Really? Are you sure this is how it's supposed to go?

Today I was feeling a bit unenthused and discouraged about The Job. The Boss's family is kind of in shambles at the moment, and The Boss is not the only one in the family that works there. Also, today a Certain Person was fired/demoted - still to be determined. He's a good guy in general, but slipped up at an inopportune time. Meanwhile, his Best Friend's (whom Certain Person helped get hired mere weeks ago) Wife is taking over the posish. So Wife and Best Friend feel a little awkward, but are trying to keep their own jobs... it's complicated. Why all the drama? I don't know. But there's more where that came from, for sure.

Weekend #2

Before my sister headed across the mountains to start school again, my dad wanted us to get together for some coffee and a 'progressive draw' - one of his favorite pastimes. Basically, everyone starts doodling on a napkin and every few minutes you pass yours along to the next person and start on the one that came to you. The napkins go around in circles and the drawings evolve. It's kinda strange, but still fun.








Later that day I got to see Sunny and Allison one last time before Al headed back to Rijeka, where she is now. It was good to see you, Allison! I miss you.











After that I got in the car and headed south. There are quite a few people in Portland I would like to see (especially Taylor and Andy! It's been too long.), but this time around I got to hang out with Matt and Krista, and Tim and Sara and Jesse. While I was down there I went to go see Once. It was great, you should see it too.

Camping

The first weekend I was home, my dad and brother and I went camping in the rain. It was great to get out in the woods and be reminded of what I love about the Pacific Northwest. Sunny loves riding in the car and was excited to come with us.









As soon as we got off the trail, Sunny headed straight for the lake...and the mud.







Tobin spent some time creating a dog bed fit for royalty.













The view.






Nature time.















Dad looks surprised by something.












Not too bad for a dark and stormy night.








Packing up and heading home.

Boys Will Be Boys

This evening my mom and I were at the grocery store picking up a few things for dinner. As we left, we noticed a dad with his two sons looking at the rental movie selection. One of the boys, probably about 10 years old, had both hands jammed straight down the front of his pants. Mom and I exchanged half glances and suppressed smirks and eye rolls as we hurried out of the store. “Please wash your hands when you’re done…” my mom sighed (once we were outside) towards the completely oblivious kid in the store. It was unclear, as she put it, whether it was a mere itch or a complete rearrangement.

FYI

I put up a final few posts over at the Croatia blog just to wrap things up.

Animator vs. Animation

Animator vs. Animation by *alanbecker on deviantART

So true.

mind = blown

Title Unnecessary

Stream of Unconsciousness

Yesterday was a little rough at work. From the time I got there, things were busy and hectic. A long strip of wiring encased in rectangular plastic tubing had fallen off the wall/ceiling in the night and when I walked in, it stretched across the office like a fallen tree or police tape at a crime scene. I tried several times to reattach it to the wall using various methods and materials, to no avail. Additionally, The Boss has a close family member who is terminally ill, and their family had received some bad news, adding a layer of tension to a pre-existing ball of stress and nervous energy.

The phones kept ringing and distractions erupted continually. There were some important clients coming in for a meeting and everyone was bustling about and getting things ready. I was doing my best to go about my normal duties, as well as trying to learn to navigate the phone system and the various hold-transfer-voicemail-hang-up options therein. Somewhere in there I jammed the copy machine, and minutes before the clients arrived I moved a box, in the process knocking an expensive bottle of red wine to its dramatic demise on the tile floor. “Deep breath in, deep breath out. Repeat as necessary…” I kept telling myself.

My good friend Carolyn was in town in the middle of the day and wanted to meet me for a lunch/coffee break. I haven’t seen her since December and wanted to so badly, but I had to call and cancel. By 5:30 I realized all I’d had to ‘eat’ all day was a latte and a few crackers, which was…insufficient.

Finally I finished my work for the day and headed out to the company van that I was borrowing for the evening. Remembering that nobody else would be home that night, I decided to call my good friend Ashley, whose week-old son I still hadn’t met yet. Due to some weird dietary restrictions, it was decided that I would pick up some chicken and head over for a non-dairy/tomato/cabbage/fill-in-the-blank dinner. It should have taken me about 20-25 minutes to get to her house. Instead it took 1.5 hours. Many factors contributed: ridiculous traffic, tricky streets downtown that I don’t know very well yet, one grocery store that had run out of chicken, and the difficulty of maneuvering/changing lanes in the enormous molester-style work van. Anyway, at long last I did get to spend a very nice evening with Ashley and her two kiddos before driving home and collapsing into bed.

Today was much better. I ate lunch! And tonight I watched the Colbert Report with my mom- she didn’t like it- and brother and his girlfriend. Then I went to Target (oh, glory) and bought some soap and lotion and stuff. It was great. The End.

To Welcome Me Home

Getting my bearings.

Tonight I made my inaugural post-Croatia trip to Costco with my mom. It was pretty neat. Saw a great wall of beef jerky – you just can’t get that goodness in Rijeka, some cool books, an awesome electronic piano (which only increased my longing to start playing again), huge-a** cans of tuna, and a very large sausage labeled ‘Yard-O-Beef’. We didn’t buy one of those.

Also, I was surprised to see a particular variety of fruit I didn’t recognize. They were called pluots, and, convinced that genetic engineering had finally come to end us all, I marched straight to my computer as soon as we got home. Yes, Wikipedia does have all the answers. I guess they were invented in the '80s and these soft, sweet 75% plum/ 25% apricots have been available in stores for a little while. Who knew?

In other news, I’ve been working a lot and this weekend I am headed to the coast with the fam. See you back here on Monday!

Already Stealing From Someone Else

I found both this and this to be quite timely and very beautiful.

And Another Thing

I have more links to add. So if you consider yourself a friend and notice that I haven't linked you up yet, please don't consider it a personal slight. I'll get things tidied up around here soon enough.

untitled for now - I know, so lame.

A lot keeps happening that I want to write about, but I haven't officially launched this blog because I can't seem to find/choose a title. So I guess I'll just leave it untitled for another week or so.

Some ideas I've kicked around are:

-everything in its right place
-idioteque
-tell me what you see
-the tourist
-traffic in the sky
-much farther to go
-pale in comparison
-mined like a diamond
-small words
-ellipsis
-the thought that counts
-not worth comparing
-morning bells and whistles

The thing is, I love words so much. And meaning and tone and impact are very important to me, but it's resulted in me getting lost in a sea of letters and flavorless melodramatic sentiment. So I need YOUR help.

I have a lot to work through, and blogging is therapeutic. This thing needs to get rolling! So if you wouldn't mind helping out a little, please share some of your title-related thoughts or ideas by leaving a comment or emailing me at alexisy at gmail dot com.