the ice cube

My company is moving...triples my toll charges and doubles my gas budget. I won't be able to sneak back home for lunch or pick J up from school and bring him to get some free hot wings and soda at our Fir.st Fri.days. In fact, if the company stressed that I be at work at 8 AM, I would be in trouble b/c I would then have to foot an extra bill for before-school care. Thank God, until they tell me otherwise, I can flex the heck outta my time in the mornings. One of the reasons that I took this job was b/c the location was within the same county as the one that I live in. My previous one was a 45-minute commute that sucked donkey balls. This commute won't be AS bad...maybe only rabbit-ball-suckage. Now, we're going to (BIG GULP) the city. And not only are we moving to (GULP HARD) the city, we're right next door to the Pa.per Mo.on, a fun little ahem Gen.tlemen's Club. We're secretly placing bets to see which one of my sleezy coworkers will try to get a lunchtime lap dance. Yes, the location and commute have a lot to be desired but, in times like these, I am happy to still have a nameplate somewhere.

Promance and I will be separated, but he won't be too far from me at the new building. We'll both be on the west-side of the 2nd floor...West siiiide!!! He's been getting all sentimental about this lately, counting down the days...10 days to be exact. When he's not annoying the crap out of me, we have a lot of great convos. I don't think that will stop. Convenience is just a mutha!

So I thought that I'd take a few pics of...

Drum Roll, Please

THE ICE CUBE

**crickets**

This is how it looks when I'm stressing. You can forget order when I have a project going out of the door, but I thought it best to catch it at its worst. My must-haves in this pic are my floor heater and the piece of cake (in the bowl that I appear to be hiding behind my monitor). Technically, I wasn't s'posed to have that cake but peeps keep running to tell ME when there's cake in the kitchen...like I'm greedy or something. Everytime I say that I need to cut down on the sweets, someone goes Betty Crock.er on my a$$. Dag, I just noticed that I had some cookies in this pic too.

I guess that my other must-haves are CAD, which can act like a PMS'ing girlfriend on some days, and my headphones that I wear to try and keep people moving. In the background, I keep pictures of these ginormous (a word?, lol) homes. I can't really say that that's where I want to live one day (b/c I hate cleaning the 1500+ sq. ft that I have now). They helped me press along through the process of buying my house...and plus, the pool pic is just dead sexy.

All of my many drawings of different schools are in a special filing system. Pics of my baby, old bday/holiday cards, Chick-fil-A coupons all make this place home, lol. I mix some Cref.lo CDs from my email partnah, Leezie, in with my Le.nny Kra.vitz and Se.al joints. I also keep Promance's extra nameplate in my basket...don't ask me why. The sad thing is, I keep a lot of random Post-Its too. They all give me that warm and tingly sensation. One says, "Meet me behind the dumpster at 3:00." Another says, "I just stopped by to say HI - Hollywood." And another is a list of all the hole-in-the-wall restaurants that someone recommended and that I wanted to try. I just added one of my fave Post Its to my collection which says, "Suzanne made some very good gumbo this weekend. There's some in the fridge just for you." Wooo child, that was a serious note right there...I could cuddle with that note all night and feel 'bout as good as I do with a man.

My hard hat, which I very rarely use at this job, is in full effect. I like going out in the field...that is until they think that just b/c I'm tiny, I would love to scope out every school's crawl space. Fugg that! I'd rather walk on a roof, and THAT ain't my favorite pasttime either. And there's my "Mr. Ro.gers" sweater. They have the damn thermostat set on meat locker, so my daily routine is to come in and slowly pull my arms into the sleeves while singing, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood..."

I have also nestled another sweatshirt behind some old catalogs, meeting notes and the growing stem of a plant that I brought from my last job. But perhaps I should explain why I keep a picture of a rooster, with a packet of salt taped to it. This is usually the crowd pleaser, as it seems very odd for me to have on display.

One day, I was talking to our former receptionist, who is also a southern gal, and one of our guy friends. It was a very, gloomy day and she didn't want it to rain. I said that I could channel Marie La.veau and make it so that it would not rain...all I needed was a chicken foot and some salt. The guy friend said that he could get the chicken foot, but that salt may be too hard of a task. We laughed but a few minutes after he disappeared, he came running down the steps with a picture of this rooster and a packet of salt he'd gotten from some fast food joint. So I did some dance and chanted "Ma Ma Say Ma Ma Sah Ma Mah Cu Sah" and BAM!

The power went out. Now THAT'S voodoo. We all left about 30-45 minutes early that day and never spoke of it again.

Well, at least, until the next person asked me the story behind the black-and-white rooster pic, lol.

I have since acquired an extra monitor, which is pretty cool...and would possibly be cooler if the daggone job didn't block everything on the web.

This has been my home for the past (almost) 2 years. And now, I'll have to say goodbye. Oh well. I hear that the new office is s'posed to be fly with all of its exposed beams, ductwork, and concrete floors. All that really reads to me is that its still s'posed to be cold as all hell. But the upside...

Maybe I can snag a second job at that there uh...ahem...Gentlemen's Club next door. Go, go gadget butt cheeks...from the printer to the pole!