The only constant is Change

Today is April 20th. And with a shocking revelation, realize how much i have changed since moved out of my parent's place last August.

For example.
Old Anne: Too scared to even get on the back of a motorcycle
Today Anne: I'm signed up for a motorcycle course and it's 24 days away, and I'm bouncing off the walls. I wanna feel that power between my thighs (Get your mind out of the gutter Mark!)

Old Anne: "hey, come out to Chelan for my birthday!" "Sorry, i can't"(because my parent's would say no cause they never leave a 10 mile raidus so why should I)
Today Anne: "HELL YEAH! Gimme directions, what should I wear? What kind of food/alcohol should i bring? Are we going to have a bonfire?" Again, bouncing off the walls

Old Anne: It's 1 oclock in the morning, where am i? In bed asleep....every night. This was also true at 9 oclock every day.
Today Anne: Weekdays: this is probably still true given that i need to be at work at the ass-crack of dawn, but weekends: I could be anywhere...give me a call

Old Anne: Exercise? Why? That's just like torture!!!
Today Anne: Has an exercise partner, and then she goes and exercises on her own most days.

Old Anne: There are other colors besides black and bluejeans? I think not!
Today Anne: Is wearing white, turquoise. There's also pink in her wardrobe. Not to mention a dress in the making which is mostly white, with flowers, and polka-dots (not as ugly as it sounds) for me.

This is truly what i have been missing. Having a life, one that's mine, that i answer to myself for. That i can't blame my unhappiness on my parents. Which clearly is stated by my wardrobe contents...right?
This rocks.

Do you speak Fish?

My cell phone is at the bottom of the lake. This was just the top of an all out crappy day.
Between my parents "not" fighting, my backwards, backwoods cousins showing up, and working my ass off, as well as a series of non serious injuries then the boat dying...
Really, it was EXACTLY how i wanted to spend one of the first nice days of this year.... NOT!
Then to top it all off, my cell phone decides to swan dive into aproximatly 50 feet of water.
Not that i'm so worried about loosing my cell phone and being without it for a while. Who gives a hoot? I'm devestated that gone with it are contacts and pictures of people and events that can never be recovered.

Things like 3 guys singing me "You've lost that loving feeling" because they are awesome and realized I had just been burned by my ex and wanted to cheer me up. Boys, i'll never forget you.

The view from Ocean Shores last August

Girls night at Salsa Dancing

Images from the night of "I AM A NINJA!!!! NOW HELP ME DOWN"

It's the first time i've ever actually LOST my phone and haven't been able to get it back. I don't know how i'm going to get back in touch with some of the contacts i have stored in there. That's what bothers me most.

I found the conversation police at work

My best friend was laid off. I fully believe (after witnessing several confrontations, reading emails between them and listening in on phone conversations) that I know the root cause for this. I have MANY opinions about this, and 99% of my opinions tend to cause people to fluff their feathers and get uncomfortable. However, at work, you're supposed to be politically correct.

SO!!
WHEN ASKED!!! and ONLY WHEN ASKED!!!
I first give them a choice: "Do you want to politically correct version or what really happened?"
Politically correct version: [my friend] has left the company
Usually i get one of two responses: "I want to know what really happened" or "the incorrect version"

this is my starting response: "There was a personality conflict between [my friend] and his boss that escalated and in the end [my friend] was laid off."
The more questions they ask, the more detail I go into. If i make a derogatory statement towards the remaining person, I'll preface it with "I think..." or "In my opinion..." or "I believe"

This is what I have been doing since Monday. Actively making sure, I don't let an opinion slip out without one of those disclaimers mostly because i know I'm angry and somewhat prejudiced.

Now, someone whom i wasn't even talking to decided to tell me that i shouldn't be doing this. That I'm defaming the company who laid off my friend. And then THREATEN to turn me into HR...you can call it what you like but when you say "(if you don't stop) I'm gonna go to HR" that's a threat...

I hear you.
I understand that you are trying to look out for my well being and that you're not doing this just be a jerk.
I wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion.
I believe you didn't know [my friend] very well, or you didn't care for him very much.
I think your moral compass is WAY off if you believe they pay you enough here to essentially LIE for them by keeping your mouth shut.

So! Do what you need to do. That's what I'm doing.

Maybe that's why i wasn't very popular in school:
I wasn't afraid to do what was right instead of what was popular.

