ryssee's world

...and just in the nick of time. We have our sales meeting beginning Monday so it's a good time to take a few days off. Looking back on my posts, it's easy to see why a-post-a-day-in-November this is so hard. There just isn't much to write about in November, once the summer and fall wind down and the holidays begin gearing up. Now I can post about whatever I feel like writing about! But, it was fun to do. Thanks for any comments you might have left, and putting up with the dumb posts. Anyway, I DID IT! Nice to know I can do something when given the challenge, LOL! :-)

...and I STILL can't find the perfect pair of low-heeled black boots. Zappos IS a customer service company that happens to sell shoes though. Free shipping both ways. And they ship to you via next-day air! I placed my order last night at about 9:30 and the boots were here today! Wow. I thought it was too late and I'd see them on Friday. Unfortunately neither pair I ordered was perfect, so off they go...for free! Well, I'm gonna try, try again in my quest. The perfect leather jacket took 12 years. Hopefully the boots just take about 2 or 3 orders after three years of searching. No one wants to see my six-year-old ratty-ass old black ones with the worn out heels anymore. Plus I slip whenever I wear them now. Owie!

I have nothing to write about and I'm a little bored tonight. So I will count countries and remember times I was NOT so bored. England. Maybe 8 times? 10? the first time for 3 months though. Scotland Spain 3 times France Sweden Norway Denmark Belgium The Netherlands Hungary Austria Switzerland Czech Republic Slovakia 4 hours in Germany hanging around train stations with no Deutch Marks. Teehee. I can't count that! ;-) Canada Grand Cayman St Thomas St Maartin Jamaica Mexico US States: 45 Boy, there's a whole lot of world left to see.

I was Miss Crankypants today. For no apparent reason, other than our sales meeting is on Monday, and I am collecting projects and not finishing anything. Correction. All the stuff I KNOW I have to do is done, or just about done. It's the "blind-sided" items I'm getting hit with now. Even my boss was like, "You OK?" And I'm like, "What?!" "You seem weird today." All I could say was that I was CRANKY. I woke up cranky. He got it and fed me a cookie. Why was I Miss Crankypants though? Not sure. It all started this morning when I couldn't get dressed and leave the house by 8:08am for the second day in a row, and my lateness to work was compounded by the blasted improvements to the infrastructure on Somerville Ave. Yesterday it took me over two miles out of my way and today it was about a mile. But I normally take those things in stride. Part of the commute. Honestly, I think I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Wh

Odd, I'm having weird formatting issues today so I'm sorry about the weird little font. The words are running off the right side of the page so I'm shrinking it down. Heard from Carolyn in Iraq today. Her digs aren't too bad, the camp is better than she thought. As far as injuries she's treated one person for an IED injury, but it wasn't one of ours. (Still tough for whoever's kid that is though.) She says the rest of her work has involved things like kidney stones and health concerns. After reading C's email, I was looking for an address to send stuff to if you're inspired to send stuff overseas to support the military. It seems they don't allow that operation Dear Abby anonymous stuff anymore which is too bad. I remember sending letters when I was a kid. So, maybe you have a friend or know someone whose kid is over there and wondered what to send. Here's what Carolyn says about sending stuff over: "Mail is taking about 5-7 days.

Well, I finally got the new sewing machine up and running today. After spending an hour figuring out how to thread it and what the heck a bobbin is used for, I actually hemmed a pair of pants and shortened a shirt today, so I am 2/5ths of the way to considering it mine for FREE, by not going to the tailor for simple hems. A couple of things I learned today: 1) If you don't put the presser foot down, the machine will go absolutely bonkers chewing up the item being sewn, and not spitting it out until the thread is good and tangled. Even if you don't have any idea what a presser foot is, you get the picture. 2) If you don't pay attention to what you're doing, you will shorten the item being sewn by anywhere from 1"-4.5" along the same seam, even if it's nicely pinned and everything. On another note, the nice long holiday weekend is over. Back to work tomorrow! Wahhhh!

