night with Linds (I'm getting better at the guitar!), caught up on blogs, personal email and Perez, watched AI and blogged.

I've done everything but the one thing I was supposed to do. It's one of my talents.

Untitled

Today I wore yellow shoes. And I liked it.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I promise I will stop posting about how much I love my job someday, but that day is not today.

It was a beautiful day in Seattle. After work a few co-workers and I made the 15 minute walk from our building, through Pioneer Square, over to Safeco Field. I watched the Mariner's game from a suite, ate a free jumbo hot dog (and lots of other tasty food), shook a maraca (in honor of Cinco de Mayo), and could have had all the margaritas I could handle if I felt so inclined. 

This is the kind of treatment we get from the publishers we advertise with and I'm getting spoiled.

I've worked 11 days at my new job and have only purchased lunch twice; either publishers or the company have purchased lunch the other 9 times.  So far I have had offers to go to Teatro ZanZinni (some sort of dinner and show), get picked up in a limo and taken to three separate locations for drinks and dinner, grab coffee (or hot chocolate in my case), meet up for 3-4 happy hours and will be at the Mariner's/Red Sox game in a few weeks - all paid for by our publishers.  

It's crazy.  And by crazy I mean awesome.  

I like being on the receiving end of schmoozing.

Pomp and Circumstance

My brother graduated from college today and I'm so happy I was able to be there.  Even though I was nervous about taking a day off during the second week of my new job, I think it was worth it.
How cute are he and his prego wife?
Last night Geoff picked me up from the airport and took me to his house. When I got there my mom was sitting on the couch!  What a surprise!  G&L flew her out for all the celebrations this weekend and no one knew about it.  She surprised each person as the day unfolded - me last night, Julie & Dave this afternoon, Amanda at graduation, Annie at dinner and Brian tonight after dinner.

It's been a good 24 hours.

My Family is Funny

My brother and I just had this conversation while looking at the ultrasound photos of their baby...

S: I don't see how you can tell that he's a boy.

G: That's pointing to his wee-wee.

S: I don't see how they know that's a wee-wee.

G: See, that arrow is pointing to his wiener...

G: ...and those are his balls.

I wish reading it back was as funny as the real thing.

How'd They Know

My username at work is 'stephanieho".  They're so quick to judge.

I was robbed by a young woman in a parking attendant's uniform.

I decided to forgo the convenience of the $12 parking garage today and park in the slightly less accessible $9 parking garage.  That's a savings of $3 per day.  $15 per week.  $60 per month. That's worth sitting in line to exit for as long as it would take you to get 3/4 of the way home, not to mention the waves of claustrophobia when you start thinking about if the parking structure collapsed and you were crushed under cars and cement while you're waiting in the massive line of cars, right?  I thought so too.

Today I parked on level 5A so I was grateful (in a round about way) when work got busy and I needed to stay late to finish things up because that meant I didn't have to wait in a line of cars for 10 levels (5A, 5, 4A, 4, 3A, etc.) to exit the parking garage.  When I handed the parking attendant my ticket at 6:45 this conversation happened...

PA: That will be $17.85.

S: I'm sorry, how much did you say?

PA: $17.85

S: I owe you $17.85?

PA: Correct.

S: I thought this was a $9 PER DAY lot...

PA: It's $9 per day up to 10 hours.

S: So I've been parked here for more than 10 hours?

PA: Yes.

S: So instead of $9 I have to pay $17.85?

PA: Yes.

I was upset that I had somehow mistaken "per day" to mean an entire day.  I mean, why wouldn't I think "per day" meant 10 hours?  Everyone knows that when people say "per day" it means "for the first 10 hours and then we will require you to hand over your entire life savings". But I went from upset to furious after I pulled out of the garage and did the math on how long I had been there.  

Here's a story problem for you.  

Stephanie works in downtown Seattle and parks in a parking garage. This morning she arrived at her desk at 8:35am and left her desk to go home at 6:40pm.  It takes Stephanie five minutes to walk from her desk to her car. How long was Stephanie parked in the parking garage?

Did you answer 10 hours and 15 minutes?  I was 15 minutes over the unadvertised limit and ended up paying double what I expected and $6 more than if I had parked in my favorite garage.

I really need to figure out which bus I ride.

Note(s) To Self

1. Don't let your roommate put honey on your cat to try and force it to bath itself and then let the cat take a Sunday nap with you in your bed.  You WILL end up with honey on your sheets.

