I remember when my previous company was shut down by the Feds (and interestingly enough parts of it were purchased by the company I've worked with for the past 17 years). We had that sign up everywhere. I've decided not to hang that sign in my area because, well, I've grown up and have decided that sometimes things aren't nearly as funny to others as they might seem to me.

OK not really, but I'm trying to play the good corporate citizen.

I've been having some good heart-to-heart talks with some of my co-workers. The common feeling is "sad". We're all (ok, most of us) sad about the same thing- our 'family' being broken apart. Some of us have shared tears together, but mostly we've had the opportunity to tell each other how much we appreciate each other and how we'll never EVER take for granted what a great team this is/was. It kind of gives each of us something to strive for 'next time', ya know?

The thing is, how DO you know what kind of a team you're getting yourself into, until you're in the thick of it. It would be awesome if you could do a test run of teams before you sign the dotted line saying "yes, I'd love to work here".

I had an interview with the acquiring company. It was less of a "hey we have this swell job, do you want it?" interview and more of a "are you willing to move to New York?" deal.

For the record, no I'm not. I told the guy that I had to move 55 minutes away from my kids and sister 4 years ago when I got married and it STILL kills me to this day to be so far away from them. I further added that even though it's not their policy to allow telecommuting- I'm WORTH it and gave him the back up documentation to prove it.

I'm not holding out any hope of being retained by the acquiring company, but it's not for lack of telling them like it is.

It's interesting to see how people are slowly taking their stuff home. Some desks look like people barely work there (and truth be told- some barely do work there. Stuff has slowed down or completely halted for a few of my co-workers). They're just waiting for news on their date. I have to admit that I'm not working nearly as hard as I was, but it's not for lack of trying to find stuff to do. Nothing I do these days has anything to do with my 'real' job. I just wouldn't feel right about sitting at my desk wasting office air- so I'm helping out other departments.

By the way, I thought Obama's speech last night was electrifying. There's all the political talk you'll get from me. Wait, one more thing. What was up with M.O.'s dress? That had to be the ugliest dress I've ever seen. It reminded me of a black widow spider. Not something you'd want to portray as the next first lady. See? You get political talk AND fashion talk in one paragraph. Two things I don't usually talk about. It's your lucky day- go buy a lottery ticket.

It’s that time of year again, where it’s mostly rainy in the (so appropriately named) rainy state. For someone like me, who gets crabby when their hair isn’t perfectly coiffed, rain is my nemesis.

Oh, speaking of hair- this is the ‘doo' I’ve been sporting the past couple of months. Natural looking? NotSoMuch, but it sure is fun, and I *love* it.



Anyhoo….. Here in the rainy state, many times an umbrella is useless because when the wind is blowing, the darned thing blows inside-out. To me, carrying an umbrella is just one.more.thing to haul around and so I’ve decided to give wearing hats- along with a rain coat, a whirl.

I’ve never been a hat wearer. Wait- I take that back. I did have one of those big floppy hats back in the 70’s. But baseball hats and cowboy hats? Nope. I look dorky in them. I don’t think I even know where to buy a hat that’s not baseball or cowboy, so I went to eBay.

While browsing around I saw and totally fell in love with the cloche-style hat. I ended up buying these:



The day the black hat arrived (a telecommuting day), I decided that I’d better give it a test run to see if it was going to give me a bad case of hat hair. So I styled my hair the way I usually do, put on the hat and went about my business for a couple of hours. I felt goofy, sitting alone in the house in my sweatpants and this gorgeous hat, but I wasn’t willing to take a chance on having hat hair.

Turned out fine, so I took it out in public this past week. I got compliments from complete strangers (even men!), and more importantly, it kept my head warm and dry, so decided that I AM a hat wearer after all. I decided that I needed more colors (brown, fun colors, light) so have a couple of bids going. I just bought this one on a 'buy it now':



CUTE, isn’t it? As soon as it arrives, I’ll take some pictures so y’all can make fun of my crazy style.

I think I’ve caught up on everyone’s lives today. Thankfully, nobody’s house burned down and y’all were able to keep yourselves out of jail for once. It was a good day for visiting.

I see the blogosphere is writing about participating in NaBloPoMo. I’m not going to participate this year (intentionally, anyway). Too much pressure, and I’m trying to cut down on that.

