TGIF and TGI Can Afford Grapes Now

February 10, 2006

Within one hour of starting my new job Monday I found out I had a deliverable Friday - just five short days for my first deliverable. Actually, two deliverables. I’m new to the entire Common Criteria project, not to mention the company, so I had to bust some serious hiney to figure out what I need to know to start and finish two annotated outlines – one for a user’s guide and one for an admin guide. I really wasn't sure I'd finish in time.

But by 4:15 today I’d handed in both outlines. (And my peer, a company veteran who had just one deliverable due today, was unable to meet the deadline. My lead kept prompting me to push this guy to get his work done. I tried, but you know you can't make the horse drink. The guy just wasn't able to focus. In fact, by end of day he'd barely even begun his outline. Guess who's working this weekend?)

My office-mate—a wonderfully smart and funny woman by the name of Rashmi—told me to give myself a pat on the back. And so I did!

I celebrated by going to Costco to buy another fake plant for our office, which Rashmi and I have been decorating together (item by item) all week. Normally I wouldn’t be too keen on having an office-mate, but I adore Rashmi. She is one of these quiet, shy, sweet people - but ironically she has me in stitches half the time. We have a lot in common, and we laugh a lot - probably to the point of annoying other people on the hallway. She even takes my recycling home with her since the apartment complex where I live doesn’t provide recycling pickup. Blasphemy. After years of heavy-duty recycling training in the crisp, clean Pacific Northwest, I found it unbearable last week to throw away a plastic milk jug and several plastic soda bottles. Rashmi to the rescue!

Living in suburbia is so different from the City. I think I’ve been to Wal-Mart ten times since I got to Maryland two weeks ago. Why? Because I can. And I’ve been to Costco four times. And the grocery store many times. Last week I paid $1.79/lb. for green grapes. The same would’ve cost me $3.99/lb. at Food Emporium on 49th Street and 8th Avenue in NYC. (I went most of 15 months without eating grapes because I wasn’t going to pay that.) This week I paid 58 cents a roll for Charmin toilet paper – the big rolls – instead of a buck a roll for the skimpy sandpaper rolls. Oh, and the best deal of all—I got my usual 30-lb. bag of kitty litter for just $9.99 instead of $18.99. Yay! I can afford kitty litter again! Martin is oh-so-pleased.

Yesterday I took my portable hard drive to work to copy some key files over to my office computer. When I realized I had all my photos on that drive, I pulled up some of my favorite NY shots and set up one of the night shots of Times Square as my desktop wallpaper on my PC. That way I can still pretend I live in the City. I smile every time I look at that picture. I do miss NYC. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like my new life . . .

. . . which will finally be back to normal on March 3rd when I move into my new townhouse. No more moving!! I just want it to be over with so that I can have some sense of “home” and stability and security and…well, not moving!