Dallas 'ICE' Storm

Tuesday, the weather was not pretty in San Antonio. My brother emailed me to see how things were for me as well. Since his office closed early he wanted to know if things were still 'bad' in Dallas.
Here's my reply to his questions:

On 1/16/07, wrote:
today wasn't too bad. Yesterday wasn't too great though. I drove 25 miles an hour
and my strategy was that as long as I drove on actual ground rather than
bridges, I shouldn't do too badly. and yesterday was my first day at SWA and what kind of impression would that be? I also had a meeting with the business for User Acceptance testing so I was nervous and I wanted it all over with. It was a crazy day.
Anyway, I got all the way to the SWA parking lot and someone told me that
"free" days are rare since the mechanics have to come in to de-ice planes,
we have it good. But still for your safety stay home and work from there if
necessary. I decided to brave it. So there I am. I made it safely. I get out of my Jeep and shuffle
thru the parking lot. Well, my bag fell off my shoulder and I flung it up to
adjust it....and flipped myself onto my butt! By this time, the ice was
melting. I've seen worse in Dallas. Anway, I hear like 3 people from all
over the parking lot asking if I'm okay, I say "Just embarrassed! Thanks!"
My boss told me the same thing happened to her, but she fell onto her laptop
bag and broke a rib!

So the lesson is that you're not done when you park the car and whatever you do, don't try to reshift your bags on your shoulder when walking on ice!
> :)
His reply:
Cool. I just read ur story to mom. She laughed. I fell twice thismorning and she laughed when I told her! FEELIN' THE LOVE! -boB

I am now free to do whatever I please...

...including moving about the country.
I was offered a full time position at Southwest Airlines and I took it.
Yayyyy Mee! They were kind enough to let me in on what was going on before Xmas so I wouldn't stress so hard.
Those horoscopes are kind of creepy in their accuracy lately.

Happy New Year!

Monkey gang banger in Da Haaaaauuuuse!

I almost had to throw down with a monkey on X-mas day, of all days.
Good thing there was a fence dividing us or I woulda been head-bobbing and finger-waving with him.

My parents love to tell a story about when I was in the pre-talking-not-making-words stage and they took my brother and I to the San Antonio zoo. My mom parked the stroller in front of the monkey cage, probably had to go chase my brother. A monkey grunted at me and I grunted back. We apparently had a very pleasant conversation. So much so that the other monkeys gathered around my stroller to get in on it.

Well, fast-forward thirty-something years. It happened again. Same zoo, probably the same cage display. But this time I am in the post-speech stage of life. We were watching a monkey balance on a rope and then very ungracefully swing himself around, Buster Keaton style.
Out of nowhere, a little guy came over to the fence and started making grunting sounds and only makin eye-contact with me, so we all grunted back. He looked up at me and grabbed a leaf of green leaf lettuce and tried to look fierce by cracking it in half, but it just folded. (It was wet and rainy in San Antonio.) So then he bit the bars. ....but what really took us all over the edge was the gang sign he threw at me. He came up to the fence with his chest all puffed out and threw his arms out really wide, bared his teeth and bit the bar to prove he had huevos enough to do that. And his long skinny arms grabbed the fence real fast. Mind you this was all done in one fell swoop. It also kind of reminded me of that kid in elementary school that charges at kids but doesn't ever go any further than that. He just want to make you flinch. but I digress. ...THEN he showed me his butt. I can't recall, but I think he might've even slapped it! It was a scene out of SNL at that very moment. ...That'll teach me! I think I alarmed it because I did show my teeth as I was laughing. I was laughing so hard that I had to make a mental note of the nearest restroom lest I pee right there in front of the monkey mob!
It all ended when Big Momma came out of the house and asked the kid what the problem was. I think he might be grounded for instigating a fight.
My film ran out at the porcupine display or I would have proof to show in court. (Good thing nothing happened.)

This week

This was an interesting week.
I had a conehead dog for a few days due to Max being neutered. I have to say I can't tell if there is a behavior difference yet. He looked like he was resigned to living with the darn thing for the rest of his life though. The poor guy couldn't play with his toys because his paws couldn't reach his mouth so he either had a toy in his mouth or he lost it at his elbow or somewhere close by because he couldn't see the darn thing. He had no peripheral vision, so he kept slipping off the curb and he kept sliding off the couch since he couldn't tell that we was sitting on the edge. When I took the cone off, he rubbed his head for a good 30 minutes with his little paws and his hind legs too. THEN he turned his attention to the stitches.
I decided that if he were black, I could have made Max into a Flashlight for Halloween. The cone being the beam of light.

I am officially a Southwest person now. I had my second encounter with Herb Kelleher on Tuesday. The first time, he took his hat off and bowed to me to cordially allow me off the elevator. (I had to let him down since I was headed up one more floor.) But Tuesday, he walked into the elevator, put his hands on my cheeks and gave me a sweet peck on the cheek.
Ya gotta understand, women here run up to the guy like he's Fabio and hug and kiss him. They pull out their cell phones to take pictures and the whole rock star thing. He's extremely nice, as is every exec at SWA, I'll give him that. He approaches everyone as if they are old friends. I really didn't know how to react. But...I now have my very own Herb Sighting story to tell at Thanksgiving dinner.

I had three things I had to get off my chest this week and I can't think of the third...oh well.

Hmmm

Question floating around the office:

Besides money, is there really any difference between a whore and a slut?

Shuffle for the Cure-Crawl for the Cure-Stand Around for the Cure

Well, Gerri and I finally passed the starting line at 8:33 am. I had received the invitation the day before when she called to invite me on a whim. Sounds like fun, it's a good cause and there is a mall nearby. Also, having walked in the Plano and Dallas walks before, I knew there was a ton of free loot to be had. woo hoo! I ran into Hauself while gathering loot. (Thanks for the great bandana!) I found myself welling up and touched reading the name placards that people had on their back. They had things like "my Mimi" and "Grandma Johnson", aunts, sister-in-laws, and even several men's names.
I saw the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders signing autographs and realized that my little nephew would love getting something from them for his birthday. I was already planning on getting him a lunchbox shaped like a football, so this would stick with the theme. (If any of you tells him what he's getting, I'll have to deny everything.) I tried calling my brother to see if this would all pass muster since I do not know what an 8 year old boy likes. He called after the race and said that girls still have cooties for Samuel and the pictures of the team might be more of a hit for him but the girl's picture would be okay too. Win Win Win!
Pink was the focus of the day, lots of little boys wearing the pink scarves as headbands which I thought was cute.
The course had people cheering for us at a few of the intersections. Towel waving, kids dancing. One guy had disco music blaring from a boombox. The funniest site was seeing two cars trying to leave the neighborhood and realizing that they were going nowhere for a good hour or so. We just waved and smiled.
Although the finish line was a few more minutes ahead, we passed the starting line again at exactly 9:33am. A one hour walk, pretty damn good, I'd say! We hung out for a little while, but everything started catching up so we headed home.
Over 30,000 people united for a single cause on a Saturday morning at NorthPark. That kind of thing is inspiring. Already, it was a beautiful day surrounded by beautiful people.
I never do that much before 11am!