my life is a series of merriments

Today I had to drop off something for work at a business, or area of town for that matter, that I had never been to before. The thing about Guam is that pleasantries like Mapquest don't exist and you really can't Google an address. You MIGHT be able to pull up an exact address on Google Maps and get a satellite view but never a street view of anything. Street names change randomly here, some streets have multiple names, house/business numbers go up and down without explanation if you can even find a number in the first place. You really just have to drive to the area of town and hope for the best.

I finally found the building I was looking for today after making myself carsick from trying to drive and read and look and turn around and drive and read and look some more. I pulled into the parking lot of what looked to be a two story office building. There were two doors, one on each end of the building. I chose the door that I parked nearest to. I knew the office that I was looking for was on the second floor so I headed for the stairs.

I got to the second floor and there was a door in front of me that led to an office (not the one I was looking for) or I had the option to go right and walk around the back of the building. So I headed to the right. I arrived at another set of doors that were locked. To my left were stairs going back down to the parking lot. I headed down those stairs. Unfortunately, there was a gate and it was locked (from the outside apparently because that makes sense). Son of a bitch. This same set of stairs continued down another flight so I went down another flight and ended up.... in the underground parking garage. At this point, I was pretty sure I was about to be murdered. I scurried over to another flight of stairs to my right. I took those stairs up to ground level and then continued up to the second floor. And whattya know?! There was the office I was looking for!

Whomever designed that building is an asshole.

dreams

I'm going to start posting about some of my dreams. Not my aspirations but my actual crazy ass dreams. So last night I dreamt that J had five children. (In real life he has no children.) I was having a conversation with one of them, a blonde haired, blue eyed boy with glasses, who was telling me that he didn't like J's last girlfriend and that he was happy that I was the one J chose. The weird thing about all this was that his kids were never all in the same room together so I didn't know who was who. I was worried because J was getting ready to go on a trip and I was going to be responsible for the kids but I didn't know who any of them were. I wanted to ask J for pictures, descriptions and names for each kid but I was too embarrassed. One of the girls, who was also blonde, was named Ivan. Yea, a girl named Ivan. Alrighty.

I have the weirdest, most vivid dreams. Last week I dreamt that my cousin Ben invited to go get pizza with him and Justin Timberlake. I wake up most mornings like what in the hell was that about?!

just a little update

So I quit my retail job today. I managed it for two months. Although it did make the time go by fast, no minimum wage job should stress a person out which is exactly what this job did for me. And having a discount at said retail job wasn't even a benefit because I never wanted to be in the store when I wasn't working. Anyway, so that's done and the job search continues....

We got a new restaurant opening on Guam! Applebees! Right next door to a Chili's and right down the street from a Ruby Tuesdays. Seriously? Whose idea was this? So gross. J and I did visit a newly opened restaurant called Papa's. The restaurant is beautiful and the entire back side of the restaurant is windows so there are incredible views of the island. They had a fancy lounge with a bar that smelled of mahogany and leather. Unfortunately, they also had some lounge singers that reminded me of The Culps from SNL:

Not only that but "The Culps" decided to let an old man sitting in the lounge sing a song. What is this? Karaoke? The man sounded like he had been smoking Marlboros since birth. Thank goodness our table became available just as this man was on the second line of "Georgia On My Mind." So while the atmosphere of this restaurant is super fancy, the food may be a little too quirky and fancy for the island. J's whipped potatoes tasted like pudding. My short rib ravioli seemed to come with a side of cat food. Criminalities!

a pox on your house

So I started working a part time retail job just to pass the time. Never again did I think that I would be working in the world of retail but, alas, here I am slinging for minimum wage. It does make the time go by faster and I've also lost weight from standing and moving around so much so there's a bonus.

Unfortunately, what comes hand in hand with working a retail job is that inevitably you will be dealing with disgruntled customers at some point. I made it a month before dealing with such nonsense. I had a lovely woman who became completely enraged with me. Why you ask? Is it because I punched her in the face? Or because I called her an old, fat hag?  No, no, no. It's because I asked her for her ID in order to process her return. Apparently, this is a strenuous activity. So, captain happy pants, hands me her ID and makes a comment about how she's never had to show her ID before. Riiiiiight because the store just started this policy yesterday. Which prompts her to say, "Oh, you must be new. This is just great." Like seriously, lady? During our interaction, there was nothing, absolutely NOTHING, about my temperament that warranted any nastiness from her. I was bubbly, then patient, then apologetic.

I get her return processed. Unfortunately, the computer puts part of her credit onto a store credit and, as a lowly sales associate, I can't tell the computer what to do.  It didn't make sense why the computer was doing this so I had to call over a manager who then called over another manager who then had to call a third manager. And do you want to guess who is taking the brunt of captain happy pants' frustration during this whole ordeal?  Yours truly. I was so angry that I was shaking by the time she shuffled away into the store to do some more shopping. Unbelievable.

