Whew. . .

. . . does the phrase "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" mean anything to you?  Well, you have to envision what a chicken with its head cut off actually looks like--minus the gore.  I really do not know if I've been coming or going these last three weeks.  First, I must apologize for not updating pbw.  I had a dear fried tell me yesterday that she stopped following my blog because I hadn't posted in awhile.  I'm glad she lit the fire under my butt.  However, I must say, in my defense, I didn't even realize two weeks had passed!!  Second, well really there is no second but I'm an English major and you should never have a "first" without a "second," never an "a" without a "b" and so forth.  Now, on to these last few weeks. . . .  

I had to go to Utah for a deposition.  I know you're thinking, "Yay, Utah!"  But you should calm down.  My final destination in Utah was a place (I'm not sure I should call it a city) called Vernal.  Vernal has no real airport, so I had my choice of either flying into Salt Lake City and driving three and half hours to grand ol' Vernal OR flying into Denver, Colorado to hop some generic, no-name airline (most probably a crop-duster or decommissioned war plane) to Vernal.  I opted to take my life into my own hands and drive to Vernal.  That decision did not come easy.  I feared that there would be mountains with death-drops on the way--in which case I informed husband that I would be driving a swift 3 mph until I made it, in one-piece, to Vernal.

Well as I am writing this post you know I did not perish on the way to country-ville.  I made it without any death scares.  The drive was actually very scenic and it helped that the rental car folks gave me black mustang 5.0 for my travels.  You should know that the 2012 mustang goes over 100mph without one's knowledge.  Luckily for me the mountains in Utah are sparse on traffic cops.

I tried to make it back to husband and the girls as quickly as possible.  So of course I wanted to spend only one night away from home--thus the marathon began.  I left home on Tuesday morning (bags packed in the trunk) going to meet a client for a deposition preparation.  Then I went into the office to get the files I needed for the Utah trip.  I left my office around noon to make my 2:30 flight to Las Vegas.  Did y'all know they have slot machines at the airport in Las Vegas?  No, I didn't play--all the folks on those slot machines looked like they were trying to cure boredom, not win a million, so I refrained.  I left Las Vegas and arrived in Utah, picked up the 'stang and headed to my hotel room.  Now, I must mentioned that at this point I had been through three time zone changes.  I felt like work was getting over on me because somehow, 2 extra hours of work snuck in (yes, I said snuck).

I got up bright and early Wednesday morning, ate free hotel food and hit the road to Vernal.  As soon as I made it, it was go time.  The court reporter, videographer, and witness were present and accounted for.  As soon as I was done, I went to a phone booth to change into to my super hero attire, jeans, my favorite long sleeve t-shirt and my running shoes (I do not, under any circumstances intend to imply that I actually run any-where).  Then I hoped back into the saddle, grabbed a burger, some gas, and then made my way back to Salt Lake City.  Once I got back into Salt Lake, I started looking for a gas station so I would not get ripped for $5 a gallon gas by the rental car folks.  Apparently, the citizens of Utah have declared a moratorium on gas stations because once I left Vernal there were NO gas stations anywhere on my route back to the airport.  I actually made it to the airport and had to leave it to find a gas station.

After I finally filled up, I went to the airport and barely managed to grab some water before boarding my plane to Phoenix.  Once in Phoenix, Southwest was kind enough to let me rest by delaying my flight for over an hour--because of course no one wants to get home at midnight--clearly 3 a.m. is much more preferable.

Three hours later (now Thursday morning) I had to get up and make my way to the office for yet another deposition.  Boy was I tired!!  I felt like my days were running together.  I actually lost track of my days for a few hours.  However, I am happy to report that I was not late getting the girls from day camp (I must confess that that has a lot to do with the fact that Daddy and Granny were on transportation duty).  But, I did manage to forget my big girl's doctor's appoint Friday afternoon.  Yes it was calendared and yes I saw it pop-up several times that day. . .then my secretary asked (thirty-minutes before the appointment), "Why are you here, aren't you suppose to be at a doctor's appointment?"  Dat-nabbit!!!  I would have had to drive all the way to the girls' day camp and back to the doctor's office--It's rescheduled for tomorrow.

This week has been a bit better, although I had to attend another deposition today and crank out a few reports, I think I'm still holding it together.  Now, if I get my baby to the doctor tomorrow, I will feel accomplished.  Such is life. . .

Dropping the Ball :-(

My 7 year-old is mad at me.  Why? (Better question:  Why do I care?, cause there is no way I could have convinced my mother or grandmother to care one iota about me being upset with them when I was 7.)  I "made" her miss her last girl scout meeting of the school year (I remembered her meeting just as I was exiting the freeway on the way to the daycare (the meeting was in progress for 30 minutes at that point)).  She's thoroughly convinced that I did it on purpose--and I am beyond explaining grown-up stuff to a child (although I did apologize)--especially when the child is spilling crocodile tears and I am crying and cursing myself on the inside. 

Of course I did not allow her to miss her meeting on purpose, it just completely slipped my mind.  I guess I could let myself off the hook if I hadn't completely forgotten a few other meetings this year already.  However comma--in my defense her Girl Scout troop normally meets every other Thursday and although this was their normal Thursday, they had a camp out last Friday which threw my internal Girl Scout meeting GPS into "completely slipped my mind" mode.  Tonight's meeting would have been 3 weeks in a row.  As an aside, I should mention that I had to sleep on the cold hard ground at the camp out, in a 2-man tent by myself.  Okay, (you got me) this is Texas, and it is May, so the ground was not 'cold' but it was the ground nevertheless, so one would think I had a few points to spare.  Unfortunately not--my child is not that forgiving.  So, I banished her to her room because I could not listen to her crying as if the world had ended and I didn't have the heart to tell her to shut-up.

At the missed meeting, the troop was putting a time capsule together and my daughter was suppose to bring the front page of the newspaper.  Well, I picked up the paper--but it has not made it into the capsule (yet).  Hopefully the troop leaders did not dig a hole and put the thing into the ground (aww man, I really hope they didn't because if they did, I'm in for another round of crocodile tears).

I know you want to know why I missed the Girl Scout finale.  Work of course!!  I was attempting to put the finishing touches on a motion and could not pull myself away from my desk.  If I had remembered her meeting (in the first place) I definitely would have logged out and made my way home in a timely fashion.

I guess while I'm in full confession mode, I should mention that I was also 10 minutes late getting the girls from after-school care today.  I have an excuse (you knew it was coming)--some discourteous person had the nerve to have an accident on the freeway I take to get home.  I know, right!  How inconsiderate!!  I pride myself on cutting my 45 minute commute down to 36 1/2 minutes.  Well today it took a full 50 minutes.  On most days, Husband gets the girls and of course he's never late.  I know this because my extra-observant 9 year-old thinks its her job to tell/ask me:  "Why when daddy gets us he's never late, but when you're supposed to pick us up, we're always the last ones here?"  I've started to ignore her.

So, I called the daycare to let them know I would be a bit late.  Another confession:  Until today I had no clue of the amount of the late penalty, yes, penalty.  The fine print on the "you are picking your children up late from daycare" form I had to sign today read: "If you do not call before 6:30 to let the staff know you are going to be late, add an additional $15 (per child) to the $20 (per child) late fee."  Needless to say, I will NOT be late again.  $40 for 10 minutes!  Yikers!!  That's $4 a minute!  I think I am in the wrong profession.

After dinner I believe she started to like me again and I think after this therapeutic blog entry I will get over "making" her miss her last Girl Scout meeting.  I may even feel compelled to start adding their extra-curricular activities to my calendar with reminders.  Almost every minute of my work day is calendared and it gets on my nerve to have to calendar my 'real' life too.  Husband's contribution to my sanity is to tell me, every time I forget an event, "you should have put that on the calendar."  (I'm sure all you tech savvy wamas know that every smart phone can tap into your outlook calendar or gmail calendar and you can share the calendar entries or invite people).  I guess Husband is right, I need to calendar EVERYTHING. 

SIGH. . . my face has formed itself into a scowl just thinking about calendaring everything (and I just started typing extra-hard too!).  If I can just remember the 9 year-old's Girl Scout meeting tomorrow I will feel redeemed (however short-lived the feeling).  Such is life. . . .

Welcome to My World!

Greetings all!!  I am taking on the fantabulous task of blogging.  I hear it's a lot of fun, albeit time-consuming.  I feel I must write about what it takes to "make it happen" as a professional black "wama" if only to help someone else know and understand that they are not the only person who needs 4 additional hours to everyday.  (Sidenote: "wama" means wife and mama.)  I hope you enjoy my ramblings (most likely rants), pick up some helpful advice, and learn from me as I learn from my mistakes and/or journeys. 

I don't profess to know everything, in fact, most days I think I know less than I did the day before.  (The good thing is) I learn something new about myself everyday, which for me is weird because before I marched into the corporate zone, I thought I pretty much knew most of what I needed to know about myself.  HA!  Geez was I misguided.  Whatever.  I guess I will live and learn as my mother always says. Just these past two weeks I have learned that I am super indecisive when it comes to my hair.  If you are interested in this blog, you most probably know--and have dove head first (pun intended) into the age-old female debate:  creamy crack (perm) or natural hair. I should say, upfront, that I don't give a hoot about how people decide to wear their hair.  "As long as you like it--I love it!," is my mantra.  However, I don't think people should be guilted into wearing one form over the other, for whatever reason the opposition gives.

I have worn my hair in many different styles and lengths over the years.  For the first 9 years of my life my hair was natural.  And most of my memories of that time consist of either being popped in the head with a comb or brush for not sitting still, crying because it hurt, or my grandmother standing over me on Easter Sunday morning with a straightening comb, screaming "child be still, that was just the grease rolling on yo' scalp."  Really?

Then it was the ever famous "Jerry Curl," because "Michael Jackson had one."  Then cornrow braids, because my mama worked and didn't have time to comb my "head" everyday.  Then back to the Jerry Curl for a few years.  However, in the 7th grade I begged for a perm because everybody was getting rid of their Jerry Curls (especially after that scene in "Coming to America" where the whole family had Jerry Curls and they sat on the sofa and left Jerry Curl "juice" spots all over the headrests).  My mother allowed me to get a perm and so it has been since then--with periods of extensions, weaves, cornrows--long, short, and in-between.

Well, 2-weeks ago, I decided I was going to go natural.  My reasoning?  I was sick of going to the salon every week.  Every week without fail I HAVE to go to the salon.  I have super bad dandruff and if my hair is not washed every 7 days--day 8 is the very reason why dandruff shampoos exist.  Sooo, I figured if I cut it all off I could skip the salon and be free.  Right?  Wrong.  So needless to say, after 2-weeks of protesting the perm, I am too tied to my hair to chop it all off at once (I went to the salon and got the creamy crack applied today).  After all, I actually just completed my, "I'm going to grow it all out so I can have a ponytail on bad hair days" stage.  Which was working fine until I decided I wanted to teach my daughters how to swim.  Who thinks swimming (multiple times a week) with permed hair is a good idea (raise your hands)?  I thought not, which brings me to the ultimate conclusion that my hair will meet its natural end (natural, chopped short from the breakage, or teeny weeny afro) after swimming this entire summer with permed hair.  Oh well, such is life. . . .