She's back! I picked her up today at Logan. She was very tired but she looked radiant. She was full of stories about her travels and has about 800 pictures to show us. Or maybe 670 once she weeds the bad ones out. The photo above is borrowed. It is, what I hope, her picture will look like with her standing in front of it. Because the LCD viewer on her brand-new camera crapped out the last day, the day they visited the Sphinx. But she still tried to get some last pix on Friday, the last tour day, before sleeping a couple hours before boarding her plane at about 9PM last night my time. Mind you, it was about 4:00 am Egypt time! After 15 or so hours of travel, sitting next to not one, but TWO men with horrifying halitosis, her plane landed early at Logan. I got there into the terminal at 1:23pm, about 1/2 hour after it landed, stood around, chatted with some people, thinking, hm there's only a couple foreign flights coming in. She should be out in about 10-15 minutes. T

Home safe! It's great to be on the couch with two happy kitties boinging around and even more food in our bellies. No Black Friday shopping today, and very easy travel. We had a nice lunch with Randy's parents before we left. We had a really nice Thanksgiving and visit. Finally some pics from Thanksgiving, with a weird looking doggie in the middle At the zoo: One of Randy's best friends, Pat, with his wee one Jeremiah This was right after the giraffe tried to eat Randy's new birthday camera. A meerkat, who spied Randy and promptly flipped on her back for a belly scratch. Couldn't reach though. Beeeg tiger prowling Pink Flamingos!!!! Walking to the gardens. This was my last chance to sport my favorite dress this year. Me and a barn owl This is Dusty, the albino Pekingese dog. Funny looking, but sweet. He does snort a lot. The beautiful Thanksgiving dining room Ricky, me, Bill, Papa Ricker, Mary Kate R's niece, Jayne' Gayle Mary Kate with her and Jayne

Well, I was gonna post pics and stuff today but we can't get the wireless to work on the laptop, and I'm not gonna mess with Randy's parents' desktop computer to upload the pics! So, today, I'll just say, I'm thankful for my family and friends including their health and happiness through this year, my sweet one Randy, his wonderful family for including me in their holiday, and my pretty much fortunate life in general. Oh and of course I'm thankful for my unseen-but-not-unknown-blog-friends and their humor and perspectives! It's great to take peeks into each others lives and thoughts. We're going home tomorrow. Can't wait to see the kitties and sleep in our own bed! I pick up my mom from the airport on Saturday. I hope she had a great time in Egypt. I missed her for the holiday but it was totally worth it to see her live out a dream for herself. Well, that's it for tonight!

Temp 77 Activities: Zoo with Randy's best friend Pat and his son Jeremiah. The giraffe tried to eat Randy's camera. Chillin' on the sofa. Dinner with Randy's parents. Very nice! I had grouper with shrimp and cheesy potatos and grits. Ya gotta love the South! OK so these posts are lame, but when I get home, I promise, I'll post pics and maybe some stories. Oh, and R's parents have a dog. It looks like a mop. He's an albino Pekingese. He's white with pink everything and snorts a lot, but he's really sweet. Dog licks are far different than kitty licks.

Got to Columbia today...78 and sunny. Very far from the 37 we left in Boston this morning. Everything here is new. New cars, new homes. Looks like a nice place to live. We stepped out for a drive around Randy's hometown and grabbed a couple beers at this place downtown. Great dinner at Randy's sister's house. 12 people total. Yummy Papa Ricker spag sauce and great lasagna from Renee. Great to see her and Bill again, the last time was in Hawaii in Feb (ya gotta look up the old posts for that trip!) Looking forward to a nice long sleep and another really nice and fun day tomorrow.

It's vacation time! Had a nice easy day today at work. Tomorrow we fly to South Carolina to see Randy's family for Thanksgiving. Helloooooo 73-79 degrees for three days! Plus they're cool folks to see anyway. I'm looking forward to it. Will have to get on line to make my NaBlo posts and talk about how warm I am and how happy I am to have sandals on in November. :-) No work again until Monday! Yay!

