Cue the Wizard of Oz music

Dangling in our sky chair on the front porch, the mutt trembling beside me, I watched lightning claw the sky and listened to the crack and rumble of thunder. Every so often the wind shifted enough to send a bracing spray of rain in our direction. I love storms. It's one of the things I missed most living in California. Earthquakes are dramatic, but there's no anticipation, no enjoyment while it's happening. They occur, you don't trust your senses until it's almost over, and then either you're fine or you're not. A good thunderstorm is so much more satisfying!

As we sat there, I heard sirens. At first I thought someone's home had been hit by lightning, then I realized they were the tornado sirens. Crap!

I ran inside with a velcro mutt hugging my leg. Jrex and I checked our phones for alerts. Sure enough, the thunderstorm was prime for a tornado and was heading our way.

"Should we wake up Brex and hide in the bathroom?" I wanted to just shrug it off and keep sitting outside.

"I think we should," wise husband decided.

Sigh. I threw a bunch of pillows around in the downstairs powder room then went up to get Brex up from bed. I rarely see him sleep since he usually pops awake and starts talking if the door opens. We don't get to do the fond gaze at the sleeping child bit. As a result, I love it when I get to be around him when he's sleepy. He snuggled into my shoulder as we went downstairs. We left the light off in the bathroom (there's a night light) and got him settled on the pillows.

The sirens kept sounding every fifteen minutes, and we'd check one or the other of our phones. Each time, it woke up Brex. At first he settled back to restless sleep, but finally, he woke up, crawled past my legs and tottered into the corner. He looked up at the light, "OOOOhh. LITE"

"Yes, light."

"MUTT"

"Yes, mutt."

"Appa!"

"Yes, Appa"

Then, "E.I.O.?"

I launched into Old MacDonald and added verses about the mutt, Appa, Mom.

As I sang, he bounced in place doing his only big dance move, the toddler bop. At the end of the verse, he clapped and said, "Yea!" Sadly, it's the only time anyone has ever clapped after one of my solos!

After 45-minutes total, we were able to go back upstairs. He ran around the room in a manic state. I finally scooped him up with a book and sat down to read to him. After doing his book/prayer/song routine, he settled back to sleep.

The weird truth is that I'm actually happy to be able to pass along the Tornado Huddle tradition. I loved it when we gathered as a family in the basement. It was exciting, a little dangerous, but lots of fun to see everyone in the middle of the night. Of course, the only reason it's a fond memory is that nothing bad ever happened. Let's hope that's true for Brex, too!

Two posts in one day!

I've never done a two-for-one deal here, but this just happened. My company does a semi-monthly "All C0" meeting which includes a time for employee recognition. I won this month and this is what my coworker said about me:

I would like to recognize OTRgirl. I have the pleasure of working with OTRgirl on our New Business Development efforts as well as various office projects. Not only is she extremely Creative and talented in her craft, but she contributes to our Strategy and the overall experience we want to communicate to our potential clients. Her hardwork, attention to detail and tireless efforts are so appreciated and should not go unrecognized.

Most RFP responses have a very short timeline. Design layouts & edits often end up in the race to the finish line. She has worked many weekends, pulled all-nighters, and recently on the Netapp pitch made 2 trips back & forth to the office from Texas in one week, BUT always with no complaints, a smile and a great attitude to get 'er done no matter what. She truly epotimizes the Company Way and puts her heart into every project. I would like to say, "Thank You" to OTRgirl for being ah-mazing!

I know I whine a lot about my job, but stuff like this helps make it feel worthwhile.

One of the fun projects I did this week involved dropping cartoon characters into our capabilities presentation. That deck helped us win the business for helping a TV studio sell it's 500 episodes of [prime time carto0n] to cable companies. We'll help create a fantastic immersion experience of the cartoon world to help the potential buyers realize that they aren't just buying the right to show the cartoon, but the right to own the whole show's world. Good times!

