coinkydink

at work, we have a hydraulic lift that has been leaking fluid. i emailed my corporate get-things-fixed guy, and he said he'd send someone over. so the mechanic shows up, and it's a guy that i met in at the airport in seattle when our flight to japan was delayed overnight 5 years ago. he was in the navy then, just happened to get transferred to the area before his enlistment was up, and just stayed out here instead of going back to wisconsin. talk about a small world!
i went to utah last weekend. i can blame my big mouth for it... when asked when i'll go back to utah, my usual response is, "when someone else pays for the trip." and someone did. amy and josh had been planning to come out here, but there was a massive baby shower (because my other sister is having the first grandkid for both her and her hubby's families) that amy didn't want to miss. so she says, "daddy, please buy linda a plane ticket." and daddy does. and i was already off work - having requested it because i thought i was going to be visited. so i flew out friday morning, spent the day with amy & josh, and the night at josh's parents' - they have the most comfortable basement - a/c'd to the max and nice and dark and quiet. i hadn't slept so well in months.
saturday was the mungo baby shower. david and i got merdy a backpack/kid-carrier. everyone else and their dog got her either tiny pink clothes or stuff with ducks on it. i also got their dog a present so he wouldn't feel left out. there were many relatives there. after the shower, april stole me, and we went to her house, where we got a phone call from a friend who was supposed to meet her sister at the greyhound station but can't make it, so could we help out... since we had never met the sister, and she wasn't answering her cell phone on the bus, we left a message that two crazy people with silly hats on would be waiting for her.... and off we went. by the way, i had one some chinese hats with braids hanging down at the baby shower. yep, we waited at the greyhound station in crazy hats for someone we didn't know. she was a frighteningly normal person, and didn't seem too excited to go with us, but we took her back to april's house, which is decorated with (among other things) a large sign declaring that gay sex is not allowed in the living room. we fed her some lasagna, played a board game, and then she booked it out of there as soon as her sister showed up.
sunday began with ihop and my order showing up wrong 3 times. it wasn't super difficult. i ordered some mexican breakfast burrito with no jalapenos, and steak instead of chorizo. does that sound like rocket science? the first plate showed up with pancakes and scrambled eggs with chunks of meat on them. the second plate had eggs, steak, tomatoes, onions, tortilla chips, and ham. yes, ham. the third plate finally had the right stuff, except that i had to ask for my tortillas to roll it in. small tip there.
then we had an adventure - april got on the freeway and drove south. three hours later we were in fillmore where the most adventurous thing that happened was that the gas station was closed, but you could still buy gas with a credit card - and the "public restrooms" (whose doors were on the outside of the building) were locked, and the key was inside the closed store. i had to pee, and this was not fun. then there was a phone call. my presence was requested at my grandparents' for dinner at 4pm, and it was going to be the first time in 5 years the whole family had been together so they wanted to take pictures and blah blah blah...and since the parents had paid for my ticket, i should spend the whole trip with them instead of friends...being the prostitute that i am, i said fine, i'd be there. then april got back on the freeway going south. insert evil laugh here. yes, it was on purpose, just to be obnoxious to my mom... eventually we turned around and flew back at about 174 mph, except the cop happened upon us after we had slowed to a poky 93... and we were late to the "dinner" which consisted of "eat some cake" "i don't like cake" okay, there's chicken in the fridge". and not all the siblings were there until after 7. so i played cards with my cousins, and met karen's husband rupert- there is considerable debate about his orientation, but i definitely lean towards the gay opinion. (back story is they're "married" but just as friends so he can get a green card. meanwhile he and a "roommate" share one room of the 3 bedroom apartment, and karen has one room, and the other one has stuff in it.) hmmmm. he is very good looking though.
eventually everyone arrived, they took massive amounts of photos, and then some of us played volleyball and/or lawn soccer. my muscles are almost recovered. it's been way too long since i did sports. then i went back to josh's parents' basement and slept until noon. now on the average "day off", i'm up by 7:30... have i mentioned that i want to live in their basement?
so for my final day of utah, we went to the mall. yep. nothing like shopping with people who have money when you're poor... i ended up buying a batman shirt. then the parents and younger siblings showed up and shoe-shopped, we had orange juliuses, and amy took me to the airport.
i made a barf-bag puppet on the plane. his name is earl.
the plane got in about 10pm. i was at work at 6 the next morning. and now, to make up for my "time off" which consisted of lumping last week's "weekend" on friday/saturday with this week's "weekend" on sunday/monday...i have a 10 day workweek until my next friday/saturday "weekend". i am not a fan of this situation.
today is my day to screen calls for the feral cat coalition. i am putting off picking up the calls because there is always someone who wants to be catered to "now", and i don't want to deal with them today. if it's too late to return calls tonight, i have until tomorrow before i have to explain that no, we don't "get rid of" annoying nieghborhood cats. and no, we don't just pay vets to fix people's pets, they actually have to be feral cats for us to be involved. hence the name, feral cat coalition...
so now i'm thinking baked french fries and some old alias... later