Sweet Caroline

There are just so many things I could say about today.

• It was the day of our summer company party and I wasn't allowed to sit at my desk or turn on my computer. Apparently I'm addicted to my email because not checking it was very hard.
• We had the presentation portion of the party at the Showbox at the market.

• There was Plinko involved.
• There was an actor with a very bad wig that hosted Plinko.
• We talked about a lot of the work being done out of our office, including the strategy around distribution for this piece of content. Kind of awesome.

• Walking through the office the other day, I saw a cardboard cut-out of Edward Cullen. I thought it was weird, but wasn't totally surprised. Today during a presentation they showed a close-up of it and not only is it a life size Edward Cullen, but he has a conversation bubble taped to his face that says, "Bella is a b!@*h, Joanna. You're the one I love." Obviously, I found this hilarious.
• During one of the presentations there was also a picture of Justin Beiber (it worked somehow), which reminded me of another favorite M&D story from last night.

       M: Why are they selling Justin Beiber t-shirts right now? Is he from Vancouver or something?
       D: He doesn't have to be from Vancouver. The whole country has Beiber Fever.

• After our gathering with the entire Seattle office, we broke off into departments for the rest of the afternoon. My department chose to go to bar in Queen Anne. TO SING KARAOKE.
• Karaoke was mandatory. Of course my first time singing karaoke would be in front of all my co-workers. Of course.
• Sometimes you wish you were drunk. This was one of those times. 
• Sweet Caroline, in case you were wondering.
• I had to turn around and shake my butt during the ba-ba-ba's. Choreography was part of the judging criteria. Oh, didn't I mention there was judging? There was.
• We came in 2nd place (out of 8).

That was only Thursday. I'm a little nervous of what Friday will bring.

The Boys Are [Back] in Town

I love Seattle summer nights.
I love them even more when they are spent at the ballpark.

(Am I legit enough to use the term "ballpark"?)

I love them EVEN MORE when they are spent at the ballpark with awesome people.

M & D are in town from Chicago. 

I met them on my first Cayamo cruise. We had tickets seated next to each other for our nightly headlining show. It was in the cards for us to meet each other. They were a highlight of the trip.

Meet M.

Meet D.

We reconnected last year on my second Cayamo cruise. Again, they were a highlight of the trip. (Mexi-faux, anyone?)

So of course I was thrilled when I heard they would be in Seattle for a visit. If you spent even five minutes with them you would be laughing. Some of my favorite moments of the night:

D: "It's really annoying when you post pictures on Facebook because your friends are so good looking. Mormon boys are hot!"

M and I explaining the difference between a Mr. Misty and a Misty Freeze. We're from the mid-west and our love for Dairy Queen runs deep.

Me: "I'm being forced to sing karaoke with my co-workers tomorrow."

D: "I know that I'm here so we can just talk about it, but I'm really looking forward to those FB status updates."

Me: I want to steal that baby. It's just so cute.
M: I wanted to order a baby in Target the other day.

Random Girl: "Free passes to Dream Girls!"

D: Really, I think we're good.

Their White Sox lost, but I'd still call the evening a success.

I'm looking forward to the next four days!

One More Thing...

...my house smells like fish.

Not just the kitchen, but THE HOUSE.
My bedroom.
Everywhere.

Do you know me at all?

Right. So then you know how crazy this is making me.

Best Moment of the Day

Maybe this story is strange to write about, but I loved it. So here it is.

I have been thinking of my parents a lot lately and realized yesterday it had been a long time since I had talked to them. So, thinking my Dad was out of town working, I gave my Mom a call on my way to work. (Sometimes the three hour time difference works in my favor instead of against me.)

No answer. Left a voicemail.

Skip three hours ahead to me sitting in a meeting. I see a gmail notification pop up on my screen and find an email from my Mom just checking in and providing a quick update.

That was nice, I thought. Maybe she just wanted to send me the update now isntead of waiting to talk after work.

Jump to seven minutes after that when another email comes through. Again from my Mom, but this time she said that she got home and sat down to write me the email telling me she was thinking of me. After hitting send, she noticed she had a voicemail. A voicemail from me telling her I was thinking of her.

