My post convention bounce

Denver is one of the few stops NOT on my itinerary this week. But that doesn’t mean I wasn't there in spirit. I even declined an invitation to a work dinner last night with the excuse that I “had to watch Obama’s speech”. The only reply I got from my boss was “that makes me ill on so many levels”. I felt like it was a really excellent networking moment.

So sorry – not much to blog about…but I do have a random collection of punditry from the past four days:

• After last night’s speech, the Republican who DOESN’T get selected today as the VP may be one lucky republican
• Obama took a look of heat for the “messianic look of the greek temple stagecraft”…ummm, I think that’s supposed to be the oval office – granted an oval office with Stevie Wonder playing in it, but the oval office, nonetheless. If you don’t like the architecture, talk to Thomas Jefferson.
• Barack and I are now texting regularly.
• I, for one, will be paying close attention to Cindy McCain’s speech next week. Because let’s be honest…if the president is 73 years old…it’s really going to be the wife running the country.
• We consume 25% of the world’s oil and have less than 3% of the world’s reserves. Even if we drill in ALL of John McCain’s backyards… we STILL won’t be able to affect the price of gas.

I hate that I will be out of the country for the start of the Republican’s convention…but I am SURE I will have ample blog material for the end of next week.

Welcome back

It’s good to be online again….and there are certain ways I can tell people are back reading the blog after the hiatus:

• I got really cool comments telling me things like – I’m “officially middle aged now”. Ummm....I need a BLOG for this??
• Coincidentally, I got three emails about Christmas travel the same day I blogged about going to NYC for t-giving. Tomorrow I should blog about “things you can do to help my move”
• Nicola had my passport in my hand by breakfast today.
• My readers have voluntarily topped up my Starbuck’s card (# 6034-4310-3885-9900). Just sayin’
• My bit in the blog about John McCain’s houses has really taken off in the media.
• All the cash donations.
• Ummm…this is a little awkward…but see…I can literally tell who’s reading my blog by the trace on my site. The trace that tells me not only who is reading the blog, but…kinda cool, here…what site you came from in arriving at savemethecall. Sooooo… “GE Plastics”, thanks for your loyal readership…but at some point…you REALLY should quit shopping for Corvette accessories at work.

Someone fire my travel agent

This week’s itinerary? Nashville to Boston. Boston to Philly. Philly to San Diego. San Diego to [Somewhere], Mexico. Now, it’s hard to complain when your week ends with a vacation in Mexico – but do I really have to make four stops to get there? What am I?…going on a tour of (some) of John McCain’s houses???

The whole thing makes for QUITE a challenge when packing. Here are a few things I’ve noticed:

• I have discovered that I brought a certain number of things (like…twenty-three) to Massachusetts just to Fedex them to California so they can be packed for Mexico. My bathing suit should be ASHAMED of its carbon footprint.
• My cowboy hat is going to look GREAT in Mexico. It does, however, look ridiculous in the Providence airport.
• The Mexico portion of my packing got a LOT more attention than the Massachusetts portion of my packing. Go figure.
• I will do ANYTING to not check a bag…thereby engaging the different-city-same-outfit rule and pushing casual Friday boundaries to the limit with plans of a beach wrap.
• If I work out every single day while I’m gone…I STILL won’t need all 13 of the sports bras I packed. (Really? And not a single hair brush?)
• Know what would have been handy to include in the suitcase…a passport. (ummm….Nicola?…if you’re reading this ….)

Home for the Holidays?

Turns out mother’s computer is shut down with a virus. Or as us bloggers at savemethecall like to call it…”amnesty”.

You know how I was in the dog house with my mom for a while. Well – you know how you get OUT of that dog house? Tell her you’ll take her to NYC for Thanksgiving!! [AFTER clearing it with Rita, of course. Of course.] Now THAT’s a great idea. [all comments re: my mother playing me like a cheap violin have previously been submitted, thank you very much.]

All I have to do is find a hotel room. Do you know how many Euros it costs to rent a hotel room right now in NYC – four. That’s right. If you speak Dutch, you can stay in NYC for the equivalent of an hour’s pay. If you are from Nashville, TN, you can stay in NYC for the equivalent of a small house in your neighborhood. Honestly – after calling to check on hotel rooms for Thanksgiving, I just wanted to scream at the operator…I don’t want to BUY the hotel room, just stay it in for a day. Not even the whole day…just from like 10 p to 10 a?? Holy cow. Maybe John McCain has a condo there I could borrow??

Plan B was Hilton Points. But do you know how many nights you have to stay in a Hampton Inn to earn a stay in Manhattan? 2007 is a decent start. Oh wait. I.Did.That. And I STILL don’t have enough Hilton Points. I have determined that Hilton Points have the inflationary value of some African nation’s currency. You think they’re worth something when you earn them…but when you go to spend them…you find out they’re worthless.

