On Doors that Close and Doors that Open

It's been quite a crazy ride, these last couple of weeks!

One of these days (say, when I've collected all my severance?) I'll tell you a story of how NOT to lay people off, but for now, let's just let that lie.

The good news is that I will start at my new job as a project manager at a development house on the north side of Chicago in the middle of March. It is as laid-back a work environment as a development house can be. It is close to public transit, so I will get some exercise walking to and from the L stations at either end of the route (maybe drop a few pounds?), and I will be able to catch up on the mounds of books I have amassed in the last few years--you can't read while you're driving to work! At least, you should not attempt it. I anticipate working on a number of projects, but I especially look forward to tackling social studies again. I will be working for and with people I have admired and respected since my first forays into educational publishing. I could not have anticipated a better outcome for what I took, at first, to be a devastating and embarrassing setback.

Most of you who read this blog know me personally, and you know that I'm a skeptic (although I admit to watching way too many of those ghost-hunting shows... a trait that puzzles Jeff, although I attribute my interest to a fascination with supernatural tales that goes back to childhood--but I digress). I generally have no use for platitudes such as "When one door closes, another will open." But I have to say, since January 25 it's as if I've been routed through a series of doors--revolving ones! So quick was the turn of fortune that I'm practically spinning. Happily so!

So worry not, my friends. I have landed on my feet once again. And for that, I am very grateful for all your good wishes and positive thoughts!

Namaste!

Home Soon!

The stint in Florida is winding down--by this time tomorrow, I will be waiting at the Orlando airport, more than ready to board my flight back to Chicago and Jeff and Mifune. While the weather has been almost uniformly nice (aside from some rain on Sunday), and while the folks at the comp house have been wonderful--so competent AND accommodating, nothing takes the place of home.

I'll have some photos to share once I get home and can upload them--then I'll give a more complete account of our ramblings over the weekend--but until then, I want to give some impressions of Orlando.

First off, the tap water just stinks! Sulfur! I don't believe the tap water in the little cabin we stayed in at Yellowstone had such smelly water, and it was situated right in the middle of a volcanic caldera! I know it's ecologically unsound to drink bottled water, but I'm not ingesting water that stinks! It's bad enough to use it to brush my teeth and wash with!

Secondly, the hotel is pretty bare-bones. Yes, every "room" is a suite, and that is nice. Yes, it's cleaned every day. And yes, it offers breakfast each morning (although the scrambled eggs--a constant on the menu--are constantly overcooked). It's entirely adequate. And no one is ever in the workout room, so the elliptical trainer is always available. There is no restaurant or bar, though--save for the "Teekey Bar," which is supposed to be open poolside each evening from 4-10, but which is really only open sporadically. Not that I am jonesin' for a drink from the Teekey Bar (I'm not kidding--I don't know if the name is supposed to be ironic or if it's a typo...), but if they say they are open, they should be open. Oh yeah--and it was FOUR BUCKS to do laundry! FOUR BUCKS! Two to wash and two to dry. Sheesh.

The town also seems to be one big strip of chain restaurants, chain hotels, $1.99 T-shirt emporia, and general tourist attractions, no matter what street you are on. I must say this, though--the Capitol Grille, where we splurged on dinner last night (and I do mean splurged) is superlative. Just wonderful. And tres chere!

So, I'm going to be really, really happy to get home to my husband, my cat, and my washer and dryer! And Jeff's cooking. And Mifune's quacking. And a stack of mail (most of which are probably bills...

Fun in the Sun...

Okay, so I've been in Orlando all week. But it's not been all that much fun... I've been reading pages and pages and pages and trying to keep another work ball up in the air back in Chicagoland at the same time. I'll be here for another six days, and then I can come home to Jeff and Mifune, whom I miss an awful lot. And, of course, my lovely new guitar, which I also miss!

I would be lying if I said that I didn't appreciate the warmer weather here. It's been quite lovely, although there has been precious little time to enjoy the out of doors. Today Margo and I (the other editor who is down here for the duration of this assignment) went to the Harry P. Leu Gardens, a lovely botanical gardens in town. We had originally thought a nice afternoon at Sea World, which is within walking distance from our hotel, would be just the ticket... until we found out how expensive tickets actually were! Close to sixty bucks per! And you can't expense a ticket to a theme park!

But the Leu Gardens were lush with camelias of every conceivable variety and citrus trees heavy with lemons and grapefruit. There was a historic home on the property, begun in 1888 and added onto over the next fifty years or so. Not a huge mansion, but rather a modest but well-appointed home that reflected the eras in which it was constructed and renovated. There was a butterfly garden, a floral clock, vegetable and herb gardens, and a rose garden that must be spectacular in season, but which was not in bloom yet. Rhododendrons were were blooming all over the place, though, making me yearn for the Blue Ridge in late spring. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon, if you couldn't spend it being amused by porpoises and orcas.

This hotel--a modest suite hotel--is completely adequate and until the weekend hit, it was very quiet and sedate. Now it has become a madhouse. This is the weekend of Megacon, apparently THE big comic book convention in the Southeast. So the hotel (and the sidewalks all up and down the nearby stretch of International Drive where the big convention hall is located) currently swarms with teens and twenty-somethings dressed in all their gothic and/or fave comix character splendor. It's very amusing, I must say, but some of the costumes are, well, more successful than others.

Tomorrow Margo and I are braving Fleaworld, the self-proclaimed largest flea market in the world. We will see. I only hope it is not the world's largest flea market selling nothing but tube sox, cheezy T-shirts, and T-fal cookware.

I will keep you posted!

Oh My Goodness Gracious!

It's been more than a month since my last post! Shame on me!

I really have no excuse, except for the usual: insane work schedules (including weekends), general fatigue in the few moments of the day when work does not call, and the time-sucker that is Facebook.

Facebook is wonderful. Facebook is also horrible.

First, the wonderful part. I've gotten back in touch with friends I thought I'd never hear from again. People I went to school with long ago (one of them is my nursery school teacher's son!), one or two old pals from my comedy widow past, several people from my brief reign as a Syracuse new wave superstar... And, of course, it allows me to keep up with the closer friends who lured me into the Facebook experience in the first place--on an hour-to-hour basis if I so wish--and I've been able to have several live chats with stepson Greg, which is great, and one wonderful chat with my old pal Amy, who is in London at the moment. How cool is that?

But there's the horrible part, too: It eats up so much time. Once you start catching up with people, you can't stop. The urge to view every photo posted by someone you haven't seen in twenty years or more is surprisingly strong--almost impossible to resist! And there are the invitations to join this cause, to play that game, to become a fan of just about any performer, artist, writer, etc. you could think of (except, apparently, the incomparable Irma Thomas! Feh!)... and then there are the friend requests. Because one of my original Facebook friends (one of the folks who lured me there in the first place) is a rather well known genre writer, she has LOTS of friends. And a whole bunch of them suddenly wanted to be MY friends. Not wanting to be rude, I accepted most of them. But now I have all these friends I don't know, asking me to join this and become a fan of that. Enough!

The die is cast--I'm a confirmed Facebook addict now. But I will try my best to stop ignoring my poor little blog here!

I have lots of kitty pictures I can bore you with (Mifune, it turns out, is much smarter than Shelly was... and just as much of a pill), and I think I will take advantage of the scanner to upload old road trip photos, since the odds of a road trip in my near future are slim (given the aforementioned craziness of work). I'll do my best!