A postscript. Laura just called me to give me a piece of her mind.

I forgot my cherub. There is nothing worse than forgetting your own son on the day he is having surgery.

Phil needed surgery on Tuesday and his stepmom Laura told me she'd call me when it was over. I asked him if he wanted me to take the day off to spend with him and he said no, so I didn't. I thought about him on and off through the day, but when I came home it was back to the usual work in the little game for me and I forgot that no one had called me. I didn't remember that no one called until last night at about 10PM when Rob and I were getting ready for bed.

My life is so far removed from the boys. How could I not think to call him myself Tuesday night and leave it to "the other woman" to let me know he was okay?

So I called him just now, Laura chatted away with me like she hadn't forgotten to call as she'd promised me this past Sunday. Phil was monosyllabic on the phone, and in the background I could hear Chris and Laura having a conversation which was making it hard for Phil to hear me since I'd called Laura's cell phone which of course picks up all the sounds but the person trying to talk. I said good bye.

And now I'm sad and sorry that I ever once thought that boys belong with their father. My boys have seen so little of their father (the fact that he's in Kuwait notwithstanding) since Laura moved in, I could be their stepmother for all the interaction I have with them. I don't know how to put myself into their daily lives, or if they'd want it or appreciate it or care. I know they love me, but I don't know that they know how painful it is for me sometimes to see them growing up under someone else's guidance. Maybe Chris would be doing better in school if he lived with me. Maybe Phil wouldn't try to cover up anything that goes wrong with a lie if I were there every day to force the truth from him. How different their lives would be if they were with me. And the sad thing is, at this point, neither of them wants to be. They are tired of moving from school to school. They are comfortable with the pattern of their existence. And meanwhile, I guess I need to be content with the little bits and pieces of their lives that I fit into.

The joys of the little game. We're still deep in our meeting as we move toward our reallocation :/ And me, exhausted and all.

That's one bad thing about doing this part time. I come home from one job and rush madly into this one. Poor Rob's already upstairs, watching PBS and here I sit, debating the arcane concept of a guild and what it means to me.

Trouble with me is I have very limited gaming experience. I felt like an idiot some times last week when talking to these folks our GenMgr introduced me to because they are famous in the game world and I had no idea who they were or what they've done. Maybe it's good for their humility ;) It was certainly good for mine. Specially after sitting in the bar chatting with this one guy about his website and then when I asked what the URL was, both he and the guy sitting next to him looked at me like I came from another planet. Hehehe! Guess he's well known for that site. Heck, I didn't recognize his name.

I'm interviewing a couple of AGM candidates tomorrow. Always one step forward, two steps back. We were well covered in the GM department, and then I lost two GMs. And I have one who may as well be lost, he never comes round to do anything any more. ::sigh:: I hate giving folks the heave ho, though.

This weekend, Rob and I will have a chance to be extras in an independant film being made by our company's receptionist. Andy either produces or directs or both, and he emailed some of us at the office to invite us to be background barroom patrons for his latest movie. Ah, the lure of the silver screen! I'm not sure if I'm up for this glamorous life. We'd have to be at the bar by 8AM on Saturday. I'd like a day to sleep in.

My nose is running...and I must stop it!

Last week was incredibly busy. Tuesday through Thursday, I went to a lovely little convention for game designer type folks. Also attending was the general manager for our company; we were both surprised to see the other there and fortunately, she's a woman because I wouldn't have noticed her initially except that she emerged into the throng from the ladies' room which caught my eye. :-)

I'm glad she was there. I didn't know anyone who was going, for not even my persuasive female charms could get Broos to this convention (although retrospectively, it's probably better that way as he's now so busy himself :-( Poor Broos and Suz!) so I foresaw nights of room service dinners in my room. With our GenMgr there, however, I ended up being whisked around and introduced to people I'd never have met otherwise. Including a couple of important fellows who are working on Sims Online. Muahahahaha! It pays to mention an obsession!

Our first day-long session was together, and then we went to dinner with about 15 other people from all sorts of other online games. She and I went to breakfast meetings and it was nice to sit down and chat with her, as I've never actually spent time with her before this. I got some insight into why our little game is set up the way it is, too, so all is good.

Meanwhile, Rob was languishing at home and had a cable modem installed. Not without some issues, of course, as the cable guy had to come back on Saturday to finish it up -- and even then it took us four calls to customer service to get everything in place. But at least now I'm on with those blazing speeds promised!

He ran over a dead skunk on route to the airport to pick me up Thursday night, so now the Eclipse smells horrible. Heh!

All right, now I must go and exercise. It is my new resolution to use that darned Orbitrek and work off a few of my newlywed pounds. I hope everyone has a lovely week!

Thinking of you, Corey. ::hug::

Our trip to Vancouver was really great! If I weren't frantically trying to pack and tidy up the little game before I leave for San Jose in the morning (at the airport by 5AM! What was I thinking?!) I'd go into details.

