Which movie was the best of 2012?

I'm going with "Beasts of the Southern Wild" for my top pick. 
As mentioned before, I went to see a few movies this year. Not sure how it stands up to my movie watching of the past, but I think it's less movies this year.

Why is "Beasts of the Southern Wild" so good? Because it creates an artificial world of today (NOLA) and places them in a quasi fictional setting. And then they wage war on mainstream-civilized America. Not a real war, just a war between untamed souls, living out their existence like people used to live in this country--and still do in a few rare pockets of desert, if they aren't caught and shut down (I'm thinking of the weird mobile home quasi-nudist colony pockets that were mentioned in "Into the Wild"). It's also a girl's quest to find her mommy and about the loss of her dad from a great sickness.

If you don't cry in this movie, you don't have a heart. Or you aren't pregnant, since I was in the second trimester when I saw this film. This movie also has mythological creatures in it.

Second pick: Django Unchained

It's a pretty good movie. Revenge! Justice against the baddest bad guys! Making fun of the losers in the KKK!
There's some gore. Justice does not come to all who deserve it in this film. Weak female characters.
(SPOILERS!) If Django's wife is brave enough to escape a few times, then why does she seem so weak in every other scene?

Third movie of 2012: Cabin in the Woods
You'll laugh and laugh in this movie. It's just pure fun. It does take the horror genre and stands it on it's head. It's funny. It's a little scary. It's unexpected. It has freaky ass unicorns in it.
Joss Whedon, the universe (mostly) adores you.

Fourth Movie: Cosmopolis
Uhh, this movie is great because you get to see Robert Pattison mostly nude. And some other girls get nude. And he has a sweet car with a toilet in it. But it's a cool Don Delillo  adaptation and it will make you think about Capitalism (a little) and throwing your riches away. Plus the metaphor of "Taking a Haircut" isn't lost. It will shock you in a few parts and I'm guessing most people hated the ending--which does not quite match the book.

Fifth Movie: Lincoln
Why didn't I rate this higher? Because I dozed off in a few places. Guess what? I could still figure out what was happening. I'm not looking for gore or a reenactment of the civil war battlefield. In fact, I love that the entire movie is based around the 13th Amendment and how it was passed. Let no one say that trickery  in politics is new today!  Daniel Day Lewis, you are a golden god and few dispute that. This isn't a bad movie. It's just not a truly great movie, either.

Sixth choice:  This is 40
Yeah, it's pretty much a comedy about how much being married with kids is weird. It's not too different from normal life, except this couple's financial problems don't quite seem as pressing as they should in a real life. Sell your BMW! Sell your Lexus! Oh, wait. It's a comedy. Poor souls. I know there's a fair number of unmarried people out there who will pray that this isn't their life. The goal of Judd Aptow films seems to just make it relevant enough and distant enough that we don't feel completely disgusted with our culture when we watch a film like this.

Seventh Choice: Silver Linings Playbook
I really did like this film. I almost ranked it higher. But the cliches that it delves into later make it a little stupid. "Everything is riding on this dance contest!" Really. There's a dance contest. They have to practice a lot for it. They have to score highly or else their entire world will collapse. Give me a break! This movie was doing so well, with the oft-unmentioned mental illnesses and weird peer-pressure,  blatant family instability that made this movie seem different this time.
But instead it turns into "Ha-ha! Look at how funny it is when people with an Eastern Accent like the Eagles?!" That plus the dance contest made me lower this movie's overall rating. You should still see it, though.

Eight Movie: Moonrise Kingdom
Great cast. Great endings. Great fantasy. Adorable film. It does deserve a higher rating, too, but I just didn't love it enough to outrank it. It doesn't create anything new in cinema, it's just a cute story. Been there. Done that. No tears were shed. No true laughs were made.

Movies. 2012.

I think these are the movies I saw in theatres during 2012.

--The Cabin in the Woods
--Beasts of the Southern Wild
--Silver Linings Playbook
--This is 40
--Lincoln
--Moonrise Kingdom
 --Cosmopolis

Then a miraculous event occurred

I have an abundance of PTO left for 2012. Didn't use it earlier in the year because I kept worrying that I'd go on bed rest or something terrible would happen and I would need the time off. With 8 days left in the year, I'm safe.

So I begged my coworkers to let me off early on Friday afternoon and hitched the train to the Mall of America.  (yes, I evaded fare. This was bad of me--but I can't find my metro transit card right now. Yikes!)

MALL OF AMERICA! Let there be no secrets about it. I love the MOA. My mission: Buy the nieces and nephew a Christmas present. Buy Dan's siblings a Christmas present. Complete my Groupon purchase from "The Body Shop" and buy the famed sacroiliac at the Maternity store.

I completed these missions. I even got a 30 minute foot massage. I started it as a 20 minute massage but as soon as the guy started with it, he said "20 minutes is not enough for you. You need 30 minutes." While I fell straight into their clutches with the up-sell, it was divine.

Dan's siblings are getting some instant bread-mix again from Williams Sonoma. (By far the most hectic store in the mall)
Dan's nieces are getting some clothes, makeup and silly stuff from Claire's and some other stores.
Dan's nephew is getting a book called "5 reasons to punch a dolphin in the face" from "The Oatmeal" website. I feared this would be a bit too old for him, but he's in 7th grade now and has not been sheltered in this world by any standards. So I went with it. Buying stuff for 7th grade boys isn't really my forte, anyway--since I dont know his clothing size.

I have a new makeup compact and two lip balms from The Body Shop. And this magical Sacroliac support band.

This thing is seriously magical. I feel like I've gotten back to my old self. It feels amazing, like a giant hug for my lower back.  I can stand again! I can walk again! I'm not exhausted by standing! I wish I had purchased it so much sooner instead of waiting for the hospital to mail it.

Dan just put the baby crib together--we brought it home last weekend from my coworker's house. Wonderful! It just needs a crib mattress.

Physical Therapy

I talked to my health-insurance provided "ask-a-nurse" line about my walking pains. She said there is no normal distance of walking for pregnancy and suggested swimming. For some stupid reason, I want to keep telling the nurses that I don't like swimming.

But that's not true.
I love swimming. I need to go swimming more if I want to practice for this summer's triathalon.
I don't have an accessible pool, though, but I do have a friend who already swims and I know she'd love it if I joined her.

So yeah. Dear Nurses,
I will not fight you anymore. I will go swimming for working out instead of complaining like a big, fat whiner.

I will also go to physical therapy and will see what it can do for me.

___________

Huge relief not traveling for Christmas this year. Will still miss the fam. Will not miss driving over crappy roads, through massive blizzards, spending a fortune on gas, meals, hotels & dog boarding.

___________

I didn't get the job I interviewed for--which is 50% surprising. Surprising because of the good vibes we shared during the interview. Not surprising because I'm pregnant & would be out for the busiest season of the year, in the busiest and most affected tax department of the year. So yeah, based on their business needs, it makes sense to hire the other dude, who has a lot of experience with being a boss of other departments at other financial firms.

The rejection interview they gave me--where they tell you face-to-face that you didn't get the job--went so well that I almost though that they *wished* they'd hired me. But that also could just be the class and corporate schmaltz they put on everything when a person is rejected. :)
Regardless, they did a good job with the schmaltz and I was candidate choice #2, but they had to go with candidate #1 because he had more management experience--and it's management job.

If I am allowed to be vapid on my very own blog, we'll just say that we know candidate #1 didn't get the job based on his looks. (He looks really, really dorky). Was that a nice thing to say?
Nope.
Bad blogger.

Anodyne Coffee House

This place. Is AWESOME.  We walked to the Sunday Farmer's Market a lot this summer, just about 6 or 7 blocks from our house. And this adorable coffee shop is across the street from the market. In the summer, we would just peek inside. We had our iced coffees from the market & our arms full of purchases that were too bulky to carry inside.

But as the weather turned, we stopped inside more and more. And now it is our Sunday tradition. Plus they have the NYTimes there, which is nice to read while sipping their delicious "Mischief Chai"

Sadly, for the last 2 Sundays, we've had to drive. Once because there was just too much snow blocking us in and this time because I was in too much pain from Nitro's 3 block walk.

Which begs the question: How far should a pregnant woman be able to walk?

Status update: of the 4 of "us" (my friends/family/social circle outside of birth class) who were due within the same two weeks of February, one woman had her baby (still in the NICU), one was just put on bed-rest until the end. So only two of "us" remain walking around the normal world.

WHO WILL "WIN" for "normalest" pregnancy?

I love making up dumb, fake words like NORMALEST.

Belly

I think I could watch the baby move inside my belly all.day.long.
 Just when I worry that she's not moving enough, she'll make a lurch or a bump or a movement and all is well again.

You wanted to hear about all of my aches and pains?

Of course you did! I am an old person. Just like any old person, I have to start complaining about my aches and pains.

1) My right side has a lot of sciatic pain if I stand or walk too much in one day. It leaves me severely limping at night and Dan has to literally help drag me into bed.
2) I started to get those *extremely* painful charlie horses. I know everyone gets them. You flex your leg and it gets better. But this type of pain is WAY worse than a normal charlie horse. It's TURBO CHARLIE HORSE. My leg still hurts two days later from it. Each leg got to experience it on Friday.
3) My back hurts most of the time.  My neck is constantly cracking. Rolling over in bed is nearly impossible. Standing up seems impossible.
4) Tying my shoes or putting my shoes takes about 5-10 minutes and that hurts my baby belly a lot. If only flip-flops were feasible in winter!
5) I can't breathe much. I sound like darth vader when I'm alone and trying to breathe. 


That's all.

