The Land of Good Intentions

Don't even get me started about new years...I don't know what happened but it just didn't feel special or significant this year. Anybody who knows me, knows that I tend to start on about how I don't do resolutions and all that crap. Maybe I should have just to liven things up a bit. *laughs* Ok, maybe not.

You know, what I did do was cook. The original plan had been for a bunch of nibblies for what I had expected to be a movie fest but with the weather being just icky, I really didn't feel like making the extra trip out just to get the mats that I had in mind. Luckily it was perfect for making a big pan of baked ziti! The Diva was also quick to remind me that I promised a new years cheesecake. Why? Because the Christmas one was a bit of a wash. I had no graham crackers and tried to improvise with a cereal crumb crust which was....jagged. Pretty tasty, but a hazard for tender palates. The girls pounced on the cheesecake way too soon out of the oven and declared it something along the lines of like eating rice pudding...without the rice. This was a very good thing! It was pretty damn good cold too so huzzah! My cheesecake skills never let me down.

Looking back in the year of my bloggery, it's been disheartening to see how little I do it. Good intentions is what came to mind when it came time to considering this post. I hate when I'm the one who had them and don't lead them on to fruition.  I didn't want think in terms of resolutions but what resolutions should be - habits formed. I always vow to do more writing. I should maybe consider myself a writer but I don't. Is it something I need to work on? Is it a mind state I don't feel or even feel I deserve. I don't know, to be honest. That being said, I'm going to try writing - be it here, in journal or thoughts in an email every day.

It's funny, saying that, when I know I pretty much didn't do it yesterday. Already I've missed and failed. No! No I haven't! I've picked up the next day and embraced the challenge because I'm here now. Trust me, there have been too many times when I've become discouraged too easily and given up. Now that, my friends, is a habit worth breaking.

Where am I going to go from here? It's hard to say - there's definitely this fear that my scattered mind also has the dark cloud of worry that things I want to share are really just too stupid to share. Like the very childlike ornaments I made for Christmas. Do I dare share them, are other things I've made too...basic for public viewing. I think I must have a really shabby chic decorator's eye.  No, make that no eye - I'd like to change that. I'd like to embrace holidays I enjoy and show it in the house. I want to come up with ideas to better organize my house, make it a place I'm comfortable with people entering.

In the end, it all comes round to wanting something....what is that something...maybe it's order in the chaos of my mind.

Oh the Meh!

This is really bothering me so hopefully getting things off my chest will make things right in the world...that is until everyone affirms that my customer service mojo is just all kinds of wrong. That happens, there may be tears.

My dislike of 3rd party bookings is probably well documented. Really, they're horrible. Lately a lot of them have been coming in via fax without actually being in the system. How the heck does that happen??? It's not that I mind manually putting them in, but crikey - it's going to cause a huge issue some day, that's all. And really, that's neither here nor there in regards to this problem guest. Beyond the fact that yes, 3rd party. Now, there was an issue where the housekeeper missed that they had taken down their DND and so their room never got cleaned  - clerk on duty scrambled and made a quick pick up job of it which made them happy.

Apparently not. Actually - at check out, the gentleman who came to the desk was amiable enough about it all - he thanked us for taking care of the room, I apologized and we were good. Went on my merry way - no huge issues which makes for a very good day! And then this harpy of woman comes up - nothing was right...the lobby toilet wouldn't flush, it rained, oh wah-wah-wah....I honestly think this woman was gunning for a freebie.  So she throws down this "we won't be staying here again" gauntlet.  Not only are my hands tied, but since you don't want to stay here again, I can't really offer a discount of any sort for a next stay - not that she wanted it. She wanted to stay for free. So...good riddance.  There really wasn't a point in explaining 3rd parties to her cause, really, she wouldn't care.

Still...it bothers me to the pit of gut.

 This afternoon's been pretty quiet so far but I got a call that makes me think it's me sometimes. Reservation wanted, best deals and all that great stuff. I work out a discounted rate and the caller's a freaking travel agent...if you can get better deals as a professional, go for it. Why harass me about it? She was a bit difficult to understand too - I'd say either drunk or on something. Really leaning towards her being on something. Not a great time to go around reserving rooms.

She could have saved us both a lot of trouble by saying she had a set rate with us.  Though now that I've talked with her, I'm going to find out why. She doesn't stay with us a lot and really comes off like a nasty person. We have enough of those here paying better rates!

Ugh...there goes my gut again.  Please be kind!

Just Freaking Snapped

I'm a bit of a mixed bag right now and hopefully the memory is a touch fuzzy now that I'm home and properly medicated with a cup of froyo.  Is there such a thing as medicinal froyo - raspberry tart on top of NY cheesecake with graham sprinkles, walnuts and coconut, I might add.

