When You Are Traveling For Business...

1. Everything will fit in your suitcase on departure. However, despite buying nothing, it will not fit on your return. So you will wear two dresses and socks with your heels on the plane.
2. The stuff you hang in the hotel closet will still be there when you leave. You will never see it again. And yet, your suitcase still will not shut.
3. You will either be far too early for your flight or you will do a personal best (PB) down the tarmac.
4. You will carefully lay out each work day outfit, complete with shoes and accessories when you are packing. Yet once you arrive, there will be a component missing from each outfit.  Better hope it's not your pants.
5. Dinner will be by yourself and you will pay for your drinks separately so that your corporate credit card receipt doesn't reflect the fact that you are a rampant alcoholic*.
6. You will be on the 31st floor so there will be no need to draw the curtains.  Then the window washer will wash your windows at the same moment that you get dressed.  It will be awkward for everyone.  It's not easy for them to go somewhere else in a hurry...
7. The batteries in the hotel TV remote will be sketchy.  And you will never be able to change from the hotel welcome screen.  You will not feel very welcome.
8. You will unexpectedly have to go to a meeting in a different building with 2 minutes to get there.  You will be told to go to the 47th floor.  You should go to the 14th.  That will require going back down to the lobby and going to a different elevator bank that services floors 1-20.  You will now be ridiculously late.  You will find the room and try and sidle on in, knowing that no one has met you and has no clue who you are.  You will try and become one with your chair.  It will not work.  They will shoot looks at you that mean "get out - not your meeting".  So you will make notes in your notebook in order to look engaged and as if you know what is going on.  You do not.  Also you are writing "take me to my happy place, take me to my happy place". You remain where you are.
9. You will make it through the week because you are a professional**
10. You will only drop your laptop once when you get it out for the airport screening.  Thank goodness it's not your personal one..
11. You will exchange knowing looks with all the other business travelers.  Your looks will say "we're in this together, we're business professionals, we have expense accounts, we're not like these others".  Then they will call security.

*or cake connoisseur
**and a wine drinker

When Life Gives You Lemons...

• Throw the lemon at the first person that suggests you make lemonade out of it. If the lemon fails to hurt them, find a rock.
• If you're really lucky, they'll be riding a bike and you'll take them out.  There was an incident this one time with me, an egg and a bike.  Didn't end well for the egg, the bike or me.
• People always suggest that you add alcohol. So now you have a lemon sitting in a glass of vodka or whatever your preferences is. Success?  I think no.

I'm unsure how this helps...

• Paint them green and sell them to restaurants.  There is apparently a lime shortage.  The message here is, when life gives you lemons, cheat someone and make yourself feel better.
• Cut in half, rub on freckles and watch them fade.  My friends' sister used to do this while she was sunbathing.  We swore black and blue that it was working.  It wasn't.
• Do not eat - very bad for your tooth enamel and then not only are you having a shitty life, you now have holes in your teeth and a huge dental bill.  That's life giving you lemons to the power of two.
• Grate the zest and add to a cupcake.  Now, you have a bald lemon and cupcakes.  Take that, lemon.  
• Return it and ask for a substitute.
• Quit.

Welcome Home To Me

I'm back. Did anyone notice I was missing for a week? Even though I got back last Friday night, I'm still on East Coast time. I'm going to be using that a lot for the next month in order to get out of doing things.

I've included a photo below of all the fun things I did while I was away for work.

I hope the fancy frame doesn't detract from the content of the photo.

Despite all the fun that I had, I'm very happy to be home. Albert is also very happy that I'm home. He hasn't let me out of his sight since. It's starting to get a little awkward. I'm now trying to avoid my cat but without him knowing as I don't want his feelings hurt. This morning, I caught myself slinking into the kitchen when he went past and holding my breath so he wouldn't hear me. But as long as I keep on his left side I should be fine. The bonus of a cat with one eye. And people say I'm negative...look at me making a positive out of a negative.

Things That Happen When You're Away for Work For A Week

1. Blog posts don't get written
2. Cats have to look after themselves. And throw wild parties.
3. TV doesn't get watched
4. House doesn't get cleaned - not actually a bad thing and also since I'm not there, it should stay cleaner for longer. Technically. Unless you have an Albert.
5. Exercise. Although I like to imagine I will work out. I imaginary sweat a lot.

Back in a week. Trust me, this hurts me more than it hurts you. I'm going to be working a lot harder than I normally like to.  Not to mention, meeting and being nice to people.  Yuck.

Drinks On A School Night

You know when you go out to celebrate a friend's birthday on a school night and you're (a) going to be the responsible one and not get completely legless and (b) just have a couple because it's not your birthday and (c) go home and write tomorrow's blog post. Well, that didn't happen. 

So, umm. How good is this post?  Bro's before hoes, sisters before misters, friends before nothing that rhymes with blog posts.  You get the point.

A Day At The Beach

On Tuesday I played hooky* and went to the beach - Huntington Beach. It has some of the best surf** in SoCal and it was packed. I didn't want to get in the way so I stayed on shore. No point showing off my skills. Just makes people feel bad.

Surfers - looking an awful lot like shark fins.

So I wandered around the shops, had a beer, a burrito, made friends with the guy making flax roses and then got myself a nice red tan sitting on the beach. That tan will fade to brown in a week, shame about the shape of my necklace burnt into my skin. Still, no need for necklaces for the next couple of weeks.

This is the rose that the guy on the pier made me. He was in the army for 15 years. It was free but I gave him a pretty big tip because I'm pretty sure he can kill me 5 different ways with this rose.

Pretty nice place, this Huntington beach. A little busy and why are there so many teenage kids hanging out? If the truancy officers got bonuses for turning kids in, they'd have a field day there at the beach. Thought about faking being a truancy officer and getting the kids to pay me bribes but then my sense of right and wrong kicked in. It would be wrong to waste all my energy walking around so I sat back down.

Anyway, I've decided to build a shack under the pier, make wind chimes out of old cutlery*** and retire there. Tomorrow.

*And by hooky I mean, I scheduled a day off 3 weeks in advance. I'm very responsible but "hooky" makes me sound devil-may-care which is a new image I am working on cultivating. I have a spreadsheet listing out all the steps. So far I think I'm still coming off a little "devil-do-care" but that's because I haven't reached step 4 yet.
**I know this because there is a sign. Not because I was in the surf. 10cm waves are a little high to be going out in, methinks. Also I have started saying "methinks" to everything. Doesn't always work but methinks me sounds cool. And a bit Victorian.
***Don't want to encroach on Army guy's territory. He could easily kill me with one of my cutlery mobiles if I stole his clientele. Actually rethinking mobiles with sharp, pointy things in general. Doesn't really matter, just has to look handmade (check) and be useless (check).

Things I Wanted For My Birthday But Didn't Get

1. A new eye for Albert
2. A cat with two eyes
3. A silencer for the hole in my exhaust manifold. This is code for a new car
4. A clean house. This is code for a housekeeper
5. Cake. I mean, really. Have I not dropped enough hints about cake? I'm going to have to dumb it down a little. "Hey - get cake. Give it to me"
6. A Minion. Yes, I know they're not real but if people can ask me if I've seen a Hobbit then I can have a Minion. The one with one eye, please.
7. A good attitude
8. A tiara. For wearing around the house
9. A winning lottery ticket. Am going to have to return the ones I had as they were broken. Need my money back.
10. A party dress. And by party dress I mean 7.