The Salvation Army Kicked Me in the Croutons!

I am a little nervous about work tomorrow. I'm not so sure about a work environment without RBMBA. It will definately be different. I think for now I'm just going to take things one day at a time and save the stressing for the big stuff. In the meantime, I will zip up Kroc pledges, A/R, stay on top of December's 81 million payroll entries, and start ticking away at October and November closing duties. It's nice having help with my journals and mail. To me, TSA is in a probationary period. If too much changes or not enough gets accomplished, I might get restless. I don't want to though because overall I love the Army and their mission and working for them. I get great benefits, time off, and tuition help so it would be silly of me to think of leaving. It felt so good when I read job posts to know that I hold a degree in accounting and should be able to get an interview fairly easily. Some job posts have been hard not to send my resume to even though I'm not "actively" looking. We'll see. I really don't want to leave TSA.

And if you didn't see Saturday Night Live with Justin Timberlake, then the title of this blog will seem stupid. SOUP THERE IT IS!!! SOUP THERE IT IS!!

The Northwest was hit HARD by a windstorm last Thursday that I time traveled through (till Henry, HG's beloved cat, fell from the sky onto the tv - at least that's what it sounded like). After a night at the Noc Noc, we all cabbed it back to HG's house to sleep it off. The men went to work on Friday and the gals went to the spa. But before all that and during the night, I guess Seattle got ravished by sustained 60 mph winds with gusts over 100 mph!! Can you believe that?! Needless to say, thousands were and have been without power since then, there is millions of dollars in damage to houses, cars, boats, planes, businesses, and of course people. Luckily HG's house was unscathed. Since we stayed at their place on Thursday night, we didn't know the condition of our house or even that it was really that bad. HG, RBMBA and I spent the day shopping and at the spa with little contact to the news or "outside" world. Except we did get to hear a joke from "Bad Joke Friday" (courtesy of TJ - RBMBA's other half). What kind of bee produces milk? Give up? A BOO-BEE!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! :-) Anyway, after the spa, Dane and I wanted to get back to the house to assess the damage. We were prepared for the worst - no power and angry cats, but instead there was power for us and a few others on our block. We were very, very lucky. When we crossed the tunnel and got on to Lake Washington (on the drive home) there were no lights. Anywhere. It was like we were driving into the Great Nothing. It was craziness to see a whole city blacked out. As Dane was driving down the street he FLEW through a stoplight (that was obviously down) but you couldn't see. He cashed in about 800 karma points that night as we would have hit a truck if the truck hadn't seen Dane and stopped. Once we got to our house, we had NO cell service but we could squeak a text message out here and there. We managed to text enough messages to tell HG that we were okay and to meet for movies on Saturday.

Which is exactly what we did. We saw Eragon, which I liked. It was no Lord of the Rings, but it was good. The men squabbled about how "unlike the book it was". Then HG and I split off from the men so they and we could Cmas shop. It was a fun day with HG, we needed the time to talk shit about TSA and brainstorm together about how we can muddle through. We got our shopping done, save my backseam pantyhose (I can't find any ANYWHERE!!) and even got my Cmas newsletter taken care of (kinda - FedExKinko's charges one arm to use their self serve computers and one leg to print a copy - assholes, I would have spent $15 or so on 50 color copies, not $1 per page!!!). Then we bought a boatload of stocking crap at Bartell's - good times. OH - I forgot - Dane's bling bling party was postponed (due to the weather) otherwise I would have been at that. Back to the story - HG and I waited for our men to get back to their house and then decided to go to dinner separately. HG and I went to Bamboo Gardens - an all vegan restaurant by HG. AWESOME food!! It was a fun dinner complete with tomfoolery. Once we got to the Eastside, we set up shop in my art/dance room and put some good ol Cmas tunes on and had a wrapping party with wine out of mugs and straws. It was awesome. By the time we got done, it was late and SNL was on so we watched that, smoked some hookah, and then watched Talladega Nights, but I went to sleep half way through it.

Today HG made lentil bean soup that I pretty much commondeered from her. Poor thing. After she left, I kept putting more stuff in it (potatoes, brown rice, corn, tomato sauce) and before I knew it, I had more soup than we originally had! I let it cook all day and ate it for dinner then packaged the rest up thankful for the food I would have for the rest of the week as I overspent by $600 and have no idea where/how I will come up with that kind of cash. Le sigh. I may have to revisit my situation with Mr. Man. Who has purchased World of Warcraft and has not left his computer since. With the exception of 6 hours from 5am to 11am to sleep. I am a WOW widow.

That's about all that's going on these days. I'm completely ready for Cmas, all my gifts are wrapped. I have to mail my family's gifts and my newsletters tomorrow though. OH CRAP - and I need to get the wedding invites out already!! SOB!! This week is a busy one, Toy n Joy on Tuesday and audit wrap up lunch on Thursday. I'm off again on Friday and on Tuesday. I should be able to get the invites out by then. I need Dane's help and that means tearing him away from WOW. I had to schedule time with him tomorrow to help me clean the cat box. I wont even comment on that. Friday I think I'd like to go to LR's holiday burlesque show, but that's only if the man can pay my way in the door. Saturday is the Cmas celebration with HG, RBMBA, and crew. I'm really looking forward to that. Sunday I will go to a service with HG, then Dane and I will open gifts. Sounds like Nick and Jacob might come over too. It will be a nice little Cmas eve opening party. I'm really excited and happy. I love celebrating the season as I see fit. It makes it less stressful.

SOUP THERE IT IS!!! SOUP THERE IT IS!!!