Kind of adorable, right?

I thought so too.

The Good and The Bad

The Good: Calling a friend on the way home from work and chatting for an hour and a half in the driveway. So much to talk about!

The Bad: Realizing when you open your car door 1.5 hours later that your headlights had been on the whole time. Knowing what will happen, you put your keys in the ignition and turn. click.

The Good: Friends that will come over and roll your car down the driveway to give it a jump.

The Bad: Having them tell you that you should really get a new battery.

You've Got a Friend In Me.

But do I really? Because by the looks of things, you are super creepy and I'm not quite sure I want to be your friend, Big Baby.

Also, creepy? This guy.

Look Who Showed Up

Summer. Summer showed up.
And Summer brought a few things into my life:

Monday: Poetry reading/writing in a backyard with cupcakes. Sounds awkward. It wasn't. (But was).

Tuesday: Backyard movie night. A personal favorite, Dumb & Dumber. I'm not ashamed.

Wednesday: Butterfield is back! And along with her return came some time spent at the water.

Thursday: Ice cream and conversation at Green Lake. At midnight.

Friday: Dinner outside and a bonfire. Nevermind that it was a million degrees and too hot for a fire.

Saturday: Milk Carton Derby at Green Lake + more celebrations for Susan.

Dear Summer,
I think I'm in love. I never want to be apart from you again.
xo!
S

After the Storm

My heart has nothing to hurt about.
But the chorus of this song really, really wants my heart to hurt.

Different year. Same me.

2009: If I couldn't have fireworks, I wanted a sparkler. I got a match.

2010: A sad, little star.

2009: Happy Fourth of July (!) crazy eyes.

2010: Happy Fourth of July (!) crazy face.

Once there was a tree...

A co-worker is having a baby and we're having a "book shower" today.

I bought this one.

It's still my favorite.

Curtsy

A week or so ago I was being introduced to my new team at work. They called a meeting to make the announcement and then wanted me to walk in five minutes late to meet everyone.

Awkward, but sure.

So, I waited 8 minutes (duh.) and walked into the conference room. All eyes turned to me (and if you know me you know my thoughts on being the center of attention) as my manager said, "And this is Stephanie".

And then the room erupted into applause.

My first response to the applause? CURTSY. So I did.

Inner dialogue: What are you doing?! Don't curtsy! These people don't know you. They don't know your sense of humor. They could think you're completely serious right now. Crap. They totally think you're serious. Dude, was your first response really to curtsy? Have you ever actually curtsied before? They all think you're an idiot. Just sit down. And don't make eye contact.

The good news is that my curtsy was not met by blank stares and crickets chirping, but by hearty laughter.

Crisis averted.

Conversation of the Day

I'm starting to transition to a new team at my j-o-b and today I had a chat with one of my new team members.

CW: Where did you go to school?
Me: Brigham Young University.
CW: Oh, I had a lot of friends that were Mormon.
Me: Well, that's me! [awkward laughter]
CW: And don't worry, I don't think all of you are crazy.
Me: Oh. Well...that's great...

I'm in love with seahorses.

This video was sent to me today with the accompanying statement: I think you might love it.

Oh, I more than loved it. After receiving it, productivity quickly dropped to 36% and if someone had asked me the question, "When was the last time you wet your pants?" I would have had to answer "Within the last hour".

This is apparently a recording of a guy on acid locked in a closet. Prepare yourselves.

WARNING: Moms, Dads and those who are offended by foul language should not watch this video. Really.

One Liners

My favorite IMs of the day. So far. There's still time.

8:31am
C: if you're not out of bed, you probably should think about it.

10:17am
M: uhhhhhh.....are you training her on vlookups over the phone? fun.

Let's Try Being an Adult

How is it possible for a person to sleep through three alarms?
I will never understand how it happens, but this I know for sure: IT DOES.

Other Things I Know:
1. Every word to Gangsta's Paradise.
2. How many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop.
2. You never want to wake up on a Tuesday morning to your roommate peeking into your bedroom and saying, Don't you have to go to work today? at 10:00 am.