2. Beware of anything metal on the sidewalk when it's pouring rain and you're wearing high-heeled boots.  Oh, and also beware of the floor when you get off the elevator after walking through said rain.

3. Don't go to Target just because you're bored.  You will buy A LOT of things you don't need and you will regret it, but you still probably won't take them back.

When Google Calls

I reached a milestone in my "on-boarding" at my new job today - I was actually given real work to do! I actually felt useful and that felt good.

I also received my first phone call.  My phone started ringing, which was a little surprising, and when I looked at the caller ID it said "GOOGLE".  Even though I had just sent my reps there an email, it was still a little bit intimidating to have "GOOGLE" calling my direct line.

Good news, after day five I still like it.

How did I miss this?

I just saw this on a friends blog and was instantly excited! I'm still so sad about the show ending. I kind of feel like they broke up with me. I got dumped by Rob & Big!

Safe Bet

S: "Do you know what the weather is supposed to be like tomorrow?"

L: "I don't know...Rainy?"

S: "Oh. Right."

You'll Laugh About it Later

Tonight I was looking through the pictures from when Jill was in Seattle a couple weeks ago and came across this one..
I didn't appreciate it at the time, but now it cracks me up.  There are a few reasons I'm asleep in the back of the car while Jill and Lindsay appear to be enjoying themselves.

1. I had just arrived in Seattle (after a 14 hour drive that I drove roughly 11 hours of) and was exhausted from the three/four weeks prior of interviewing, quitting, finishing up work, etc.

2. I have a strange inability to stay awake as a passenger in a vehicle.  It's nearly impossible for me.

3. I sat in the backseat the whole weekend and could rarely hear the conversations in the front so I was pretty bored.

4. It was a 90 minute drive on a Sunday afternoon...c'mon!

5. I get slightly car sick so sleeping is a way to prevent puking.

Anyway, regardless of the reason, I was asleep and they got this picture and it made me laugh tonight.  

Success.

I successfully completed the first day of my new job! I even think I'll go back tomorrow.  

Let's just say it went a little better than the first day of my previous job.  The words, "Oh, I thought you were starting tomorrow" were never uttered.  My laptop was set up, I had "gifts" on my desk, a welcome note from HR, a gift card to Starbucks, notebooks and pens ready for me, 100+ emails in my inbox and a complete agenda (typed by my supervisor) of what I would be doing at every hour of the day for the ENTIRE week.  Clearly she knew when I was starting. 

I sit on the 15th floor and the view from up there is amazing.  Not the view from my desk per se (unless you count the fairly attractive new guy sitting across from me) but the view from that general area of the building.  I was in a meeting this morning on 17 and I couldn't stop staring out the windows.  It was all blue sky and water.  I loved it!

Oh, and when we started in on the "transition plan" (Yes, they actually had a typed up transition document...so impressive.) everything she was saying made sense.  Knowing what you're doing is always a bonus.

Aside from a little elevator mix-up, where I tried to get to the 18th floor on an elevator that only goes to the 11th, I would call the day a success.

Let Me Out!

Since becoming an indoor cat, Max will just sit and stare out the window for hours. When I get ready in the morning he likes to peek out my bathroom window.
The sill in the hallway is another favorite.
Oh, and then under the covers of my bed is another favorite spot. Now if he could just stop shedding like a maniac...

Views, Cupcakes and Pictures

This weekend Lindsay, our friend Jen and I did some exploring around the neighborhood and it turns out Magnolia is more than just the train tracks across the street from us. We discovered the water (and some very large and very fancy homes) practically in our backyard!
The people in these houses have a fantastic view.
A barge. Or something.
We also discovered a park that had an awesome view of the city.
After dinner at an adorable locally-owned Italian place (with delicious food) we made our way to Ballard to the Cupcake Royale.  It was too hard to make a decision so we went with a half dozen and decided to find the one we like the best...Red Velvet is at the top of my list right now.

On Saturday Linds and I put the finishing touches on the house. We had a lot of pictures to hang up and I was most excited to hang the print I purchased at Pike's Market my first weekend here. I framed it and think it turned out quite nicely.
All in all, a good weekend. But now my stomach is getting more and more knotted as I think about going to work tomorrow...

Please, Never Again

A little something I never want to hear in church again...

"I ain't no nine dolla' sucka, yo."

Yes, you read that correctly.