Five Days Later...

I write another blog post. Sorry about that! But this is where I have been the last week:

(Only less slightly less blurry.) I'm kind of balls to the walls on it. Things at work started to get a bit hairy and make me feel sorta desperate about staying here. The family I was very interested in, in Paris, decided to choose a girl who already has her visa and I cried a little about it. Then I re-upped my ante and went full speed ahead to make this thing happen.

Meanwhile, back at the coal mine, the hairy got down right ugly and my boss decided to take personal attacks on me. In a public forum. Using profanity. And so I walked out. Because, maybe I'm too much like my father, but I won't stand to be verbally beaten in front of my peers for too long before I break.

This time was surprisingly diplomatic on my end. I expressed as calmly as possible (despite wanting to throw myself across the table and throttle her) that I didn't appreciate being called out by name in front of every one at the weekly meeting, and that if she had a problem with me to speak to me directly, in private. To which she replied, spitting fire, "Don't tell me how to run my meetings." Then I realized that I'll never be the kind of person who can take it up the ass like that. I would rather take one for the team.

Because someone was going to get fired that night and I figured I have the least to lose. I'm moving to PARIS, remember?

The truly unfortunate thing is that those people still have to spend every day with her, breathing the new improved fire-wrath of the dragon lady. I looked into filing a complaint against her behavior - because is it really legal for people to be treated that way?? And oh yeah, it is. Texas is a right to work state. And that means that, unless your employer is discriminating against your age, race, gender, sexuality blah blah blah then they can treat you however they want and fire you for any reason and you can't do a damn thing about it. So cool, this Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's almost as great as what feminists did for us forward thinking women back in the 70's. (I mean, we didn't really want to stay home with our infant children, did we girls?)

I digress. The point is I am jobless again. I thought this would cause me a great deal of anxiety but the truth is I find that I am blissfully happy about it. Not the zero income thing, but the realization that it's time in my life to stop slinging coffee. I get to move on, and that's tres cool.

I have put my feelers out for local summer-time nanny jobs and after this weekend I will throw the search into high gear. But for now, the Frenchman and I are going camping. As in "eight hours away from here, lets sleep on the ground and I really hope it's not one of those places with public showers and flushing toilets" camping. I haven't been tent camping in several years - and the last time was to the beach, so does that really even count? Camping, y'all. I'm goin' back to my roots and shit.When I get back I will probably smell bad, but I'll post the photos to share. For reals this time.

Today I Wore the Short Skirt

It's summer in Texas. That means it's already ninety degrees during the day with equal amounts of humidity. For a white girl (and I'm talkin' like I am a reflective surface in the sun) summer time in Texas means that she can no longer wear her requisite blue jeans to cover her skinny legs. Strike that - I could wear the jeans, but I would also then die of heat stroke. And I'm not even being dramatic.

So I bought some minis. Traditional minis like my mom wore in the seventies, complete with a danger zone hemline that dares me not to wear panties. (I did, though, don't worry.) I wore the mini into Target, wherein I remembered that dressing in certain things warrants certain looks - like the other day when I wore the tank top my boss bought us all that reads "I Heart Pie", forgetting that innuendo might cause a man to gawk or perhaps call out clever things like "I'll have a piece of your pie baby!" from his masculine display of a Toyota Tundra. Walking around a suburban superstore baring my legs up to my neck caught the stare of every other woman in the store. Their husbands and boyfriends looked too, I'm sure, but it was the women that I noticed.

What caught my attention was the look of utter disapproval that registered across their faces. Having been on the other end of that glance before, I found it terribly disconcerting; I knew what had just gone through their heads. "She's not really wearing that is she?" Or, from the more conservative "That's disgusting."

Because that is the way that women think of each other.

I did my best to not fidget, because then you let on that you can't handle the skirt, but I couldn't help pulling on the hem as it rode dangerously north on my hips. I wanted to feel light and breezy, not trashy. I picked out the skirt because I really liked it, because I want to enjoy it for a summer.

And then I thought - why shouldn't a women bare her legs? Why is a woman's body considered so indecent? It made me think of the way that little girls in some African villages are subjected to breast ironing, with the intention that their delicate little lumps will not become something that might temp a man. These girls aren't given a choice, and then when their breast finally do come in, they are hideous and misshapen. Why should we bare that, instead of being proud of what was given to us by nature?

I left Target holding my head determinedly high, for the little girls in Africa and the soccer moms dying to shake it. There is no shame in what we are given.

It's Hammock Time

Working backwards to Tuesday, my last post: Here I am on my weekend again and this time THE PHONE IS OFF. After last weekends "call in" debacle and then working six days straight (which is just not in me, I'm not that dedicated of a worker) I opted to be completely unavailable. My phone is dead, gee damn. And does anyone want to work my Sunday morning shift?

The Frenchman came home Wednesday and it was all "Yay!" and wouldn't you like to know! We got to his house and popped a bottle of champagne, ordering Mexican food online while he dumped the entire contents of his two week trip on the dining room floor. We looked at his photos from the Alps and - how sexy is a man who climbs THIS:


I swoon. After the bottle was kicked we slept like tired little babies cuddling their favorite pink cookie. When he drove me home in the morning, we found my neighborhood looked a bit like the mess he'd made in the dining room. Apparently, while we were safely south in the land of LUV a tornado had near missed my apartment. The trees took it the worst.




I felt all at once blessed and a bit cheated that I had missed the excitement. I like a good storm. Reports of this one were of orange lighting and green skies. Podunk Colorado didn't have tornadoes, so this is all kind of cool sounding to me.

My neighbor didn't think it was that great when the tree fell on the roof above her bedroom, however, so I guess it goes without saying that a storm like that should be taken seriously. Here is the crazy maintenance man trying to cut the remainder of the branch that damaged our roof:

But He Didn't Die, So It's Okay from Juliet Pennay on Vimeo.

Doesn't seem safe, does it? Don't worry, he lived.

Today I offered to do the funky France laundry for B, and I'm going to prepare a tuna with a caper vinaigrette and lovely asian pear and jicama salad for the barbecue we're hosting tonight.

There are plenty of reasons to celebrate this weekend. Tomorrow I will find out if I have one too, in the form of a family to go to in France. ...I'm not afraid to celebrate early, though. There's always a reason for champagne!