I love natural light and windows. I would’ve thought that goes without saying for everybody, but Captain seems unimpressed by windows.

On my first day in the office, I’m shown to my cube. It is as I feared. I cannot see a window. If I stand up and stretch I can see a window in the distance. A five foot tall person would not be so lucky.

The first hour goes by. The fluorescent light directly above my desk feels like it’s piercing my eyeballs and stabbing my brain. This is not going to work. I examine my cube. There’s some space, a filing cabinet full of unexplained files that do not belong to me and a chair. My desk appears to be from a Communist era building. It’s ginormous and looks impenetrable. Even if I can move it, I’m not sure there’s enough space to turn it around. I resolve to deal with it in a week.

Two days later I march into work with my tape measure. I measure the length of the desk and I measure the smallest part of the cube it needs to turn around in. It’s going to work! As long as I can lift it. I know I could ask someone for help, but I barely know anybody AND I don’t want to risk anyone telling me no.

I squat, grab underneath one end of the desk and heave. It moves an inch. I can lift it! And it’s going to take forever. It only takes 20 minutes, but that is a long time when you’re doing hard manual labor in business casual.

It is a million times better. The only odd thing is that there was a permanent cabinet that stuck out over my desk, so it now sticks out over nothing. It’s just low enough that if I lean too far back in my desk chair I bonk my head. This has only happened twice and is still better than fluorescent light daggers in my eyeballs.

I turned my desk around but I only moved it two feet from where it was before. You’d think this might have gone unnoticed. Oh no. Everyone keeps stopping by my cube,

“Oh wow, you moved the desk.”

“Look at your desk!”

“I like what you did.”

“Did you move the desk?”

I did.

Once upon a time, long long ago, 2 months ago, I had an interview for another job. Then that same day, four hours later, the bar almost burned down.

The bar is still closed. I’m not bartending. I’m getting up at 6am, going to bed at 9pm and I’ve been using spreadsheets.

Bad news is the bar was a major source of blog material. But only when it’s not on fire. So while I don’t have an official last day to invite everybody to come see me and give me a lot of money, I did have a memorable unofficial last day and have been collecting insurance money every since.

I do not intend to let my drink making and flirting skills slide, I’ll just have to do them during business hours.

Interview/Fire day! No, I’m not a flight attendant.

Did I mention I was in Ireland? So back to that. Captain and I did a whirlwind tour of the country along with a million other tourists. You think you’ve got a look-out spot to yourself, but all it takes is one stopped car at a look-out spot and every tourist on the road will pull in behind you. Good luck trying to go to the bathroom on the side of the road.

Captain and I were gazing out at the ocean, green pastures and spray-painted sheep. That’s how they identify them. It was serene. The sun was shining and the wind was blowing in my face. This is not just for descriptive detail. This will be important later.

A car pulls in behind us. Loud voices emerge. I’d say they’re American, but Canada is welcome to claim them if they’d like. Let me know.

The middle-aged couple comes up to the overlook. They gaze around. The guy declares to his wife,

“We can dump some ashes here.”

“Here?”

“Well we have two baggies.”

“I guess we might as well.”

People put other peoples ashes in Ziploc baggies. It’s a thing.

I stand facing out toward the gorgeous view, the wind blowing in my face. You see where I am going with this? If they dump a baggie of ashes here it’s going to blow into the parking lot. Maybe that person always dreamed of being dumped in a parking lot, but I doubt it.

The guy gets to the edge of the wall with the baggie. He thinks for moment. It dawns on him. He tells his wife,

“If I dump the ashes, they’re going to blow back this way.”

A solution occurs to him. He bends as far over the wall as he can and dumps the ashes. So whoever that was, did not float away on the breeze out to the ocean. Their ashes settled into the crevices of the rock wall by the parking lot. But that’s only half of that person, so there’s still hope.

Not a bad wall if your ashes are going to be in a wall.

Until a month ago I had experienced zero real-life fires. The ones on TV do not count. Now I seem to be on a roll.

Captain and I were staying a couple nights at a fancy resort in Northern Ireland. My treat for his birthday. We’re snuggled up and fast asleep when at 1:00am an ear piercing alarm starts blasting.

I jump out of bed and stand naked in the middle of the room. Captain sits up and asks,

“What’s that?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the fire alarm.”

We both reflect on this for a moment. I peek my head out the door. Everyone is leaving their rooms. This seems to be for real. We get dressed and grab our valuables. I put my security blanket in my purse. We leave behind a half-drunk bottle of wine and head for the stairwell.

There’s an old woman in a wheelchair at the top of the stairs. A hotel employee comes to help her. This seems to be getting more real. We’re directed to an area of the parking lot. There are people in all stages of dress: suits, jammies, bathrobes and one woman in a wedding dress. Almost every other person has a drink in their hand.

If I have learned nothing else about fires, the one universal truth is: Take Your Drink.

They handed out fire blankets. It was a little bit like wrapping yourself in a giant roll of aluminum foil.

I’ve been neglecting you I know. My world is a little upside down right now. Captain and I leave for Ireland tomorrow. I’ve been going to bed at 9pm and waking up by 6am because I’m attempting to minimize the 5 hour time difference. This plan is not foolproof. I’ve been jet lagged all week.

Really I’m going to Ireland for you, so I have something to blog about besides my mom’s magazines. You’re welcome.

Someone kissing the blarney stone. Does it have to be done upside down?