One gay gals' musings and observations while travelling on the streetcar
The Job, The Hangover and the Almost Rage
About last weekend…
It started pretty quietly on Friday night. We had a guy come by to give us a quote on replacing the a/c unit. After he left, S and I set about getting dinner started. The day before, S’s cousin Roberta was let go from her job and so we found ourselves talking about that. Remembering that there will be a job opening in my department at work, I said, “Hey, do you think Roberta would want to be an event planner at my company?” I thought S would laugh it off since Roberta has spent the last few years being a manager. I assumed that the last thing she’d want to do is slum it as an event planner. It turns out I assumed incorrectly. S walked over to her BlackBerry and shot off a text message to her cousin letting her know about the job. Within minutes, Roberta wrote back expressing interest in it.
I woke up on Saturday morning to the house alarm going off. I jumped out of bed, only half aware of what was happening. I noticed that S wasn’t in the bed, but I wasn’t sure where she was. I got to the bedroom door and looked down the hall to see S scurrying up the stairs to get to the keypad to turn the system off. “Sorry about that, I walked right downstairs without thinking to turn it off.” I am thankful that we have the alarm as it allows us to sleep soundly knowing that any attempt to break into the house would mean the alarm going off. But actually being woken up by it certainly leaves a girl feeling a bit frazzled.
Since I was wide awake, I figured I might as well get up and start my day. I collected the pup and we set out on our walk. Outside, I noticed several ambulances and police cars parked on our street. I wondered what was going on, but didn’t give it too much thought as the gal pal dragged me along.
Later on in the morning, I returned to our bedroom to open up the windows to let some fresh air in. I love the smell at the end of the day when a window has been open; it reminds me of when my mom would dry clothes out on the line in the backyard and the clothes would have that airy scent to them. While opening the windows, I noticed that there were less ambulances on the street but the one remaining had been joined by a Forensic Identification Services van.
I hurriedly returned downstairs to let S know about the van. “Oh my God,” S began, “do you think someone was murdered?!”
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“I saw the paramedics take a stretcher into the house, but didn’t notice them taking anyone out. Wouldn’t the coroner have to come first before a body is allowed to be taken out?” S asked, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and curiosity.
“I’m not sure how that works,” I answered. On TV things are done a certain way, but who knows what the process is in real life? While we didn’t hang around looking to spot Grissom we did wonder about what happened on our street to lead to all of the activity.
During the course of the day, S had texted back and forth with Roberta who was revamping her resume to suit the job I’d mentioned. “Baby, Roberta and Kyle want to come over later for drinks and to talk about the job.”
“Oh, c’mon,” I pouted. Saturday was supposed to be a day for ourselves. Sunday, I was planning on going over to my friend’s place to have a look at her computer and S was going to the ‘burbs for brunch with friends and to pick up P’s dog who we were going to be sitting for a week.
“Does this mean I have to shower?!” I asked. S informed me that yes, having company come over required us getting showered and cleaned up. Begrudgingly, I put aside the book I was reading and began to get ready.
Roberta had mentioned that she hand Kyle would be over at around eight so S and I had ourselves an early dinner and then tidied up around the house. They didn’t arrive until closer to nine but they quickly set about opening up some wine and putting a six pack of beer in the fridge. They hadn’t been to the house since shortly after we moved in so they’d yet to see it with furniture on the main floor or see the cozy basement.
The evening progressed and was off to a good start as the wine was flavourful and S brought out some cheese and crackers. We talked about jobs, Roberta’s recent firing and eventually I talked about the job opening at work and the people I work with. I made it clear to Roberta that the job is pretty administrative in nature and can be quite mundane. Some people think that because it’s an event planner job that it’s about booking parties and ordering ice sculptures. It’s anything but. I also went to great detail about the gals I work with. If Roberta were to get hired, she’d be in the thick of all of the gals’ foolishness so I wanted to be sure she knew what she was getting herself into.
Roberta and Kyle are heavy wine drinkers. They’re not alcoholics, but they are wine fans and drink a fair bit. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I (stupidly) kept refilling my glass whenever they did. The first bottle of wine was split four ways – S had a glass. The other two bottles were split three ways. By the time Roberta and Kyle said good-night I was feeling pretty good. That is, until I got into bed and the intense spinning room ride began.