I have a hard time blogging when I have stuff going on that I can't blog about. Is anyone else like that? It's like, if I can't write about THIS (whatever this is at the time), then I have nothing to write about. I guess that kind of tells you that I have one thing, and one thing only on my mind. It's work related, and I can't really write about it.

Instead, I'll just apologize for being a big liar about visiting blogs last weekend. Instead, I worked in my yard and went out with two of my galpals. We went to the Melting Pot and had a GREAT time. Gosh, it's good to get out with girlfriends, isn't it? I don't do it nearly enough and I need stuff like that to remind me how much fun my friends are.

I'm not expecting to hear anything about my job until December. It doesn't look like they're going to keep a presence in my state and they don't like telecommuting. They've made that fairly clear. So I guess I'll be pounding the pavement looking for a job soon. I'll think of it as an adventure. Yeah, that's it. I do wonder what road I'll be going down. Right now, I have no idea- but when it hits me, I'll know it.

If I had my druthers, Top Dog would go work for a new company, take his cutiepie exec assistant and FCW with him and then I'd beg him to let me work there too. Actually there are a whole lot of people in my department I don't want to say goodbye to (it goes without saying that the Grinch isn't one of them, right?). I guess it is what it is and something good is awaiting me.

I’m getting my hair ‘did’ on Saturday, and have no other plans, so I will make good on my promise to come visit my online friends. See you in the 'hood in a couple of days.

I've mentioned before that some of the people I work with have some very interesting backgrounds (ex-secret service, army intel, etc.), so the email exchange I had to day with one of them (Ex Government Worker aka XGW) and FCW was downright hilarious.

FCW found a picture of XGW on the internet and sent it to me. It was hilarious, so I photoshopped him into an elf costume and hat. It just seemed the right thing to do, dontchaknow. FCW forwarded the elf picture to XGW, cc'd me and the following email exchange ensued:

FCW to XGW: Can you explain this?

XGW: Where did you find this…no one knows I am an elf

RG: Well, I got to thinking about it when we had our discussion on the elevator about our past lives, so I googled elf (call it a sneaky suspicion) and there you were. Crazy how stuff lives on forever on the Internet.

XGW: I was actually doing undercover work at the time…was part of that.

RG: Ah ha! Did you get to meet any of the other kids from the Island of misfits? My favorite is the dentist.

XGW: I was deep undercover working a counterfeit case against the Charlie in the Box

RG: That clown always seemed suspicious to me, the way he’d jump out at you and stuff. I hope you put him away for a good long time.

FCW: I heard he didn't get too long because he ratted out the Abominable Snowman on a blackmailing scheme.

XGW: It was Rudolph who he ratted on…turns out Rudolph had a Cocaine problem…we should have seen it…red nose and all.

Believe it or not, we really DO get work done in the office.

Brain: Bad. My neuro put me on a different version of the drugs that help me to not jerk around when I saw her last week. It is a long-acting version, and twice the strength. Go figure, but I've been violently jerking for the past week. She's decided to take me off of that and put me back on the other stuff just in case that's the problem. Of course, it could be that evil S word causing the problem (the word of the day is: STRESS). I've also been having problems with my speech and running into walls (I have to admit, that part is kind of comical). I've worked from home all week this week, mainly out of vanity. I just really don't like people seeing me jerking like that and walking and talking like I've had one too many. It even makes BJ uncomfortable, so I can just imagine how a perfect stranger (or co-worker for that matter) might react. I've already noticed today that I'm jerking less, so either I'm less stressed because I'm working from home, or it was the meds. Either way, yay. I'm sure my manager thinks I've checked out, but truly I haven't. (I'm feeling guilty about working home all week)

Speaking of which- my job status.... who knows? I'm still keeping my head in the game because that's all I can really do. I'm glad I volunteered to be on the transition team because it gives me some sense of being in the know- even though I'm not really. I have NO idea at this point what will happen to my employment, and probably won't know until December. I hope my brain doesn't implode by then. Good Lord, I'd like to take a nice long nap and wake up when this is all over. Seriously.

BJ says that I'm not acting myself these days. Hmmmm.... I wonder why? I haven't been very social with him and I hope that he never takes it personally. He says he doesn't, but I know that I get tired of being around myself when I'm like this. Don't you wish you could hang with me 24/7 right now? What? Nobody? Hmmmph.

I haven't been around the blogosphere since last weekend. I think that might be my norm for a while. Let it all pile up and catch up on the weekend. Deal?

There's more if you're logged in and want to be grossed out. Boys? I suggest you stay out. Trust that.