Me, Marriage, and Making Babies?

When leaving the apartment complex on Saturday to go shopping, I ran into an older neighbor who lives above me. She's always very nice and we chatted for a few minutes about my recent stay in the US. Then when she found out I recently turned 30, she went on and on about how I should start thinking about starting a family even though I've been relocating here and there and whether I'd given any thought to marrying a German girl because there are a lot of relationships these days between intercultural couples such as her daughter who is married to an Austrian man and her son who is married to a Belarussian woman and they have kids and live in Berlin and everyone seems to get along with each other so it would be something for me to consider as well.

Dear God, please help me.

I should have told her "You know, you're right. Starting a family would be a great idea. I'll ask my boyfriend what he thinks." But then she probably would've fainted and that would've only further delayed me in getting my groceries, not to mention the whole issue of performing mouth to mouth on a 70 year old woman... Well, yea. Let's just say it was easier to nod, agree with her, and be on my way. Next time though, things may be different.

We had our big presentation for the president of the division today, and it went rather well. Being an important day, I wore a suit and tie and was looking rather sharp. Later in the day, one of my coworkers remarked that I looked "yummy." Wow, thank you. Hey, wait a minute. Now, I know I couldn't have misunderstood her because she said it in English. Hmm... I didn't know you could get away with saying such things to coworkers around here. This just opens the door to a host of new conversation styles in the office. In fact, I can't wait to go back to work tomorow. "Hey sexy, could you bring me that print out?"

Stop the Insanity!

By the way - Whatever did happen to that Susan Powder chick? Maybe she gained all the weight back, let her hair grow long, and took up a management position at K-Mart. I really don't know, but I'm pretty sure her talk show was canceled :-P

I'm still loopy after spending too much time in the office lately. Last week was Hell. Let's see... I left at 9:30pm on Monday, Tuesday was fine, Wednesday and Thursday at 10:30pm, and Friday at 11:30pm. My group had to prepare for a big presentation tomorrow for the Board. So my hope is that the worst of it is over. We shall see.

The week didn't end on a very positive note. On Thursday night, my laptop seemingly died. Resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful. After moving through the stages of denial, and then acceptance, I was still grieving on Saturday when I decided to pull out the defibrilator and try a few more times. Who knew - I was able to get the thing to start up - and then stay on - for long enough to transfer the last remaining files which weren't backed up on my PC. So, while the laptop is still giving me major problems and still fails to start up, I am content in knowing that I haven't lost any of my files. Although it's still a bit sad. This laptop has been right there with me over the past 5 years, including two relocations overseas and a move to Chicago and back. It got me through grad school, and it found me my current job, not to mention the number of people it kept me in touch with as well as put me in touch with. It is a sad day indeed.

Randomness & Stickiness

It's hot. We jumped from 2 weeks of 50s and 60s to now a weekend of 90s. Thank God we drop back down to 70s next week.

I'm basically set to stick around here until December. I guess there was a bit of a snag in that we trainees aren't supposed to stay for longer than the planned 2 years, but my department is working out the details with the powers that be to allow for an entension in my case. How nice.

It's summer, and that can only mean one thing - long days in the office! How lovely that it's our busiest time of the year. Last week was pretty hellish, and this week looks to produce more of the same. Oh well.

My doorbell rang last Thursday evening and my first thought was "Crap, am I wearing clothes at the moment?" This was followed up closely with my second thought of "Who the hell could that be?" So I opened the door and two girls - estimated to be in their early twenties, but dressed as though they were in their late seventies - were standing there. Oh boy. Well, they were like Mormon missionaries or something and wanted to share their views and basically recruit me. Good luck. The odd thing is that it turned out they were both Americans (one from LA and one from Utah). We ended up chatting in my doorway for about a half hour or so - longer than I would have cared to. Oh what fun. We covered religion, gays, families, the Bible, interpretation and everything in between. In the end, it was very clear that we have different beliefs, and that's fine. Before they left, I jokingly asked whether they were going out for beers afterwards, and they said they don't believe in drinking or something to that effect. I said they should've told me that in the beginning as we could've saved a lot of time. Sheesh.

My (way) early retirement plan is drafted, finalized and in effect. I worked on the damn thing the entire spring while in the office in Michigan. Heck, they didn't have much else for me to do so I used the downtime for personal financial analysis. And it's not like they had any idea that the spreadsheets of numbers on my computer screen were for me and not them. I ended up doing a LOT of research though both in and out of the office. I think I may have even became borderline obsessed with the topic, but the information was all very interesting. Let's just say it was a labor of love. And now I'm ready for some lovin'. Ehh, without the labor.

Got no real plans until the first week in September. Just doing my thing for the moment and taking it easy.