Green Gizmos & Pink Onesies

Exciting news! I have a new blog entry that doesn't have to do with my job! For the first time in a long time, I actually had a fairly social weekend planned. Saturday was my church camp reunion and Sunday was my friend's baby shower. That's right, I'm social, and wholesome too.

The church camp reunion on Saturday was planned months ago. I went to church camp for 4 years throughout high school, and a few months ago, one of my fellow campers started a group on myspace. Through some networking and some googling, we were able to grow the GPC (Geneva Point Center) group up to over 50 members! It just goes to show how strong an influence GPC was in all of our lives, and also how great myspace is for finding anyone.

The first person I saw when I arrived at the restaurant for the reunion was my old camp crush, Mike1 (there are a lot of Mike's in this story, so I'm numbering them for your convenience). And now that I've met his girlfriend and know that she may be reading this blog, I've decided to share some of my favorite stories about him. The best one is the time I invited him to my junior prom, and as we were taking pictures in my backyard, he either got stung in the eye by a bee, or maybe shoved his face into the azalea bush and got a severe allergic reaction. At any rate, his eye totally swelled up and he was miserable. I could sense things were going downhill, so I did what any normal 16 year old girl would do. I got totally defensive and whiny and sarcastic. What? Those 3 adjectives don't go together? Well, imagine this, "It's not MY fault your eye swelled up, can't you just ignore it and do the electric slide with me?.... Why don't you like me? Am I too fat? I just want to dance at my own prom! Wah!... Oh look, THEY'RE having fun. Oh look, SHE'S not sitting by herself crying." I have to interrupt this story to make fun of ANOTHER ex-boyfriend. At one point at my junior prom, I really was sitting by myself crying, and my ex-boyfriend, Mike2, who I dated oh-so-very-briefly came over to the table and said, "Is everything ok? Are you crying because I'm here with Katie?" Ummm, don't flatter yourself buddy. I got over you like, 4 months ago. Whatever. Anyway, my charming one-eyed date then decided that since we weren't having fun, we might as well call it a night. We went back to my parents house where he then proceeded to dump me and I didn't hear from him again until camp that summer, where he pretty much ignored me the whole week. Haha? Isn't that funny?

We became friends again by the next year at camp, when he suddenly turned into a deadhead, and maybe decided that all that peace & love stuff was a good idea. We remained good friends in college, and had a lot of good times. I remember a few parties at his apartment in Southie that were a blast. I remember hooking up with his two best friends in the same night, and also cleaning up puke off of people that had passed out. I'm such a giver. (Some might say slut. PoTAYto, PoTAHto.)

Wait. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, church camp. I forgot I was pretending to be wholesome in this entry.

The entire night was awesome. The group of us, about 35 people, all met at Summershack in Cambridge and had dinner. Krissy, a former camper-turned-counselor made "warm fuzzies" and name tags for everyone to wear. In case you've never been to camp, a warm fuzzy is basically a big koosh ball made of yarn that you wear around your neck or tied onto your belt, or anywhere that people can see it so they know you're special. And trust me, you definitely felt special when you stepped away from the GPC party and made your way through the restaurant to use the restroom with a big ball of yarn dangling from your neck and your name prominently displayed. Other patrons probably thought we had a re-re van waiting outside for us. But you know what? That's their loss, because I've got the joy of the Lord my God, in my heart, my soul, by bod. I love my neighbor as myself, I've got the joy of the Lord! (See, not weird at all.)

My favorite part of the reunion was when Mike3, a former counselor, stood up in the middle of dinner and announced, "Does anyone know what time it is?" and 35 voices answered back, "It's green gizmo time!" This was a tradition that we did back at camp. It wasn't the tradition itself that was awesome, but it was seeing that none of us missed a beat. We weren't whispering to each other, "Oh gawd, remember this? How embarrassing." We were genuinely nervous that one of us might be picked for green gizmo. Of course, Mike3 picked Mike1, you remember him, the guy that dumped me at my own prom? And they also picked Hillary, and the green gizmo turned out to be a group hug by all the members of the opposite sex. Ahh, church camp, such innocent & wholesome fun!

Then Sunday was my friend FlyingJ's baby shower, which you can read about here. You can also read Red's version of it here which is less of a baby shower play-by-play and more of a self-deprecating but nonetheless funny entry by Red, in which she also links to my blog. I sorta feel like I gotta return the favor, not out of guilt, but out of respect. Speaking of peer pressure... my other friend was there with her newborn, and I also just found out on Friday morning that my boss is pregnant. I'm not gonna lie to you, sometimes I feel like hyperventilating into a paper bag, but then I remember my sister and my two cousins, and I take solace in the fact that they're not pregnant, or anywhere near getting pregnant, so then I relax and take another birth control pill and all seems right with the world.