Mother's Day and Heroes

I just read this Anne Lamott article about Mother's Day. When we were struggling with infertility, it was an excruciating day. Part of me hated all the mother's and all their stupid children. I skipped church. I couldn't deal with whatever the church was going to do to honor Mother's. Some churches gave flowers to every woman, which is a nice gesture, but barely touches the core pain when you want a kid but can't have one.

Anne takes it one step further and talks about the need to honor all those who played mothering roles, including gay men. She says that she intentionally didn't raise her son to celebrate mother's day.

http://www.salon.com/2010/05/08/hate_mothers_day_anne_lamott/

Now that I have a kid, am I on the Mother's Day bandwagon? Meh. As she states in her article, my feelings are similar to what I think of Valentine's Day. It's a holiday that is unnecessary if you have a sweetheart/child, but makes you feel horrible if you don't. I don't enjoy situations that make others feel left out or hurt, so I'd be OK if both holidays disappeared. Frankly, every morning I wake up to a little voice next to the bed saying, "Mom?" is mother's day. I'm intensely grateful for our funny, stubborn, opinionated, intense little guy. I guess a gift certificate for a 90-minute massage and guilt free permission to go enjoy it sounds nice, but why wait for a Hallmark moment for that to happen?

========

The other thing rolling around in my head is the situation around Charles Ramsey. He stepped in to help free three kidnapped women and now is being rolled in the giant American media mixer and getting thrashed. He seems like a level-headed guy with a great sense of humor, so I hope he's not getting messed up by our weird need for heroes to be larger than life and perfect in every respect.

Stay real, Mr. Ramsey.

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/07/charles_ramsey_hero_and_viral_superstar/

It sounds better than it is!

I just ate a lobster salad with cheesecake for dessert, delivered to my room here in a 4-star hotel.

I wish the next part of this story involved my husband!

Sadly, no. I'm in California for work. It turned out that the 4-star hotel was only $30 more a night than the cheap dive hotel near the office. Both are very close to work, so it's easy to grab a cab.

Room service? Allowed me to get to my room quickly and jump onto the edits for the presentation book which has to go to the printer in the morning. Don't get me wrong, the salad was delicious, the cheesecake enjoyable, the room is lovely, I'm grateful, but wouldn't it be nice to share with someone rather than sitting up working all night?

It should be noted that I was just here Monday through Friday morning last week. If we didn't have the kiddo, I probably would have just stayed here for the weekend. Jrex would have actually been quite happy to have time to get some of his work done. That said, it was wonderful to go home and see my guys and the fabulous Muttola. 

Tomorrow night I jump on the red-eye plane so I can hug my kid in the morning.

The cool thing is that Brex has seemed relatively unfazed by these last two trips. As an experiment, last week I told him on Sunday that I'd be 'at work' the next day. Most weekends, Jrex goes into lab for at least a few hours each day. So I have the following conversation more times than I can count:

"Appa?"

"Appa's at work."

"Appa?"

"Appa's still at work. He'll be home soon."

As a result, he knows that the phrase, "At work" involves someone being gone, but coming home eventually. To both of our surprise, on Monday morning, he woke up but didn't go to look for me at all. Most mornings I wake up to a little head next to the bed chiming, "Mom? Mom!" but Monday he seemed content without me and happy to go to 'school'. Seems like it was the same today.

For his sake, I'm quite happy about he's fine. On general principle however, I'm offended that I'm not the center of his little universe. Hmph.

Major husband points

Last night, I told Jrex I was getting a haircut in the morning. I asked if he had any specifications.

"Sure. I'd like it to still be dirty blonde, though I can deal with a little red if you need to go there. It would be nice if there's still some hair to swish and not just a butch cut. Otherwise, whatever you want."

I showed him this haircut and asked for his opinion:

"Really?!" Then he looked at it a little longer and said, "Actually that will be fine. It'll look better on you anyway."

I was shocked, "You think so?"

"Definitely. I've never found Victoria attractive."

