I have no drunk people to blog about. There is a large amount of beer gathering dust in our office kitchen. It was a donation that no is allowed to touch. At the bar, that sort of donation would be redistributed before any dust could think about lofting itself in the direction of the beer. Unless it’s bad beer, then it was still there when the bar caught on fire. Sorry Mom.

Just as the comments of my desk rearrangement were dying down, I got antsy. I was sitting for 8 hours a day and I’m used to standing for 10 hours a day. I stand to stretch once in awhile and to peer out a faraway window, but it’s not enough. I need a standing desk.

I price it out on the internet. Nope. Next idea. I need to make it myself. Perhaps a small coffee table on top of my desk? The ants in my pants were becoming unbearable. I bonk my head on the mysterious filing cabinet hanging just behind my head. I remember the wise words of my CEO,

“That must come off.”

I push and prod and hope I’m not about to pull the whole wall of the cube down. And the filing cabinet comes off! Now what? I put it on my desk. I put my computer on top of the filing cabinet. I now have a stand-up sit-down desk AND I don’t bump my head anymore.

We have casual Fridays at work. That means jeans! As long as you don’t have any meetings.

I am not a person with a lot of meetings, so I’m not sure how this has happened, but two out of the three meetings I’ve ever had have been on Fridays: last Friday and this Friday. It wouldn’t be such a big deal, but I have so few work appropriate outfits that eliminating a fifth day means I don’t have to repeat something in the same week.

I come from a career of jeans, and cleavage baring black tops. And when I wasn’t in my work uniform, I tended toward jeans and cleavage baring colored tops.

Don’t worry, there’s been no cleavage at work now. What’s the point? It’s not going to make me any more money.

I am way overdue for a blog. I know. I have things to tell you, but my new hours have turned my entire routine on its head. I used to always watch the Daily Show around 1pm. Now I have dinner with Jon Stewart. I’ll talk to you soon. I promise. Even if it’s only to Cc you on an email.

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?

Summer vacation continues. Every day it crosses my mind that I should get some exercise. Not because I’m overly concerned about my health. I’m not. It’s just that I sit around all day, I am so relaxed, but then by the time I go to bed my arms and legs feel like all they want to do is jump around. So I get out of bed and jump around. I also resolve to do this earlier in the day next time. I don’t.

Instead I’ve started reading Truman by David McCullough. It’s 1,117 pages and I’ve been holding it up all day. So now only my legs are hankering to jump around.

McCullough tells a story about Truman’s mother,

“If she never learned to milk a cow, her father advised, she would never have to milk a cow. So she never learned.”

I’m busy today! I have to go to the beach and then cook dinner and then watch a movie and then go to bed by 10pm, my new bedtime. You’re lucky I found the time to write this. I’ll be back!

A surfing Alpaca in Peru. Who knew?

Booker is still refusing to say anything. Unless you count viciously barking at the mailman. That guy is the worst.

I must resort to blogging about what I’m reading. Again. Thanks Mom for the good supply of magazines. This month’s National Geographic has an exciting article for the future of food: Edible Insects.

“Raising livestock uses a lot of resources. Eating insects – already common in many tropical countries – could be an alternative.”

I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

They add,

“Beetles and crickets, for example, are packed with nutrients and provide protein at a low environmental cost.” These bugs have the same percentage of protein as a cow, pig, chicken or fish. There are already insect farms. “Most are used for animal feed, but large-scale farming for human consumption is planned.”

National Geographic notes that while grasshoppers are a delicacy in Uganda, in general, “palatability poses a problem.” And that is why “to disguise their form, insects can be processed into powders or pastes. Protein-rich ‘bug flours’ that are part flour and part ground insect will likely be on the market soon.”

Taste was okay. The little grasshopper legs between my teeth? Not pleasant.

Good morning! I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I’m in the middle of David McCullough’s Mornings on Horseback, about Teddy Roosevelt. As wonderful as that is, I still have time for the Internet. First I was reading 17 amazing hair tricks you have to try right now, then 22 of the best Disney quotes of all time and next thing I knew I was taking an online quiz to figure out who my boyfriend was in a past life.

Then I took a break and read my mom’s Reader’s Digest. It has an interesting article on the brain and why it works the way it does. The article reminds me of the time in 2008 when I didn’t pay my state taxes. Massachusetts found me in 2013 and said, I’ll paraphrase,

‘Hey Jessica! You’re in trouble. You still owe us $500, plus a big late fee and interest.’

