A month of activities

Well, it turns out that I do Twitter more than I blog...but I don't do either very often!

So, what have I been up to over the past month? Here's a list of the stuff that's kept me busy:

1. Inherited a new group of 3 writers (& the product they support) at work; they came with a new culture, including a new set of developers, managers, product managers, QA engineers, and doc practices.Of course, none of that is new to them, only to me. So, I'm making an attempt to learn how to support them, take a bit of pressure off them, and yet guide them when they need guiding. (Hmmm...isn't all that the same thing?)
2. Spent much of my work time attending meetings and fielding crises for both the San Diego product and the Cupertino product, because both of them are shipping this coming week. (Did I mention the new team is a remote one?)
3. Took a free junket to Reno with Cheryl Smith to gamble and tour around northern Nevada and Lake Tahoe. (See my facebook account for pix.)
4. Met with four designers (a couple of them multiple times) to have them give me estimates on building a home office in one of my bedrooms (the one I use as an office/catchall now). Just about ready to make a decision
5. Saw my therapist twice--once for a nice chat; once for a gut-wrenching "aha" moment that left me drained and wiser. I hate it when that happens...yet it's why I go. Sigh.
6. Fired and hired yard maintenance folks...the one I hired had a lot of "clean up" to do before he could even begin normal maintenance because the one I fired just wasn't doing what should be done. I'm pretty sure the new one will do well because his mother-in-law is my housekeeper and I think she'll be pickier about my yard than I am!
7. Went to a local casino Friday night because I got a wild hair to drive to Viejas (only about 25 miles from my house...much too close!) all by my lonesome. (Is gambling alone as problematic as drinking alone?) Anyway, as luck would have it, I started out great (won $200 on my first $20 at Wheel of Fortune); kept at it far too long on one hand (lost the $200 and close to another $100), but was rewarded for my obsession because I was randomly chosen to be a contestant in a money-grabbing contest! I was the last person of the night (did my stint at midnight!) to stand in one of those wind-tunnel glass boxes for 30 seconds and catch and hold as much cash as I could in 30 seconds. Wound up with $316 and a gold lamee helium-filled balloon. Had sense enough to go home immediately after! Unfortunately, these kinds of exciting times only feed my desire to go again! Still, it was pretty much a rush!
8. Glad to say my sister is doing much better this month. She's still my "hermana loca" as Rosita (my housekeeper) says...but the "loca" is quite mild relative to some past times. And that's good. For her. And for me.
9. Three lovely Houston friends of mine are July birthday girls: Deborah, Connie R, and Tessa. I wish all of them the very best and I treasure the parts they play in my life.
10. I'm hooked on season two of HBO's True Blood
11. I blogged.

Headed for Houston

FNSC Christmas Photo 2008

FNSC photo at Chinese restaurant in Sept 07

FNSC at Linda's Sugar Land house, March 2003

Well, I'm headed for Houston in the morning. I'm taking advantage of the 3-day weekend and cashing in a travel voucher that was about to expire. I miss my friends in Houston, so I hope to connect with several of them in the 4 days I'll be there. One of the things I miss most is Friday Night Supper Club (FNSC). Three good friends, back in the late 80s, began the tradition of meeting every Friday evening at various local restaurants for supper with their spouses (if one was available!). When I moved to Houston in 1990, I joined them. Today, the group still has two or three longtime, almost original members, but the other members are relatively new and one couple joined them after I moved to San Diego!

We jokingly talk about FNSC West when one of the members shows up in San Diego and we go to dinner together on Friday...another member has moved to the East Coast, and yep! They're FNSC East. One of the couples who began the tradition now lives in Wisconsin...so we have the North covered! And since the original group is still in the South, we are represented in all four directions of the country.

It's a great tradition and one that I've been threatening to begin here with a whole new group of folks. While I lived in Houston, I always looked forward to Friday nights. The folks in FNSC were my surrogate family and became close friends. And, although tonight is Friday, partially for me, and partially because one of the current members is having a birthday, we're having FNSC on Saturday. Tomorrow at 7 pm CST, I'll be sharing laughs and stories with dear friends.

It is a wonderful thing to do, and once you're part of FNSC, you're always part of FNSC. There are no dues, and the group is always interested in what and how you're doing. Each Christmas or special event, we gather for a group photo, and it's always a little bittersweet for me to get the photo these days and find myself not in the picture. The picture I've added to this entry is of all of us in 2003, the year before I moved back to San Diego. We were in my house and I had just completed having my house redecorated. The contingent that's now in Wisconsin was missing, but they were there in spirit, just as I usually am.

Tomorrow night, though, my spirit will have me for company.

Note: I happened upon a copy of Wired magazine today and was disappointed to find out that blogs are a thing of the past. Apparently, I'm about 5 years too late. Because blogs have been adopted by everyone from the White House to the club house and are being used by journalists and pundits, they've lost their ability to be fresh. Sigh. And, I was so pleased with myself for getting on the bandwagon!