For such a special occassion

I’m not really all that inclined to blogging. I often think of things that are noteworthy (I would say), but I’m most likely to either keep it to myself, tell Mike about it, or write it in my journalnotebookthingy. Also, though not often verbally expressed, I have very strong opinions, and writing about very strong opinions requires a well thought and flawlessly written argument. The instances that I have actually taken the time to write out my flawless argument about a topic, I afterward decide that, for various reasons, I am better off keeping it to myself. I have many drafts that will never be posted.

So I then wonder how it is that I have any posts at all, and what circumstances bring me to write one. Today I will attribute it to the fact that I have been super annoyed with work lately, have been super surprised every time that I remember it's still only Wednesday, am super in love with Michael, and am super craving a red-flavored frozen burrito.

During the summer my friend came to me and said, “Shirley I really need your help, come work with me for five days.” So I did. It really was a huge mess, and five days turned into over a month and eventually they offered me a full-time position (although it wasn’t as smooth as that. I worked through lunch and even evenings at home for the small pay I told my friend I’d help him out at, and they finally decided it was time to stop taking advantage of me when I started applying for other jobs.). Since I have worked here, they have fired/lost three people and hired two (not including me). I actually think that the people they have finally settled on can be a very strong and successful team. Let me introduce them to you:

First you have William. He is the fourth (I think) Controller of the company since its birth, two years ago, and my friend from school. We enjoy making swords out of used 10 key tape and discussing the time that we will take over all of the incompetent accounting departments in the world, starting with GRIC. It is probably best to describe him as having the sweetest and most adorable wife and little girl.

Tessa is our Office Manager, whose job it is to respond to the owner’s texts at 3 in the morning on a Sunday and stress over completing the bosses, often silly, demands. Every Tuesday she tells us a new story. My favorite will always be the one where she proudly brought her graham cracker crust pie to a family party to be told by her mother-in-law that you’re supposed to crush the graham crackers, and second is probably the time she tried to cook a steak in the storage drawer under the oven. She just recently found out that she is pregnant with her third and completely unplanned for child and wishes she could talk her husband into naming it Lyric Ryce if it is a boy.

Todd is cool. He is our Estimator and has three daughters under 10 that each probably play softball better than me, not that I’m saying that’s a big feat. He’s an A-league softball man himself and has a goatee. He likes to give me his leftover french-fries from lunch and never tires of staring at me over the half wall that encircles my desk until I notice and jump out of my skin. He has great patience, and I swear I hear him count backwards from ten every time Colby calls him “T-rod.”

Colby and Jaafe (jayph) are the bosses. I’m not all the way entirely sure what they do. It sometimes seems rare to see them in the office for more than ten minutes at a time, always leaving (if they came in the first place) with the same “hold down the fort, Shirley” joke, and when they are gone often call and ask me to look up directions to somewhere, though they pay for the ability to do that on their phones. I can only assume that they are off making business acquaintances or at job sites. The two think that the sole purpose of their fifty-inch computers (okay that might be an exaggeration) is for watching hunting videos and country westerns on YouTube, and consider “black-tie” to be a cowboy hat, a plaid button-down, and one of their 200 pairs of designer, dry-cleaned jeans. Colby likes to talk about the unwritten "agreements" he has with project owners in regards to profit numbers, and we can always tell when Jaafe has been in the office by the icicles hanging from our desks because he was warm and turned the air down to 50.

I am Shirley and I do stuff and have a zit on my forehead today.

In other news, check out these pictures from my phone: