Um mistério.....

So traveling to Rio with a group of guys has been very illuminating for me...... It has given me both some key learnings and a new puzzle.

First, after seeing what I have seen, I would never let a man I was dating or married go to Rio alone or with his boys. And I mean NEVER, EVER, EVER! Being with a bunch of guys gave me a unique experience of being a fly on the wall. If a guy wants, he could easily have a different beautiful woman to sleep with every night that he is in the city...EASILY, as long as they have the money for it. I saw grown men act like kids in a candy store. So, I would strongly question the motives of any man going to Brazil without a woman.

Second, the biggest mystery of all to me is how the country can produce so many beautiful women and so-so looking men!?!?!? I really don't understand it. All over beautiful woman and, with one or two notable exceptions (including the one in my pictures below), the men were not really that great looking. Maybe all of the good looking men are in a different part of the country that I have yet to explore. So while it was the land of milk and honey for the guys in the group, it was not the same for the women. But hey, I guess you only really need one, right? ;-)

But what this meant was while the men were busy recuperating from their evening activities, the women were a little restless and exasperated at spending half the day waiting to do something. This was the first time that the trip organizers had ever had women on their trip and they learned a little bit about the differences in how women and men travel!

No alto do mundo!

On our last day there the weather cleared up, so we went to Corcovado. For those who are unaware, Corcovado has a giant scupture of Jesus that sits atop the peak, overlooking Rio. It is quite a spectacular sight. To get there, you take a trolley car up a 45 degree incline up the side of the mountain until you get to the top. And, as you can see, the views are breathtaking!

How do you spice up a rainy day in Barra?

Can you say caipirinha?? Oh, and some food, of course.

It was a good birthday!

Feliz aniversario a mim!

So, I celebrated my __ birthday in Rio! The group had a party that just happened to be on my actual birthday to celebrate everyone in the group who's birthdays were in October and November. But since it was on my actual birthday, I commandeered the party for myself! ;-) And, it was a great opportunity for me the wear this fabulous top I have had for a few years and requires a special occasion to wear it. What do you think?

Terra e mar!

Despite the rain and clouds, we did manage to get some nice landscape shots while in Rio....

I have been holding out on you....

I had one more trip planned before I was "restructured," and I just got back from it. Boy, do I want to go back! Especially, since it is cold here now!

I planned to celebrate my birthday in Brazil this year and went with a group (some friends, some new friends) to Rio for 7 days. The trip had its challenges, including plumbing problems in our apartment and 3 days of rain, but in the end I had a good time! Let me show you what I am talking about!

My new purchase....

I decided that I am sick of having black luggage that it is hard for me to pick out from all the other black suitcases at baggage claim. So I went in search of a more colorful option! Others are on to this and there seem to be some popular colors that have become prevalent on the carousels these days, namely red or royal blue. I was looking for something more distinctive. I saw a light blue set but knew that they would become filthy after the first trip or two... So I continued my search, on and off, until I found them! There they were... sitting there in the front of the store at TJ Maxx. They were calling my name and I had to have them! A set of wonderful looking ballistic nylon PURPLE luggage.

Now anyone who knows me knows that I have a weakness for purple. And I admit, things just loom better to me in purple, which I understand is not entirely rational. And it is not all shades of purple. I prefer plum toned purples as opposed to grape toned ones, or in other words, purples with more red than blue. And I am a relatively recent liker of lavender since I am just getting over my general dislike for pastel colors. Okay, enough of the purple talk. Here is my new luggage!

Now why, you ask, am I buying new luggage????

My run in with the po-po

One little detail I left out from my trip.....

I got pulled over by the po-po! It was actually pretty ridiculous and how the police decide that we needed to be stopped when there were tons of underaged kids walking around with open containers just a couple blocks away is beyond me but.... let me tell you how it all went down.

Some old classmates and I decided that we had to go to this great restaurant in town, that has since been acclaimed by Gourmet magazine as one of the 50 best restaurants in the country. So, after a day of walking around campus and shopping on the main drag, we met up at the restaurant for a great dinner. It was relatively early so we were able to get a table for 6 with no problem. We drank mango/lemongrass and lychee martinis and ate on tea-smoked salmon bento boxes, sweet potato samosas and lamb. Yum!