Before we got to that point, I really was having a good day - honest! But then I get this call for a guy who wants five rooms, preferring five queens, even though they were for only two people.  Not really odd - plenty of couples prefer two beds or a company has two people sharing rooms...that's nothing to raise eyebrows over. There was something about this guy though.... Anyhow - he didn't like my price quotes and said he was going to just go through that famous 3rd party that in the past has featured...a famous face. Ha! Did I give myself away?

Anyhow, that gut feeling went through the charts - he was going to say rooms for two people, get put in king rooms and then expect us to put him in queens. No biggie?  Well yes, there's a difference, even on a 3rd party site, you're paying more for a room with two queen beds than you are for a single king. Even 3rd party rooms show that a king room with a couch is going to be more than a standard king.

So of course, he makes the reservations that way - saying only two people per room and gets put into king rooms.  Shows up...not only with adults but a passel of kids.  Jerk didn't even count them.  Doing that would have put him in his precious two queen rooms...at the two queen room rate.

Ass...he thought he was going to get those room as a free upgrade.

I'm so glad he didn't.

 

I May Be A Prodigal Son* But....

I feel more like a fatted calf....

My Grandmother has been visiting (living?) with my parents for some time now and originally the plan was that she and Mom would head this way for a visit.  Somehow I've either been talked into...or this weird moment of logic hit - you guys can decide....  And I'm headed East to NC to visit my family.

To put it mildly....I'm nervous.  How sad is that - you go almost a decade without visiting family and suddenly are a big pansy baby about it.  It's silly, I know that and yet ...meh....

I suppose I'm really just a homebody - I like being able to go home from work and just get into the rhythm of my family.  To minimize issues at work, I'm going on what would be my days off from it....unfortunately, that means all the stuff I get to do on my days off can't be done.  My days off are prime days to spend with E, who spends far too much time on his own - they're also the days I get to make lunches and fix hair - the moments of mommyhood that I miss out on with my early to work schedule. That being said, I take care of everyone in my family...leaving them just....feels very wrong.  Even if I did slave about getting some meals tucked into the freezer for easy prep so E or even the Elfling know what's available for dinner (without having pizza every night I'm gone) and can put it together easily.

One of my biggest hurdles to overcome with this trip is dealing with the travel.  I'm not so much afraid to fly as I am of small areas filled with people. Sounds funny coming from someone who's traveled overseas, right?  But I'm sure it's documented that I do NOT use on board loo's....that small an enclosed space....just thinking about it makes me queasy.

Nonetheless, my backpack's got the essentials - lapper, charger for my phone and emergency chocolate rations and my carry on's got some clothes.  After work, it's straight to the airport!

Who knows - maybe I'll have something new to add about going through security.  After all, I've got liquids this time.  Following that 3-1-1 rule, of course...god, I hope.  I may break into loud weeping otherwise.

*Btw, I realize I'm a daughter, not a son, but come on - you know what I'm talking about here.... (:

Frustrations

I know my situation isn't a unique one so if I come off as bitching like I'm the only one who has to go through this, forgive me, skip the post, whatever.

This morning I got a call from someone at E's neurosurgeon's office because they couldn't get a hold of him.  No biggie, he generally doesn't answer the phone unless he has to so I figured he didn't recognize the number and ignored it.  So I call to relay the message and *I* can't get a fucking hold of him.  Argh!  So frustrating. 

That is the story of my life these days.  I work all day, come home to a housework, dinner, homework with the kids and quite frankly?  I don't do as good a job of it with ANY of it.  Fuck, I feel like a failure. I'm sitting here bored at work and right now it just has me in tears.  I SHOULD be at home.

 My home is a house - a messy house that I'm too freaking tired to clean properly.  After school, I should be there - I want to be there to have a snack with my kids, to be there for homework time - to suggest an article for the Elfling to do her weekly current events paper on - to nudge the Diva into writing about a book she read to turn into her class.  Dinner shouldn't be some frantically thought up thing based on something that E hopefully took out to thaw.  Yeah, in light of a time when we hear of so many people who's dinners come from fast food day in and day out - thank god I'm cooking...but I just wish it weren't so frenetic and depressing all rolled into one. 

I know, I know...baby steps and setting up routines is the way to go but what do you do when you're too bloody tired for even that?

...That the Joke was on Me....

How many of you guys get that line - that it's a song lyric?  I don't know that it's actually a reflection of things so much is that it's a song that sounds depressing to me and that, my friends, is now I'm feeling right now.  It's been super busy at work these days.  We had someone quit and that kinda bungled up the schedule and then last week, i got one day off (Friday) and was back to work the next day.  So we have me here today, just dying for some more time, which I will get in the form of a four day weekend. A MUCH needed one, I might add.