I must say, I don't think many people would rate my looks above VB's, but if my husband does, that's all that counts, right?

AWOL

Talk about disappearing, huh?

The last two months feel like a blur. Between surgery, sickness, work insanity/travel and then my cousin being here for much of the last three weeks, we have not had much down time.

The hernia seems to be healing well. I have a final post-op with the surgeon in May (he is MUCH more thorough than Surgeon One). He told me I could do basic cardio, but I should avoid core specific exercises until after I see him next. It doesn't bother me to pick up Brex at all, so that's nice.

For three weeks, my cousin JR has been working intensely around our house. He came for a family visit in January. I chatted about my big plan for the yard and he said he could do it. He asked how much I was willing to pay to get stuff done and we agreed to the amount. Unfortunately, as with much of construction, everything has taken longer than anticipated. JR is also ambitious and has taken on more than I even dared to request. The poor guy had to get home last week and then come back for this past weekend (and is leaving tomorrow). He's in San Antonio so it's a 6-hour trip to get here. That said, he's done amazing work. Now it's just on me to get my butt in gear and get the landscaping done!

In terms of work drama...phew! The Creat1ve D1rector had verbally agreed to the offer and came to visit the office and meet all of us. I think we might have been a little too honest. Basically, but the end of the day, he turned around and rejected the offer! Yikes. Our Gen. Manager was furious. Personally, I think that Eey0re was a little too 'honest'. I heard later that he really enjoyed talking with me so I know I'm not part of the bad children club. To reinforce that notion, last week my GM called to tell me that they think they are going to move ahead with the promotion (didn't say when) given that we won't have a CD for a while now.
She really encouraged me that if/when Jrex looks for a new job (she's hoping it's 'when'), we'll consider cities where there are offices for our company. If I can live in one of our company towns, I have a bright future in the company. If not (she didn't say this, but I'm reading between the lines), the best I can hope for is this promotion. It's not a bad proposition since the available options include Boston, New York, SF, LA and Austin. Of course, we're 5-7 years away from any possible move, so it's unlikely that I'll advance very quickly.

The irony of course is that I always thought I'd be a stay-at-home mom if I ever had a kid! I liked having just a job and never planned on having a career. It makes me laugh to be in this position, but it's a fun gig while it lasts. It's nice to know I can swim with the big fish, but also nice that it doesn't feel like my life's meaning is defined by this job.

The Brex department gets more and more fun (and challenging). His language is really starting to explode, he's picking up words on a daily basis, we just have to be good at interpretation. For example, he's really into the word "Giraffe", but says "Aff!" Now that he's figured out "Cacka" (Cracker), it's the main thing he wants for dinner...

Our current challenge is at the day care. They put an activity center in the foyer. Most of the kids are content to play there for a couple minutes and then head out the door. Our kid however, not so much. When he gets into an activity, he can focus on it for 20 minutes or more. One example, we were sitting on the front sidewalk a couple days ago and I handed him an acorn with it's 'hat' off. He sat there a LONG time just fitting the acorn back into the lid and pulling it back out. So, at daycare, he settles in to explore that activity center. I'm usually rushing to get somewhere and don't have time for it. I give him a few minutes and then have to drag him from the building in hysterics. The first day he cried most of the way home. Sigh. Yesterday was a little better. Today I'm bringing snack distraction.

Upon further reflection

I'm getting a little annoyed about my review. I love all the kind things they said. However, I thought I'd be getting tangible steps to take towards a promotion. My GM made it seem like it was almost a done deal when we talked in January. Now this VP of Creat1ve, who is just starting to know me, is making me prove myself all over again. PLUS, now I have to do that with the new Creative D1rector they just hired.

I'm grateful for the good from the review, but it feels like I could see the next step and all of a sudden it grew into a mountain.

It also seems like a great way to make me invest more blood, sweat and tears into this company. Hmph.

Which is why, when they asked if I'd come for the latest pitch rehearsal on Monday, I said, "Sure!"