Then, when it was time for us to leave, I offered to drive everyone to their cars that were a mile or two across campus. So we all piled into my car to head back. Now, my car is roomy but not that roomy for 6 full grown adults and only 2 could sit in the front, so the married couple "sacrificed" and one sat on the others lap.

I was driving carefully, obeying all traffic laws and all of a sudden I saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror so I pulled over. This cop walked up to my window and asked for my license and registration and went back to his car. Now, while he was checking my "record" we noticed that 2 other cars pulled up and that one cop was standing by the back door with his hand on his revolver in the holster. I mean, come on! This is a group of 30-something MBAs who just spent $400 on dinner. What are we going to do???

The cop came back and said that the reason that he had pulled me over is because I had a "gazillion" people (his words, not mine) in the car. I told him that I was just taking them back to their cars at the business school and was becoming keenly aware that I probably had about 7-10 years on this guy. The other cop came over and asked if this was "a bet." What kind of bet would that be??

Anyway, he obviously let me go with a warning and a feeling of contempt at what a waste of tax dollars that was.....

Spur of the moment trip...

Okay... I am so behind on my blogging we are just going to pretend that these posted on the dates they say they did.... (and that I am not typing without my right index finger that I just hurt in the garage door -- you will just have to read ahead to find out about that!)

Anyway.....

This past Friday, I got a call at about 11am from some good friends of mine from grad school. You see this past weekend was homecoming and my class's 5 year reunion. I had been toying with the idea of going but hadn't really committed to anything. But when I got the call, and realized that I hadn't seen some of these folks in 5 years, I started thinking......why not?? A couple friends said that I could stay with them and it is not like I had a job to be stuck at on a friday afternoon. So, I arranged for someplace for the dog to stay and was on the road in about 3 hours!

Six and a half hours later I was pulling into a parking space to meet folks at an infamous local bar in the town I went to grad school in. Whew!

I actually didn't go to any of the official events or the football game but got to see and hang out with some really great folks and go to dinner at my favorite restaurant there, which has since been recognized by Gourmet magazine. Now, I remember why I liked grad school so much!

Oh, the other thing, it seems that aside from working, my classmates have also spent the time having kids! The majority of them seem to have two which makes me feel like I have been really unproductive....

The flip flop dilemma

I have developed a silver flip flop obsession..... Probably because they match my toes and just seem a color that seems less casual than other flip flops. (See!)

However, I have run into an issue. My favorite (and only) pair of silver flip flops seems to be breaking and I can't find a replacement pair because they are out of season and the company isn't making them right now, or the place I buy them from isn't selling them. So I decided to look for alternatives. It is better to have a back up pair anyway!

I looked at tons of pairs and I don't like any of them as much as the pair I had but I decided to try a pair in an effort to be openminded. And since Zappos.com has free next day shipping, I didn't have to wait long.

Here were my choices:

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Initially, I was just going to go with number 2 but they are so casual and completely flat. I do like the thin profile of the straps though. Number 3, forget about it! So shiny and pink! Yuck! I didn't love number 1 but when I tried them on, they were sooooo comfortable, and they have this little arch support thing so I am willing to overlook the green accents.

So now I have 2 new pairs of silver flip flops but i still like the old ones the best so I think I am going to try to get them fixed!

Don't be shy!

So, when all this stuff was first brewing with my job, I wasn't really talking about it with anyone except close friends. But since it has become official, and the news publicized, I have readily been talking about the layoff when asked. And I have been getting help from the most unlikely sources....

I had mentioned my situation at the place where I take my dog for daycare and the owner asked me to send him my resume. "I am always hearing about things," he said. What the heck!

Also, my aunt called me the other night and said that one person she talked to asked that she send me their contact info and another, who I met before, asked about me when he heard about the news at my company and said that he might be able to find something for me to do at least temporarily at his company if need be....

You never know where help might come from. You just have to leave no stone unturned. You never know where it will lead...