The Five Stages of Grief

It's probably not a good idea to be writing this now while I'm still stuck solidly in the first stage which is anger, but I need to get this out or I'll spend the rest of my day with it going through my head and overwriting any function i need for my job.

My dear friend, adopted uncle, and esteemed colleague flagged me down this morning as i drove into work. He was on the phone at the time, but I put down my window and told me four words which essentially ruined my day. "I just got fired".

A little back story: Mark Telford came into the company on a contract with our copiers. He was their employee but worked on our site every day. Mark quickly earned not only my respect as a perfectionist, but my friendship as well with his no-nonsense but fun attitude. Before him, we had another site operator who was, sorry to say, completely useless. Mark was everything we needed and more with a smile and a joke.
But as it always seems now adays, those who are good at what they do, but don't kiss ass, don't get anywhere. Mark tried for a manager position within his company, and instead they hired in someone who needed help whiping his ass.
Now before you write my opinion of this manager off as animosity that my friend didn't get the job, let me explain a few things:

• Mark had more experiance doing the job he was doing, than the years this kid had been alive.
• Mark is a Ride Captain for the Patriot Guard Riders and has proven his managing skills in that, constantly.
• The quality of Mark's work is always important to him. I've personally seen him tweak things but 1/16 of an inch to make sure it's centered and all fits where it needs to.
  

whereas on the other hand:

• Mike shows up wearing a yellow hoodie with food spills on it. When i pointed it out to him, he lifts up his hoodie to show me he had a button down shirt underneath it. Which i promtly pointed out ALSO had stains on it and wasn't ironed. Professionability out the window.
  
• I was handed back a project which needed holes drilled in it with the back sheets all torn up because he didn't use the machine properly. And i'm a firm believer of you don't hand shoddy workmanship back to a customer because it's a reflection of yourself. And when i requested it be re-done...he looked at me blankly like "what's wrong with it?" I believe that a manager should be able to do the job beneath them and do it right.
  
• Mark went into the ER one day, and the only phone calls he recieved from Mike were "When are you comming back to work?"

He's a bonified jerk. I say this after having met with him, speaking with him, dealing with him, and observing his behavior towards Mark. I have ZERO respect for him and I am OUTRAGED that he would utterly twist Marks words to turn upper management against him.

Mike i have a message for you: Stay the fuck away from me or you'll get introduced to my right hook and she's more of a bitch than I am.

Mark, we will try everything we can to get you back here and in the meantime, I'll miss you very much.

I love my sister's sense of priorities

As I'm trying to rush out the door this morning because thanks to a bowl of cereal that i swear jumped off the counter to kamikaze to the floor my phone rings. It's my sister. Since she almost never calls me in the morning, i figure this is important. So I do the Cell phone twist (i still need to figure out where on earth my blue tooth ran off to) were you have your head and shoulder attempting to hold this tiny piece of plastic and electronics to your ear while you juggle purse, keys and a banana for breakfast.

She sounds happy. Considering she's been out of a job for a while and was miserable at her old job to the point where i was concerned for her health, but that she started her new (and much better job) yesterday, i figure i can give her a few minutes of my time.

My sister starts gushing about how she stopped at Tully's in the town we both work in and a cute fireman held the door open for her and then bought her chai for her. Natrually, she has to tell me what he looks like and all about his smile. THEN she tells me that he said he'd been fighting a fire at my company's site that morning. A two hour long fight. As i'm sitting there trying to decide if i should call in and see if my workplace is still standing she continues on about the fireman and how she used my employment at the company to start an nice conversation with the VERY cute fireman . All i can do is smile and listen to my sister in all her sillyness.

I love the sense of priorities. Cute firemen...then "your office might have burned down"

Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime

At long last we have seen the sun in Seattle again! It was so wonderful, seeing shadows and feeling the actual WARMTH of the sun. I took a picnic lunch and sat out under the shade of a cherry tree in it's full and glorious bloom and just enjoyed the weather. I even had a small cat decide to come and join me. I have dubbed him Dapple because he looks like he's covered in blury spots of several colors. I don't know why cats like me; I'm very much a dog person. But he was friendly and ended up curled up on my lap. I've seen him around a few times and usually stop to pet him. He's a talkative cat. I find it strange when i can carry a conversation with a cat and get responses with infer-able meaning (no pun intended)