I really do like my job, even when people are a pain.  Gods, the stories I could tell you - particularly about a certain sports team that stayed with us.  But to be honest?  I just don't have the heart for it right now cause the last couple of days have been rough and I think it's my own doing.  I've been having issues with a particular process - I guess you could say that I've struggled with it from the start though it never got this out of hand.  I'm no longer so new that these mistakes are acceptable and it's become very frustrating.  For my boss. Trust me, I don't blame him in the least - Im' frustrated too and more than just a little disappointed in myself. 

I've doubled down on my notes, taking new ones and adding to my old ones as needed.  With my long weekend, I'm going to use the online training features to shore up my shakiness as well because I definitely need it. One of my biggest problems is that I simultaneously get ahead of myself and freak out, so my notes include this:

Take the time to look at things. 

To be certain of what you are doing and where your actions will take you.

I should have perhaps added stuff about staying calm and to remember to breathe. 

Ugh..maybe the joke IS on me.

It's the Fourth....Tra-la-la

What's a real shame is what today really means to people.  Before I left for Germany back in 2004, I was listening to a program where someone was going around asking people about the significance of today and the answers were shocking.  It's not about the weekend long sales, the fireworks display, the picnics and bbqs.  It's about celebrating the birth of this nation!

Of course...I'm sure I had some sort of speech that would have had me standing up before my keyboard, heart filled with pride and awe for the nation's history and all that jazz but dear gods...I'm just too tired to try to recreate the feeling I had hours ago. 

"Krieger-San, my cherry blossoms are wilting!"  Yeah...I just had to softball a lil Archer in here...Wilting indeed, only I'm the blossoms. Bloody hell, it's just barely past noon and already I cannot WAIT to get my ass home, nearly naked and just...dead on the couch. 

How is it today was harder than yesterday - there were more checks outs then than today and yet...ugh...people today have just left me downright knackered.  Let's see if we can count the ways...

People who come in at peek checkout hour wanting to see a room.  They're part of a group that's going to be staying with us and yet was not entirely clear (to themselves) what name(s) the group was under.  Bless their hearts, I was running my arse off and they remained quite patient about it. 

I'm still not sure partially eaten tin of Danish butter cookies is peace offering enough after yelling at me cause prices aren't what you expected.  Or that infernal tapping while I frantically tried to sort the problem out while dealing with the phone. 

When checking out of multiple rooms...seriously...you should make sure that EVERYBODY in those rooms is AWAKE and LEAVING!  Saves the maid having a heart attack when she goes to clean a checked out room only to find bodies still on the floor. 

I don't get how someone can call here, speak really good English and want to talk to someone who's Spanish speaking.  Dude, if you know enough to understand ask, perfectly about rooms, it's not much more than that to make a bloody reservation.  However, since you do want assistance, accept that you're going to be on hold with our reservation line - they will help you!  Stop hanging up on them and calling me in hopes that I've magically learned enough Spanish to be fluent enough to help you!!

Oh and the worst of the bunch....my boss was being a regular Dante Hicks. I think I would have burst out laughing when he told me he wasn't supposed to be here today but since he was growling all pissed off about it, I instead was on edge and just waiting for him to sprout a second head and bite mein off.  Wait, I mean him biting my only head, not that I have a second one for him to bite off.  Ironically enough, he was damn chipper after leaving when he called to ask me to check on something....bugger.

ugh...so this post has just turned into one great big bitchfest...I feel a bit better though...getting all that crap off my chest.  What do you guys thing....am i being a bitchy fae, a bad worker fae or just...a fae who managed to smile sweetly, greet enthusiastically and be overall cheerful despite the stressful morning.  Ugh...prolly a combo of all three....

Habitual Habits

This is something that has been bothering me for quite some time - of how hard it is to get into a good habit, how easy it is to break and how VERY easy it is to start back up with bad habits. 

This time last year I'd managed to to start a very good habit of writing just a little bit everyday.  Well, by everyday, I mean four or so times a week.  Sometimes I'd eke out the time during quiet moments at work and sometimes, I'd get that 15 minutes of quiet that would manage to stretch to 30 or 40 minutes.  It was just blissful for me - such an accomplishment.  Until we realize that when I write, I do so on pen and paper instead of at my computer which has left me with partial notebooks filled with script that goes from relatively neat to downright illegible and littered with lil doodles.  Gods bless my friends for their encouragement - to get me back into the writing bug but it's really been slow going. I think the fact that I'm sitting here right now, doing just that, writing here is a start but I really think the habit I also need to form is getting the typing down. 