Job search chronicles, Days 8-9

I am balancing guilts right now.... procrastinators guilt, shoppers guilt, emotional eaters guilt..... all my bad habits are manifesting themselves these days. At least I am exercising! I have managed not to do very much on the job search the past two days and I am feeling a little bad about that. Yesterday was spent working on real estate stuff --trying to work on this business with my investment property, so I guess I can't feel too bad about that. That does have a financial payoff. But today....... after meeting with my former co-workers for the second job searchers breakfast, I decided to head over the the mall. You see, to this point, my laptop has been set up downstairs in front of a big TV. This is because 1) when I was working, it was primarily used for recreation and 2) I couldn't get very good wi-fi signal in my office upstairs (I think there are some old concrete walls lined with wire mesh or something that interferes with the signal) I recently bought these wireless repeaters to hopefully extend the reach of the signal into the office but have not really tested it extensively. So I decided that I need to move my butt into my office so that I can have a space where I can have distinct, dedicated job search time, without a TV or Tivo to distract me. Which brings me to my shoppers guilt.....


A couple weeks ago, I was looking in the Pottery Barn catalog that they so sneakily sent to my house, and I saw this really cool charging station. It basically have a drawer with a shelf on top and in the back are holes that you can thread the charging cords through. Then, in the back, you plug them in to an internal surgeprotector thing and the cord of the surge protector comes out of a hole in the back panel and it plugged into the wall. I said to myself "I need that! That is cool!"

It comes in black which is the color I like.

And then I noticed that it is a part of a collection that has a matching desk. Another thing about my office is that the filing is over flowing. Partially because I don't do it often, but also because my filing cabinet has seen better days. It got beaten up in one of my moves. Also, the door on my desk has become misaligned and doesn't close anymore. It is one of those inexpensive, vinyl coated, pressboard desks but it has served it's purpose for a few years. But now, I think I have outgrown it. So I was considering getting a grown-up real desk to spruce up my work space and solve a few space problems.



So, after breakfast, I decided to head over to the Pottery Barn store to see if they had one of the desks in the store that I could see..... they did..... And I liked it.... A lot.... I thought that it might be the kind of thing that would have to be delivered so I asked the sales lady what the benefit was to me to get it from the store. Well, they load the stuff in your car and you have NO shipping cost, which would be 10% of the purchase price. Um yeah, I would say that is definitely a benefit. I also had this girt card that some old co-workers had given me over a year ago when I was changing jobs and bought my new house so it could help defray the cost a little. So I bought it. It will help me be more productive, right? Turns out after I bought everything, the sales lady told me that one of the end pieces was actually not in stock so they would have to get it shipped to the store for me to pick up in about a week so I won't be able to set it all up until then :-( So then, after I was leaving the store, I felt guilty, not so much because of the money I spent (only partially) but because I spent most of my afternoon shopping for this thing. (Oh, did I also forgot to mention that I stopped at Williams-Sonoma on my way out!...) I will admit though, that I am a bit of an emotional shopper, something that I probably shouldn't be doing much of since I don't have a job!

Also, the past couple days I have been eating in a very balanced way. Well, Monday started pretty good. I have leftovers from my dinner on Sunday for lunch but from the evening on it has been the pits.... I had guacamole and chips and apple pie (and drinks at the show) for dinner, a late night snack of scrambled eggs with smoked turkey and cheddar cheese when I got back from the show, yogurt with granola and honey for breakfast today and apple pie for lunch/snack. Not a good thing and I have healthy things in the house because I just went grocery shopping....

Okay well, enough beating myself up. Knowing is half the battle, right? Tomorrow is another day and an opportunity to refocus!

A little slice of hip hop heaven...

Last night, I went to go see Q-Tip and Common in concert. Hey, there has to be some benefit to being out of work! I can easily go to concerts on a Monday night now!

It was great! Although the clarity of the acoustics could have been a little better, they both put on a great show! I wish Q-Tip's set was a little longer but Common assembled a great collection of old hits and all the good songs from his current album.

The venue was general admission and the floor is standing only but we found a great little spot at the end of the side bar that stayed unobstructed because it was by the stage door and the VIP seating. No worries about someone really tall standing in front of you or being knocked into by people. And, we could order drinks whenever we wanted and had the bar to lean on. It was a GREAT concert!