OK, so last night we went to the Moscow Cats Theatre show. Maybe you've seen them on Good Morning America or one of those shows? These Russian folks have trained cats to do tricks, ride on those little electric car things, shimmey up poles, do handstands, walk on tightropes, amongst other funny little tricks that you can't believe they can be trained to do. Well, you all know how I feel about cats. Also, how I feel about having something to do on a Saturday night. So, I wasn't terribly stung by the $54.90 tickets plus all the "bend over" fees from Ticketmaster. I can't get my cats to do anything, other than jump up against the plastic shower curtain in the downstairs bathroom to fight while I'm doing my thing. Can't get 'em to play piano like Nora the Piano Playing Cat (dudes, you GOTTA click that link). Can't get 'em to roll over and play dead. Can't even get 'em to fetch. So, I was all over this. We get there in plenty of

Hey we're more than halfway through National Blog Posting Month! Yay! It's not easy coming up with stuff to say every day when there's not that much stuff going on. One thing I read in the news today that piqued my interest. Today is the first annual National Black Cat day in Italy. They want to remove the stigma attached to black cats. I guess over 60K black kitties are killed by superstitious people over there every year, isn't that horrible? My black kitty is the sweetest. I can't believe she's bad luck with all the love and laughs she gives us. And my old black cat Sadie wasn't very friendly, she was a true one-person cat, but she was great company to me for over 14 years. Anyway, hope it works out well for those Italian cats. Miao! Ciao! (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

The cat in the bag trick: Nothin' to say. Sometimes pictures are worth 1000 words.

Getting back in touch with my old friends Chris and Jayne in the last year has made me think back to a long-ago time in my life. I went to college at UMass at Amherst back in the day, when if you said you went to UMass everyone knew it was at Amherst. Back before the 5 campus system it is now and everyone asks you which campus. My roommate at the dorms was Pam, who was one of my best friends in high school. We had zebra finches for pets, lived on too much coffee and bad DC food, and had the kind of dorm rooms that people would stop by and take pictures of because it was so messy. The year was 1987. We'd moved from one dorm to another and had a pretty good floor. We were all a little dorky but like all kids that age were trying to figure out who we were and what the heck we were gonna do with our lives. We did all hang out together and stuff, and one week we decided we were going to have a a Round Robin floor party. The gist of it: Each room served a different alcoholic concoc

...because it's this silly post-a-day thing for NaBloPoMo and I have to do it 'cause I promised. OK Work: Mindless tasks all day. Home: Randy is home from NY! Cats: Fighting. Email: Message from Carolyn, who as of yesterday was in Kuwait. They have Starbucks at the camp. Dinner with two girls I worked with in the old building: Great. # of people that staple their hems (so far, see last post): 2 Funniest reply to the sewing machine post: HAR said... This is the second blogger in two days to buy a sewing machine. It may be a new thread. Corny, sorry.

Isn't that funny?! No I'm not gonna start making my own clothes-I have no design creativity. But I do have 3 pairs of pants and some tops to shorten to the perfect length. And maybe add a top button to a couple blazers so I can Lock and Load. I figure, for what I would pay for tailoring, I might as well try to do it myself. Save the tailor for taking jackets in or something. Hemming everything isn't the problem. I've done it by hand several times, but that's really time consuming and my fingers hurt from stabbing myself. I'm sure I can figure it out. Once I figure out the GdDm sewing machine.

Maybe it's just the Pope. I gotta say though, Yankees fans could use a blessing, and W could use the extra face time in D.C. By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff BALTIMORE -- Pope Benedict XVI will visit New York and Washington, D.C., in the spring, but will not come to Boston, the Vatican's top diplomat in the United States announced this morning. In his first visit to the United States as pope, Benedict will speak at the United Nations, visit the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Manhattan, and meet at the White House with President Bush. He will also celebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium in New York and at the new Nationals baseball stadium, which is now under construction in Washington.

It's 7:48 and I'm still working! Alright, I'll admit, I'm taking a break. I have to do the final proof for our Fall 2008 catalog. Can you believe I know already what folks will be buying to run in a year from now? Our stuff looks great. I am very sad to see my old brand go away since I've worked on it for over 11 yrs, but the quality and design is still great under the new brand. Opening new samples and putting them on hangers is like Christmas twice a year. There are several items I already have my eye on for future purchase. Even though I don't run myself, several pieces are run-inspired and definitely company focused, and we can wear the cool casual lifestyle stuff to work. I heard from my mom today. She was in Alexandria, Egypt. Very historic place. Can't wait to see her and hear about her trip, but then she'll be sad it's over and I don't want that either. OK, gotta go make sure this thing says everything we want it to say.

