May 15, 2009 18:27
May has been a whirly storm of goings-on...like May usually is. I'm not even in the academic-year cycle anymore, and it's still a nutty month.
The warmer weather, longer days, and leafier "foliage," as it's known to my husband, make this time of the year nearly universally wonderful. Winter depression falls away, our hummingbirds are coming back to their feeder, and we have even planted a small container garden on the balcony. Though my high school friend is moving from Evansville back to Indianapolis, a friend of Cody's is coming to work with him at Peabody and will be living right across the hall from us. The apartment and surrounding grounds look much as they did when we first moved in, which is comforting in a strange way. And our one-year anniversary is approaching in two days...which I find beyond weird. Surely that much time cannot have passed? There are still days when I miss the Woods...but it's already been a year?
My place of employment feels as though it's falling apart. It's not, there is just a lot of lingering tension at the moment that will either be resolved with an explosive burst of confrontation or with some personnel changes. Or both. In addition, we have been having what's referred to as a "temporary money flow problem" that has caused a steady stream of bounced checks, including employees' paychecks. Including two of mine, because I mail them to Virginia two at a time. It makes me want to start job hunting as a contingency plan...but I want to believe that it's just a rough patch for the company.
Sadly, I don't have too many ridiculous customer stories to share; it's still baseball season, and much of our work is pretty predictable and traditional right around now. I did have one customer who wanted an image of Matt Foley (a Chris Farley SNL character) riding a chopper. So I manipulated a Farley photo and placed it onto a clip art image of a biker. To which the customer replied that he wanted the man to be wearing a suit. And he didn't like the cartoony effect of the clip art. I replied that the customer only received an hour of art time with his order, and if he wanted a photo-realistic image of Matt Foley, in a suit, riding a chopper, that it would cost him $500 in art fees. I have yet to hear a reply.
The blessing is approaching with rapidity, and I fortunately have most of the difficult tasks crossed off my do-to list. The invitations are sitting in a mass of supplies that need to be prepared and sent, however, and that is a daunting task. Once that is done, though, I pretty much need to look for a pair of flats, buy decorations, and order the fortune cookie favors I saw in Oriental Trading Company's catalog. (Isn't that awesome?) So the stress levels I was expecting for this time of year are not too high, actually.
My brother, the second child after me, is graduating from high school, and this freaks me out tremendously.
I want to say that I look forward to the summer, but I am pretty sure that we have two weekends free from now until September. We have a trip to Wisconsin, two weddings on Ann's side, our ceremony, trips to take care of shit for our ceremony, showers for the other two weddings (see a pattern?), my parents' birthdays, a family gathering on Independence Day weekend...fuck. All that time in the car. My left arm will be very tan.