Quote of the Day

It's really hard to spread Nutella on a banana...

Guess your husband wasn't around then?

Well, I found it funny!!!

Sleepy. Didn't sleep very well last night. Kept waking up to find arms being wrapped around me. Not that I'm complaining but it was so damn hot, even with the A/C on. This weather has sucked all the energy out of me.....zzzz....

A Week in the Life.....

Monday: Work, pilates, more work...exchanging emails with the dopey cow from the agency at 11pm. Tired.

Tuesday: Double-booked for conference calls at 7am - one for the website update, the other for global research presentation. Did the latter. Worked from home. Exchanged emails with my friend in Mexico City...called my boss a boludos something. Wouldn't tell me what it meant....found out later...asshole is a good translation! Dance lesson - can't remember what we did! LOL

Wednesday: Argument with my boss. He totally laid into three of us....for nothing in particular. Very upset by it all. Came home with splitting headache. Spoke to Hano who totally cheered me up :-)

Thursday: Overslept by two hours so worked from home. Had to call Jason to rescue my laptop as they were moving us to the other side of the floor and I didn't want to lose it! Most of the department left at lunchtime for a ball game....some of us had to work!!!!! Saw Hano...got home about 1am.

Friday: TGIF! The end of a very crappy work week. Had to talk to my boss about something and was dreading it given his attitude all week but he was really nice. Dammit. That threw me. Turns out Ted has been offered the replacement job for someone leaving our department. Good for him....although it appears that if he takes that job he'll actually move into another department, leaving me as the sole leader of a commercial team within "e". I shall have to visit NY and sell my soul to the Marketing department now....there won't be any reason for me to remain part of this mess. Went to the Fred's Party. Chris was picking on me for some reason :-( Said it was cos he liked me...hmmm....well, then be NICE to me!!!!!!!

Today: Up, showered, not dressed. Cooked Manzanas Borachas for Carlos' party later. Hano coming round after that...refused to come to Carlos.....esta trabajando mucho, no es bueno.

My hero!!!

Woooooooohooooo.......!!!!!! He won, he won!!!!!!

Nicholas Massu....two times Olypmic gold medal winner. The first two golds for Chile....the first two medal in fact for Chile....ever!!!!! And it doesn't hurt that he's totally cute!!!!

Watched the first couple of sets with Hano and I was screaming at the TV cos the commentators were so biased against him. He's just won the Men's Doubles, for heaven's sake. Let him take a few extra seconds if he wants. When he lost the second set we had to leave cos it was too painful to watch. Came back in, expecting the thing to be over....but no.....there he was just about to win the fourth and the rest, as they say, is history. Hano's jumping round the room on the phone to Chile....so cute ;-)

I am totally exhausted from it all. I feel like I was out there on court with him. Or maybe it's cos I had no sleep? Whatever. He won, he won!!!!!!

Woooohooooo!

Just a side note to the commentators. You kept saying he'd never make it as he was too tired but I've come to learn that Chileans have so much damn energy....I think Chile is a nation of energizer bunnies.....

Gossip!

Ooooh.....I got good gossip.....

(1) Guy downstairs from me appears to moving out. Hallelujah! I am so tired of his family (noise monsters from hell) arriving first thing Sunday morning and screaming the place down. And I will love not to listen to his strange grunting noises. I have thought long and hard about what he's up to down there....on his own....and can only come up with images that make my stomach turn.

(2) Went to the dance studio Friday night and, as I was putting on my shoes, who walked in but Joe and Pat. Having a lesson? No, we're just here to practice. Really....how very interesting! Does that mean Pat has stolen Joe away from the clutches of Kathleen, "I'm such a good dancer and I'm going to tell you all", (she isn't and she does)? It's very funny as Sharon was joking only the other day about the two of them going out.....many a true word and all that!

(3) Also on Friday, I saw Kim and Eva, "I'm gonna wear low cut tops even though I'm far too old and show too much wrinkly cleavage plus I'll wear shoes that are too high so I can clutch helplessly on any guy that passes". Guess they're still an item then. Who knows what she sees in him....unless she likes arrogant guys that sleep around. Who knows what he sees in her...must have money cos there's not a lot else going on inside that head of hers.......Robin's gonna love this!!!!

Made some comment to Chris along the lines of "oooh, I see they're all in tonight" and got one of those looks...although there was a little giggle to be heard :-)

And while I'm ranting (or about to)......

This guy at work is irritating the hell out of me. There was an ad online somewhere with the wrong link in it (nothing to do with me, I might add). He calls four people and acts like it's the crisis of the week. It's just a dead link, get a life. Anyway, after I'd managed to stop half of the world running round like headless chickens, I sent him an email (in response to one of his criticising someone in my team, when it was nothing to do with her) suggesting that, in future, he act a little less dramatically and that he apologise (I'm paraphrasing....). Was so angry with him that I actually dreamed about him that evening. I had his head in my hands, holding him by the ears and was yelling at him. Woke up very stressed by it all.