Yes. Ten o'clock.

The events that followed are a little fuzzy, but I think they included jumping out of bed, grabbing my phone and checking my calendar to see what meetings I had missed (thankfully, none), emailing my immediate teammates telling them I'd be a little late (obviously), taking a shower like I was competing in some kind of race and repeatedly (and randomly) shouting to my roommate from the bathroom about how "I can't believe this happened!".

Sidenote: Really? You can't believe this happened? Because I'm pretty sure it happens at least once a month.

When I checked my calendar in my initial panic I noted that my first meeting of the day was at 11:00. I had one hour. I could do that. So you can imagine my surprise when, at 10:15, my phone beeped and flashed a 15 minute reminder for a meeting with MY BOSS AND MY BOSS'S BOSS.

At 10:15 I was in my bathroom in Wallingford, in my pj's, with mousse in my hands (not even in my hair yet) and no make-up on. And I was somehow I was supposed to make it to my office for a 10:30 meeting that had apparently just been scheduled with the bosses (!).

Sidenote: I've worked at this company for over two years and have never once had a personal meeting with the boss's boss. Of course they picked the day I'm going to be three hours late to spring a last minute meeting on me.

I emailed and said I was "running a little late" and asked if the meeting could be pushed back at all. I received a response that, yes, the meeting could be pushed back. Pushed back 15 whole minutes.

Let's just say I've never gotten ready so fast in my life.

It resulted in me looking like a homeless person for the rest of the day, but it had to be done. It also resulted in me breaking a lot of traffic laws on my way to the office and nearly ramming (repeatedly) a PT Cruiser that I had to follow up FIVE LEVELS of the parking garage going what felt like 5 MPH.

In the end I was one minute late. And because I'm me and I like to bring awkwardness upon myself, I made a joke about how the one day (cough, cough) I'm late is the one day they set up this meeting, blah, blah, blah and then they joked about handing me a pink slip.

Funny.

Yet also not.

In the end there was no pink slip and only good news.
But it was an adventurous morning.

The News

Well, Internet, my vacation is officially over. Tomorrow my alarm will go off (and by "alarm" I mean "three separate alarms"), I will get ready, get on the bus, probably take a quick nap en route, and find myself at my desk somewhere around 8:45am. I'm hoping for less than 300 emails in my inbox.

Ooohhh, which reminds me, I think my department moved desks while I was out so I have no idea what floor I'm on or where all my stuff is.

So, that should be fun.

In other news, I watched game five of the finals tonight. Oddly enough, the last NBA game I watched was actually at the Garden (Is that the what they call it these days? Natalie?) while I was in Boston in October. It felt like I had come full circle.

A few things to note:
1. I forgot Rasheed Wallace played for the Celtics. "That's some good 'sheed." It never gets old for me.
2. Rondo is a little baby-faced machine.
3. I actually like watching basketball. I forget sometimes.

In other, other news, I'm sifting through photos of my trip. As of this moment my favorite photo is this one.

We were instructed (by Josh) not to touch or to show teeth. I have no idea why, but I never really do. I just do what I'm told.

And some additional mind-blowing news, I think my hair was better in Michigan. I can't wrap my brain around this fact. Maybe it was the soft water?

So, tomorrow. Work is back. As long as the sun is shining, I think I'll be just fine.

The Reunion: A Recap

So, the reunion. Any time anyone asks me about it the first word that comes to mind (and out of my mouth) is awkward. And then I have to ask myself, Did you really expect something other than awkward? No. And yes.

But first...

The day began with some of my HS girlfriends getting together for lunch. I always make it a point to see as many people as I can when I come home, but sadly we hadn't had more than a few of us together in one place in a long time.

It's always amazing to me how quickly we just fall into comfortable conversation, as if it's just another day and we're meeting in B lunch. But instead of talking about our Spanish homework and what we overheard in the hallway, we chatted about husbands, jobs and kids.

If I'm being honest, I would say that that day could have ended there. That time with those girls was really the point of me coming home.

But it didn't end there and we moved the party to The Shark Club.