Just wanted to share and bitch. I am extremely fat now and it sucks. I get depressed about it all the time. If I could exercise, I could be at a normal weight for pregnancy, but I can't (see above)

Though I guess my only option now is to start physical therapy. The exercises that should cure sciatic nerve pain just induce more of it, so something is wrong. Chiropractic medicine is also in my future. 
Dear little baby,
I love you desperately.
But this pain sucks the big one.  I don't want you to come out early but I want my back to do something normal & soon so that I can live a normal pregnant life soon.

If I won the lottery, If I was that brave!

A lucky family in MO just won the giant powerball jackpot last week. or maybe now it has been two weeks ago.

When I was a kid, like every kid, I thought about all of the cool things I'd do with the lottery. Then I stopped in adulthood because it seemed stupid and destined to make one feel depressed.

But I let myself think about it again this time and did not get depressed.  I think Bill and Melinda Gates had a harder challenge: making their investment in the world sustainable.  That's what I'd like to do.

So what would I do?

I'd incorporate and start buying properties on Troost. I'd try to do it discretely so that the price didn't skyrocket as  more slum-lords got greedy and refused to sell. The nice thing would be that I'd have secret money so I could just pay the greedy ones to get lost. No one wants to reward greedy, crazy landowners on Troost, but it would be great to get rid of the crazy people so the normal people could continue their work.   I'd buy out all of those terrible used car lots where no one really ever buys a car.  I'd get architectural proposals for rebuilding, designs that are sustainable for commercial use and match the architectural qualities of the buildings.

Everything would be LEED and solar-powered.

Then I'd start renting the business spaces for business uses, or at business-incubator prices.
I'd start the Troost CID, so that it would be patrolled by private police at night to prevent theft, until at the end of the day, the neighborhood was safe, had local and new businesses in it, with a clean street-scape.

It would start with just the 42-47th blocks of Troost, of course.

How cool would that be!?

The Hold Steady

The Hold-Steady is a great band. I love listening to them while doing housey-choresy-stuff.

Anyway, today's my Dad's birthday and I had to come to my blog to talk about it. Nothing has changed and I can't really talk to my friends about it because it's boring, I don't want to bother them, and they'd all feel sad, but can't really do anything about it. And plus not so many people really understand. Sometimes I think they secretly blame me for it. 

Thus I must hold-steady.

If I sent a text message, I'd get a painful response back from his wife, impersonating him.

If I called, he either wouldn't answer or would be a really big jerk on the phone, and I can't handle that again.

 I'll think about sending a card. Maybe a Christmas card. I imagine her tearing up the card or checking the mail first and throwing it away before it gets there. I imagine a "Return to sender" delivered back to me.
I imagine him reading it or it getting tossed in the trash right away, because he'd have to hide it from her.

So I just tell myself that it is ok. 12/8 is just another day.

And I visit the nursing home again on Monday and imagine my dad in one someday, at the end of the sunset path of life. Mondays are hard, you see people witing for dinner, watching TV, asking for help in their wheelchairs. The confines of the building are their entire lives, shrunken. It might be the natural state of things.

 It's just never like a Hallmark Movie, where everyone makes up permanently, where the nursing home ends and the family invites the patriarch or matriarch back home. It's just a false-make-up, and then things revert  back to the way they were. Taking care of the elderly is hard, tedious work. Mending fences is nearly impossible.

I swallowed a basketball!

Help! I swallowed a basketball! Or a head of cabbage.

And now I have a job interview on Tuesday where I have to wear a business suit/comparable outfit. Too bad none of my maternity clothes are up to the job interview challenge so far.

I'm just applying for a few different jobs internally at work. I'm a little scared. On one hand, I want the new job. It will be a better challenge and good opportunity. On the other hand, it is a pretty stressful job. Do I really want that while raising my baby?

Do I really want to be bored at work for another year or two?

I took this new job because it was boring and because I wanted to focus on other areas of my life. (like marathon training and volunteering and ....getting pregnant) Those things have all happened and been splendid so far, I am sure I can always keep up the working out part in the future. It's been weird to be completely stress free. I confess to being bored.

I guess I won't worry  until I am actually offered this job. I know it's impossible to be a super mom and have a wonderful career and be a wonderful mother all at the same time.   I also think this career step would just be for a few years and then I can move on to another job.  The extra salary would also be a little nicer. After all, we've got to fund Esme's college account from day 1 or else there won't be any money there for her future.

But the thought of coming home at 6 PM to only have a few hours with the baby until she goes to sleep is also sad. Is there a happy medium in there?

Neil Patrick Harris Sucks

Yep. I am not a fan.

Except for like the 12 seconds where he appears in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and I only like him there because that film is hilariously delicious when you really want White Castle. Wait. No one ever really wants White Castle.

At any rate, today I am 30 weeks pregnant, which means the baby is 75% ready to come out. Which means that I am excited and also not entirely sick of being pregnant yet, like I will be at 36 weeks, when the baby is 90% complete.

I don't know what it will be like when I can't feel her kicking all the time.
 Hannibal Lecter: Tell me, Senator: did you nurse Catherine yourself?
Senator Ruth Martin: What?
Hannibal Lecter: Did you breast-feed her?
Paul Krendler: Now wait a minute...
Senator Ruth Martin: Yes, I did.
Hannibal Lecter: Toughened your nipples, didn't it?
"Amputate a man's leg and he can still feel it tickling. Tell me, mum, when your little girl is on the slab, where will it tickle you?"
--Silence of the Lambs

While I realize that's the creepiest movie ever to relate to pregnancy, that's how I feel.  Attached and bound forever and ever, not until only age 18 or 21, but really, forever, until I am rotting in the ground.  These 9 months endear you to a foreign creature wholly. Oxytocin, a series of amino acids made into a protein, which all hormones are, makes you love the foreign creature, and nurture the entity that will soon bleat and stare at you incomprehensibly for 3 months until she learns how to smile and recognize the units who provided her life.

And her name is Esme, a French name, though no one in the family is French.  

Sunday night!

Stupid things about Sunday night that no one except me really cares about:

1) I can't breathe right now and it sucks. It's not asthma, but it feels like it.  I blame the baby
2) I think we are getting a lovesac for Black Friday deals. Lifetime warranty, piece of furniture that kids love, lack of couch all make this a good thing in my book. Dan feels like our house would look like a colleg kid's apartment. He's not wrong. But a portable piece of durable furniture is ok with me.
3) Just got done watching Lincoln. Good flick, very political for the times. Not much has changed since the civil war, right?
4) Dan's birthday party went until 2 AM at the bar. I left at 11 for bowling and let everyone else keep going out for drinks at the next bar. While I can't manage to stay up that late, I'm glad Dan can still have fun with our friends. Steve left this morning for Iowa and one of our friends came up from KC for Dan's birthday, as a surprise. It was awesome. I miss everyone dearly.

5) I made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast

Good list of stupid things. Carry on with your merry lives, my friends!

A week in review

My weeks are more and more routine. It's seemed like it hasn't been routine for months--really, ever since I got pregnant.

Monday: Prenatal class. We toured the birth center again and then talked about Cesarean delivery. I confess that I've ignored it over and over again because I refuse to believe that it will happen to me. But that does set oneself up for complete devastation and unpreparedness if it does happen. And so I shall watch the video and try to imagine it happening to me in the worst possible scenario.

Tuesday: Visit at the nursing home with old people. I had a hilarious moment or two with the person I visited with and then went home.

Wednesday: Visitation for Jack, my uncle.  He was unrecognizable, sincerely, since he weighed 103 lbs when he died. He decided to get up and walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night and fell and cracked his femur, which is what ended his life, ultimately. There was an 8-day old baby there, the grandson of Jack. His poor father (my cousin) had his first baby born on one day and his father die on the next.  I gawked and drooled over the baby girl--so tiny--and it was so hard to wait until our baby is born.

My aunt was in town for the funeral, so we went out for pizza and then I showed her all of the baby stuff we have and are planning and she was thinking of all of the baby things we'll need. It was endearing--and now the baby has a few more pretty dresses because of my aunt.

Thursday: My mom came up for the funeral and we sat through church service. Right before the service, we saw an albino squirrel, which I guess is quite common up here but I'd never seen one. At the end of mass, the unexpected happened: A lone bagpipe player came to lead the recessional and played Amazing Grace.
We joked that they should give everyone fair waring before we attend a funeral like that--it was a tear jerker. There were no dry eyes in the congregation.  My mom came over after the service and saw our house for the first time and the baby's room and all of her clothes, waiting for her arrival.

And today.... today I rest, because I am lame and lazy and wake up at 4 AM every day.

12 more weeks until the baby comes and I can barely wait. This week, I haven't been in too much pain or discomfort, but a little. I think I might give up spin class soon--and I also really hope I lose the weight quickly, because I just realized how much weight Ive gained in the last 2 years in MN (looking at photos of the past me is really depressing now). It always happens that you hate how fat you look at the present and then when you look at it in the past, you notice how "skinny" you were before. ;P

A weekend, uninterrupted

For the first time, EVER, I made no plans for the weekend. I went to Friday Night Happy Hour, and saw all my favorite coworkers.

But I had no plans for Saturday.
No plans for Sunday.

This is rare, usually we'll call someone or do something or blah blah blah, but this time, I was just not interested. Yes, I would love to hang around my house all weekend, watching Downton Abbey and reading a lot of books and cleaning.

Could be because our week went something like this:

Monday: Birth Class
Tuesday: Vote, Celebrate our 8th Anniversary (!!!), Tour a bunch of daycare centers, eat fancy dinner and then get into our movie-ticket-preview thing.
Wednesday: Matt and Kim concert
Thursday: Spin class & lots of exercise (which really wiped me out for Friday)
Friday: Happy Hour

And after 2 days, uninterrupted, I am feeling rested & happy.

Dan bought a HUGE bouquet of flowers for me on the Anniversary. We have some solid leads on daycare and I am no longer TOO scared of birth. (Birth class glosses over all of the complications) Life is mostly great.

