Twist of Lemon

I know it has been quite awhile since I have posted.  The only excuse I have is when I am not wokring, or working at home I have been reading a lot.  I come up with great ideas for posts while I am stuck in traffic, but I hardly have the energy to type them up once I am home.  I have also been trying hard to exercise on a consistant basis.  The good news is I have been fairly sucessful.  The only problems I have is with all the thin people that use the gym at the complex here.  There is only one exercise bike, and I like to spend my cardio time pedaling and reading.  So imagine my ire when I went tonight to find som thin fit guy using the bike, and then when he was done gallantly offering it over to the thin blonde chick even though I had been patiently waiting.  Well I lifted some weights and waited themout.  I hate fit people!

Work has not been good recently.  I am still happy with the job, in fact I like the job much better than the last, and I enjoy my new coworkers.  My new company is great.  But this week has been just rotten.  We were informed that  customer audit from two weeks ago, which we were led to believe went decently, was actually poor.  And then I was informed by HR that one of my staff was going to be let go, today.  In order to meet the new quality system the whole plant needs to do a crapload of work in just the next four months.  So it brought a little sunshine to my day when I came across this petunia growing amongst the weeds in the hood, as I walked to my car after twelve hours at work.

Brain and I started to watch a show on National Geographic channel tonight called “Human Footprint.” And I must say the show has been frustrating, at least through the first 10 minutes [at which point we muted the TV]. We probably wont make it through the whole program, oh Brain just turned it to Comedy Central, but I have some criticism of the show anyway. What use is a program that just shows how much waste we produce without giving some sort of alternative actions to take? And how much can I trust the accuracy of their research when they count the crude oil used to make a diaper, and the plastic [most likely made from that crude] as well? It seems the show is just focused on sensationalism [gee the average American produces a lot of waste doesn't (s)he?] without any depth. But who knows maybe the depth is later int he program, I will never know.

I woke up out of sorts on Friday. By the time I had reached work my mood had deepened into what Melvin calls “The Mean Reds” which pretty much sums it up. Despite my simmering anger, work went pretty well on Friday. We even had a lunch out at Sarna’s Grill as a going away party for one of the supervisors. I wouldn’t recommend the location. The food was decent, if you like Sysco food. I really prefer dishes with some uniqueness to them. I had the chicken roulade, which I chose partially for the sherry rosemary butter sauce. Unfortunately the sauce was scant, the meat was fairly dry and the stuffing was heavy on the spinach and light on the mushroom. The appetizers that we had were alright, but the pot stickers tasted bland, and they seemed like they were just nuked. I am hoping to avoid this eatery in the future, but it appears that it is a favorite for business functions with people from the plant, so I’ll just have to hope they are few and far between.

Brian’s Dad was in town Friday and Saturday, due to a medical emergency for one of Brian’s family members. All we knew was he was going to be getting into town at about 20:00. So Brian and I watched the newest Torchwood, and then I took a nap. Well when Brian spoke to his Dad later that night  they decided they would get together on Saturday. Brian left me to sleep, so I didn’t wake up on my own until 22:00. And I was pissed off to have lost most of my Friday night.

Saturday I woke up to Brian’s cell phone ringing, it was his Dad, turned out his relative didn’t need surgery after all, so Brian went to have breakfast with him before he turned around back for North Dakota. I decided it would be a good idea to go looking for ways to organize our stuff in a usable fashion in our bathroom and tiny clothes closet. Really I shouldn’t have bothered, as I still was in the same bad mood from Friday. You’ll never guess where I went to spend my weekend time, and improve my bad mood, yeah right, IKEA! It went about how you would expect. I didn’t kill anyone. It was close though. I then made my way over to St. Paul and the Science Museum. Rachel M had asked if anyone wanted to go to see the Omnifest movies. I was up to see the Amazon movie at the Omni theater. I got to the museum earlier than we had planned to meet, and it was just as well as all the shows until 18:00 were sold out. So I called Rachel and told her not to bother driving in, and I hoofed it back to my car and drove back to Minnetonka. I went to the Ridgedale library to return my books and look for more, which was also a bust since they have zilch for choices at that library. So I came home for a nice long argument with Brian and a depressive sleep. What a perfect end to a perfect day.

Sunday went a bit better. Brian and I did some cleaning up around the cell -akem- I mean apartment. We then went out shopping for a medicine cabinet for the bathroom, and some groceries. Mission accomplished. And no one killed [I held Brian back]. Melvin had called me on Saturday and invited me to go to the Wild hockey game on Sunday. It was great to see Mel. For me, she is the solution to the Mad Reds. The Wild won 3-2 against the Colorado Avalanche, and I had a wonderful time. Except for the dicks seated behind us that had to spill beer on me while screaming about a missed goal.

Well it looks as if it has been awhile since I posted. But then again it has been an eventful week. So where to start? I guess I will go along chronologically. Skip ahead if I bore you.