I wasn’t in bed for two minutes before I got up to go throw up. By that point, my head was pounding; after emptying out the contents of my stomach, I curled up on the bathroom floor. I think I fell asleep for a few minutes, but not much longer than that. I hoped that being sick would mean I’d feel better upon waking up. I was wrong.
I woke up with the mother of all headaches. It felt like my skull was going to split down the centre and I was so nauseous, I thought for sure I was going to throw up again. I took some ibuprofen as soon as I felt like getting up was feasible. Once up, I thought that I could get the day moving along. I took the pup out for our walk and everything was going alright. That is, until I caught the scent of someone making eggs. I was sure that I was going to throw up there and then. I practically jogged back home, cutting the walk short, in the hopes of making it to a toilet.
When I did get home, I made myself comfortable in the bathroom thinking I’d be there awhile. S was downstairs getting ready and didn’t know about the state I was in. When she did find me she sort of chuckled while being sympathetic. “What were you thinking trying to keep up with Roberta and Kyle?”
S left to head out to the ‘burbs and I called my friend to let her know I wasn’t in any shape to go over to her place. She laughed and said she understood.
It took a few hours, but the nausea went away and the headache subsided to a dull pounding. I ate something after noon and showered since I knew S and I would need to get groceries. S wrote to say she was on her way home, two puppies in tow.
P was going to be away at a work conference this week and had asked if we could sit her dog. I had hoped that we wouldn’t be housing him for awhile, but fate had other plans. I really wasn’t looking forward to having him around. When he and his sister are together, they get into this pack mentality where they bark at every sound and terrorize the cat. After his last stay with us, we got wise and began putting up the baby gate overnight to keep the antics to a minimum.
After returning home, S and I collected our grocery bags and made our way out. S had expressed an interest in getting an exercise bike that she saw on sale at Canadian Tire. We went to the Crappy Tire first because we figured it would take up the most room in the back of the truck.
S was in a bit of an (aggressive) mood so I was hoping that there wouldn’t be any instances of the rage while we were out. At the store, things did not get off to a good start. First, there weren’t any exercise bikes on display. Then, the bike S wanted to get wasn’t in stock and the one bike they did have they didn’t have a picture of. S wanted to see it before buying it so she asked that the box be brought out. The kid that was helping us seemed a bit anxious and I could tell that S’s patience was wearing thin.
“Uh, the guys said that you’ll have to go to the receiving area to see the box,” he told us. I asked him where that was and he said he’d take us there. We ended up having to go outside, across the parking lot and around the back of the store. When we got to the receiving area, we could tell that the guys who worked there (who all looked pretty tough) were giving the kid a hard time about it.
We had a look at the box and S decided she wanted to get it. It was then that it was pointed out that the store was connected to the receiving area by a set of doors. Which meant we had made that long trip around the outside for nothing.
We checked out and then picked up the box at the customer area. Once it was loaded into the truck, we made our way to the grocery store. That part of the trip went pretty quickly.
Not long after putting the groceries away and hanging out, S and I decided to put the bike together. We weren’t sure how hard it was going to be so we thought it best to start sooner rather than later. It didn’t look too bad (it wasn’t bought at Ikea, after all) but it didn’t look too easy either.
We started by attaching the main part of the bike to the front and back bars (the ones that sit on the floor). We noticed that the bolts didn’t go all the way down the screw which meant that the pieces were quite loose. “Do you think these are the right bolts?” I asked.
“They must be,” S answered, “they’re all that came with it.”
It wasn’t until it came to putting on the bike seat that we clued in that the bolts would have to be tightened. There was no way we’d be able to sit on a bike seat that was rattling around. Unless of course, that’s part of the workout – which we didn’t think was the case.
After getting out some tools (don’t ask me the names of them, I haven’t the faintest clue), we tightened up all of the bolts and finished putting the bike together. I must say, I was impressed by how things went that day. S had been pretty wound up when we set out, but didn’t had a single moment of rage. Not at Crappy Tire when they didn’t have the bike she wanted or when we had to go on the great escape nor when we were putting together the bike.
I’m not really sure how Sunday night wound down. Although I’m pretty sure it had something to do with us vegging out with books and / or interwebs.
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| Print article | This entry was posted by liz on June 11, 2009 at 10:24 PM, and is filed under S, friends, life, work. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
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