My great-uncle just passed away, after a long, long battle with pancreatic cancer. I'm sad--I had some good times playing cards with him while I was a kid/pre-teen. I know they're having a hell of a card game up in heaven now, though, all of the family that has passed away is playing Progressive Rummy. And Jack is mad that he lost.

I needn't have worried

Oh, no need to worry. There was no response to my email at all.

Dear self,

You don't need to worry about it at all. Just keep carrying your little baby and, to quote the movie Se7en, "You love that baby every single chance you get."

Or it went something like that.

And, to quote Se7en again:

Morgan Freeman's charactert: I just don't think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue.
Brad Pitt's character: You're no different. You're no better.

 Morgan Freeman's character: I didn't say I was different or better. I'm not. Hell, I sympathize; I sympathize completely. Apathy is the solution. I mean, it's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life. It's easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it. It's easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. Hell, love costs: it takes effort and work.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah

I can't do it.
I caved today and sent my dad an email, it's a photo of me & the baby growing ever-larger, with her name and the fact that there's only 3 more months left of baby-growing-in-utero!

Not sure what prompted my email--but if I get any type of evil response back from his wife pretending to be him, I will call it over, double done, game finito. My heart will break.

I guess I know what prompted my email. Dan moved a bookshelf out of the nursery for me and I moved the books. I came across the book that my dad bought me when we drove to DC when I was 10. "Babysitters Club Ultra Adventure 2" or something along those lines.

In your life, you will be ever-haunted by these childhood memories, but it's not haunting if you have  a good relationship with the person, or even good memories.  Like the unicorn my dad won for me at Adventureland when I was only 5, that's in the basement, with some other stuffed animals, waiting for the baby to grow up.  I can't look at that unicorn at all without crying. It hung in my room for years, and we named it "Adventure."

I guess it's just like Shakey's Pizza, the place we went all the time when I was little. If you can look at a photo of that place and shake it off, and not be willing to connect to your children, then you're not the person who raised me anymore. I just choose to believe that person is under there somewhere, waiting. And perhaps that's the part that's the most heart-breaking of all. 

What else did we do?

We were late coming back to work after the trip. The flights are in the smallest airports, seating is limited, and often in just those plastic chairs that people use on their yard patios.  Blind men in bands playing ukeleles are the airport entertainment, for money--it's quite hard for them to find a job. (Is it easy for anyone to find a job in Philippines?)

So the time in the Philippines after Boracay was a bit tense, work-wise. The time in the hotel was very boring.

All I can do is fast-forward through it--> so let's zoom ahead to Intramuros.

It's the oldest intact section of Manila. Originally a fort, the Spanish took over. They killed the national hero, Rizal, there--by just gunning him down one morning while he was imprisoned for the radical idea that being under Spanish colonial rule wasn't the best thing in the world.

We had the opportunity to ride a horse drawn carriage here, but it was too horrifying. The horses looked malnourished, again.  It was hot, this day, and we used umbrellas to shield ourselves from the sun.

There were deep stone trenches dug as prisons and when the prisons were overcrowded, the "bad guys" (so many different people were in charge here) would either deliberately flood them (drawing a portcullis over the top), burn the prisoners alive, or normally, just let the elements of extreme sunlight kill the inmates.

All of Manila & the Philippines were destroyed in WWII. It's pretty horrible to just imagine rebuilding an entire country. Certainly it has happened there, but it's also hard to find locale with historical context. Intramuros is one of them, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to have seen it, though even now, the memory of the trip is charged for me. I shouldn't have gone somewhere during the day, it took too much of our sleeping opportunity away and destroyed the  circadian (adjusted) rhythm I tried hard to maintain.

Chicken Intestine

We bring you...ok, I bring you....this blog entry with the question we must all ask ourselves.
"How much of our lives do we waste rebroadcasting episodes of our lives that have happened in the past?"

But how much of the past do you lose if you don't remember?

So while on the beach in Boracay, trying to decide if we wanted giant shrimp or lobster or perch for dinner (Suddenly I am not even sure if Perch is a saltwater fish), we decided to have something that was not too expensive after all, and that was my choice. I regret it. Why didn't I choose the giant shrimp?

Anyway, we ate "normal" dinner and then we were offered chicken intestine. It's wrapped on a stick, threaded on it, really.
Oh god.
Even now, I don't know how I did it. But I psyched myself up and took a bite. I could barely swallow it. After that, I was double-done eating weird things like that.

It was rubbery. And you're eating another creature's digestive track. And you're eating it after it's wound around on a stick.

Good god.

Boracay 2

Good lord. My last entry is incoherent. I should edit and proofread and try to form a narrative that isn't just a list of the things I can remember. But if I wait too long, I won't remember anything. Lord knows, I've waited long enough.

 So anyway, after staying awake until 1130 or something, I fell asleep. My room had a full sized bed that was rock hard and a single bed that was pretty soft. I can't remember which one I chose, but I know I was still scared that someone was going to break into the single American's room and rape me. I slept fitfully and woke up in the morning.

Man, I was crazy to be worried. Everything is different in daylight. I figured it was time to find M and her husband, we had been in touch on facebook, and met at the good buffet down by their hotel. The sun revealed a normal beach community. Nothing was hidden or nefarious. People were nice and I realized that everyone was pretty nice and like the rest of Philippines, there's wasn't a reason to be scared. I wasn't on Mindanao, the island where people get kidnapped relatively often. No one was going to break into my room. No one was going to rape me. We had a great breakfast at a flowing fountainy restaruant and stared into the sun at the beach.

We bought straw hats and $5 sunglasses and I went into the ocean like no one's business. It was pretty much the first thing I did in the morning. The water is so clear, even when you're up to your neck, you can see the bottom of the water. The white beach sparkles so much in the sun it hurts your eyes. We went parasailing--my first time--and M and her husband took an afternoon nap while I went back into the ocean and took a ton of photos of the sunset. I had about 40 offers to go on a sailing trip into the sunset for $25. To this day, I'm not sure why I didn't get on the little boats and cruise around in the sun. I guess I liked the view from the beach too much. It was seriously the best trip I've taken alone. I really, really wanted to play and snuggle and splash in the water with Dan, but I knew he was coming later and we'd do the same thing, just on a different beach.

At night, I got a henna tattoo and bought a bunch of pearl necklaces. I thought I was buying REAL pearls. I was very wrong. But it was only $1.00/necklace. There was a lot of panhandling on the beach, people who wanted me to buy everything, necklaces, pearls, henna, braids, a parasailing/underwater diving trip.

Boracay

Boracay is an island that's pretty much the most famous beach place in Philippines---if I haven't mentioned that already. People tell me that it's getting more and more touristy and ruinous, but it's still a great Asian beach destination and the best you can get outside of Thailand. I've never been to a top-rated beach. I've only been to Coco Beach, Venice Beach and a beach in Japan. Boracay blew me away. We flew in with Philippine Air, to the far side of the island. As I mentioned before, Michelle was flying back to Manila while I was flying to Boracay. M and her husband came with me--and we flew the weekend of 9/11/11--the 10 year anniversary of the attacks. CNN overseas was constantly running segments about it and our travel advisory service said to be cautious overseas on the anniversary. It was also M & her husband's wedding anniversary--5 years. I knew Dan was coming to visit in a few months and we'd celebrate OUR anniversary, but it was still weird to be headed to a beach destination solo. Regardless, it was worth it to experience the trip. So we flew, taxied and bussed and took a really small boat with rails to the beach. Then another person took us to our hotel on a golf cart type device, and then a young girl carried my luggage down a narrow alley to the hotel. I was so distracted by everything that I forgot to tip her and I still feel bad. I chose the Coconut Inn, because it was pretty cheap. And immediately, I was separated from M and her husband, who were staying at a much nicer hotel down the beach. I had no idea where I was, though. I just followed the woman walking over packed sand for awhile, when everything was dark. I could see some normal houses, but I was a little scared: because it was dark, I was alone, and I still hadn't gotten my cellphone to work. And I had heard there were some wild, wild parties in Boracay. Was I going to be abducted? I checked in to the Red Coconut Inn or something, and asked, naively, where the ocean was. The front desk employee looked at me like I was crazy. It's right there, ma'am. And I turned to the right and...BOOM. The ocean was only 40 feet away. I put my suitcases in my room and walked down to the beach. I waded in. THIS WAS MY FIRST TRIP TO THE BEACH IN 5 YEARS. I nearly started tearing up, I was so happy and felt so lucky. But I also knew my hotel room was very vulnerable. I was on the first floor and all I had to protect myself and my belongings was a flimsy lock. I remember going into my room and feeling angry at the company that my phone didn't work. Eventually I got a wifi card from the hotel lobby and posted to some friends that I was going go for a walk on the beach and to send out a search party if I wasn't back in 2 hours. And then I added a password to my computer, hid it under 4000 things and decided I could leave the room and go for a drink. (writing this now, walking seems perilously painful and a drink is out of the question) Ventured down the beach. It was insane with hotels and beach stores and henna and airbrushing I found an ATM. There were tiki fires everywhere and people offering a lot of deals and there were a lot of bars and people. I had never seen anything like it, in the cover of night. I went back to Dan and told him on facebook that I hadn't seen anything like this yet. There were large plastic walls that each resort placed in order to prevent the sand from blowing in and ruining everyone's dinner. And DINNER! If you like seafood, this is the place to go. GIANT lobsters, GIANT shrimp, fresh, fresh, fresh. THere's so much more to write about--but I will do it tomorrow.