Anyway, we ended up having a real argument in the conference room cos he clearly totally disagreed with me (and everyone else). Apparently, as a manager, it was his responsibility to chase down the offending culprit and resolve the situation. Leaving messages on voicemail was not sufficient...he had to speak to someone in person as he clearly doesn't trust any of us to act on anything he said. This is a production mistake so therefore it's high priority!!!! No, a high priority mistake is when (1) the website is hacked and is displaying porn (although that would be an improvement!) or (2) fraud occurs and all my money is cleaned out from my bank account or (3) something affects the transactional system. It's not when a damn ad, which has probably been out there for ages, has a bad link!!!!!!!!

Then it got better. He told me that a certain person in my team was being hyper-sensitive about things (probably if she's temporarily working for you when your person is on maternity leave cos noone else in your team has the brains to cover the work) and that he wasn't apologising to her. Really? Hyper-sensitive, huh? I read that e-mail you sent and I was pretty furious with you about it. Well I've never been told that my e-mail tone is misleading. First time for everything then!

He is such an idiot. And, when we move our cubes around, I'm going to be cube buddies with him. How long do you think I'll last?

I can't take this anymore from him. He publicly puts down my team (half the size of his) and interferes in projects (like telling the Insurance people we'll work with them when I have absolutely no interest in doing so). Acts like he's god's gift and yet I've seen him in meetings....he can't have a strategic discussion about anything, he won't do anything without the boss approving it first (he's also a jerk...I'll get to that in a moment) and he's lost all respect from anyone in NYC or NJ. We have to cover the maternity leave yet he's doing f*** all to support us with back-fill...but I guess that's cos his projects are so much more important than his. After all, he has so many customers. Yeah but we generated over $3m from just TWO that we signed up this year....what would you rather have....a ton of people that generate nothing or a few that pay our salaries? Seems pretty obvious to me!

Anyway, it sucks being associated with him......

When I started this it was going to be quite short but, as I get going, I feel I need to get all the frustrations out of my system. So...the boss:

He went away on vacation for two weeks (so his wife wouldn't divorce him), leaving me to pull together our plan for next year, which I did. He came back and we've had, so far, three meetings to discuss it (the second as he hadn't read it before the first meeting) and the third as he wanted to compare a ton of documents to see we had the right development items listed (we did). The best he could come up with that I hadn't filled the template out properly! OK, it's a draft, can we discuss the issues. No, I'd rather talk about the template and whether you followed the instructions correct.

After three such meetings I've come to the conclusion (or rather reaffirmed my prior belief) that he just doesn't get it and he doesn't want to. I was talking to my counterpart on the channel management side of things and he agreed. We're meant to have a meeting with the Head of Commercial in a couple of weeks and he's going to totally eat us (or our boss) alive. It might be a good thing for him to be humiliated like that but I have a feeling that shit runs downhill and it's all gonna land on us. So, do I prepare all my ammunition so that I can show him up in the meeting or go with the "flow" and just say "told you so" afterwards? Tough call!

Also (oh yeah, always more), there's a meeting that I want to go to (with the channel manager). We're not allowed as we're not important enough. Ignore the fact that I've been to the last two face to face meetings and attend the monthly phone calls. Also, please ignore the fact that you have no idea what we do and don't understand the nature of these meetings. Guess he just wants a free trip so he can hobnob with the not-so-big boys. Fine. You go then but if you even pick up that phone once to ask me what they're talking about I'll totally tell you how I feel about you...and it won't be flattering. (We WILL ignore the fact that the main reason I wanted to go was so I could catch up with my friend from Mexico....)

There, think that's it. Gotta go play now. ;-)

Hoy

Muy aburrida. No estoy escribiendo nada! OK....un poco. Hable con Ale y lo voy a visitar manana. Ahora, el puede pronunciar la perra, la playa y la fruita (en ingles).....pero caliente, cabana y sombrero son dificil...los mismos en ingles!

I have to work out how to put accents in here.......hmmmmmm...????

Suenas con los angelitos!!!

Ciao ;-)

Found when I was meant to be working.....

"More Blossom Fuller Cartoons" at: http://www.blossomfuller.com


Just back from Pilates....I ache...in a nice way...... :-)

Hola!

Esta tarde, estoy leyendo Juan Salvador Gaviota (Jonathan Livingstone Seagull) en Espanol - mi amigo de Chile (Alejandro....mmmm) presto su libro. Es muy dificil....hay muchas palabras que no entiendo y necesito usar mi diccionario mucho. Ahora, estoy muy cansada pero pienso que es bueno para mi! Yo descubrio Espanol es dificil porque los verbos son mas complicados.....Ingles es mas facil!!!!!

Y.....un poco de lo que te gustas es bueno......my phrase of the day!!!!!!!

