i miss you. you miss me. it's time to catch up a little.

gahhhh, to say i miss you all is a gross understatement.  work and life in general have been a whirlwind.  since work is ultra unexciting for those of you not interesting in politics and environmental sustainability, let's get personal.

- i had a huge work even last week that consumed my life for a good solid 72 hours.  the event was a great success, so it paid off.  getting a mani-pedi and massage afterward was nice, too.

- i spent the weekend in austin (my fave city in texas) at a sorority sister's wedding.  she got married at this awesome venue that specializes in serving only organic food.  totally up my alley.  it was great getting to see and catch up with old sorority sisters and friends.  i forgot my camera (something i nevvvvver do), but fortunately they had a photobooth which quasi and i had tons of fun in.  i'll try to scan the photobooth pics and post them soon.

ZTA - only the best wear a crown!

clearly, i missed the "solid-colored dress" memo.

- i'm headed to the lake on friday for a company "team retreat."  should be interesting...

- then on sunday, i leave for church camp for... get ready for it... A WHOLE WEEK.  i'm going as a camp sponsor for a whole week in the hill-country-middle-of-nowhere-texas-with-no-access-to-cell-phone-service-or-internet for a sold week.  crazy, i know.

** don't forget - CSN stores giveaway ends tomorrow!! ** 

time for a lobbyist office tour

so you may or may not have seen some office tours going on around the blogosphere.  you can thank my boa-loving friend cher from the only girl for this trend and check out her site for other international workspace tours.  i finally decided to get in on the fun, too.  my office is fairly unexciting and - i never thought i'd say this - i actually miss working in downtown houston sometimes.  the one good thing about working where i do now is we have a huge parking lot, so i don't have to park in a parking garage and walk 20 minutes like i had to while i worked in the mayor's office at city hall.  i know, walking 20 minutes may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but wearing 3" heels, a silk blouse, and having to hike it in 105 degree heat and 98% humidity is a real pain in the arse, not to mention it totally messes up your hair.  houston isn't exactly a walkable environment.  (i know you smart growth and urban planners in san fran and nyc are probably having heart attacks.)  

okay, enough talk.  on to the tour:

1. welcome!  please come in!  do you need to make a copy?  i have a texas-sized copier here to greet you.

2. here's my desk, walls, and files.  clearly.

3. i like to organize my life.  i'll organize the heck out of yours too, if you'll let me.

4. the view from my shoes everyday.  i basically stare at my boss.  well, i don't stare at him, i mean i can see him from my desk.  those doors normally aren't shut, and he is normally throwing various squishy stress balls at me to get my attention when i ignore him.

5. here's my little piece of home that i brought to spruce up my office.  i figure since i spent more hours than i'd like to admit here, i should probably have something nice to look at.  and that sign on the left is my fave: "there are 2 theories to arguing with a woman; neither one works."

6. contents of my middle desk drawer.  i obvs love sugar.

7. some of my files.  and my calendar.  and trash can.  all very exciting.

hope you enjoyed the tour!  i would say come back anytime, but that would be weird.  

interesting people in my city

okay, so i was at the city of houston public session alllll day yesterday afternoon.  public session is just what it sounds like - people from the public (citizens of houston) come before houston city council and speak on ANY public (or in some cases private) matter they want to.  and i mean ANYthing.  it usually pertains to something that is on the council's agenda the following morning, but sometimes it doesn't.  there's a lot of interesting folks that come down to council.  

by the way, it was 4/20 yesterday, in case you forgot.  and speaking of interesting folks, please check out some of the crazy interesting pro-4/20 advocates.

{please notice that this "gentleman" is wearing a giant marijuana leaf t-shirt and has kindly cut a hole in his shirt to reveal his love for miss mary jane.}

 {just who i would want to take home to meet the family.}

need money for karate lessons

some days i hate my job.  some days i'm ridiculously busy.  today i happen to be both: i am hating my job while being ridiculously busy.  but rather than bore you all, bitch about my day, and feel sorry for myself, i need to take a step back and think: it could be worse... i could be this guy:

there must be a pony.

yesterday i had a christmas luncheon with an association society that my industry is a member of.  these luncheons are held monthly and each month the luncheon is held at a different venue (typically a swanky hotel), they serve lots of wine (which i can't drink), and lots of food i'm allergic to.  go figure.  and then i have lots of people making assinine comments about me not eating and how i'm too skinny, and i have to kindly explain that i will go into anaphylactic shock and that's not good for anyone if my airways close on the job or anywhere else for that matter.  kind of ruins the holiday cheer.  i tell them i have food i brought at the office and i will eat when i get back and i'm not too skinny, they are just too fat.  and if it's not appropriate for me to tell people they're fat asses, it shouldn't be okay for people to tell me i'm "too skinny."  sorry, i digress, just a major pet peeve of mine.  and now that you're done feeling sorry for me that i can't drink wine, back to the story... 