Rushing back to Manila

We left for Manila around 10 PM and got to the hotel around midnight. I was, of course, exhausted--and left my passport in the taxi.  The taxi brought it back and I was relieved--though I received it at 1230 while in my pajamas in the new hotel. They rang my doorbell at the hotel and the guy at the room next to me tried to answer the door, if that tells you how easily sound traveled in the rooms.

I spent the next day resting and regrettably sat out on the tour that the other two Americans took with the other vendor. I was just too tired and spending 4 hours in the van just wouldn't work. Plus I was spending the day in the room to keep sleeping in, with a mango milkshake and breakfast in bed. I guess that was one of the few times I ordered room service. It was labor day weekend--so we had Monday off--and I was waiting to pick up my friend Michelle from the airport. Michelle and I hadn't seen each other in about 3 years, but she was willing to travel to Manila and I was willing to have a visitor from the states. She crashed in my hotel room and I sent her to Boracay for a few days because there's more to do there than in Manila. Michelle and I went to Greenhills--or maybe she went there alone. I can't remember. I remember that I failed at giving her any type of official tour because I was focused on getting ready for work and sleeping--and our schedules were backwards. The work week flew by and when I was awake, Michelle and I tried to catch up. Our lives are different--single girl living in Seattle/married girl in Minneapolis.

Misc Cebu

The misceallenous things about Cebu :
1) it seemed far less developed than Manila. Hardly any skyscrapers--though I didn't get to go to downtown Cebu
2)The town is a port city and developed because the port there is deep enough for large vessels to go
3)The hotel is/was hands-down better--and a lot of people from the UAE airlines fly through Cebu & stay at the Marriott Cebu.
4)while there were a lot of wild chickens in Manila, there are far more in Cebu
5) I visited the apartment of one of our employees. I wanted to see what it's like for a young employee in a third world country. The apartment was just a room facing a common atrium, where ppl hang their laundry and raise chicken. No AC. No water. One small fridge. A couple of beds, because she shares it with her sister.

So now I know.

In Cebu, I felt guilty for using the rep's videogame card and for not having anything to reciprocate when they gave me the Tshirt to say goodbye.
I was happy because people were finally asking questions about me in a non-competitive environment and seemed genuinely interested. And I felt like there was a good bonding moments and food-adventure time, even though I choked the squid down and didn't try the blood stew.

Papa Kits

I've officially failed in my goal to document the trip to Philippines before my 1 year period was over. A year ago, I was back in the states. Whoops. You don't mind, right?

We'll pretend you don't mind.

Anyways, when I left off, I'd just gotten back to Cebu Marriot for rest. We woke up, met downstairs, and I had Starbucks in the mall for Breakfast.  The Starbucks employees knew who I was and knew we were traveling with other Americans. It was kind of cool--and the nice thing is that Starbucks tastes the same the whole world over. I still felt weird from lack of sleep, but was determined to get through it. The vendor van picked us up and then I met.....EVERYONE FROM CEBU. It was another crazy moment where I tried to remember everyone's name after just reading a list of them from the past year and also catch the Cebuanos up on the Minnesotans who visited the year before. The Cebuanos had started dating the other people in their class, so it was  also confusing to remember who was dating who, but I did.  There are a few power couples--they met in training, still date now, and just had the cutest baby in the world, named Kobe. Wish I could go visit and see him, but I am sure I'd be jealous b/c I really want to have an Asian baby and it's just not going to happen.

The van circled and we talked about work and who was who back home and which person I liked and how they related. It turned out that none of the leaders from my team could make it, so it was just the reps and me, in a little fishing hut. We fished in a tiny stocked pond and everyone ate them later. The food for the day was rice and boiled squid. I ate mine after psyching myself up for it big time and taking one gulp of sprite. It seems like a miracle--Anthony Bourdain I am not. (though I thought I was an adventourous eater, I am really not, in the end)

It was hard to convince everyone that I didn't have the special talent of Andrew or the humor of Pete, the people who had visited the year before. I can't play guitar and I am really too somber for many occassions.

So we went fishing and then walked around Papa Kits. They have horseback riding, swimming and....ZIPLINING OVER THE OCEAN. We looked at the horses, but they looked sick and sad and definitely not ready to ride by our standards. I tried to spend some time with the horse and pet it-and it whinnied after me for awhile when I walked away. There were also wild chickens running around for awhile and I saw a chicken eating chicken, really. Someone dropped a piece of fried chicken on the ground and a live chicken ate it. Cannibalism!

We decided to go ziplining. I'd never done that before and ended up using my last few pesos to pay for everyone's ride. We put on our helmets and attached to the line after climbing to the top and getting buckeled into our harness by the safety people. And then....WOOOSH. Out over the ocean, to a tower across from us on a little sandbar. If you look down, you can see starfish and real fish swimming in the coral reefs. I squealed and laughed and took a few photos. My coworker, Al, went across with me and I was so heavy compared to him. Yes, Americans are fat and Filipinos are skinny.
We ziplined back and I tried to count the starfish, but it was too fast for me.

We ate dinner somehow ( I think everyone else ate the fish, but me) and went over by van to the mall and took our photos in front of TGI Fridays. It was tempting to eat there, but the lines are long and it's expensive. Instead we walked the mall and played arcade games. Some weirdo was creeping on me, so we left and went to a movie. It's the one where Zoe Saldana is an assassain getting revenge on her murdered parents...
And then it was time to say goodbye. They bought me an I heart Cebu Tshirt and I tried to say goodbye to people that I'd only be lucky to see one more time but would still talk to a bunch of times via phone. I promised to visit Cebu again. Everyone was way helpful and kind and wonderful.

We interrupt this message....

We interrupt this Cebu broadcast to flip forward a year in time. The year where I got back and got myself all pregnant with this baby girl and decided that she needs to find a really good daycare that will keep her safe, happy and healthy.

And maybe let me use cloth diapers and my own breast milk and will hold her and love her (almost) as much as I do.

A friend from work sent me the link to her back-up daycare. Wait! Back-up daycare? This was not a term I was familiar with, but it makes sense if you do in-home care and your provider gets sick or goes on vacation. When I was little, if *I* got sick, I went to the hospital daycare, where they watch you all day and be sure you get better. My parents would both visit on their lunch hour and I would be all excited about hospital food, even when I had a fever.  I can't remember what my bro and sis did--probably someone stayed home with them, but by then my mom only worked part time.

I am still exploring my options. Option 1 was going to a center on the opposite end of my downtown. It's a nice little walk (15 minutes?) to it but I did it in no time. Their hours are 6:00 AM to 6:30 PM, which is pretty flexible and nice. I could still get to a happy hour, have a beer, and get the baby after work. I know that sounds like my priorities are misguided, but I am just thinking ahead. Mommy needs happy hour sometimes.

Option 1 is New Horizons daycare. They let you use cloth diapers, breast milk, provide all food and formula, have a daily curriculum and list of naps & diaper changes and dispositions daily. And even their 3 month olds have all of the baby stuff, like mirror time and baby sign. I laughed a bit at this point. My 3 month old will be hoping to hold her head up, she has no chance of learning baby sign at this age. But it's cool that they do it.

Option 1 was completely certified, has a 4-to-1 ratio and the baby would be in a room with only 7 other babies, ages 6 weeks to 16 months. Surprisingly, they  would have one opening in May---but it goes quickly. They also provide low-income daycare for people on county assistance, so it is diverse, but it comes at the cost of....

Brace yourselves.

$345 a week.

You read that right. That says week, not month or biweekly.

So yeah, that's how they stay in business, because people like me also have to pay for  the other people who receive subsidized daycare. I sound like a bitter Republican there & I don't mean to. But $345 is a LOT of money weekly, though the rates do go down once the baby gets older.

Option 2 is another day care down the street from me that looks ghetto but is so close that I could walk there and probably isn't ghetto on the inside.

Option 3 is finding a good in-home care provider, but I am not sure I am comfortable with this yet unless it's someone I know--and let's face it, I only know one person that I would trust with my baby like that. There have been a lot of newspaper stories about uncertified and unsafe in-home care providers *WHO HAVE KILLED BABIES BY ACCIDENTAL SUFFOCATION* in their care. Putting the baby on an adult bed, face down, to sleep is not ok. Putting the baby on a thick blanket, face down, is not ok.
I just don't trust anyone not to do stupid stuff with my child. I know this is a common fear.

Option 4 is finding a good in-home nanny for the first few years. I like option 4, but I know I would have to pay the nanny vacation time and it might be just as expensive as option 1.

Anyway, I am sure we'll find something, but now is the time to do it because spots in May are filling QUICKLY and it's still 7 months away.  Of course, living in the city is a perk, because every suburban center has a waiting list a mile long.

Lechon--you know you want it

So after TOPS, we went out for something I'd been waiting for the whole time. Sort of.

It's LECHON!

Lechon is a pig, roasted, and it's the Filipino specialty. They deep fry the skin, so it's extra crunchy like a potato chip. An apple goes in the pig's mouth. For real!  There's a side of dipping sauce made out of the pig's blood. I am a wuss. I couldn't do it with the blood sauce.

I also am a jerk, because I ordered a mango smoothie, but the vendor was paying for it, which meant I was costing them more than I should have cost them. I thought I was paying for it and felt bad. Everyone else fought over the pig's skin, but I couldn't manage it. I am tempted to go find a photo of this. I also saved my napkin from the restaurant but after about 9 months, I finally tossed it.

After our Lechon dinner, we went to a karaoke bar. All of us said that we'd like to have something like this back home. Floor one was a pool table lounge with beer. I had some Red Horse, which you can really only find in Cebu and central Philippines. Everwhere else is San Miguel. After a few sips of the red horse, we went upstairs to the second floor, which was KARAOKE!
And we sang.
And sang.
and sang. (side note: I sang Personal Jesus, Depreche Mode version, and people asked me if it was a church song. LULZ)

By now, it was about 830-9 PM and I was operating on 3 hours of sleep for the prior 36+ hours. Some people can do this just fine, but I am not one of them. I guess I am broken in that regard, because I'd love to be one of those people who can do tons of shit on no sleep. Many of my fellow singers would randomly collapse for about 10 minutes on the shared sofas, and come back to life after a cat nap. I should have done this--but instead, at 1030 PM, I said I could last for 10 more songs and went to the bathroom.