My mom says,

“I guess you thought Future Jessica wouldn’t mind paying this.”

According to Reader’s Digest,

“When you put off something pressing, you avoid negative emotions caused by an unpleasant task because you want to feel good now. But all you’re really doing is giving the problem to your future self. So the question becomes, why do we treat Future Self like that? An MRI study shows that we think of Future Self the same way we think of a stranger.”

Who’s Future Jessica? I don’t know her. I need to go take a quiz and see who her boyfriend will be.

There’d be more to blog about if Booker, my dog, were inclined to say something.

I am impressed with his ability to stay within one foot of me at all times. He has nothing to do all day but follow me back and forth. And I have nothing to do all day but go back and forth. From the kitchen, to the porch, to the yard and repeat. He carries a rubber rattle. I carry a book.

At one point, there’s more company then I expected in the bathroom. I exclaim,

“Booker!”

He hangs his head and backs up a few steps. He is just across the threshold. He is still close enough that he can be sure he isn’t missing anything besides whatever I’m reading in National Geographic.

My friend asked me to help her write content for her website. She told me,

“You are able to write about nothing.”

And that is what I strove for today.

Summer vacation continues. I’m chatting with Captain. He asks,

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“That’s a good question.”

What am I doing tomorrow? And the day after that and the day after that? It dawns on me,

“I know what I’m doing tomorrow!”

“What?”

“I’m going to make a plan about what to do.”

My bar manager is great at organizing. He arranged everything behind the bar to make sense and it allows us to work quickly. Unless there’s a fire.

We were chatting on the phone the other day. We’re each trying to figure out what the heck we’re doing with our surprise vacation.

He tells me,

“I’m going to organize my house.”

“Like you did with the bar?”

“Yes. I’m going to do one room a day.”

We chat a few days later. I ask him,

“Are you organizing your house?”

“It’s all done.”

Four more weeks of vacation to go.

Captain and I decide to head outside to the porch swing. He grabs a bowl of cherries. I exclaim,

“Oh good idea, do we need something to put the pits in?”

“No, we can just spit them over the railing.”

Ok. He may be confident in his pit spitting skills, but I have my doubts about my own. The railing is to the left of the swing. I sit next to the railing and Captain is on my right. I want to improve my odds of getting the pit in the vicinity of the railing.

I’m ready. I aim and fire. There’s more spluttering than necessary but the pit goes sailing. It’s well clear of the railing and lands in the grass. Decent.

Captain gives me a look. This appears to be shaping up to be a pit spitting contest. I ask him,

“Are you going to show me how it’s done?”

“Yup.”

He swishes the pit around in his mouth. He winds up; throws his head back. This pit is going places. AND…

Spit, splutter, splat. The pit does a small arch and lands at my feet.

The prognosis is in. We’re closed for 4-6 weeks. I’m not sure where the blog material is going to come from.

We’re scheduled to reopen right around when Captain and I booked a trip to Ireland. So it looks like I’ll be getting a vacation from my vacation. Life is tough.

If there are any topics you’d like me to cover in the next few weeks, please let me know. I’m busy, but I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m done taking a nap.

I am officially on paid vacation. Considering I never get paid vacation, this is amazing. People keep asking me,

“When is the bar reopening?”

I don’t know and I will tell you as soon as I do. I am no longer worried about it. It did not burn down. It will reopen when it has a fresh coat of paint and no longer smells like you’re sitting inside of a BBQ grill.

This Friday is Captain’s 40th birthday. I requested the night off months ago. Then, pre-fire, the schedule came out and it had me working on Friday. NOOO!

My bar manager calls today. We chat about our extended vacation and he tells me,

“Don’t worry, I got you Friday night off.”

For my birthday my mom and brother gave me a gorgeous leather handbag.

Birthday morning, as soon as I open the box, the smell of new supple pink leather fills the room. I inhale,

“Mmm it’s beautiful!”

Throughout the day I continue to hold the bag to my face. It smells so good! This is the best smelling handbag I’ve ever had.

I text my brother to tell him I’m in love with the bag. He replies,

“It’s pretty cute.”

I report all this to my roommate. She declares,

“I want to see it.”

I present it. She says,

“Oh it’s beautiful.”

“Smell it.”

People like to ask,

“If your house is on fire what are the three things you take with you?”

Everybody has a different answer. For me it’s my security blanket. For somebody else, who knows? I don’t have time to list everyone’s security item here.

What has now become clear is that if there’s a fire in the restaurant you’re in, everyone agrees on the exact same thing. You take your drink.