Someone has to explain to mom why we’re staying at a youth hostel.

The bitch is back

Given my disposition the last two weeks…you have no idea how accurate that subject line is. I am on assignment in Massachusetts as temporary manager of a (somewhat troubled) billings & collection team (and yes, they were troubled BEFORE I began my assignment, thank you very much).

It is MUCH more work than I have become accustomed to. So HERE are the Top 10 signs that I’ve been working too hard:

• I’ve quit drinking diet coke…because it interferes with my starbuck’s consumption
• While listening to iTunes, I requested an email account for my new staff member…Matt Nathanson. Now…I don’t know about you…but Matt Nathanson is one of my FAVORITE new singers – but he is NOT on my staff…Matt O’NEILL is on my staff, but not Matt Nathanson. I do, however, know where you can email Mr. Nathanson, if you’d like.
• With only minor provocation, I find myself telling my 8 a.m. staff meeting that “I’M ALREADY FOUR HOURS INTO MY WORKDAY”. So much for never-let-em-see-you-sweat, eh?
• My staff to performance-plan ratio is not even 2-to-1.
• Ummm…the family starts talking about MY “paranoia level” instead of [redacted]’s =)
• I start referring to my daily (hourly?) starbuck’s latte as my “virgin bailey’s & coffee”.
• I can now afford to take my mother to NYC for Thanksgiving…which will be a lovely little segue into tomorrow’s post
  
  And # 1…
• I don’t have time to blog =)

But that’s all in the past….here’s hoping I can properly prioritize my blog posting this entire week.

Even Obama gets a vacation...

...wow they are really making me work up here in Mass. So just like Obama...I am taking a few (more) days off. So focus on your Olympic watching...I hope to be back on-line next week...

All work and no play...

makes Maeve a dull blogger! No use checking back...nothing good is happening here in Florida to blog about =(

Opening ceremonies

If you didn’t watch Friday night’s Olympic opening ceremonies – just go ahead and skip this post…

But if you DID watch the opening ceremonies…could you even believe that??? A few things crossed my mind while watching:

• Did you see all those drummers perfectly synchronized? I couldn’t help but think that the first guy who misses a beat gets sent to the gulag.
• How about the world’s largest LED screen being rolled out across the field??? I expect to see that thing at Lorri & Amy’s house for football season.
• No wonder our economy is in tatters…the Chinese have been spending all their money on large-scale production numbers instead of our auction rate securities.
• That Chinaman-in-a-box thing is soooooooooooooo Ocean’s 11
• Was it just me or did it look like the Chinese soldiers had waxed brows and glossed lips?
• If you’re one of those guys in the box whose entire job for the last year is popping up and down according to rolling waves…WHAT do you put on your resume now that the Olympics is over????…(professional jack-in-the-box?)
• Those floating dancers only LOOKED supported by wires. They were actually suspended in smog.
• Ummmmm, let’s see, the China opening ceremonies had 2008 drummers in perfect time, 2008 popping box boys, 2008 tai chi practitioners…and what did WE have? Whitney Houston? These people are soooooooo going to own us someday.

Travel karma

I have been scoring some bad travel karma lately. I’m in the Allentown, Penn airport on Wednesday (don’t ask) getting ready to set up on the work counters to do a little blogging work. Except there is a small pile of debris on the work area. Now usually, I would just mind my own business and leave it there… but noooooo, THIS trip I decide...I’ll set a good example, clean up the table, throw away the trash. Except…as it turns out…It.Wasn’t.Trash. The ONE time I try to clean ANYTHING up and I end up tossing out someone’s garbage-looking salad set-up. And no sooner had I returned from my trip to the trash can than skinny bitch shows up looking for her croutons and no fat dressing. How uncomfortable.

What else can you say besides “sorry”? Apparently, “can I buy you a new salad” is the preferred answer. But I was having none of it. It looked like it was going to be a real salad stand-off there in gate B2…but then luckily the gate agent called for us “A-listers”…sorry Salad Sally – I gotta go…enjoy lunch?

THEN, on the very same flight, the middle-seat-sitting lady beside me is snoozing HARD. Well, at least she WAS until my glass of sparkling water shimmied right off my seat back tray, fell to the floor and created a seltzer water fountain that the folks at the Bellagio would have been proud of. She just kept wiping her face and arms…never being QUITE awake, but never quite DRY either. After about 3 minutes of this I was SURE she was dreaming about some beach-front vacation with the ocean spray in her face. Wait til she wakes up to find the damage the bailey’s and coffee did when IT splashed to the floor (what?? I had drink coupons). Don’t ask me how THAT story ends…all I can say is “seat-change”.