In the bathroom, I realized that 10 more songs was not a possibility for me. My eyes looked more bloodshot than I've ever seen them. I was swaying on my feet.  So the vendor drove me and another American back to the Cebu Marriot, where I was so tired that I didn't think I could actually sleep and took some benadryl to really seal the deal.

I guess everyone else (whomever remained---many people crashed before me and many lasted after me) went out to the strip club after this, but that's not really my speed, so I didn't make it.

Rip Van Winkle

Wow, I was asleep for a long time before completing this blog.  I must have aged 100 years, right?

Well, I haven't aged 100 years, but I've gained 100 lbs. Not really, of course, but it feels like it. I want to get back to pre-pregnancy weight right away. Like...within a month. Am I crazy? Yes.

I think the topic of this was Cebu--I was going to blather on about how I met everyone from our other vendor--we'd talked over the phone but we were finally meeting for the first time.  The whole name-to-face thing was a little weird, but I was so happy to meet everyone that I didn't mind.  There wasn't much time to hang out, though, because we had to catch our flight to Cebu.

Tim and Kaili said I should only bring a carryon, so I stuffed my clothes into the smallest suitcase I could find (read: not small) and hoped for the best. We got in and through the massive lines at the airport and on our Cebu Air airline plane and after about 4 seconds, I fell asleep.

While I was sleeping, the flight attendants play games with you, like "Show me!" They announce: Who can find a red pen? and the first person to come up with a red pen from their belongings wins a stuffed animal or a packet of pretzels.

So, on the trip to Cebu, let's note that there was no sleep the night before, because we were working. There was no sleep in the morning because we were flying (though the 45 minute nap on the plane counts). Then we landed in Cebu, got picked up by a bunch of people from the Cebu vendor that I had never met.  These people were mostly friends with the other two Americans I was traveling with, since they work in the same department, just across the globe from each other. They took us to our hotel and we were given from about 11 AM to 2 PM to sleep.

Yep. 3 hours.

So I took my 3 hours of nap and tried to enjoy the Cebu hotel.  I didn't have to try hard at all---this hotel was just hands-down, a LOT nicer. It was the Cebu Marriot, attached to a shopping mall & movie theatre.
The pool was like a tropical paradise, with on-deck bar and it felt like I was in Hawaii. There were deck chairs and plush towels. There were about 10 US channels and the room service menu was way better.  We had bathrobes and sandals and in-room massage options.

I should note that all of the in-room massage options are a fraction of the cost of any US hotel. Ie: $15 dollars for 30 minute massage all the time.

I took my precious hours of sleep, showered, and went down to starbucks and met the other two Americans. "I don't feel well," I said. "I just feel ....funny. Like dizzy or something."
"Just keep going and tell yourself that everything is going to be fine." They said.

Ok.

So we took the Vendor van full of employees and drove up a long series of steep cliffs until we made it to "Tops".

TOPS is pretty much the top of Cebu. When you get there, you can look out over the city and it's quite peaceful, pretty and you can see the ocean. The sidewalks are all in octogonal form with grass growing between the cracks.  I was enthralled. It took about an hour to get to the top, but the drive was  worth it.  This was a real "third world" country experience, driving through the city and seeing how people really live. It's a new level of poverty that I obviously had never seen in the US (duh)--everything seemed like the worst run-down parts of KC. It almost looked like Troost, and it would be hilarious to go back to my fellow Hyde Parkers and say that, of course.

At the top, we rang a friendship bell and I bought some touristy Philippine items back for everyone in my familia.  Also, I met the other employee with my name, which was kind of cool.

THERE IS MORE THAT WE DID IN CEBU, WILL WRITE ABOUT IT IN A SECOND.

What about all of the GOOD things?

I really do hate to sound like a whiner, talking about the bad things first.

The good things: A TRIP TO CEBU!

Cebu is the second largest city in the Philippines and is also home to another vendor site. It's where some of my coworkers were stationed about a year before me and promised to be good.  I was told Cebuanos are nicer than Manila residents (undetermined?) but mostly I was promised that the hotel in Cebu is a LOT nicer than the one we stayed in.

The trip there was on my own $$$, of course, since no one told us to visit.

Ahh, crap. I am a little sleepy. I want to finish this blog, but I might also doze off for awhile and then finish it.

I know you won't mind!

Working out, Philippine Style

So, while talking to my coworkers who had been to Philippines previously, they all said that there wasn't much to do there. Somehow, I didn't believe them. I mean, Manila has 20 MILLION PEOPLE! HOW CAN THERE BE NOTHING TO DO?

Well, the long and the short answer is that there's a lot to do, but you don't want to do it. Why?
TRAFFIC.

That whole 20 million people thing.

We'd end our typical day at 6 AM, eat some breakfast and then figure out what to do for the day.  We were in Eastwood, Quezon City, by the Pasig river (The Pasig goes through all of the town). It takes about 30 minutes to get to the business district if you're not in high traffic.
But if you are, it could take 2 hours.  Paying for a 2 hour taxi ride is a bit lame.

If you wanted to go somewhere around 8 AM, when the city formally opens, you'd be leaving at rush hour, which means you'd be waiting about 2 hours in traffic to get to the touristy part of town or to the Bay, which has a lot of historic features. Alas, you'd get there at 10 AM, walk around for awhile, and then have to come home, thus getting stuck in daytime traffic again, and ending up with no time to sleep before work. Alas, we opted to not go anywhere except on the weekends.

The replacement item for not traveling or sightseeing during the day is to work out at the gym on the top floor of the hotel.  It also had a semi-peaceful pool when it wasn't crowded. I did, however, start to notice that nothing smelled like chlorine. In my paranoia, I opted to not swim in it at all after the second week. Too many kids could pee in it. And if I can't smell purifying chemicals, it's not worth the risk at all.

So instead I went on the treadmill. At that time, I hadn't really worked out consistently for awhile--I'd marathon trained, but that was over in June and I didn't pick up working out again until August/September for this trip.

The gym was great, though. There were people on staff to give you tailored work outs. It was like getting your OWN PERSONAL TRAINER EVERY DAY! The best part was at the end of the workout, they would stretch your muscles, everywhere, for you. And massage your head and shoulders through your towel. HELLO, I love this!  I started to spend about 2 hours a day at the gym and by the end  of the trip, it had paid off. (a little)

The Hotel

It has, of course, occurred to me that it would be nice to post photos. But I have so many Philippine photos that I get swept into them and then don't write about the trip itself.

Anyway, the hotel!
The last several batches of coworkers who came to Philippines had a hotel with a kitchenette and their own laundry.

The company didn't want to spend that much money again, which I understood, due to budget cuts. But it seemed that we were going to be placed into an apartment instead of a hotel.  We looked at tons and tons of apartments with the vendor, looked at signing a 1 month lease, with two people to each apartment.  It was good and bad. Good because we'd have a kitchen and washing machine. Bad because we'd be cooking our own food, purifying our own water, doing our own laundry.
That makes us sound like snobs, I know, but when you know your coworkers didn't go through this, it is less exciting.  I resigned myself to it either way, but not everyone in the group was as enthusiastic. The showers in the apartments were not ideal.
Eventually, it came back to the fact that we are not allowed to sign contracts in foreign countries and we could not make the lease work.  So we were at the hotel the whole time.

The hotel employees were VERY NICE--but the hotel wasn't that great for a long term stay. There was a tiny fridge...and that's it. The walls were very thin and I could hear *EVERYTHING* in the room next to me, which frequently included a crying baby, who did nothing but cry.

As an expectant mother, I understand that babies cry. Even back then, I told myself to get used to it, since it would soon be my future.
But when you work all night and should sleep all day, a crying baby is a bad combo. There were also parties in the room next to me whenever there weren't babies.  You might recall earlier that the hotel asked when I wanted my room cleaned. I am not even sure what I said, but the time was usually in the middle of the day when I was sleeping, so I changed the time, but then my body clock would change. Consequently, they were always trying to clean my room when I was in the shower or asleep. Which meant that I didn't get my 2 bottles of water that I needed every day. Yes, I could call and ask for them, but that meant another tip and feeling too much like a princess ordering around a hotel staffer-and maybe I just like to complain about not having water.

Also, the hotel didn't provide bathrobes, another exceptionally inconvenient thing about being awakened with housekeeping or laundry.

These things would be Ok to adjust to if we were all used to this experience--but everyone else had gone before and usually stayed at 3 star hotels or better--and this just wasn't that great. So I guess you could say our standards were just too high. We were not snobby Americans, though, I promise--the hotel was nice, we tipped well, we paid a lot, we were very nice to the employees, but we were all expecting quiet rooms and bathrobes, and it just didn't happen.
 The beds were soft, though, and that helped.

I promise the next blog entry will be happier and nicer. Maybe the complaining, whiny ones are easier to type.

Breakfast and Working out (1 year ago)

I should clarify a few things:
Breakfast was fun with everyone, just one of the few times we were all together and united, even though there was a lot of one-upping that seemed ridiculous.

I got swept into the desire to prove myself in corporate America and show the one-uppers that I was just was awesome as they were. I think people who resort to talking about  their HS activities and how rich their parents are to make themselves feel good must be deeply insecure in some ways.
Typical comment from my coworker to me, " Don't you love how my shoes are more comfortable than yours since they cost so much more?" (she was wearing designer shoes and I was wearing a crappy $8 pair from the flea market we visited)
To my discredit, I am too polite and merely smiled politely and gave a pat response.

