Always Anna

For the past couple months now, work has been slowly driving me more and more insane.  It’s not my company’s fault - they finally hired an admin person to take over some of the non-marketing stuff that I had been doing, and she’s great.  But the fact remains that my firm is taking on too many projects for our size, so I am being run ragged.

Since I like my job (for the most part), I’m okay with being overly busy.  I’m okay with working overtime.  I am not, however, okay with working with the kind of people that constantly tell me how I should do my job.  Hey, anal-retentive office people?  If you think you know how to do something, do it your freakin’ self.  And stop jumping all over MY back because I don’t read minds!  You need to TELL me if you need something!  And on top of all THAT - you aren’t my boss!  SHE’S awesome.  YOU?  SUCK.

Ugh.  Anyways, I’ve been starting to get more and more stressed out because of work - I even have two zits on my chin, and I almost never break out!  So I’ve decided to take action. 

I’m buying a self-help book tonight.  “How to Work With Morons Without Resorting to Postal-Employee Type Behavior,” or something like that.

1.  I am getting too old to spend the night sleeping in a car.  My whole body aches from spending Saturday night sleeping in the front passenger seat of the BF’s Wrangler.

2.  Justin Timberlake’s new song stinks.  Why is his voice all electronified?  And no, I don’t care if that isn’t a word!

3.   Due to technical difficulties, the summer issue of “The Better Drink” was delayed… so I haven’t been able to post a link to my latest movie review (which was written in May).  So… enjoy reading it now!

4.  I would happily work 10 hour days on Monday through Thursday if it meant I got every Friday off.  Two day weekends just aren’t long enough.

Sadly, I’m not too much of a baseball fan - I just don’t like watching games on TV.  They’re slow and boring and way too long.  But, that said, I love going to games.  The whole ballpark experience just can’t be beat, especially if the beer is cold, the hot dogs are filling, and the home team wins.  And the experience is even better if you get to leave work early to go.

However, one thing at the Sox game yesterday disturbed me greatly:

How does this HAPPEN?  Dude needs to start waxing!

…and this past week was no exception.  I love being on vacation.  I do like my job (for the most part), and am pretty entertained at work most days.  But there is nothing like having time to relax, sleep in, and just be yourself.  And if you can find time to drink in there too, that makes it all the better.I flew home to California last week… and boy, are my arms tired!  Hahaha… I kid, I kid!

Okay, seriously now… The BF and I took the fabulous JetBlue from Boston to Long Beach last Saturday, and flew into absolutely gorgeous weather.  GORGEOUS.  The way summer should be - low 80s, no humidity, clear skies.  Sigh.  I already miss it.  But I digress…

We got in early on Saturday morning (I love the time difference when I fly west!) and spent the day wandering around Silverlake and Hollywood with my best friend from high school, C.  C gave us a great tour of the area (I may be from SoCal, but I don’t spend much time in Silverlake), and since one of the things I miss most about California is the food, we decided the smartest thing to do would be to eat our way through LA.  And that’s how I ended up eating a huge omelette (with avocado!) and homefries, then fabulous fruity gelato on Sunset, then a #2 from In N Out… all between 10:30 and 12:30.  Sometimes I impress myself with my eating skills.

After eating myself into a coma, the BF and I hopped in the rental car and drove north to Camarillo, where my mom and stepdad live.  In their RETIREMENT community condo.  Sadly, I’m not kidding - for some reason my non-retired ‘rents are living in a gated communithy that is straight out of the Twilight Zone - a whole town full of old people and their golf carts.  It was utterly bizarre, but I got into the swing of things by stuffing my face for 2.5 days and playing my first golf game ever.  I don’t think Michelle Wie needs to watch her back though - all the holes were par 3, and it took me between 6 and 16 shots per hole.  Are you impressed?

After putting on 5 pounds in 3 days (I wish I were kidding), we drove to South Lake Tahoe - a drive that took us 10 hours.  Shockingly, I managed to stay awake for all that time, thanks to an overload of coffee and Dr. Pepper.  If you ever have the opportunity to take the 395 from SoCal to South Lake Tahoe, I’d highly recommend it - it was stunning. 

My dad, stepmom, grandparents, and aunt & uncle were at a condo in South Lake Tahoe for the week… so obviously I thought it would be good to throw the BF in there to meet my crazy, drunk family.  It was fun though - having a card-playing, heavy-drinking, loud-laughing family can’t help but be entertaining.  Lesson learned in Tahoe?  Lemon drops may be my new favorite martini-drink… but more than two will knock me right on my @ss. 

On Friday, we booked it out of Tahoe to head on over to San Francisco - the BF and I both have friends there, and wanted to visit them and play tourist.  We got in around 6 and after chilling for a little bit, four of us went to dinner at a sushi place called Tsunami - fish was great and sake selection was staggering.  And by staggering I mean that I was staggering when I left - my low tolerance + strong sake = slight sloppiness.