A funny moment, one of many: On the train heading to Vancouver, Rob bought a couple of little coffee cake items and was eating them. I'd already had a scone so I wasn't very hungry but Rob was convinced I was after his cake, so he kept glancing at me and moving the cake out of my reach. Looking past his shoulder out the window (yes, once again Rob wanted that window seat), I saw we were passing a farm and a flock of sheep were fenced in right beside the tracks.

"Sheep! Look, sheep!" I cried, then realized that Rob thought I was trying to distract him so as to nab the coffee cake. "I'm serious! Look! Sheep! Rob! I'm not kidding!" Naturally, by the time Rob glanced out the window, holding the coffee cake aloft and way out of my reach, we'd passed the farm and he snorted at me.

That's kinda how the whole trip was. Even when we were discussing what shows were playing at the IMAX theater, we were squabbling so much the ticket seller burst out laughing.

I'm glad we got to see the Broos-Suz Famous Wild Life Refuge :( Moving is never fun, especially on short notice when you're already busy. ::hugs::

Went to work today with Liz. She's been sick the last couple of days as well, and so when she wanted to leave at 3:30PM, who am I to say no? :-)

Rob also got home early from work so when I wandered in at 4PM, I found him glaring at the innards of his PC. He gibbered and glowered and was quite impressively unhappy. We logged onto my PC and looked at Dell's refurbished stuff but Rob has high standards of what he can and can't have, so he made me drag my sick body out to Best Buy because I have a credit card and he's not afraid to use it.

Behold Rob and Tracy at Best Buy. After looking over the rows of PCs, we find a section of "refurbished/floor model" PCs. Rob trots back and forth between a brand new one that had caught his eye and the floor model Compaq. The requirement we have is that a) it must be good enough for EQ and b) it must have a network card already installed. Never mind that in his quest to network our two computers, Rob has purchased enough network cards to link our entire neighborhood.

Well, he decided we would take the floor model and that's where the fun began. The first hapless salesman that came by didn't know if it came with any recovery CDs or stuff. The second guy was more helpful. His name is Noah. We know this because it took us about an hour to make sure the floor model had the stuff we wanted and that Rob would be happy and that Rob wouldn't be unhappy. :) Then came a period of unrest as Noah unearthed a box of parts and CDs that go with our floor model, but the recovery disk package was empty.

"You can order one from Compaq. It's $10. We'll discount this $20 for you, how's that?" said Noah.
Rob began to gibber a little, so Noah said he'd check with the installation guys (who had to install Windows XP freshly onto the floor model so that we wouldn't have issues with a used XP). He came back and said the tech guys thought maybe it was somewhere back there but they didn't have time to look for it. Rob became animated.

Shopping with Rob is a challenge because it's hard to know what will bring out the incredible hulk in him. However, I do know that telling him they haven't got time to find it is not a good answer, so I glanced hesitantly at Noah, then at Rob. Rob became lyrical in his description of his expectations and called for a manager so that Rob could tell him ("or her," I interjected feebly) exactly WHY we were not buying this PC. Noah scurried away. Meanwhile the other guy working the computer counter was putzing around in the secret storage bin of floor model parts and when Noah returned with the tech manager (who had minutes before explained to me and Rob that Sony isn't making PS2 memory cards any longer because of PS3 and it's non-backward compatibility issues, which had me scratching my head wondering why I hadn't read about this somewhere before this -- so of course, seeing him approach I groaned, "Oh it's you...and you've already ruined my night once already.")

TechManager wasn't much help. But, fortunately, as Rob was working up a froth the other salesperson found the correct folder with all the bits and pieces necessary for our Compaq to work correctly. So Rob and I gibbered at each other a bit (later on, Rob wondered if those guys thought we didn't like each other or something, hehehe, since Rob made some smart remark which made me threaten to throw my copy of ChronoCross at him) and I left it up to him if he wanted to buy it or not. He did.

Rob wandered away to pay for the unthrown ChronoCross while Noah scurried around to ring up the PC. "I don't want to mess it up...I think Rich (the other guy) should do it. But let's start this form..." So Noah finds a form, gets a pen and suddenly a redheaded young thing appears beside me on the customer side of the counter, to flirt with Noah. I glanced at her. She continued babbling at Noah. He was so flustered his pen ran out of ink (and boy, what can we derive from that image, hmm?) so she offered to let him use her 'bubble pen' and at that point I turned to her and said, "Excuse me, but I really need to get this done and get out of here tonight. Can you come let Noah finish what he's doing...let him concentrate on the work here?" She rolled her eyes at me and with a very blonde "Whatever" wandered off.

I'm surprised I didn't yank back by credit card and tell Rob to buy his own daggone PC from Dell by then. It's 7PM...we've been at the store since 5. And we STILL haven't gotten the PC paid for. And this redheaded bimbo was bothering my clerk. Hmm!