But who says stuff like that?

The bad thing about being in the Philippines was just that there were only 4 of us and it was hard to escape the bad things about our coworkers. Also, I didn't have a cellphone while there, so I could only Skype with Dan--and that's it. I could IM with my family and if they had Skype, I could say hi, but that was all, no venting of emotions or frustrations. That part was probably the hardest.

Our class of trainees was full of great personalities and people trying hard, but with all of the sicknesses, it was hard to stay on track. And I was told that everyone would be overachieving, that they would stay late and come early and over-study and treat it like an extreme competition, but this was not the case at all. People would doze in class and more people quit. Two of us were assigned to each class, and it wasn't really a good use of time to have us train a small batch of people. Also, it became really clear really fast that the training materials DID NOT MATCH the phone call content.

Anyway, talking about work sucks.

Let's talk about the hotel.

English is hard

You'd never know that I thought I was good at writing or not changing tenses and not making grammatical mistakes by reading my last entry.
This is absolutely why people proof-read before publishing. Holy Smokes.  I do feel bad for anyone who read the last entry and got completely confused by my less than stellar job.

At any rate, I'll just pick up where I left off:
The first few days in the Phillippines were sort of a blur. I read our entire company training manual, read everyone else's diaries of previous trips, talked to everyone I knew who had been there.
And yet, I was unprepared.

In case you don't know, I was there to train other call center employees. No, no Americans were fired for this. Yes, Americans are still doing the same work at my company. There's just also a Philippines center or two, which really works well for contingency planning.

This was our first time working with this new vendor. The call center culture overseas is pretty much like working here, you know people from other jobs, you find your friends and recruit them to a new company when you find a better job, and eventually, after 10 years, you find yourself working with some of the same people from your prior company at ANOTHER new place, and so on.

So one call center class there was pretty much all recruited to join by one guy. They left E-trade together and came to our vendor firm.

My class was not that class.

I spent a lot of time trying to remember everyone's name, and nickname, because you're not Filipino if you don't have some type of nickname, which doesn't always relate to your Christian name. I also just sat at my computer and tried to figure out what I would be doing.

The other groups of employees going over had very large classes and the other person was always working on catching up the people who were sick or missing. In our class, we were small to begin with and people were sick  a lot. Some days, there were only 3 or 4 people. And before I came over, two or three people had quit. So it was sort of a bad sign for the class right away. Usually the center hires about 2x the number of employees they want because they know people will quit during the process, but this vendor promised us employee attrition was not a problem. Obviously they were mistaken.

So anyway, talking about the work part of it is full of political barbs even for me now, one year later.

Let's talk about the hotel!
The hotel was "The Richmonde Hotel", it was only 1 year old in this brand new part of the city. It's a private development squashing the slums and building a posh neighborhood on top of it. We were attached to the shopping mall, a ton of restaurants and stores. It really just felt like Las Vegas or Downtown Disney: Just a planned place to congregate, with corporate buildings nearby.

Restaurants in the Philippines are cheap. By their standards, too, even. If you're looking for a high class, expensive place to eat, you aren't going to find it near our place, though we did go out for a nice steak dinner twice. WHat you will find is a lot of mall food and Johnny Rockets.

Naturally, we ate at our hotel most of the time. And because we should have been sleeping most of the day to get ready for work at night, our quick co-worker plan was to eat breakfast together after our work shift was over.

Breakfast quickly turned into a 2 hour affair every day. The staff at the hotel knew us well, (the employees learn your name on Day 1, it's like "Celebrity Cruises". Going home is not the same, honestly!
We'd eat. And eat. And gossip about work and quickly realized that we probably didn't have much in common.

I was ready to settle down and have a baby. Tim is a private, gay dude who loves to work. Marnie (not her real name) was ready to see all of her friends, since she was  born and raised in Philippines, and Kayla (not her real name) was also ready to work hard and prove that she was better than the rest of us.
But these were the only 4 people we knew and thus we had to stick together. I nearly went crazy sometimes when people bragged about what they did in highschool or what they did in college or how much money their parents made.

Seriously. I thought I'd left highschool and college behind. What did I do in HS? I worked a lot. I was in a lot of activities and then my junior year, I switched highschools and tried to rebuild my life, become popular, all while crushed with crippling depression, low self confidence and being my brother & sister's primary daycare source. At least, that was my memory of it. I don't really care if you were in the dance team in college or highschool, or were on the swim team. It's great if you were. But it's not a focal point of adult conversation, but suddenly I felt like I was trying to come up with a great resume for Highschool Achievement. My academic record was pretty strong and on paper, I did a lot of things, but there were plenty of days where I am surprised I made it out of bed and plenty of times where I wished I could just vanish from sight.

Anyway.

We had little in common, but we ate breakfast for hours. Then we went to the gym. And then we went to sleep. Every day--for a few weeks.

Getting off of the plane

I promise that eventually time will speed up as I recount life from last year.

BUT!

Here is how I got off of the plane. They told me about the ramps, customs and process for getting off the plane, which is of course, ridiculously easy. I don't remember customs or the passport stamps or checking my visa, but I know all of those things happened.

I was just trying to pay attention to the airport. It was mostly how I expected it, things smelled different and not so good. And it was a little dirty.

Truly, I'm not trying to bash on the Philippines here. The people in Philippines are way better than most of us, truly, but it is not a first world country.

So I strolled myself and my 3 suitcases and 45 azillion carry-ons through the airport and did as Tim suggested. Take a deep breath of the steamy, humid air.
Steamy yes. Humid, yes. Not really like the midwest at all.

Tim is the coworker who was going to pick me up at the airport. I was arriving at about 1030 PM, which is basically when everyone else is going to work (We worked from 10AM -6AM, through the middle of the night). We'd last talked the week before about my arrival, which was midday Thursday. And I didn't see Tim.
And I didn't see Tim.
And I crossed the street with all my crap and walked around, with no luck. And there were no other international exit terminals.
And so I walked myself to the taxi and overpaid, even though I knew that would happen. I think my trip for a 30 min cab ride was about $27 dollars. Which is too expensive.

Got to the hotel and checked in. They asked me all kinds of questions I couldn't answer: What time do you want your room cleaned? was the hardest.
I just wanted to check in and take a shower for work, but instead I kept letting them take 400 photocopies of my passport and credit card and then got to my room, where I logged into the wifi and updated my facebook status. It was something along the lines of "I am in Manila, safely, at the hotel."

Of course, Tim was frantically looking for me , checking to see if I missed the flight in Narita, and they were happy to know that I was safe. I took a fast shower and ran to the lobby.

Tim took me to Starbucks, where we learned that it IS NOT A 24 hour starbucks. So if you want caffeine after 2AM, you're stuck. No can do. I figured coffee would be my friend early on, so I took it and ran.

Got the tour of the office, which was really confusing to me. They told me it was just a big square, and it was, but I was too tired and confused to really understand. I met my class, gave away the presents quickly and realized...I didn't have enough presents.
And then I went back to the hotel to get settled in, after breakfast.

I realize now this was a pretty lame entry. But it was scary--and I didnt even mention the first impressions of the country.

The Plane Ride

I skipped my workout today so that I could blog.

Not really. I skipped my workout because I don't have the energy to do it and I don't feel like it. And I'd rather walk outside with the natures and the dog and my hubby than while watching shitty cable news on the treadmill. And my workout buddies have all given up working out or changed their schedule.

Wait, this is all about the plane ride, right?

I mentioned before that I've never made it to First Class. There's an upperdeck for only first class passengers, but my seat wasn't there. Instead it was near the front and no one was near me. They gave me a package of items in addition to a pillow and a large blanket.
So I examined everything.

I now had socks, chapstick, shoe polish, acetone, a blind fold, ear plugs, a shoe horn, lotion and a toothbrush and toothpaste.

I felt like the luckiest girl alive. I'd really just settled in with my full kindle charged (this is important for later) when I was offered my first alcoholic drink. Wine? Champagne? 
REALLY? I thought.
Then they brought out a basket of fruit and chips and snacks. Have as many as you want. Whenever you want it.  As much booze, too.

Ok, champagne, that sounds good.

My predecessor coworkers all warned me to SLEEP on the plane. You won't get sleep later and it is hard to adjust if you don't. My flight was 16 hours--13 to Narita and 3 to Manila)

OK! I said. I will sleep on the plane. The champagne will help me get there. And everything about jet lag says to avoid booze on the flight. But one little glass is OK. (Writing this now, I think I'd kill to drink again!)

We took off and accelerated to a nice cruising speed.  I texted a few people from the plane about my packet of delightful items. A SHOE HORN! I said.  About 20 minutes into the flight, I grabbed Game of Thrones, book 5, and started to read on my kindle. I charged the kindle ALL NIGHT LONG for this flight and the battery life is about 1 month. Dan asked me about it again before I left.  "No problem, it will last forever, I said."

For-E-VER.

 It was already dead. Turns out you need to turn wifi "off" or else it will search for a signal. That doesn't work very well 35K feet above ground.  I panicked for about 5 minutes. NO READING? NO READING? MY BOOKS ARE GONE? (First class does not offer chargers or outlets, sadly).  Then the blinking movie light options came at me.  I had my own TV in my own seat. I could watch whatever I wanted at any time.  So I turned on the movie about the surfer who has her arm bitten off by a shark in Hawaii. And I reclined my seat. And I extended the foot rest and the head rest---so I was almost laying flat. The seats would go to 170 degrees flat--which later would prove to be quite vexing.

