I was talking to David on the phone while at work on Wednesday and was approached at my cubicle by an employee. Let's call him Zhong... ok, that's his real name. Gotta love it. He was waiting to ask me a question, so I asked David if I could put him on hold. I put him on hold and went about trying to help Zhong. I am the keeper of our infocus machine, basically a projector, and he came to get it from me for his meeting that was in 10 minutes. I opened my drawer to get it for him and it was gone. It wasn't supposed to be gone because people reserve it and are supposed to check it out when they come to get it, but there was no reservation for earlier in the day and no one had checked it out. I'll admit, Zhong seemed a little confused and I was too. I sent out a quick e-mail to everyone on our project (70 + people, including some in India who I was sure didn't have the machine) asking whoever took the infocus without signing it out to return it asap. Zhong was getting a bit agitated because he needed to go prepare for his meeting, so I told him I'd take care of it and either order another one for him or find my lost one. I proceeded to call Maintenance and order one, then as soon as I hung up the phone, I recieved an e-mail from one of the people I support saying that they took it and were going to bring it over to me. I called Maintenance back and cancelled my order and went to tell Zhong an infocus was on its way. My infocus was finally dropped off and I delivered it to the meeting. After this 10-minute rush of trying to find an infocus, I returned to my desk, plopped on my chair, and took a deep breath. I stared at my computer for a minute or two and then started checking my e-mail. I looked at my cell phone sitting on my desk next to my work phone to see if there were any text messages and there was one. It was from David: "FYI- I'm still on hold." I wracked my brain to think of why he might be on hold with someone and why he'd care to tell me. I'm on hold at various times throughout the day but never find it terribly exciting. I looked to see if he had sent a text message before that with a little more of an explanation. Then it came to me- I looked at my work phone and saw line 1 on hold. My poor husband! I picked it up and apologized, then explained my story. And that, my friends, is a sampling of my brain on work. 
Crackalackin' = happenin'. Tuesdays are what's happening because every Tuesday of the Summer our church (i.e. Me, "Pastor Dave") is having Crackalackin' Tuesdays in the park. Orginally this seemed like a good idea- a way to hang out with the kids and get them out of their houses. The good idea is actually not so great since it means 3 hours of the sun beating down as we attempt to entertain the unentertainable, play with the bored, and mediate the junior high drama that is inevitable amongst the generation with too much time on their hands. The only reason the majority come to hang out is because their parents wake them up ten minutes prior and drop them off for a little bit of childless fun. Free babysitting, right? I make it sound worse than it is because it seems worse than it is. It warrants a "Que barbaridad!" exclamation but not a "Que horrible!"
Today was especially difficult because it was precluded by our staff meeting which was precluded by mandatory morning devotions which was precluded by me waking up. Actually, today wasn't bad in itself; it just shouldn't have started when it did- in the morning. I think tomorrow I am going to pull a Monday and sleep til 11 or noon or maybe just until Thursday morning. Or maybe I'll just start drinking coffee again and stop complaining about lack of sleep... Okay, so Heidi just read that last sentence and gave me a titty twister and slapped my chest and reprimanded me by saying, "Coffee, bad! Coffee, bad! Coffee, bad!" I guess Yerba Mate will continue to be my caffeine of choice. Coffee is so much more delicious than tea, though.
"We need to discuss dinner," says the wife, which means my blog-time is over. Maybe the dinner will be crackalackin'.
Some of the people in my department are working on an element of our technology project named 3CPO. Sound like something else you have heard of?
I greatly enjoy hearing people mix the name up and talk about C-3PO throughout the day. They usually catch themselves and laugh, but there are rare times when they continue talking seriously about "C-3PO". They're just asking for that error by naming something 3CPO. It makes me smile.
Update 7/18: Heard today> "I don't want everything going to C3PO!"
"Don't you call me a mindless philosopher you overweight glob of grease!"My biggest pet peeve of all times has to be the sound of chewing. That pretty much means if you chew with your mouth open as a habit, I cannot associate myself with you at meal or snack times. If you are one of those people who chew with a closed mouth, but do a couple of open chews every 30 chews, I may share a meal with you as long as there is something to distract me from the sound. The reason I am pointing this out right now is because I am at work and a couple of cubicles over there is a person not just chewing loudly, but smacking their gum. The thing about gum chewing is that there is no end. On occasion the person in the cubicle opposite of me eats her lunch and makes terrible chewing sounds, but I always know it will only last a few minutes and try to tough it out. This particular gum-chewing individual is greatly enjoying his gum and I don't know that there is an end in sight. When his present piece of gum runs out of flavor, he may replace it and resume the chewing. I just don't know. I called David to see if I can kill some of the smacking time and fill my ears with talking, not smacking, but he is busy at Crackalackin' Tuesday (Jr. High/Highschool weekly summer hangout). I decided to start humming to myself and it works, but I realized I don't want people to hear me. My hum turned into a half whistle- pretty much whistling minus the noise, so I am basically just blowing air out of my mouth to a melody. That works pretty well, I suppose, but I'd rather be able to sit silently to myself and enjoy the daily foot traffic noises unpolluted by SMACKING. Oh! I think he has stopped! Or maybe just left his cubicle for a moment- or an hour-long meeting! What a blessing. So to you smacking, open-mouth chewers- I am sorry we will never be able to share a meal. Maybe someday when I am old and gray and my hearing is gone...