Looking over things, I think I have to admit, I can be a bit OCD about some things and not just about how i load and unload my grocery cart (thus being a bit picky about how i put the bags back in and load them into the truck for the ride home) -I like to have some aspects of my day scheduled out.  That's why I'm up at 5am nearly every morning.  I don't like a bit rush to work so getting up early allows me to indulge in the quiet of  taking care of Meister Penguin! or farming.  Much like how I like to do a load of laundry a day (hard to do with no kids around lol) or my lists of things to do that i make out nearly every day. It's a bit of rigidity in my free flowing way. 

My irritation at getting some actual typing done has lately increased because I've found myself really working on proper hydration.  Specifically at work, I've found that every time I get up, I stop to sip my water.  I was doing that this morning and couldn't help but berate myself.  Why this and not that? 

I think I need to stop beating myself up about it.  I work, in what some circles consider, a full time job.  I do most the housekeeping, all the laundry, nearly all the cooking and take care of my family.  If I'm a lil tired after all that, then maybe I shouldn't stress over yet another thing.

And of course, try to get some of that damn typing up tomorrow....my day off.  lol

Baby Bird Metaphor

I can't say I really noticed there was a nest under Gambit's tree till this evening, when I needed to find it.  See, it's spring and part of the course of nature is baby birds.  Baby birds who soon start to learn to fly and sometimes, it seems, they fall.  Right into the clutches of my dog who's doing her thing – in this case taking advantage of easy prey.  Other birds, bigger and more experienced, can fly away.  I'm not sure how it came to be but the girls informed me of a bird, a baby bird, twitching in our yard and to be honest, I'm just not brave enough to face something like that.  Figuring since E was a former boy scout, he'd be able to figure something out beyond leaving the poor thing as puppy snack and he actually brought it into the house and it kinda freaked me out.  I don't know what to do for a bird, I have dinner I'm trying cook and then the truth hits me.  I'm scared of the bird and what it represents.

The baby bird metaphor.  This isn't my first run in with one since back when E was in the military the Elfling and I once came across the queerest sight of a form with a beak and nearly transparent skin.  I honestly don't remember much in the way of feathers but it was a very recently hatched bird that somehow found its way to my parking spot.  I managed to scoop it up and put it in a small container and in our area, we had a local bird sanctuary that said they'd take it.  It was such a relief to put the bird into hands that knew far more than me as to what to do and my report when I left was that it was had actually eaten some.  I don't know whatever became of that bird but I do like to think that it went on be fine.

This bird today reminded me how fragile it was.  How fragile life is and in the end, it seems, how fragile I can be.  The nest, as I said, was in Gambit's tree where we buried him when he died about a year ago.  To be honest, I still have a lot of guilt about not seeing sooner how sick he was, that I was too late to get him well.  I don't know how this plays in the grand scope of this post but a year later and I still miss him dearly.

I think this bird represents just how thin, how frayed the rope of my nerves can be.  You would think having a blog would be an outlet for what goes on but I've found the more depressed I am, the closer I hold it in.  It only took one thing – one more worry and responsibility for me to snap for the night.  I cried because it scared me, the thought of having this creature die in my backyard, to know it was vulnerable to my dog which is like me withering under the blanket I try to smother my feelings in.  I think, even now, if I could exchange my life so that it could go on, I would.  At least then I'd not failed at it.  At something.

Tension

My neck’s knot has a tentacle that slithers along my spine

Each step taken sends it coiling about, digging into flesh and bone

Turning to an iron grip that brings me near to tears

Eyes close with a shuddered whimper as focus sets in

The rise of steam, the pummel of hot water as it coaxes

Soothing the sore, the tension to a higher state of relaxation

Just breathe, slow breaths

In through nose, out through mouth

And take in the clean scent of soap

Turn about and hold your breath

To let the deluge fall over your face

And shiver to the cold in back

For a moment a mother’s daughter

Laments at cluster of an adult break out

Clean and Clear then brush your teeth

Before smiling with wistfulness

Fond memory of an old scent

Madrinha used…uses? This lotion and now I do too

My bed harkens me to join it

To find solace and slumber

And the lavender field.

Please let me sleep

Not let it be

A question of not knowing

Do I dream too vivid?

Or lay and imagine

These things so weird

An old apartment building

Left instead of right

To want what is nearly the same

Heathens to the right

Animals down below

Gum as graffiti all on the wall

The dark is warmer than before

But do I sleep or lay awake?

And if I dream, why do I dream

Of cartoon bears that suddenly speak French.

Oh how and why did I understand?