a word on the summer at hand

Ooooooh, glorious summer! With it's 40 MPH winds and 20 degree temperature drops in a 24-hr period! We love summer! We'd like to kiss it on the mouth! Why? Because the Bible says you're supposed to love the hormonal ones too. We're hoping our affection pays off in the form of a no-snow Winter. In fact, Portland can have our share, it's always fun to listen to them bitch about how unfair it is that somebody heard a rumor about possible snow in the mountains and GOOD AND MERCIFUL LORD, PLEASE COME BACK BEFORE THEN. Cross your fingers.

And so, a word about my quote-unquote summer. A few years ago I never would've agreed to such a change in my schedule. I needed continuity and predictability, which now that I think about it probably had a lot to do with my unexciting love life. I recently caught up with my ex, who when I told him how much I'm enjoying the change of scenery, looked at me like I'd sprouted a third eyeball. With teeth and hair and cute little fingernails. He said YOU HATE CHANGE and I was all YEAH WELL, TWO YEARS IS A LONG TIME. I'D ALSO NEVER TASTED MUSTARD. OH, AND DID YOU KNOW I HAVE A KID NOW?

To get serious for a brief moment: I've thought many times over the last several weeks, how fortunate I am to do the work that I do. I bounce between two easy-going, fun, low-stress jobs. My bosses are flexible, they ask about my day, sometimes they even buy me lunch. Have you noticed the smell of Taco Bell follows you everywhere?

It's Week 3 of my stint at the old stomping grounds. I feel like I've come up to speed on how things work, all the way down to the techie vernacular and remarks about how your logo is really ugly. I like to think my six years there was boot camp for the real world, actually. My boss? Jeff Goldblum meets Will Ferrell. He sits five feet from me, and likes to talk over the dividing wall. Every now and then he'll start listing off all the things he'd like for me to do. Why? Because he can. So I say YOU SHOULD REALLY HAVE AN EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT and he says no need, I've got it handled. He keeps talking, figures why not just come tell me to my face, jumps the wall to sit right next to me, and continues. I say ONE THING AT A TIME PLEASE so he waits 5 seconds then starts talking again, pausing for a moment to say YA KNOW, I NEVER WAS ABLE TO FIGURE OUT WHY YOU LEFT. Then he starts looking over my shoulder to make sure I'm taking all of his notes, which wouldn't be so bad if he weren't smacking his lips because he wants to see how long til I snap, and finally I yell I DO NOT MISS THIS ABOUT YOU!! And then the intern gets all wide-eyed, like somebody's about to die.

That's just our rapport. And really, he's a fount of knowledge and good advice. Take the time he told our pregnant co-worker (three days past her due date) to just jump on the trampoline. 

Bias to the insane ones aside, these people get me. So much so that when I start whining that today can kiss my ass and can I just go home because my feet hurt and I have a headache, the response is one of two things: 1) "Here, have a beer," or 2) nobody pays attention. So I sit on the floor and wait for someone to validate me. 

It would be so easy to say I didn't sign up for this. Except I did.

Also on my summer list? Weddings! Seven, in fact! Of those, I'm missing four (not too broken up about it) and singing at one (it should be magical). Two weekends back I flew to Portland, got on that plane at 6am with my sister the pregnant lady -- tell me you aren't jealous. One long day later, this girl is married: 

Given that it was in Portland, naturally it was magical. Her new husband has seven brothers. One of them fell down the stairs during the processional -- also magical. And we discovered that E-Train is a great asset where there is food + large masses of people. No need to divide and conquer, everyone stay here, SHE'LL BE RIGHT BACK. And that's how we ended up sampling the entire buffet. 


As for that great, big, generous, awesome family -- we used to take spectacular camping trips (think 15 kids + an RV + lots of muscle relaxers) which I think started to taper off somewhere around the time Mom got food poisoning from the lunch meat and the entire state of Montana went up in forest fire flames during our trip to Glacier National Park. The dads would take us on hours-long bike rides to historical sites, which doubled as entertainment for other tourists because HEY LOOK, HOMESCHOOLERS!


We've all grown up and are considerably better-looking. Which doesn't really mean much because the Conzattis have video documentation of all the ugly years combined. We kind of hate them for it, but not really.