Anyway, we finally got it paid for, I complained to some semi-managerial type about "Red" (which Noah said he was going to call that girl that from now on), and now we're home. And Rob wants me to log off so he can check the network.

I'm so abused. :)

Owlchick goes Japanese?

Or is it just that I installed the Japanese language font to see what this webpage said when it turned up on sitemeter? Kinda freaky when I looked at it, it's my September archive -- translated into Japanese. Maybe it is just a translation program...but it's so very odd to see your notes in kanji that you can't read, which reduces me to the days in high school where I would leap over these characters and just read the ones I knew: "Watashi wa something-something-desu." Hehehe!

Went to work for about three hours this morning, then turned around and came home to sleep. A very draggy day.

And since our last attempt to go to Canada was hampered by full hotels, Rob and I are planning to go up this coming weekend instead. I must get better. I must.

This morning as I got out of the shower, I thought of Corey in an inspirational way. If it weren't for you, Corey, I wouldn't have gone to work at all this morning. Even if I didn't stick it out the whole day, I managed to get in. And unlike my dear sweet husband, I promised I won't blame it on you if I'm still sick this weekend...for you know, if the thought of you had propelled him to work, he'd likely blame still being sick on you too as in, 'if it weren't for her, I'd have stayed home with chicken soup...it's all her fault!' :>

Did I mention last week that Christie and Jean met me and Liz at Liz's house for cheese, crackers and Girl Scout Cookies? We had a good time gossiping and getting caught up, as Christie and Jean both left the company; when they worked with us, we all commuted together, and now it's just me and Liz left. It's nice to be the last one in the group to have hit forty. In my high school group, I'm the first one to reach that milestone, as my friend Dianne pointed out.

I've decided that leg waxing isn't worth the time and effort (I'm doing a different spa service every other week or so, in a year-long celebration of my birthday). I definitely won't be into any bikini waxing! But the spa pedicure...ahhhh. That I can and will do again. Generally, I don't like people touching or looking at my feet. They are classic "luau" feet, meant for going barefoot and hardened to life on with only rubbah slippahs to protect them. It was so nice though to have someone soak them and scrub them and massage my legs with scented sea salts, then dip the little tootsies into a parafin bath and cover them with warm towels. Mmm. It was a very soothing experience.

Next time, I will be attempting a facial. I don't think I'm quite ready for the seaweed body wrap. Yet.

I don't feel well today. A real shame as I spent all weekend pretty much in bed. Standing up is a bit of a chore for me today, so when Liz called me to tell me she wasn't going to work, I told her I wasn't either. So I went back to bed for a bit, then got up to putter around. There's a bit too much sputter in my putter, though. :/

Last night I taped the CBS special on the firefighters in NY on September 11th. I didn't think it would be a good idea to watch it, but after it had been going for about an hour, and me lounging on the couch all miserable, I turned the TV on and Rob and I watched the last hour.

Remind me that when I have a good idea (not to watch it) that I should stick with it. When I went to bed, my sleep was troubled and I tossed and turned all night. It was a good show. I want to see the whole thing sometime. But it wasn't the right time to see it for me yet. So little sleep might account for why I wasn't able to generate enough energy to go to work this morning. I'm still feeling draggy, but I wanted to do something other than lounge today, so I updated the archives here for February (I hope they work) and will go back and lie down.

Yesterday I had to be a judge at a storytelling contest in the little game. I also participated, as we are growing up a warrior maid in the event we lose our link to the original warrior woman upon whose adventures our game is based. To get the populace 'backing' the new warrior maid, we are having her participate in things going on around town. Naturally, the goal was to have her participate and graciously not win. The story I wrote for her to tell was very simple, no actions at all just plain story. Unfortunately, it was still pretty good and the ovations she received would make it too obvious she's more than another player if she didn't win anything, so we judges devised an "honorable mention" for her tale. This is also why I gave up entering bard events in the big game. Not that I'm the best one out there by any means, but toward the end of my bardic/early GM career, I would come in second or third and I hated to take away a win from the paying public.

The competitor in me, however, is gratified and pleased that the little story I wrote was so well-received. Nothing like accolades to make one's day, especially if one is hacking up a lung and feeling physically ill.

My friend sent me an email of the hoaxy sort, so I went to the snopes site, as advocated by Corey, to get the information to send back to my friend. That done, I paused to read up on what is new on this site and busted a gut reading this story. I was laughing so hard, Rob came over from his umpteenth reinstallation of Windows XP and the home network to read it too.

Hehehehe!

As is usual in a big company, mine is now tracking where employees spend their days on the internet. I need a job, so I won't be spending my morning coffee break posting on my journal any more! What a pity! It was so convenient, too.

It snowed today, but very lightly where I live. Liz's house didn't have anything but we got a bit of a dusting. I was kinda hoping it would really dump overnight so I could stay home tomorrow and vegetate, but alas, it's not to be.

Which tarot card are you? Gee!