I stretched out my new blankie, which was big enough for my whole body.  I cried at the movie about  the surfer because her family was so nice and supportive and I couldn't imagine mine being like hers at all. I'm pretty sure if a shark bit my arm off, my parents would have yelled at me and blamed me for it.  They definitely would never have let me cook dinner for them with my feet. And they'd probably mock me the whole time for having one arm. They definitely wouldn't have built a surf board designed for my new disability and been that encouraging.

I was given a menu of what to eat mid-flight. Now I can't remember the choices, but it was all really nice items that you don't usually see on an airplane. (Side note: I flew Delta and they were great to me), I don't remember what I ordered because I slept through the meal and had to eat it later.  The flight attendants were happy to help me reheat it and serve it.

The next movie I chose to watch was Jane Eyre. I fell asleep during that one, too. Or tried to sleep, but mostly it was in and out  of sleep. I was forcing myself to sleep at around 5-6 PM, which was not natural, so I had another glass of booze. Wine this time.  And thus my flight went on and on and on and on. I did get to the point where I thought it would never, ever end. When 170 degrees is not the same as 180 degrees and you slide around and move. When you have to brush your teeth again and your lips are dry.  These are all petty complaints though, and eventually I landed in Narita and then in Philippines.

My boss instructed me to just enjoy the flight and prepare for the experience.
So I did.

Now that this entry is over, it seems like I've blogged about the flight before.

Oh well. I will blog about getting picked up at the airport and the rest of the trip later.

Manila

ok, time to write about it.

It's been one year, give or take two weeks, since I left for Manila.

Before I could get on the plane, I got us out of our lease, packed the apartment and moved and unpacked us into the house we'd planned to close on in September.  Dan dealt with all of the insurance bullshit. Of course, after all of our claims and burglaries in KC, no one would insure us up here. It was almost a disaster--you can't buy a house if you can't insure it--but we found a company and life went on.

I went through all of the visa filings and went to Iowa to say goodbye to my family for the next 12 weeks.

It was hard to say goodbye to Dan. The longest we'd ever been apart since he moved in January 2005 was about 2 weeks while I was in Greece.  It was hard to even make the decision to go away for 3 months, but it was also a great opportunity to see another country and travel in Asia for work. And we were able to afford to send Dan with me for a week,  and we'd end up on vacation in Philippines for our anniversary.

So after a lot of talks with my boss, I got on the plane. First class travelers get 3 suitcases and unlimited carryons, I found out. After a 10K plane ticket, you'd damn well better get that. I brought an extra suitcase for Melody and some other items for Kaili. I carried with me a wedding present for another friend in the Philippines.

Dan helped me check in and then...we were at the security gate. I suck at saying goodbye. I'd already nearly cried in the grocery store because I was going to miss him a lot for 3 months, and he would be in our new house and I would be.....somewhere else.

And there I was, at the gate, with my coffee and realizing this was it, Dan can't come any farther with me. I turned to him, kissed him and said I'd see him soon. And then I walked through security with my 40000 carry on suitcases and fully charged kindle.
Alone.

yep!

The past few weeks, I've been waiting to feel baby baby baby Zebra.
I've felt tons of weird abdomen movements and cramps and pains and bubbles. Since it's impossible to describe a baby's movement to someone else, I just didn't know.

I thought it would be a sharp pain, so for every sharp sting, I was sure it was the baby. And now I know it's not like that at all.

But I have felt her innumerable times now, which brings immeasurable joy. She likes to move in the car in the morning, at night before I sleep and at work.

Which is good, because I think that means she's sleeping at night, right?
__________

I saw a bunch of Sykes employees yesterday, which was wonderful. A girl on my trip from last year is pregnant, too, now, so it was nice to talk about it and have a pregnancy buddy at work, too.

And it reminds me that I haven't blogged yet about Manila/Cebu/Bohol/Tagaytay

I will instead just share the story of seeing my old friend, Katherine Brown.
Katherine and I went to Elementary school together, she was a year older, but her mom was our art teacher, so I knew her my whole life. We had a similar circle of friends, even though we were never in the same classes, but she was in the honors classes like me and in the same band/theater stuff.

Anyway, we both ended up at UIowa together and one day shared lunch that turned into a roadtrip that turned into some nice friendships for the short time I stayed at Uiowa.

Flashfoward 10 years. We hadn't seen each other since 2001, seriously. But I posted on Facebook about being in Boracay (white sandy beaches and famous vacation spot) and she saw it, said she was coming to Manila in a few weeks.  I wasn't sure if our trip would still be going because of all of the uncertainty (which is why I was hesitant to blog about Philippines at all!) but we promised to keep in touch for the few weeks and hope we'd end up in the same place/same time.

So Katherine had been spending the last few years in China as a teacher and got lucky surfing facebook through the Chinese firewall traps. And her teachers were on holiday and going together to Palawan (another famous beach in Philippines).

Anyway, it was one day before Dan came and after 4 weeks of not seeing him, time was getting tighter and harder to ignore. Katherine's arrival would be great and a helpful distraction. So we went shopping at Glorietta 5 and walked around for awhile. We had thai food in the mall and gave each other the high level overview on our lives. (I am married? She is still in touch with many of the same CFHSers? She worked in a theatre?)

And then it was over, our 3 hours together ended and I walked back to my hotel, anxious for Dan, but knowing it was still 10 hours away. On the way back, I encountered a fountain in Makati with no one around, which is rare, Manila is CROWDED AS HECK!
The moment was very peaceful...

Then I walked into my hotel room, turned on Harry Potter, ordered room service and waited. and waited...and tried to stay awake so I could adjust my schedule to Dan's.

A few months later (Chinese Firewall blocking Facebook) I heard that Katherine had a great time in Palawan, got to do a ton of things for a low cost compared to anything in China and was slightly sick of the 10 different women she was traveling with (naturally).

More later!

WoW!?!

 A bazillion years ago, I hated my job in KC. I hated the people I worked with (though now I don't mind them so much), I hated my boss, I hated my boss's boss. I hated the ghetto building we were stuck in when there was a beautiful downtown office that could have absorbed us, I hated the crummy cafeteria, and I hated the other managers whom I didn't report to. I hated the job itself.

But people were getting laid off. It was a recession, a new company was buying us out and I had also convinced myself that the problem at the office was all my fault, and though some of it was, I know now that I should have stood up for myself a lot more.

 Frequently I begged to quit, but the cash bonuses were always enticing enough to keep staying b/c of the buyout. Plus you shouldn't quit when you have a job and the rest of the world is unemployed.

I watched part of Schindler's List where the prisoners were hiding in latrines to avoid death. I decided that if people could stand in 5 feet of human excrement, and survive the holocaust, then I could go to work every day and get paid. Literally, that's how I managed to get through some days.

In hindsight, I have no idea how bad or good it really was for me. But I begged my husband to quit. I promised I'd find another job soon. I promised I'd cash out my 401k and we'd live on it. I said I was going crazy. I cried a bazillion times at work and couldn't get it together. Sometimes he'd say with a ton of hesitancy that I could quit, but I knew he didn't really mean it. He thought it was a terrible idea, we didn't want to live on less $$$.

 Flashfoward: A friend was going through the same thing. She *did* quit her job, after several months of holding on until her wedding & honeymoon passed. She is a lot happier. The salary part sucks, but it is only temporary. Her husband was upset but understood, was scared, but accepted it. I encouraged her to do it and a week later she found a new, lower paying job, but still something that doesn't suck her soul away.

And I was angry--not at my friend, but just at the fact that I didn't have that kind of partnership. I was mad that the hubby didn't understand and didn't care that I was truly miserable. That money was valued more than me.

I learned a lot about what I could handle, though, and the job today is 100% better. I love it & I am in touch with some of the people I used to hate. Coworkers and I have talked through the BS and gotten to a new and healthier place.  I adjusted my attitude.  Life is good.

The reason I write this now is because my husband just apologized to me for not letting me quit. His words: "I understand now what it must have been like for you. I wish I had gotten it then, but I get it now. I'm sorry I was such a turd. It wasn't worth it."

4 years later, but never too late. :)

Work Party

Dan's changing jobs and we just went to the new office party, even though he hasn't started working there yet. I think he'll be a lot happier to be involved with a younger, nerdier crowd.

Last night, I went to the show METRIC, for which I 'won' a ticket on Craigslist. The show was sold out and I tried every live-person sale of the ticket until this one materialized. The ticket was given to the person who was the most deserving and evidently pregnant women is one of the most deserving reasons to give away the ticket.

I LOVED METRIC. I loved all of their songs, all of their energy, the lead singer has really grown into her true stage performer. Was at a show in 2010 when Metric played and you'd hardly believe they're the same band.

It was weird to go to a concert with a random dude and have to talk to them but he was nice enough and talked about having his two young kids. He actually didnt like the baby phases at all and is happy his children are older, but hey, at least he's honest.

I do think some things about having a toddler will be boring, like playing the same game ad nauseum but I know once the child is older, we'll have a lot of fun. I'm not saying I can't or won't be capable of playing such games, but I just acknowledge now that it might bore the hell out of me. Short attention span & all.

But holding and rocking and cuddling our infant baby girl will not bore the hell out of me. In a few more weeks, we'll be at the viability point if something happens--and in ONE MORE WEEK, I will be at the halfway point.

I've gained about 7 lbs so far. It's too much--I need to stop with the sweets and keep working out.

The Book Thief

Thoughts on reading it for bookclub, so far:

1) Another book about the holocaust? Really? Can't we go back to Diary of Anne Frank and NIGHT for young adults?

2) The bolded observations from the Angel of Death are stupid and a better author could have interwoven it into the text without the stupid disruption.

That is all.

If I can choose a book myself next time, it's going to be the Jeffrey Eugenides book, because he's awesome.

WATER

Went to the Summit Beer Festival this weekend. It had 5 local bands that we like a lot, so we went to the beerfestival.