A few things:
1. Before I left Seattle I was provided with a custom-made bingo card for the night. (Try and tell me this isn't brilliant.)

My two goals were to get a blackout and photographic evidence of each square. Sadly, I failed to accomplish either goal but I did get a picture of some sweet white sneakers.

 This picture leads me to my next point.

2. I was worried about what I was going to wear. WHY? I should have known everyone would be in jeans, but I insisted on wearing a dress. And heels.

3. The awkwardness came down to this: We all know how we're supposed to talk to people we don't know. We can hate it, we can be bad at it, but at least we know how it's all supposed to go down. What I'm not so familiar with is how to talk to people I'm supposed to know, but no longer do. It was trickier than I expected.

4. I tried to ease the awarkdness by talking about how awkward it all was. If nothing else, it was an ice breaker.


5. I made a point not to sit down all night. I was forcing myself to approach people and wanted to be approachable. I think this strategy worked fairly well and I was a little proud of keeping myself out of my comfort zone.

6. The person I chatted with the longest was a guy I hadn't talked to since elementary school. Random.

7. I tried to convince every person I talked to that they should move to Seattle. I have no idea why. I think because everyone's first reaction was, Oh, doesn't it just rain SO MUCH there? Which then led to me setting the record straight about the weather, explaining how amazing a Seattle summer is and wrapping it all up with an invitation to move there.

8. Everyone looked the same. A few were a little slimmer, most were a little bigger, but still just the same.

9. In a survey of, oh, six people, it was decided that I had changed the most out of our group of friends. Apparently I am "foxy". I'm pretty sure the only difference is that I now wear clothes that fit me instead of clothes that are three sizes too big. Whatevs.

10. We ate at Big Boy after. The definition of classy. Let me tell you, that chicken sandwich has never tasted so good.

11. Laying in bed, at midnight, recapping the evening, I was told that I seem more confident now. I would hope that would be the case.

In the end, some expectations were exceeded, some weren't met at all, but I was glad I went.

PS - Can you spot the Mormons in this picture?

I feel like I've been lying to you...

...by keeping this video to myself for several weeks. It's time to come clean.

Rediscovering My Roots

My 10 year high school reunion is this weekend. And I’m going home for it. I’m not really sure what to expect, but kind of know exactly what to expect at the same time.

I was discussing what I should wear with CC this afternoon and after she referenced a “slammin’ red dress” I replied that I didn’t think I needed to be all that fancy. I mean, have you been to my hometown? It’s technically a village*. This led to a discussion about the venue, which for the record claims to be a “nightclub”, and when I sent her the link to their website I decided to look through the photo gallery.

Of course. Of course those are the photos they’ve posted.

But hey, if it’s good enough for Rip Hamilton (and that little guy with beads and Hawaiian visor), it’s good enough for me.

CC: So we're going to need to figure out how to incorporate a bandana into your ensemble.
Me: Yes, clearly.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to it. If nothing else I’ll have some killer stories to write about after. You’re welcome.


*A village that I love, btw.

Five Percent

If that glove isn't a sign of an official golfer, then I don't know what is. I mean, really. Looks like I am now 5% more attractive and well on my way to reaching that 20%.

Would you like to see a very blurry picture of me in action? I'd thought you'd never ask.

Can't you just feel the power that was behind that?

I'd have to say that my first legitimate golfing experience was a success. A few things about the evening:

• When I surveyed people for what I should wear, the response I got was a polo shirt and plaid pants. Next time.
• I had to change in the car. In order to do this I had to, first, dodge giving a male co-worker a ride. And second, change in the parking garage. The woman in the car next to me would. not. leave. I was running out of time so I just had to go for it. Maybe she got more than she bargained for.
• I was nervous. Nervous mostly that it would be a swing and a miss every time and I would go the entire night without ever making contact with the ball. As it turns out, I only missed it completely twice.
• At one point I got asked, "Were you a straight A student or something?" I replied, "Actually, I was. Why, could you tell that I was dying to take notes while the instructor was talking?"
• I'm excited to go back. Anyone want to head to the driving range with me?