the association society tries to get a variety of speakers to cover a broad array of topics over the course of the year.  for yesterday's luncheon the topic was all about being a rockstar.  my two thoughts: (1) what does this have to do with my industry?  i'm a lobbyist.  and (2) i already am a rockstar.

the rockstar speaker lady gets up there.  she's a woman with short spiky hair that seemed to fit her personality, tight leather-y looking jeans, carlos santana just-below-the-knee boots, and lots of jewelry.  she looked to be in her late 50s and she clearly was still rockin' it.  she had been working in rock & roll radio and advertising for the past 30 years and had met tons of real rockstars along the way.  she was retired from radio but she still did a lot of speaking gigs and tours with bands.  along with her talk, she had a running powerpoint of pictures with her hainging out with the likes of people like mick jagger, eddie van halen, steve haggerd, and bands like foreigner, journey, inxs, etc.  you get the idea.  the woman was in 80s rockstar heaven - the best decade ever, the decade in which yours truly made her debut onto this earth.  anyways, so this lady was legit.  then i saw this picture up on the screen:

after seeing a slew of pics of her hanging out with bands and tons of cool people, this slide seemed bizarre.  simply by the cover, i couldn't figure out was the book was about so the rockstar speaker woman said she'd explain the gist of it.  (she didn't censor herself, so neither will i.  good thing because this is my blog.)  anyways, she said the gist was that there were these two brothers who walked into a bar (starts off sounding like a bad joke),  and when they walk into the bar it's full of sh*t.  like literal sh*t.  floor to ceiling poop.  poop everywhere.  poop, poop, poop.  one brother says: let's get the hell out of here and go somewhere else.  the other brother with a look of awe and wonder simply says: there must be a pony!  point of the story: always look for the good in something.  something really amazing can come out of even the worst of situations or circumstances.  the book seemed totally random, but it really struck a chord with me.  all to often i b*tch and moan (two things i'm very very good at, by the way) about all the stress and inconveniences in life.  one for sure being my severe food allergies.  but in having the attitude: there must be a pony! i'm able to use a really crappy situation and see the good in it.

maybe i sound too cliché today.  whatever, i firmly believe there must be a pony in every situation.  it's all about finding the damn thing, and sometimes you have to go through a pile of sh*t to find it!

what do you think?  do you find ponies amidst the crazy crap life sometimes gives us??

"baby it's cold in.siiiiiiiiiide!!"

for the life of me i cannot figure out why it is 50 degrees outside and my office is 66 degrees with the a/c still going.  my fingers, toes, and face are all so cold i can hardly work.  it hurts to type, so i hope you can see what great lengths i am going to right now.  i keep complaining that it's so cold in here and my assistant keeps disagreeing saying how "delightfully comfortable(!)" she is in the office today; for once, i'm not hot, she says.  and another thing i can't figure out is how day in and day out it's so frigidly cold indoors (even in the summer) that i've had to bring blankets and slip on socks under my desk (i even have those hands warmers used for camping) and then - after seeing me wrapped in my cheetah print fleece blanket wearing socks and sometimes gloves INSIDE - people make these assinine remarks like, meredith, why don't you put a little meat on your bones?  maybe if you gained weight, you wouldn't be cold.  these comments are usually followed up by nudging me in the ribs and deep chuckles.  irritating, check.  let me just say, i'm not overly thin or too skinny.  (in fact, sarah at a life more exciting has a theory that there's not such a thing as being "too skinny."  her fiance disagrees.  sarah happens to be tall-ish and skinny and kind of resembles a spider monkey.  she has good reach.  she's the kind of person i bother in the grocery store when i need something on the top shelf near the back.  sorry, i digress.)  anyways, my point is, i don't need to gain weight, it's called being effing HEALTHY!  in an ideal world, people would stop making stupid comments like that and i would save my company energy and money all while being green and turn up the temperature ten a few degrees.  unfortunately, my office world isn't ideal when it comes to comfort.

on a better note, i received a 30% off entire purchase coupon for ann taylor loft in my inbox this morning; new moon is just two short nights away (i'm really beginning to question whether or not it is good judgment to see it opening night...); and thanksgiving is next week.

nola

here's where i'll be the next couple of days:

don't worry, i plan on bringing back t-shirts for all of you:

everything's bigger in texas

so i'm back from a two-day conference trip i had in dallas, home of the dallas cowboy cheerleaders and some of the biggest texas cowboys (not the football team) who give our state the reputation it has.  the conference was held at this huge conference center and resort in one of the suburbs just outside of dallas' city limits.  i had never been and this place was crazy:

it was seriously it's own amish-like compound that you never had to leave; the only difference was it had electricity and lots of alcohol.  it is the alcatraz of hotels, no joke.  it has over 1,700 rooms, three large restaurants, a bar, three smaller cafes, three gyms, jogging trails, a replication of the alamo in the middle of the freakin' place, a huge day spa and salon, about ten clothing, jewelry, and trinket shops, AND a night club... ridiculous, i know.  in case you haven't heard, that's how we do it in texas - BIG.  oh, and during christmas, they apparantly have ice skating rinks and shows.  you could survive on the compound and never have to leave, which is the idea i guess.

