A Shirt Is Worth 1000 Words

I always thought those t-shirts with dumb sayings were, well...dumb. But I have to say, these t-shirts would let me explain why I've become such a flirt without that awkwardness of having to say it myself.

Honest, I work really hard!

For this story to make any sense, I must give background info. OK, at work, my next door cube buddy likes to throw things over the cube walls at a couple of us. Now, to aim better, we use the window of the conference room as a mirror. OK, on to the story.

Thursday night, our entire staff had to stay at the office until 7:00 p.m. Needless to say, none of us were too excited about dragging our carcasses back into the office the next morning. And once all of us got there, none of us were really in the mood to get any work done. But slave away we did...until lunch.

Our admin and I went to Taco Bell (one of my favorite places!) for lunch. When I was checking our bag of goodies to make sure everything was in there, she was gathering hot sauce. She asked if I wanted a lot, and i said yes. We bring the food back to the office to chow down in the conference room and she dumps out a pile of like...100 hot sauce packets. There's a HUGE pile in the middle of the table.

When we finish eating lunch, I go back to my cube. I have 95 hot sauce packets just sitting there, speaking to me, saying,"Throw me at him...throw me at him." So I listened, I took aim, and landed a PERFECT head shot. Now it was war. There was hot sauce packet pandemonium. He got a couple DECENT shots in, but nothing to match that first head shot.

Then, we got back to work. I received a phone call, and I had to go ask my boss a question. In order to get to my boss's office, I must cross dangerous terrain...the doorway of my war buddy's cube. I cross nonchalantly, and then I hear him get up, look out of his cube and come chasing after me. We're now RUNNING down the hallway as he's launching hot sauce packets at me. I run into my boss's office, compose myself, and ask him my questions.

There was peace for the rest of the day. But there's still a pile of hot sauce packets just sitting, waiting, perfect ammunition for our next battle.

And the NUMBER 1 way to annoy your boss is....

...dump 1/2 a package of pop rocks in your mouth right before he comes into your cube to explain a long, complicated project to you.

Our admin went on a CRAZY online candy buying binge and somehow ended up with a box of "Retro Candy." I snagged the pop rocks, because seriously...I love those things! And my boss, the admin and I were joking about them. Then he ran to his office to grab the project. I heard him coming back around the corner, dumped the candy in, and had a BIG grin on my face when he walked in. He sat down in my guest chair, looked at me, figured out why I was grinning and just started busting up laughing...ahh, greatness. Office life is fun when your boss is not stressed out and laughs with you!

I've found my people

Being the AMAZING friend I am, I was helping my friend Jen load some things from her storage unit into her truck for her new fantastic apartment. After "Ginger Rogering It" (doing it backwards and in heels) and packing the car full of stuff, we headed back to San Jose to drop my butt back off at my house.

Now, on a side note, I have the most FANTASTIC personalized license plate. I won't tell everything about it, but obviously, being mine, it has to do with penguins. When I was picking my license plate, I could not believe how many different combinations and spellings of penguin I had to use. I mean, I know penguins rock, but apparently, so do a bunch of other people in this wonderful state of Cali!! So I finally settled on something with PNGWN in it. Now, back to the story.

So we're driving down 880 and I see something and I TOTALLY start freaking out (and prolly freaked Jen out who was trying to drive with limited rear-view mirror vision). I yelled something like PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN. That's right ladies and gentlemen...we were following behind an SUV with the license plate PNGWN 1. That's right! PNGWN! IT'S THE SAME! HOLY CRAP!!! And here I thought my spelling with no vowels was so clever!

So I'm freaking out, and I tell Jen to follow her, and "GET THE PNGWN!" So as Jen's wildlly trying to catch her and getting close, I'm snapping pictures with my camera phone, waving wildly with this big dumb grin on my face. We pull up next to her and I was still waving madly...she briefly glanced over, and then quickly looked back in front.

Tee hee hee...HOORAY FOR PENGUIN LOVERS!

Closure

I just got back from AZ, and Ken's funeral. I've never been to a millitary funeral before. It was quite awe-inspiring. The sounds of the honor guard's double time steps on the tile floor of the church as they brought Ken in were haunting. It was great to see people he knew from his base in Germany flew all the way out to AZ to honor him. It was a really difficult thing to go through. A funeral for a young person is hard; especially when that young person outlives his parents. I don't really know what else to say, but if you want to see footage from the media circus that was Ken's funeral, click on the link below and the little red camera.

Marana Soldier Buried
Community Pays Last Respects to Sgt. Kenneth Grant Ross
Sgt. Kenneth Ross remembered as hero by kin, friends
A Hero's Farewell


With that...farewell Ken, beloved son, brother, friend, soldier, and hero.