Ayer aprende muchas otras palabras....traviesas....chupar, pene, teta, tetilla......LOL

How did I do? Don't think that's too bad......I need more practice though.....

AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHH!!!!

I don't know how it happened...might have been an email but somehow I got infected with tons of scumware at about 10:30pm last night. Ran Ad-aware again and again and this damn .dll refused to die. And each time I ran it more and more scumware appeared. It sucks cos I'm totally good about using my firewall, downloading my virus definitions, running my virus scan and adaware scan each week. Took me a couple of hours to kill most of the stuff but my browser still kept popping up with something crappy. So, in the end, I gave up this morning and rolled back my system. Luckily I only had to roll it back to Thursday so not a big deal. When I have the energy I'm gonna wipe this machine totally and start again.....but not just yet.....

Friday the 13th...

Not really superstitious but waking up two hours late for work seemed to be an indication that it wasn't gonna be a good day. So I worked at home....in my PJs. Felt much safer....though I did venture out to Wegmans....only to find they were out of their nice Soy Chai that I've become addicted to :-(

Not sure what I else I did. Finished work about 7pm (so much for staying home and taking it easy). Didn't go to the Work Picnic for a number of reasons: (1) It was pissing down outside and getting soaked didn't appeal. (2) Why spend time with people I work with when I could spend the afternoon catching up on work (boo) or being with people I actually wanted to be with? (3) I forgot!

Did have a productive evening though. Two weeks worth of laundry....done. Cut fingernails....done. Paint toenails....red this week...done. Chris wanted to know if I always paint them silly colours.....yeah, pretty much. Eat a decent dinner....sort of done....mac and cheese with veggies (not the best meal but needed comfort food...not sure why....)

Mucho Mambo

Walked into the studio and told Chris I wanted to do fun stuff...Mambo and Hustle. Screw the lesson plan (which appears to be a mystery!). He was fine. It was fun. Woohooo. :-)

Fire Drill

Had to walk down 21 floors. At least it was nice out. Finally got back into the building and my back went into spasms. Guess that wasn't the best thing for it. Ho hum.......

Who Stole My Weekend?

Where did it go? 50% over already and so much to do....but so much done as well. :-)

Dance lesson last night. Bolero with me coughing elegantly throughout. I'm not contagious...just damn noisy. Chris reckoned I sounded really sick and couldn't believe I was a week into this. Was trying to tell him I was much improved but I think my feet let me down a little. Even M gave me a hug cos I was looking so miserable....decided I needed one. Mmmmmmm...I wish you'd do that more often.....

They've got a party later this month where we have to take in photos from years ago so people can guess who the photos are of (sounds like fun...not). Anyway, I took in one of my with hair short...caused much interest. Let's see if anyone can guess me! Came home...slept lots....again!

Spanish day today. Lesson followed by Chilean. We were going to go out and eat but, somehow, got distracted so didn't quite make it past his front door. He cooked for me instead. Very impressed! Came very close to just staying there but my cough medicine's here and....that was a pretty pathetic excuse....face it, I just sleep better in my bed, although his is pretty comfortable.....! Learned lots of "useful" words as well....useful, that is, if I find myself alone with a cute Spanish-speaking guy in the dark...nothing I can really repeat in class...... ;-)

PS. C is jealous as hell that I "stole her boyfriend". Just to put the record straight...she's married and was lusting over him at the party....there was nothing more than that between them....not even sure she spoke to him!!!!! Her loss.....

Short and Sweet

- Downstairs are moving out...down and across from me....not the irritating guy.

- Cute games

- Feeling bit better today. Might go to work tomorrow.

- I'm reading The Notebook and now I want to see the movie.

- Very sleepy.....zzzzz......

Sick, Sweaty and Peeing Like Mad!

The peeing part is from the amount of fluid I've been drinking. Can't go more than about 5 minutes before my throat starts drying out so off I rush to the tap. And, of course, I made chicken soup.....mmmmmmm! Trouble is, I'm drinking so much that it starts coming out again. Is this more than you need to know? Maybe, but at least I refrained from any more stories about coughing up green stuff. YUK.

Anyway, I was watching GTV Dancesport Sunday morning and imagine my surprise to see Pierre Dulaine featured!!!!! Pierre ran the first dance studio I attended. He's a Frenchman living in NYC. Lovely person and was so sweet to me, an English girl new to the City. He teaches dance to young children at one of the schools in the Bronx (or was it Harlem) and they ran a little spot on him. That brought back some memories.......

I was cheered up last night by a call from Alejandro, the Chilean with the cute butt (see below...!). He's just had an article published in the Genetics journal. In English, which was very impressive. I did look it up and tried reading the transcript. It was one of those situations where most of the words made sense on their own but put them together and it all goes horribly wrong!!! LOL We're gonna get together this week so I can practice my Spanish..... :-)