anyways, the conference goes through saturday night, but my boss and i just had to attend some committee meetings.  even though dallas is only a four hour drive from houston, we flew.  the flights to and from each city are 45 minutes to an hour tops.  last night, our flight from dallas into torrential storm houston was over two hours and full of nauseating turbulence as we flew all over the state of texas to get around the storm cell.  always comforting when your pilot comes on after you've taken off to tell you: umm, got some bad news, folks.  we're in for one helluva ride this evening.  it's too dangerous to take a direct route to houston, and air traffic control isn't even allowing it so we're being diverted which will double our flight time.  the fasten seatbelt sign will stay on the duration of the flight.  flight attendants will need to stay seated, as well.  you know it's gonna be good when they tell the flight attendants to buckle up, too.  needless to say, i already hate flying after a terrible experience on a flight home from switzerland over the atlantic ocean.  i was ready to be on the ground and so was the rest of the plane as we erupted into cheers when we finally landed.  glad to be home wearing my rainboots at the office again!  happy friday!

smart and always classy

wearing rain boots to avoid ruining my slacks in a torrential downpour on the way to work = smart.

forgetting to put my heels in my purse so i'm stuck wearing said rainboots with a suit = well, that's what you call classy, my friends.

friday story time vol. 3: the karate kid

my boss' office and my office face one another.  for whatever reason, he has recently decided to sport a karate kid-style headband made out of the texas flag late in the afternoon. 

yesterday afternoon, he needed to clean up his always-messy desk, so he asked if i minded if he plugged in his ipod and turned on some music while he did some necessary housekeeping; he didn't want to close his door because our office's a/c has been finicky.  (yes, you read that right, i said "A/C."  it's the middle of october and 90 freakin' degrees outside.  God bless texas.)  anyways, if the texas flag karate kid headband wasn't enough, he's blaring the pussycat dolls "don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me" just when our 50-something year old admin assistant walks in.  the shocking part was that she seemed un-phased by the whole scene.  next up on the boss' playlist was "all the single ladies"...

uncharted territory

i find myself in uncharted territory: the blogosphere.


now would be a good time to introduce myself; give you the low-down on the person behind the arial font. however, i find introductions overrated, plus, i'm not entirely ready for that. i mean, i don't want to move too fast. i'm sure you all understand. we've all been there: been in relationships where things moved too fast and the relationship ended with you hating the other person. yeah, we've all been there. that being said i'll save my introduction(s) for another day...


it was a surprisingly quiet day at the office. surprising for two reasons: 1. i am never actually in the office. i am typically driving all over my massive city shaking hands and kissing babies. well, i'm not actually shaking hands and kissing babies, i just meet with the elected officials who shake hands and kiss babies. anyways, i digress, my point is that i'm rarely in the office. and 2. when i am in the office, the phone is ringing constantly, or i'm in meetings, or our members are peeking their heads in my office wanting to "chat" and the "chat" typically ends up lasting 45 minutes. i'm thinking people may be out with the pig sniffles. if you haven't heard, it's the latest rage and i'm terrified of contracting a weird, mutated strain and dying from it. you'll find i'm afraid of a lot of things. cockroaches being one of them.


anyways, with my new found time this morning, i decided i should catch up on some housekeeping: some online shopping at banana (they're having a 40% off + 10% off online only sale), schedule a dentist appointment, make a hair and nail appointment, update my email signature line, reorganize my desk, color code my files, refill my purell hand sanitizer, and renew my driver's license online. online renewal is a wonderful thing, and it takes five minutes if you don't dwell on the "do you want to be an organ donor?" question for longer than three of those five minutes. i know the thought of organ donation freaks some people out; i.e. the whole cutting you open and taking your body parts part, but i watch so much bones, house, and discovery health channel, it leaves me relatively unaffected. (i really should have gone to med school.) knowing this question would come up, i contemplated it beforehand so as not to interfere with my five minute timeline. (another thing you'll find out about me is i have timelines. they promote organization, and organization promotes stability and sanity.) so when i get to the question, i quickly check the box. in that very moment, though my organs were still intact, i immediately felt like i had saved a life. triumphant, i decided to text the quasi-bf (i'll introduce him more later) and tell him the good news:


me: "i'm officially an organ donor. i think i was before, but i'm not for certain because it was years ago. anyways, i'm going to save a life one day. that's one lucky person who gets these organs."


quasi-bf: "no one's going to want your organs by the time you go. you're going to be 90."


me: "and you're going to be 106."




xo
-m