I knew this day would eventually come. I broke down the garden and the plants on the deck today. :-( Two nights of freezing temps and none of the rain we were promised meant that all but the hardiest survived. >sniff<

Not much exciting to write about again today. Unless you like to talk about wardrobe perfection. I converted my closet from summer to winter today. I got rid of 4 large garbage bags full of clothes and 1 large garbage bag full of shoes. Donated a bunch of good stuff to Salvation Army. There IS some good stuff in there. Someone is getting a bunch of brand name clothes and really good running shoes at a 95% discount in the coming weeks. I am taking advice from Stacy and Clinton of TLC's What Not To Wear. If it's too old, too short, too old, or doesn't go with anything, it goes away. I purged all the stuff I put on 6 times this year then pulled off 'cause it wasn't quite right. So, I am thinking I have a mighty mighty streamlined wardrobe. Doesn't matter anyway, 'cause on my floor at work, everyone is dressed in jeans and the freebie clothes we give away and sell at events, plus it's so freakin' cold we end up wearing the winter gear we make for

OK, I have no imagination or anything I wanna write about. So, you can get to know me a little better. When was the last time you got drunk? SATURDAY WHILE THEY WERE PLAYING POKER What's your favorite style of socks? DRESS SOCKS THAT DON'T RUB ON MY PINKY TOES One big gift or a bunch of little gifts? EITHER! (JUST PLEASE USE THE LIST AS A GUIDE) Have you ever thrown a pair of shoes on a telephone pole wire outside? NO BUT I ALWAYS WONDER WHOSE SHOES THEY ARE AND IF THEY'RE MY SIZE When is your birthday? APRIL 22 Who's your best friend? KAREN, KIM AND DAVE When was the last time you went to a carnival or a fair? 2005 IN VIENNA-IT WAS A HARVEST FESTIVAL Do you like upside down rollercoasters? LOVE THEM, I LAUGH AND LAUGH Have you ever witnessed/been in a wet t-shirt contest? NEITHER. HOW CAN THAT HAPPEN? Hotdogs or hamburgers? HAMBURGERS What's your favorite kind of chips? MUNCHOS! Have you ever twisted up a swing and then untwisted it and spun around? OF COURSE I

I knew it was coming. But there was no place else to park. So, I parked my car on the far corner and was able to slip into the spot with the entire car lined up against a curb, on the side of the street that abuts angled parking spots with a fence at the end of it so no cars can get through. Not even the back end was sticking out anywhere. But as I was parking, I knew, I just had the feeling. I was gonna get a ticket. For parking within 20 ft of an intersection. Sure enough, morning comes, and there's my ticket. Construction-worker orange blazed from the windshield, complimenting the bright blue that was the morning sky. Also a nice color to set off the sparkley dark gray-blue gray paint that is Scion TC Flint Mica. So, I walk out to the car, pull it off and put it on the passenger seat. I think, darn it, 25 bucks. Have to make lunch for the next 4 days instead of eating in the caf. I drive down to the construction-ridden main road, which of course will be under construction u

Today marks the 5th anniversary of my first date with Randy. We met at the B Side Lounge in Cambridge after a few exchanged emails. We turned up within 30 seconds of each other. I still remember thinking he was cute in his black turtleneck and jeans with the pant legs turned up a little on the bottom and real shoes. I remember that my hair was short and that he liked that I pinned the bangs back with a hidden pin. After shaking off the first-date jitters and nervous laughter and trying to be hip, cool and engaging, I relaxed and we had a good time. I thought wow, he's a lot smarter than me, but he's pretty laid back and he doesn't make me feel dumb and has a good sense of humor and has had the same friends since high school so he knows a lot about loyalty. He loves to travel and had just come back from a big trip to Russia with a couple friends so we had that in common. He's never been married and didn't care if he had kids or not which was great by me because

My mom was planning to make a life-long dream come true tomorrow. She's been planning this trip to Egypt on a jealousy-inducing 18-day tour for months now. Starting out in Cairo, and heading down the Nile on a cruise boat for several days. The trip features camel rides (can NOT imagine her on a camel...she can't even deal with cat hair), falukah rides (whatever that is), flights to Abu Simbal, Pyramids, Luxor, temples, Valley of the Kings, all sorts of Moses stuff, ancient tombs, King Tut's mummy now that it's open for public viewing for the first time in history, museums, bazaars, handsome Egyptian men and smelly ones too, sand, lots of sand, more sand, sand, sand, and all sorts of other cool stuff. We spent the Saturday before Halloween reviewing her trip, looking at all her new purchases - I can't think of a better excuse for a new wardrobe, can you? ...and talking about getting there and away, and not having Thanksgiving at home for the first time. Very ver