Monday - Showed up at 0720 [20 minute commute] for my 0800 start. Hmmm great, now I get to sit in my car for forty minutes in the ghetto! Luckily I saw the plant manager [PM] coming into the building, and he was kind enough to let me in. The PM then gave me my company cell phone, sans phone charger or access to voice mail. He said he would get a hold of the cell company to get me a charger. I then met with the Regulatory Manager [RM] at 0800 to start my training. In my office. My HUGE office, which is easily the size of the living room in the apartment Brain and I are currently occupying. I do have a nice working computer, quite the change from my last position where the computer would take 30 seconds to register a command. But I don’t have access yet to the programs I need to be trained on, like for inventory management, or customer complaints. So I have to log an issue with the online help desk. Oh and I cannot even log into that tool. So I call the IT number and ask for them to give me a log on, which the assure me they are in process of doing. I also get to meet some of my staff for the first time, and see the lab in detail. Yeah lots of changes to be made, lots of changes [to the lab itself, not the staff, they seem great]. Oh and lunch was at Elsie’s.

[OK this is taking too long, this is day two of me trying to get this all down...time to shorten it up]

Tuesday - On my own for the first four hours or so of the day as RM is in meetings. I decided to go down to the lab and get a feeling for the workload and what all goes on for testing in the lab. Four hours flew by and I went out to eat at, you guessed it, Elsie’s. Came back to spend more time talking with the RM about what quality programs are already in place [few] and what quality programs need to be implemented [many]. Discovered I had no access to voice mail on my cell phone or my land line. Land line still gives name of last QA manager. Found locked file cabinet in office.

Wednesday - Met with RM and went over programs on the computer for customer complaints, discussed new product introductions and product changes and my part in the process. Discussed HACCP plan for the plant. Went to lunch at Elsie’s and was late for the plant supervisor’s meeting the PM wanted me to attend [but forgot to send me an e-vite to]. Learned a lot more about the hurdles to go through for a plant with a union workforce. Cell charger comes in. Called cell company about access to voice mail.

Thursday - Call cell company again about phone and finally given the right number to call to get access to voice mail. Spend more time in the lab discovering what goes on. My safety training is canceled due to outside visitors who need attention. Lunch with PM and discussion of some of my plans for the lab, my staff, general QA programs. Seems well received. Lunch was at Gabby’s saloon. Back to the plant and more training with RM. Come home. Pile snake and her cage into car. Go to donate her to the Herpetological society. Get Brain a drafting desk at Utrecht. Stop at Ridgedale for food at the Macy’s Lakeshore restaurant [good food ok service], go to Byerly’s to get some needed food in the house. Come home, talk to Mel, Mom and Fran. Crash.

Friday - Learn more stuff. Find out I cannot access IT help desk because I am not in payroll as of yet [Eeek!]. Listen and learn a lot. Eat at the Breakaway in Robinsdale. Come back to work, learn more. RM leaves for home, I check out happienings in the lab. Stay and help out a bit. Keep hearing from employees how the last QA manager would never have been helping, let alone at 4:30 on a Friday. Come home and crash from 1700 to 2300. Up for an hour to eat, go back to sleep.

Saturday - Go out to the folks in Maple Grove to spend time with the puppy while they are at the caucuses. Get there at 0930, cuddle and watch TV with Merc. End up napping with the puppy. Stay until 1900. Go to Super Target for food and other necessities. Get home at 2100. Some jerk parked in my assigned underground parking spot. Call apartment office and leave message. about parking. Just before going to bed get a call from the folks, something is wrong with Mercury, seems his anal glands might be impacted.

Sunday - Brain and I get up at 0830 and head out to the folks to help with Mercury. Anal gland on his right side very impacted and cannot be expressed by us. Call Mary to get ahold of her sister Julie [our new Vet.]. Emergency trip down to Richfield to get Merc checked out while the office is open. Not much Julie can do, though she tries, so Merc is on antibiotics and pain meds until the swelling goes down. Drive him back out to Maple Grove. Drive back to the apartment, someone still parked in my spot. Go over to the [now open] office and complain about the parking. Get another temp spot to park. Start to unpack kitchen at 1400. Get call that parking space is now open. Finish unpacking kitchen at 1730. Sit down to finish this post.

HOPE YOU ALL ARE DOING WELL! GIVE US A CALL OR EMAIL SOMETIME!

Well it has been a busy, tiring, crappy week. I was out sick on Sunday and most of Monday. We had the carpet installed on Monday, as well as some linoleum. that went fairly well but took them from 8 AM to 2 PM, during which time I got nothing accomplished. My Dad showed up on Tuesday and has been the best help in the world! He says sometimes he is going slowly, but he packed my entire kitchen and has helped fix up things around the house as well as kept me going when I would have just crawled into a corner to start crying. But most of the place is packed up, now it just remains to move everything down to the garage and basement. Tomorrow I will repaint the spare room and finish up a few little fixits. Dad is now worn out, and I am not too far behind. Brian caught the virus I had and has been out for a few days. I think it was a food borne virus and he probably caught it while it was aerosol during my upchuck phase on Saturday. We have high hopes he will be in shape on Saturday to help me pack and unpack the U-haul. We wont be taking much more than a couch, a bed, food, kitchen implements and clothes to the temporary spot. Anyone who would like to help us move it out of the U-haul and into the apartment Saturday afternoon would be greatly appreciated! And possibly even fed and liquored up!

Something you don’t want when you are preparing to move, food poisoning, but I will come back to that in a bit. Friday was a great day. My last day at work was busy, but I made it through alright. It was gratifying to be the recipient of a great many well wishes for my future. I am going to miss a lot of people from there, if not the job itself. Friday night Tanya ended her Minnesota trip with a short visit to the folks in Rochester. It was great to get to see her, as well as Mara and Karla. It seemed rather short though, as we had to be in Minneapolis the next morning at 10 AM to look for an apartment. We decided to go with one at the Gates at Carlson Center. Right before we signed the paperwork we went out to lunch with the gal giving us the apartment tour at place called El Azteca. Remember this as it becomes important later on in our story. So we were done by early afternoon and decided to go on over to our friend Shari’s place since she was hasting a McGuyver party that evening. Both Brian and I were worn out, so he took a little nap over at Mary’s apartment at the beginning of the party, and once he was awake, I took a little nap. Brian woke me up around 10 PM for us to head on home.

Once we got into the car I mentioned that I was feeling a little queasy, but thought I would be ok for the drive. Then we got a little further down the road and I thought we should stop at our normal gas stop in Invergrove Heights so I could use the facilities. After that i thought I would be fine, but let Brain know that I would warn him if I needed him to pull the car over for any reason. I don’t know how much further we got down the road before I was frantically letting him know that we needed to pull over to the side of the road NOW! According to Brain he was in the left hand lane, and had to floor the accelerator in order to pass some guy pacing him in the right, so he could whip into the right lane and pull over to the side. All I can remember is what seemed like five liters of fluids coming out of my mouth at a very high velocity…twice. Brain was a champ, at one point trying to clean me up with some napkins we had handy, that is until I told him “not yet.” The only positive thing I have to say about the whole vomiting experience was that I felt about 300% better after it, but that still left me feeling about 600% worse than normal. I spent Sunday in bed and the bathroom, I now weigh seven pounds less than I did on Friday and the first thing I was able to eat since Saturday night was at about 10 PM Sunday.

We are having carpeting installed this morning, and the Junk-B-Gone guys have already been by to pick up some old nasty furniture for the dump. I have already reserved a U-haul for the minor amount of furniture we are moving into the new apartment. Once the carpet installers are gone I will go get some boxes. Dad is coming down in the morning to help me pack things up, and hopefully this Sunday will be the only set back for the move.

Another day another dollar or something.  Training the new guy at work is not going very well as the only things I have left to train him on are computer based and he doesn’t have computer access yet.  Only four days left to go at the sinking ship.  I heard today that the company is going through layoffs at other sites, and was considering laying off staff at the Rochester site.  Couldn’t pick a better time to leave I guess.  There are many people I will be sorry to leave behind, but there are also a few that deserve to be let go.

The second of the two Realtor choices came by today.  I think I will have a difficult choice to make, since they both seem very good. Both have also mentioned that the market down here has started to warm up, with the new residents coming in to work at Mayo.  I will be getting new carpeting in the house next Monday, and new linoleum in the basement [to cover some nasty orange looking stuff].  Neutral colors! Neutral colors!  Gotta get someone to clean the drive of snow, and I need to trim the shrubbery!  Stuff to do, stuff to do!  I’m late!  I’m late!

Well I had a very stressful day today.  Everything that could go wrong at work did, and I found out I was mistaken on some of my relocation package options.  Stress all around today.  The new company is doing a great job trying to help, for which I am very appreciative.  I also want to send a shout out to my folks, and to Jessica and Gabe, all of them for being such a great help in watching our furry guys.  Sounds like they are adjusting fairly well to their temporary digs.  And thanks to Mary and Fran for keeping me company by phone while I took that very stressful drive with the cats up to the Cities and back.

So tonight I am cleaning the house and keeping the TV on for company.

Tonight I was watching a repeat of the Daily Show that had an interview with John Bolton, late of the U.N. He made a comment about Pakistan and keeping a fundamentalist Islamic regime from coming to power and gaining control of nuclear weapons. This made me think, “Why yes we should keep power out of the hands of religious fundamentalists.” Then I thought, “Wait, wait, what is happening in my own country?!” It seems odd to me that our government is opposed to fundamentalist governments in other countries and yet over the years has come more and more under the sway of fundamentalists and evangelical Christians. I wonder what will become of freedom of religion.