OOG (only on Guam)

I attended a going away party for a friend that was leaving the island (lucky girl) and I met some of her friends. One of the couples shared a story with me that someone broke into their home here on Guam and stole some household items but also stole meat from the freezer. 

This same couple informed me that when the Superbowl is shown here on Guam, it is shown with local commercials. No fancy commercials like in the States. It wouldn't be so bad but the commercials here are a disaster. 

The local news channels also leave something to be desired. I've seen college news stations with better anchors and better graphics. The news here is very 'boom goes the dynamite'-esque. 

There has been a lot of trouble at the Department of Corrections here lately - some of the prison guards tested positive for crystal meth, there was a hole in the perimeter fence of the prison, and some prisoner escaped during a transport. Here's my question to the guy that escaped during transport - umm.. where are you going to go? You're on a 30 mile long island. Nice try. 

Anyway, so the local news has this big to do last week about uncovering more unfavorable footage of the Department of Corrections. They do this big dramatic build up about having secret footage and what not. I'm thinking it's going to be a inmate getting tased or something of the like. No, no, no. It was secret footage of an inmate giving one of the prison guards a foot massage. Wow. Groundbreaking. 

bad news and then great news

This afternoon I was determined to tackle our yard again. With so much rain, the grass already needs to be cut again. Not to mention that strip of grass under the spider web that I didn't touch on the last round. Before I could mow, I needed to clear the grass of coconuts and palm fronds. I also decided to sweep the carport and hose it down which led me to hosing down the front of the house. Why did I need to hose down the front of the house you ask? Snail poop. These damn snails are CLEARLY well fed. If you would have told me a year ago that I would be married, living in Guam, picking up coconuts from my yard, and cleaning up snail poop, I would have told you that you were nuts! Actually, I probably would have said, "What?! Snails don't poop!" 

ANYWAY, after all of that excitement I decided to tackle a tree on the side of our yard that has fallen forward and started to grow straight out into the yard. YAY!  It needed to be cut back quite a bit so that I can mow under it. I started hacking at it with the hedge trimmers and I encountered THREE banana spiders. I took branches that I had already cut and swatted them and their webs down. (I still feel like they're crawling on me.) However, I would not be deterred! I continued on and apparently got a little too violent in a tangle of branches because I got stung by something. In the face. So, yea, then I was done. 

A shower and a couple glasses of wine later (my face is fine by the way), I decided to tackle something else on my to-do-list. I'm still trying to get my dog to Guam. Once I had all of her paperwork done and received clearance from Guam's Department of Agriculture, all that I had to do was make her flight reservation. It was at that time that I found out that she can't fly out of my hometown's airport - she would have to be driven five hours one way to an airport that can put her on an international flight. So frustrating. I've been toying with how I could get her to said airport. 

So, as I was perusing this pet transport website tonight, I noticed that my hometown airport is listed as a drop off location for pets traveling in cargo. How is this possible? So I called. My hometown airport is a drop off point for pets but only for pets flying within the U.S. And then the light bulb went off. My husband is going to be at a major airport hub in the States in a couple weeks for training. I can fly my dog to him and then he can put her on an international flight to Guam!!! Now, I ask you, why in the heck didn't this pet transport company not think to suggest this to me before? (This was my third call to them.) I really hope this works. 

a classic case of Halloween costume procrastination

I am the worst Halloween costume procrastinator ever.

I think my most creative costume to date was junior year of college. Although, I'm pretty sure the costumes were not my idea. I was Marilyn Monroe and my bff was Marilyn Manson. Besides my defunct, tightly curled, unruly fro wig that made me look more like Dolly Parton and the fact that I forgot to draw on Marilyn's signature beauty mark, we had a pretty creative twosome.

Unfortunately, it seems at some point in my life my creativity has been stunted. I was always creative as a child and a teenager - taking art classes, making friendship bracelets, sewing sequins on EVERYTHING (I was the original bedazzler), making my own clothes- but I think my need to be a perfectionist killed my creativity.

I went to Kmart earlier tonight because their costumes are 75% off. As I'm searching through three rows of costumes and hoards of people, I finally settle on the zombie banana costume. "It will be funny," I think to myself. About that time someone comes on the loud speaker. "Attention Kmart shoppers, we are sorry for the inconvenience but all of our registers are experiencing technical difficulties." Augggghhhhh. You win, Kmart. You win.

So here it is the night before our friend's Halloween party and here I am Googling "costumes to make out of a cardboard box." (We still have a lot of boxes left over from the move). Luckily, as a backup, my husband loves Halloween and I have a few of his costumes that I can wear if all else fails.