Well, she's not a kitten anymore, and she's not even really mine. She's our cat Emmie's kitten. Um. Cat, now. I have nothing to write about today (do you really want to hear about proofing the Fall 08 product catalog for our apparel division? I think not.) I keep promising to write about things that matter during this national blog-posting month. I do, after all, have a lifetime of good stories and great people to write about. Maybe later this week while Randy is out of town. Anyway, I finally got a great shot of Mimi while poker was taking place in my place of residence. Isn't she beautiful?

Yeah that extra hour of sleep was nice. But CRAP. It's 5:11 and very dark outside. I feel like I'm supposed to go to bed in two hours! Last night was fun. Randy had his friends over for poker. Cool people and they play all sorts of different games and make up a bunch of rules. I don't play though 'cause I don't want to lose all my money. I'd rather waste it at TJ Maxx or Marshalls. We now have a fridge full of 7 different kinds of beer. Everyone brought a 12 or 18 pack last night and left the remains. So, we're ready for the first dark and stormy night of the winter, whenever that might be. It IS a shame that none of them have a taste for Grey Goose vodka or Hendricks gin though. Ah well. This qualifies as a post for NaBloPoMo. See ya tomorrow. Oh yeah and please validate me with COMMENTS! :-)

One of our company's sponsored athletes, Ryan Shay, died today at the Olympic Trials in NYC at the age of 28. It's shocking and strange and very sad to read this news. I'd only met him a couple times, but he was in the office for a visit about 6 weeks ago, while in the area to compete in the Falmouth 5K, and met with us all to talk about what it's like to be training for the Olympics and being sponsored by our company. He was a really nice guy, had a good sense of humor about the "interview" format of our meeting, and passionate about his sport. He was also a recent newlywed, having married another runner about 6 weeks prior to his visit. A very sad loss for his wife and family and friends, and for everyone else who followed his career. The picture above was taken at Falmouth. (Courtesy of Letsrun.com) From the New York Times: A triumphant United States Olympic trials marathon turned tragic on Saturday morning when Ryan Shay, a 28-year-old veteran maratho

I have been doing nothing at work for the last two weeks but collecting projects. So, I was happy to have everyone out of the office so I could actually get some work done. I get to work at my usual time of 8:43, check and reply to email, field a call from a headhunter, work on excel for a while (that's what I do all day), hit save, and THE POWER GOES OUT. Auxillary generators turn on but my computer doesn't. But, some people are working, so I sit there for an hour reading back issues of Footwear News, and more power goes out. Crap. So, I decide I'm gonna go home and work from there since the network is still working but the power isn't. Take a short TJ Maxx break on my way home and there I am, back on line. At 3:30 I finish up two projects I wanted to complete. Yay for me. Two down and 5 to go. Then I get in the car to see my friend Carolyn. Have known her for 21 yrs now, since my first day at UMass Amherst in 1986. Our friendship is old enough to drink., even

Oh why oh why did I sign up for a post a month?! I have nothing to say right now. Well, not much interesting anyway. I think I'm done posting about the Red Sox for a while at least. I miss baseball already. Well, maybe we'll re-sign Lowell and have some good trades to get me excited. Well. Hm. First Post of 30 in 30 days. Well, yesterday was Halloween. I can write about that! I went to CVS to buy candy (too much as always). I left work at about 4:45 since all the grown-ups with kids left at around 3:30 to dress up their wee ones. I figured I'd get home for the first bell-ringers and no one at work would notice I'd left. They didn't. Randy called me at around 5:15 to say he stopped for candy. teehee. I didn't even think to tell him I did, 'cause I thought that was my thing. Well, we had ONE trick or treater, and she didn't even yell "TRICK OR TREAT!" And it was a pirate. Hm. The #1 Costume of 2007. Jeepers. Now I have 87 tiny