Mondays are our day off and today we had a very slow start to the day. We got up around 11 this morning and finished watching The Bourne Identity while eating breakfast (vanilla soy milk and cereal- Nature's Path Organic Smart Bran to be exact- David calls it rabbit pelletts, but he likes it!). 
We had started The Bourne Identity last night and then pooped out around the middle and decided to go to bed. Then I organized my jewelry box- it was very exciting. I like to clean and organize things to relax. Seriously. David did some internet surfing and took both of our cars to be washed. Isn't he a sweetie? (yes) We finally got out of the house around 3:30. Yes, I was in my pjs until 3pm.
We decided to go to Santa Rosa for the evening and went to East West Cafe for dinner (http://www.eastwestcafesantarosa.com/). It was delicious AND nutritious. You know how sometimes you go out to dinner and just feel like a big blob of food when you leave? We felt great after eating because it was tasty, healthy food. Pretty exciting. I got the Chicken Teriyaki and David got the Sea Kabob. We recommend both. The hummus is good too. It came with David's dinner. We love hummus. After dinner we went to the Verizon store to look at phones and accessories. I ordered the new LG Chocolate Black Cherry phone yesterday (http://estore.vzwshop.com/chocolate/) and picked out a Bluetooth earpiece at the store. No, I am not one of those people who always has the new phone or iPod. I happened to check my Verizon account yesterday and saw that I was eligible for a new phone with the New Every Two deal! I had no idea it was time for a new phone already. So I got a new phone free. I'm pretty excited. The most exciting thing about the phone is that it is the same color as my bridesmaid dresses were. : )
Gosh. If only those phones were out when we got married. They would have made great gifts for the bridesmaids...
For dessert we went to Yogurt Farms which is always a treat. I love frozen yogurt, probably more than ice cream, even though I am lactose intollerant and my body doesn't like frozen yogurt- my tastebuds do. Their peanut butter frozen yogurt is the best. I always try the other flavors when we get there and then just end up getting peanut butter. David is more adventurous than I.
We're back at home now and will be heading to bed soon. It was a nice, relaxing, delicious day after a lot of busy days. It's always nice to actually feel rested and relaxed before starting another work week. Back to the grind tomorrow... Goodnight!
Our house is cute, but it has walls that are paper thin and the windows are as old as Abraham Lincoln's mom. Sound doesn't just travel, but it seems to amplify, especially when we are trying to sleep. We are used to it by now, and we sleep through most noises, but a few months ago, the ungodly noises we were hearing outside our bedroom window almost drove me to use my machete on a murder of crows...
Shortly after the neighbors chopped their tree down, we began hearing a horrible squawking noise- as if a crow with pneumonia was being choked to death. This noise kept waking us up when we didn't want to be awake (when we were sleeping) and so finally I began to search. Looking directly outside our bedroom window, I saw a full nest in the bushes growing over the neighbor's fence. In the nest, 3 young crows were squawking almost continually. 
Apparently, the neighbors chopped down the tree and thought they would do a good deed of preserving the crows by placing their nest right outside our bedroom window. My brother gave me a double-edged machete that I keep by my bed and I was tempted to chop the crows to pieces but my animal-loving wife talked me out of it. We waited and waited and within a few weeks, the crow-babies had somehow disappeared. I think maybe they got old enough to fly away and start their own nests, but they probably we just eaten by one of the Petaluma river possums. Anyway, we sleep again. The moral of the story: Don't chop down trees and if you need to, don't put crows outside your neighbor's window.
FACT: Their are many different collective nouns (words describing a group of something) for different animals. A group of crows is called a "murder." Another good collective noun is a "smack" of jellyfish.
We almost blew up last night!! Sort of. "Gas leak shuts 6 blocks after backhoe hits line" (http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20070713/NEWS/707130429/1033/NEWS01) ... and our house is a part of those six blocks. David and I had dinner at my parents' house last night and as we were there, his mom called to make sure we were all right and told David there was a gas leak. We didn't think much of it but were made aware that some streets were blocked off. Then as we drove home David checked his messages and got one from a Jr. Higher's parent saying that we might be evacuated and could have dinner with them and stay at their house. I was really hoping that we weren't evacuated, but it was a sweet offer. The Jr. Highers' parents take good care of us. : ) When we got home, our street was blocked off just a bit past our house. We asked the cop on the street if we could go home and he said "At your own risk. Just don't have any bonfires in the backyard". Of course I was paranoid that we would blow up, but David assured me we were safe. We cleaned up the house a bit and got ready for bed and then around 9:30 our bedroom starting stinking of gas- from the gas leak- not us. We decided we didn't want to sleep inhaling that all night and headed back to my parents' house for the night. We both slept like rocks. I forget how nice it is to sleep when it is quiet, rather than having semis and motorcycles passing your house through the night. I had a VERY hard time getting out of bed this morning, but I did make it to work... that's where I am right now- shhh (written earlier, posted later). Don't tell. So that was our eventful night. The joys of living in the bustling activity of downtown Petaluma. 
There's a bonus photo of us in Mendocino- piggyback ride on the beach