From there, we went to an “art party” - which is going to have to a whole other post, because I have a TON to say about that!  So we’ll fast forward for now to Saturday.

So, Saturday morning comes - and surprise, surprise, I’m hung over.  But, not willing to let a slight headache and mild nausea slow down my touristy impulses, the BF and I snag a cab and go to Pier 39.  We check out the seals that took over part of the pier, have some yummy clam dishes, and buy maps.  Well, I buy maps - I’m kind of obsessed with them.  After that, we walked to Lombard Street to see that super curvy road, then trek over to Golden Gate Park.  To quote a friend, “Golden Gate Park makes Central Park look like the town green.”  That park was HUGE.. and I would know, as we walked the entire length of the park.  We went through the Japanese Tea Garden, walked by a ton of lakes, even saw bison.  We ended up at the beach, where we had dinner and watched the sunset.  Sigh.

That night, we went to a party at my friend’s house.  The party featured hilarious theater people, a lot of booze… and Jello shots.  Whoops!  I got DRUNK - I guess 7 Jello shots and a 6-pack will do that to me.  I drunk dialed/texted some friends, rocked out to Journey, and proceeded to pass out in a chair at 2 AM.  Which, while it sounds early, was actually way too late, considering that we had to get on a plane and spend the day flying on Sunday.

And now I’m back in Boston, cursing the humidity and the fact that I have to work.  I need to win the lotto so that I can be on vacation all the time.

P.S.  I apologize for the lack of editing in this post - I don’t have the energy to deal right now!

You know what?  Flickr can BITE ME!  I joined the stupid site under duress, after hearing EVERYONE sing it’s praises.

“Flickr is so cool!” “Flickr is so easy!”  “Flickr is so FUN!”

You know what I have to say?  All of my friends that like this site are CRAZY.  For the first week, I was fine with the site.  Then, I discovered the truth - the site is only cool/easy/fun if you’ll pay for it.  Call me a cheap jerk, but I fail to see why I should pay for a service I can get for FREE on a million other sites.  So, I stuck with just using the free service, and gave up on organizing my photos into albums, or setting the order in which they appear.  I figured that using Flickr was still easier than emailing pictures to friends - they could just download them from Flickr, and everything would be fine.  But THEN I discovered that there were other problems with not paying for Flickr.  Namely, they delete your pictures.

I got an email from DDD this morning, asking “Where are the pictures from when you won the fantasy football championship?!?!?!?!?! I can’t find them on Flickr and I NEED THEM!!!!”  So, I logged into Flickr to see what the deal was… and they’re gone.  In fact, all but my last 200 photos are GONE.  The tags are even gone!  I did not receive ANY notification of this - no warning that I was approaching some limit, or that my pictures would not be on my page anymore.  So you know what?

Flickr and I are DONE.  I’m going back to Snapfish to make albums, and will use the FABULOUS Picasa to keep emailing out photos.  Google - hurry up and start competing with Flickr!

In other, non-pissed-off news, I’m going back to California until the 17th, so I won’t be around here to entertain you.  So… have a great week!  See you later!

This past weekend was pretty much my idea of a perfect summer weekend.  Sunny blue skies.  A beach house full of friends.  A beach that wasn’t overrun with small children.  Food on the grill.  And, of course, a plethora of beer, vodka, and champagne.

Em and her brother, Steve, invited a bunch of friends to come to their beach house this past weekend.  Obviously, we celebrate our independence by drinking ourselves into oblivion then sleeping on the beach for the entire next day.  It was one of those weekends that kind of makes me miss college - no responsibilities, just fun.  The kind of partying that I don’t have the energy to do every weekend, but when it happens every once in a while, I LOVE.

The cottage comfortably sleeps eight in beds and/or couches; we managed to fit about 25 by having 10 of us pitch tents in the backyard.   Besides, we weren’t there to sleep (we only averaged around 5 hours of sleep per night).  We drank Friday night.  We drank Saturday day.  We drank Saturday night.  We got really tan or really burned.  And we had a ton of fun.

My favorite five lines of the weekend?

* “We are super sneaky.  Super sneaky spies.  They won’t even know we’re here…” CRASH!  I fall off a wall into a clothesline. (My love of spying and horrifying clutziness do not go well together.)

* “I can’t believe I’m still standing!”  Says Craig as he fell down into a chair.  (He did get back up and start dancing again, though!)

* “What does a Fast Gurl do?” Says Fast Gurl in response to our queries about whether she hooked up.  (What does a Fast Gurl do, indeed!)

* “I’m drunk for the fourth time today.” Says the BF at 8 PM.  (I’m so proud!)

* “Eggs are like balls.  So keep scrambling them!” Says DDD as she walks out of the kitchen.  (She was definitely still drunk!)

Sadly, I had to leave the beach house debauchery last night, as I had to work today.  And even though I have tomorrow off, I was too d*mn tired to go out tonight.  All my ridiculousness of the weekend has caught up with me.

So - G’night!  And have a happy Independence Day!