I said a flip flop, flippy to the flippity flip flop, rocking to the bang bang boogity up drop the boogie to the rhythm of the BANANA

It's about two months later, and now I'm going to write a blog entry about why I won't miss THIS job, just incase I forget. The corporate Director of Human Resources was in the office here yesterday and said that he thinks I'll be back, and that the door is always open, and blah blah blah. Today my on-site bosses said that they would take me back in a second, and I told them that I was starting to feel like a human ping pong ball. "Oooh! No weekends? OK, I'll quit my job and go work there." "Wait, but you'll pay me more? Ok, I'll come back." "Cheaper insurance? I'll give my two weeks notice!" Stop the insanity, Effie. Pick a job and stick with it. Just because people compliment you doesn't mean you have to quit your job and go work for them. Sheesh.

I don't know if I can make a top ten, but I'll try:

10. Remember that red tape that I was yearning for? Well, that's great and all, and yeah it's nice not having to be responsible, and it's comfy knowing that there's other people analyzing data, and other people writing the ads, and other people setting the rental rates. But you know what? I'm not a monkey. I can't WAIT to use my brain again!

9. I'm getting fat here. Let's just use today as an example, shall we? Dunkin' Donuts munchkins for breakfast that my boss brought in. At noon time we all ate birthday cake for my assistant community manager's birthday. At 12:30, before I finished licking the butter cream frosting off my plate, we were ordering chinese food. Not to mention we are required to have cookies out for the residents and customers ("Sorry," I said to the customers as I brushed oreo crumbs off my budge, "did you want anything? We're all out of Oreos.") Sometimes I wish they had bananas. Oooh Oooh Oooh AH AH AH!

8. Scripts! Finally I'll be able to answer the phone and actually speak to the person normally without having to say, "As your dedicated Relocation Specialist I am going to remain with you every step of the way. I know that the process of moving is a challenging time, and I want you to know that you have someone you can count on. I would like to offer you my personalized service by giving you a courtesy call to remind you of your appointment. What number is best to contact you at?" (Yes, that is the actual script. Line 12 of 16, to be exact.) According to AIMCO, you'll never get a phone number by just asking for it. Who the hell makes an appointment and then refuses to give their phone number? And is a monkey reading from a script really going to get that person to change their mind? If you give me your phone number, I'll give you half of my banana.

7. Ummm... this place is 13 miles from home, and gas is really expensive now.

6. Renewal prices! Even our corporate office sets our renewal prices, and they increase rates by astronomical amounts so people that have been here for 3 years end up paying over $100 more than people just moving in. Don't they know it's cheaper to keep a new customer than to find new ones?

5. Melissa's baby shower. Yay! I quit my job so I can go to this!

4. Red Sox game with Kate. Yay! I quit my job so I can go to this!

3. Church Camp Reunion. Yay! I quit my job so I can go to this!

2. Hoyt 5K race. Yay! I quit my job so I can go to this! And I'll get a free banana at the end.

1. Yay! I quit my job so I can go to this!

I can't wait for Monday so I can start bitching about my new job.

Good thing I got a raise so I can afford that $700 slice of pizza

Hup & I went to New York City this past weekend. Some people asked if we went to celebrate my new job, or to celebrate our anniversary (4 years this month!), but the real reason we went is because it was the first time I had two days off in a row in almost a year and I wanted to take advantage of it!

We stayed at an awesome little hotel right in Times Square, which was surprisingly nice for the price. Our hotel was right across the street from the Ambassador Theatre where we saw "Chicago". It was my 3rd time seeing that show on stage, plus I saw the movie twice. I might be nearing the overkill point, but it was still entertaining. We ate $20 sandwiches at the Stage Deli, rode a double decker tour bus around Manhattan, and visited Madame Tussaud's wax museum where I made a complete fool of myself. They had this haunted house type exhibit based on the movie "House of Wax" (starring the talentless Paris Hilton). I get really, REALLY scared at shit like this, but the tickets were so damn expensive that I wasn't going to skip it. So we're walking through, and people are jumping out of dark corners, or opening up hidden doors and reaching out pretending to grab you. I was walking right behind hup with my face buried in his back and both of my hands shielding the sides of my face so I wouldn't even see anything in my peripheral vision. Anytime I heard any movement, I screamed. My overdramatic display probably came across like I was mocking the exhibit, but I was really that scared. Then one guy, who I didn't see at all, but was obviously part of the experience came right up behind me and started going "sh! sh!" right in my ear. I was literally cringing and screaming and pushing hup to go forward and probably screaming something like, "Oh my god I'm going to die!" It was bad. To top it off, I was bawling crying too. Now picture this for a moment: I look like a total tourist, wearing my sneakers and my backpack and my purse slung diagonally across my body. AND I'm 28 years old, and look as dumpy as can be with my hair in a pony tail and my smudgy glasses streaked with tears. All of a sudden we emerged from the chamber of terror, and I'm still sobbing and trying to catch my breath, but now we're smack in the middle of the Paris Hilton room, complete with pre-teen girls taking their picture next to Paris and giggling with delight over how "fun" the House of Wax tour was. Not one of my proudest moments.

Other than the wax museum, we didn't see any real celebrities, or see any filming going on anywhere. But we DID have the best pizza ever, and isn't that the real reason people go to New York?