I’m just hoping all this bad travel karma ends up being of the lost-luggage variety and NOT of the time-to-use-the-exit-rows variety!

Calling the help desk

I should have a birthday more often (doesn’t that sound like fun?)…because I get a boatload of electronic crap. For this year’s b-day, I not only got a Nike iPod that tells me I am running 7 minute miles (wrong, but lovely), I also got a brand new GPS after someone realized I don’t even know how to get from Rita’s house to the San Diego airport – despite making that trip 63 times over the last 14 months. [who pays attention to directions when the conversation is so engaging???].

And we’re not talking just any GPS, but the Blue Tooth/Emergency Responder/Direction Giver that comes pre-programmed with 911 in it. Now if only Nicola had been here in Massachusetts to program it. Because while the pre-programmed 911 feature is nifty, you would be AMAZED at how easy it is to accidentally dial 9-1-1 on that little jobbie. Three times. [=) smiley face?] “Hi Marge, it’s Maeve again…no…no emergency this time either – yeah, I hope I get the hang of this thing too.”

As soon as I DID get it working, however, I also realized my rental car had XM satellite radio and everything in the whole car started talking to me at once – “turn right here for 106 talk radio stations.” Without even realizing it, I had told the whole car to “wheesht up you sons of bitches or I will pull this car over.” [That’s an inside joke for anyone who has ever taken a vacation to Florida with my father.] At one point, I even found myself carrying on a conversation with the glove box after my blue tooth went off after storing the thing.

Look – if you could program this thing through an Excel pivot table, I’d not only have directions and my favorite radio station, but I’m pretty sure I would be guiding satellite traffic. As it was, however, I felt just like John McCain must feel with that new fangled E-lec-tron-ic mail.

A picture is worth...

For those of you who’s office firewalls don’t block pictures from the internet, you can enjoy the priceless photo of John McCain being driven around by George Bush Sr in Bush’s golf cart. For those of you who can’t see the photo – just flash back to the movie Cocoon and you’ll get the visual.







Which I, of COURSE, cannot resist commenting on. So here are my observations of the Senior Open:

• Papaw for President
• Check out that “OBX”-like “41” sticker in the window. If either one of them even knew what OBX was, this would be so cool [Outerbanks, Niall]
• This photo op next to the 84 year old Bush Sr. is supposed to make McCain look YOUNGER, right? ummmm, bad news…. [The secret service guys look younger – McCain looks like he has to be driven around by an 84 year old]
• I can’t help but think the secret service is there to protect the overmatched septuagenarians from vicious squirrels.
• Please tell me this is a scene from Caddyshack II and NOT a presidential preview.
• The Farhford goes AARP?
• The Can’t-Walk Express
• Let’s just buy McCain the golf cart and tell him he WAS president and see if he can remember the difference.

Back on track

Back on track

Well thank god THAT full week of work is over. Now I can get back to where the big money is – blogging. Nothing like a 9 hour trip from San Diego to Southboro Mass to get you back in the blogging groove.

As an "A-lister" passenger on yesterday’s cross country Southwest flight, I was able to grab the Exit Row aisle seat, otherwise known as Southwest First Class. Right behind me, this professional-looking, but quite foreign, athletic couple tried to join me in First Class only to be told that “Passengers must be able to give directions in clear, understandable English to sit in the exit row seats.” Seriously? How fluent must you be in order to scream “get the &$%#^ outta my way?” Nonetheless – Helga and Sven...to the back of the bus.

The very next person who tried to sit down was a seventy year old guy with wild curly hair, coke-bottle thick glasses and rumpled clothes (either a mad scientist or a homeless guy). All I could think was “the East German swimmers can’t sit in the exit row, but Mr. Magoo can?” And within 30 seconds of sitting down…he asks me …wait, wait… if I play basketball. It really isn’t a Southwest trip without that question, now is it? He did tell me he was a physiologist for college basketball programs helping “tall people who should be good at basketball, but aren’t.” Gotta give him points for character assessment.

We finally settled for an exit row populace consisting of two pixie-thin teenage girls (can you say “unaccompanied”), Mr. seventy-yr-old mad scientist, a 2nd white haired gentleman, one 300 lb lady (who did speak fluent English) and moi – the non-basketball playing tall girl with the drink coupons. To top it all off, no sooner had the waitress told us about the safety features of our Boeing 737 than one of our pixie-thin seat-mates asked for help With. Her. Seatbelt. A word to the wise…when mapping your emergency route…skip the exit door dependent on the chick who can’t fasten her seatbelt.

God help us if these exit rows become…well…exit rows. Especially since the only part of the exit I had mentally rehearsed was the part where I knock over Mr. Magoo on the way to the jet wing.