Two Blogs for the Price of One

Went back to work today. Really can't decide whether to blog about that or my day in North Carolina yesterday with Scott's mom. The North Carolina story's better than the work story, but it's the work one that's on my mind.

Okay, I'll give you the shorter (we all know that Heather doesn't DO "short") version of the work thing... Back to work blues. They suck. I like my job, I like the people, but I don't like having to go there. Not after being able to take a week off and just play. I liked that. It made me want to be old and retired, and I never long for that! Things are changing at work and one of my favorite playmates is on a different schedule now, so I'm really just kinda fending for myself. (The previously mentioned Curly Sue.) It's a bummer. She let me pick on her AND thought it was funny and that shit just doesn't grow on trees. Guess I'll be catching up on my reading now. Or start smoking at work again. Who knows? But, I got to bs with my boss and found out that she's riding along on my schedule with me. It's interesting because she's hating the hours (she's a morning person -- would start working at 6am if she could) and I'm not but I'm pretty good at bumping her up.

And it was nice to be back and have people miss me. Well, in their own way. I was running the Heather Show as often as I could today and from across the aisle in the cube farm one of the other managers said, "We-ell, sounds like Heather's back." But not in a bad way, so that was okay.

I did manage to kill some time by giving blood -- got me off the phone for a while AND keeps the Red Cross off my butt for 56 days! Woo-hoo! Got to do a little stand-up with a guy who was waiting with me. We both thought we were incredibly clever so we had a grand time playing off of each other.

All in all, it wasn't too painful but still I think another week off would've been better!

Now... North Carolina. Went down with Scott's mom (who will be Mom for the rest of this blog) to see his aunt and some friends of hers who were visiting from Wales.

Loved it. The couple were Molly and Ray and they've been married for 46 years. Can you imagine? To each other, I'm saying. They're just two peas in a pod. He humors her and she humors him and I loved them. THAT is what I aspire to. That is a marriage. That is a life. Their secret? He does his thing, she does her thing, and they get together in between -- and go dancing. Isn't that great? They travel all over the place and met Scott's aunt on one of their trips -- so are obviously very friendly and outgoing. And they have these lovely Welsh accents, which makes them sound sweet and innocent and will look you in the eye and pull your leg and you just believe them because they sound so sweet. Especially Molly. She had me believing that Aunt had a rose garden out in the wilds of her backyard when I inquired where some of the flowers in the house had come from. I was shocked when I found out she was just kidding me. You have to meet her to fully understand and she leaves tomorrow so that won't be possible... But there are very few people that I meet that I am completely bowled over in adoration of and they totally fit that bill. I hope this was not our only meeting!

So, we visited and chatted and lunched and shopped and it was grand. Mom and I had time to chat and bond on the drive there and back. Which was nice. I'm finally on track to getting her to understand that some of the information that she shares and some of the things she asks about I'm not entirely comfortable with. I decided not to go whole hog into this particular hornet's nest but the groundwork has been laid. Basically, I just told her that sometimes when we are talking on the phone, she starts talking about things that I'm not comfortable hearing about but I don't know how to stop her. I demonstrated how I will hold the phone away from my head and hope that she will stop talking about whatever soon. A couple of times during the day something would come up and I would mock holding the phone away and say that this was one of those times like on the phone. It became a bit of a running joke -- also known as "creating intimacy." (This is what Scott calls it when he is making fun of me -- he's not mocking me, he's creating intimacy. Although, it's true.)

Aunt gave Mom her birthday present. I was going to go into details (in fact, I even published a version of it so you may have caught it) but I decided that it just wasn't right to publish details that lurid on the internet about the woman who may one day be my mother in law. The printable version is that she got a gift that will keep on giving.

But, I'm going to have to hold out the phone for the rest of the details.

My Lord, I'm developing a conscience. What's next? Morals and decency?

It's too much -- I'm going to bed.
HP