I think I must have been the only pregnant woman there, but I doubt pregnant women are the primary demographic of a beerfest. So anyway, since everyone was drinking beer, a lot of people must have been really thirsty for water, too.
And they drank all the water. There was none left for me.
And then there was no Sprite left for me.
And then I panicked.

If I was there alone, I'd just go home. I'd drive to a gas station. But I was the sober driver for 4 other people who wanted to stay. So I found a can of San Pelegrino, SICK-0, but I drank it.

Soda is evil, evil, evil. The liquid is full of syrupy corn and chemicals and carbonation.

Water is pure and delicious and crisp and clear.
After a few hours,  a vendor showed up with more water and my problems went away.

I was scared!

A girl dragon

Having a baby, it's a girl!

I goofed our ultrasound appointment today. It wasn't at 12:30 PM after all, just 2:30 PM. Talk about  a let down.

But at 2:30, I came back. The ultrasound lady was tired and ready to go home for the day.
Yes, I said, it's my first baby and my first pregnancy.
Great! She said.
Then she jabbed me a bunch of times until we could see everything we wanted. She was pretty active and wiggly, according to both the doctor and the ultrasound lady. I wonder if restless leg syndrome is passed to her genetically?

Then we saw little baby Zebra on the screen, with a brain and a 4 chambered heart, and a little face, 5 fingers and 5 toes on each hand. She had her legs crossed for some of the time, but she is definitely female.

And now I have about 14 photos of arms and legs and head and face. They said this will be my only ultrasound if things go well--but I want to see her again and again and again and again and again.

Instead I bought her a banana outfit.

She weighs 8 oz and I got to skip ahead 5 days of pregnancy. I am officially 18 weeks pregnant according to the clinic and my due date is 2/6/13. But we will hope for 2/2/13, because Groundhog Day is awesome.

YOGA: Class 2

So I went to my second Yoga class this morning. Dan and I found a place two blocks south of us and one block east, so we ambled there in the morning. I'd really pretty much gotten out of bed, put on some clothes for yoga and brushed my teeth.

Mistake.

You'll note I forgot my water bottle. And I wake up every day feeling pretty dehydrated, so this was a big mistake. Evidently I retain a healthy amount of water, but I definitely retain and can drink a LOT more water than the average person. Ie: I finish long races and still have to go to the bathroom, when most people are salty and looking for water at the end.

Anyway--the class had no AC, it was about 80 outside, and there were 20 people in a room roughly the size of my dining room and living room. No big deal, except that I was planted firmly under a giant light bulb emitting a ton of heat.

So I carried on with the yoga poses. None seemed that hard, but I could not do them. (Note that I did not have this problem last weekend at the resort.) I had to just stop on two of  the poses (BASIC WARRIOR! This is not hard!). I thought I was going to faint about 3 times. I barely walked home with Dan, but made it, ate some breakfast and drank water, and then went back for a nap. I still feel dehydrated and it just blows. How can pregnancy do this one day and not the next? How can I complete spin class on Thursday and feel fine, but I can't stand through the easiest yoga class ever?

Not sure. Needs more water.

At any rate, yesterday we heard the baby's heart beat and the doctor said it was the easiest heartbeat to find all day. 140 bpm. 15 weeks pregnant, 16 weeks tomorrow.
I definitely feel like I'm showing now and there are some skirts that can zip--but barely. My skinnest jeans have no prayer of zipping and my fattest jeans will still zip, but it's only a matter of another week before it's over. :(

I am already a roly-poly, my hips are always the fattest, so while my other friends held out for 20 weeks, I doubt I'll make it that far. But I can wear plenty of skirts until then. :)

This is what it looked like

Or not?

Just when you thought no one had been through the house, someone came through and said it was in their top 3. It was nicer than their top 2, but also more expensive. (so make a lower offer, dude!)

Also, the person was a first time home buyer and worried that the maintenance would be too much.
Me, to my realtor: "What makes our house scream "MAINTENANCE!?" to everyone?"
Realtor: Probably just the pure size of it. You have 3 floors and a basement.
Me: But....but.... it's not *that* big.

It was hard to keep the house clean, but I mostly blame the dog and the fact that we were always traveling out of town on the weekends OR that I was too lazy back then and didn't clean much.

Either way, it is  Tuesday and there are no offers on the house so far. Proceeding with Plan B or whatever it was to keep moving forward with the renters.

We went to the North Shore and got back last night.

We did Yoga, hiking, swimming, hiking again, reading by the lake, drinking tea, watching movies, swimming and I put my legs in the hottub a few times. Dan saunaed for about 45 minutes and we made smores a lot.

I DUNKED into Lake Superior. It was pretty much the only time in my life I can do it, since it's warm this year. Also, I've decided it would be awesome to hike the Superior Trail. It's only 300 miles and thus pretty easy to finish in 20  days or so. I can do it! (some year that isn't this year or next)

Our hiking guide said people often ask "What ocean is this?" when they see Lake Superior. Uhh, where do you think you are, people?
Also, they ask when the deer will grow moose antlers.

We stopped at Betty's Pies on the way home and I enjoyed actually being able to walk this time. We went after Grandma's marathon when everyone was sore and tired. I was sure to tell our friends we were there and bring some pie back for people in MSP.

I was so relaxed at the North Shore. It's starting to be my favorite place--at least, most attainable weekend destination.

Back to the board, back to the board, back to the drawing board

Two pretty awesome things happened today.

1) I got to see my friend Sarah coming back from her summer at UC Irvine. IT WAS AWESOME. She has a new potential BF and it's great to see people get so excited about new romance. And I LOVE hearing all of the details.

2) I talked to some prospective tenants via Skype today and I think we are just going to rent the house in KC again.

This wasn't our first choice but it seems to make the most sense with a baby on the way and no one has been through the house in the last 2 weeks. It had a good first two weeks on the market, but since it wasn't in PERFECT shape, I sort of hurt myself by doing it that way.

So here I go, on to the next round of negotiations and landlords and tenants and all of that. I feel much more prepared for it. I think? Maybe the easiest part is the beginning when everyone is excited to have a new home and feel ready and the worst part is the ending.

_________
This weekend is a North Shore weekend. I can't wait. 2 nights on Superior.

Just a moment....

There's really nothing going on in my life to warrant an entire blog post. I can tell you about how I puked up my chicken nuggets after an Ultimate Game Tuesday. I can tell you about how I was hit accidently by my own teammate on the field. That was weird, one second I was running and the next I was blindsided by the dude running into me at full force. It was probably my fault because I suck at playing but having the wind knocked out of me was weird.

I went through the debate in about 1 minute on the field. "I'm fine. But I'm pregnant." "I'm fine, but the wind was knocked out of me. I can pick up, but is the baby ok? How will I know if the baby is ok? Did the baby miss a breath of oxygen? Is it ok? " "I can keep playing. But I shouldn't? Should I? I am ok, but I'm pregnant." Eventually I left the field. I say eventually, but these things were clammering through my brain at a mile a minute.

I didnt want my teammates to think I was a wuss. But I didn't want to hurt the baby.

I might just give up Ultimate for now. I love running and playing but I suck at catching the disc and it might be better to let a really experienced person play.

_____________

Went to Happy Hour tonight. I LOVE MY COWORKERS. Seriously love them all. Nice people.  Wonderful.

Ok, back to whatever you were doing.

Bunheads

I loved the show "Gilmore Girls". Loved it a lot. So I guess I totally missed the fact that Amy Sherman-Palldino (spelling!) wrote a new show "Bunheads" and I was already missing 2 or 3 episodes of the show.

But a friend clued me in, now I'm watching it and loving it.  I can be a ballerina. (No. No, I can't)

Just got my haircut. Tried out Fantastic Sams for the second time and I loved it. I'm not a Fantastic Sams kind of girl. But I am now! With a baby on the way and two houses, I can't justify $200/haircut. Sure, it's the color that is expensive, and the stupid products and lipstick I cave into, and the tip at 15% is a bit too high for me. 

The FS guy did a great job on my hair. Every hairstylist wants you to be their best friend, but this guy was easy to befriend. And he gave me an Aveda worthy cut and color for a Fantastic Sam's price. It ain't easy, going gray....but it's easier than being cheesy, I guess.

Today is the first day of our 30 day pedometer contest. I've entered nearly all the contests so I'm going to enter this one, too. 5 miles a day. Today I'm on....40 steps. 50? Just kidding.

I've given $55 dollars total to Barack Obama. I am sure they'll sucker more out of me before the election is over. GO Obama. WIN WIN WIN.

REM

I promised to write about Manila, one year later. It's not quite a year, but last night we were walking over to the pizza place where Zac was having his 40th Birthday.  I saw some familiar faces in one corner and walked to see our friends...and there was an extra soul. REM.

Rem was one of the WNS leaders, a manager who helped me buy the wrong phone cards, not entirely his fault, of course--and who walked all over the clear blue sky helping us find an apartment (which we never ended up leasing because it turns out it's against corporate policies to lease an apartment in a foreign country). At any rate, for the 4 weeks we did the WNS program, Rem was partially in charge, always around and indefatigable. He wore a Bruno Mars hat and was generally an OK (if not a bit socially awkward employee)

"Hi Rem, what the heck are you doing on this side of the Pacific ocean?"

He's working for Wells Fargo. After an unexpected series of events led him to a new job opportunity: Wells Fargo is expanding their back office in Manila and he's helping to run the show. We shared stores of Philippines, since we parted ways about 4 weeks into the 6 of the trip to Manila. The Wells Fargo program he's working on is also here in downtown Minneapolis, so he called up one of the managers here and she invited him to the party and on and on. I gave him my Mall of America ride pass and sent him a message saying we'd drive him anywhere.  Hopefully he has fun here for 2 weeks. Next Friday, they're taking him to the strip club.

Lulz.