Is it wrong...

...to want a life that matches your friends? Meaning you have the same hours. I always feel a half step out of every one's life. I wonder if it it is worth it. I have given away so much away of the things I am passionate about to a company who I think doesn't really know I exist. I am an employee number that is sent a pay check...I am a body that moves the store around...I am dispensable.

After nine years with this company, they are NOW hiring within. After nine years with this company...seven of which under a Napoleonic manager...I NOW have to PROVE my self.

QUITE FRANKLY, IM'DONE!!!!!

I am tired of of y'all coming in and playing dress up and I have to pick your clothes up off the floor...and I mean OFF THE FLOOR! How special you are, that every thing you tried on can be discarded to the floor.


I am over people treating me like crap because I don't go fast enough...meaning you have have been trying stuff on for three hours and...OMG...you are SOOOOO LATE.....and I am suddenly being so slow at doing my job....and I get angry thrown at me.. Happens a lot....A LOT.

Here's dilemma...customer complaint...long term customer...REALLLLLY UNHAPPY! It was the store manager who treated her badly. What do I do with this information? Rock and a hard place.

We generally pay our part time people appallingly not enough an hour and expect them to be our beck and call girls. Our store has a great team...we've been together a while...we are in for the whole..and I don't think any of them are paid their worth...

None of us are.

I think my company feels we are all disposable commodities. Without US in your stores, you are just a TV commercial ...a magazine wish list.

I feel a rebellion bubblng to the surface.

What was....

...your best moment on vacation? John asked that tonight. I said riding my little faux surfboard really far into shore...I felt brilliant on a two foot wave.

Actually, the best moment was Connie and me in the car after lunch at the cool rest stop in West Virginia (the name starts with a T and the name is gone and I am getting SOOO old). A mishap with seat belts and gum made us deeply belly laugh for at least five minutes. It was the best moment because it was so us.

Thank you Connie...for so many things.

For wanting to go on vacation with me and inviting me.

For sticking with me when I have disappeared.

For sending me home from a rehearsal where I was totally screwing up...almost quit that night and put my script in your door...what stopped me was I loved you more and I wanted to do my best for you.

You are a force to be reckoned with...even if you don't think so.

My real favorite moment of vacation is us on the deck at the house...just talking. Loved it.

You are the Intelligentsia and I am the Flake...we complement each other.

So to Connie...

Thank you for your company. I've missed it more than you know.

You are perfect. Just as you are.

Observations....

....gleaned from the Island

While sitting on a beach, there should always be small children in big hats nearby to watch as they run to the ocean with their Mom chasing behind. Short little legs jumping in tide pools is thing of joy.

God did a really good thing when he made the ocean and sand.

Every vacation needs planners and go with the flow-ers. I am definitely a flow-er. I hope I didn't make my planners crazy.

You do need two weeks and not because of travel time. It takes a good two days to get into the rhythm of where you are...especially going from North to South.

Breaking things (like a bathtub water stopper drain thingy) doesn't have to be a moment of panic. We panic because it's not our house and we (I) felt like I broke the house. You do what you do at home...find someone to fix it.

Really nice, thick bath towels are thing of beauty and wonder.

Breakfast should always be eaten overlooking a dock on the ocean with an open window nearby so you can smell the sea air. Watching a family trying to kayak while we ate was a bonus. We all had fun.

The Metropolitan martini bar had closed. Made me sad it wasn't there. Was looking forward to having a Sex and the City moment with Connie...reminiscent of my first visits to the Island. Kay, Connie and I having a drink there....talking and laughing. Connie, Amy and I having having a drink there...talking and laughing. Realized I was trying to capture a feeling...that going out dressed up moment of being with your girlfriends...

Rocking chairs should be a requirement on every porch. They encourage conversation...and the wonderful comfortable silences. I will find one for my porch.

Going into the ocean with a piece of glorified styrofoam will make you want to hit that "perfect wave" and ride into shore. Granted the waves may be three feet...but I did catch a good one and I laughed like a loon. It was just freeing and perfect.

Hate jelly fish. Was out in the ocean and saw a dark spot floating close to me....jellyfish...couldn't move fast enough away. Saw big ones washed up onshore from the low tide. Saw a product in a store I wish I had bought...Jelly Fish Squish...it was a spray for jelly fish stings.

I made the comment at dinner one night that there could be a business opportunity in the peeing on jelly fish stings...what a great comment to make to make a good impression on your friends beau. Still think it's a valuable defintiely male dominated service...better aim.

I can't miss you....

...if you don't go away. It was something my husband said to me the first time I went away for vacation with my girlfriends. It was his way of saying go and have fun and do those things you do with them because I don't get and you need it. It made me fall in love with him all over again.

I'm off to Hilton Head tomorrow with one of my oldest, bestest, dearest friends. We never seem to see each that months have past...but to me it never seems that way. She is always in my thoughts. I don't think she believes it but I do have conversations with her in my head..meaning stuff happens and I think about she would react to it and what she would tell/advise me...I'm glad we can pick "us" up...it's good to know that someone has your history.

We are meeting up with our friend Amy...my longest friend...known her since college...I get to meet Amy's beau for the first time...Connie has met him before...and well, it makes me nervous. It makes me nervous because Amy is in love with this man and I want to make a good impression. I know that seems silly...

I remember the first couple of times Molly and Bob were around each other. He so pissed her off and ruffled her feathers...he can be a bull in a china shop....he is SO missing the conversational censor chip sometimes...his innocent heart and my explanations have him getting slapped upside the head more than he knows.

He loves the ocean. Wish he were going with us...but we would make him crazy.

Next year, I'm taking him to the beach.

Eleven Days....

...and I off to the Island with Connie and meeting Amy and finally get to meet Charlie.

I am looking forward to spending hours in the car with Connie and catching up. We have not seen each other in an obscene length of time. It never seems as long a time as it actually is to me because I always have conversations with her...albeit in my head...and I know that sounds a little insane...but it's true. She is just always with me.

One of the greatest things about this vacation is that I don't have a cell phone. Which means I have to call my husband in the old fashioned collect call...bet you haven't done that since college or in a major emergency. I don't even know if I remember how to call collect but I will find out. The second greatest thing is I don't have a cell phone and enough said.

I am so looking forward to spending time with Connie and Amy and sighting gekkos...they seem to be our good luck charm. Every time we have been to Hilton Head, we have daily gekko sightings. The last time Connie, Amy and I went there was one waiting for us in the kitchen sink and we knew it was going to be a good week...

...and it was.

Been thinking...

...about my girlfriends and how important they are to me and how they just spark my life.

A couple of weeks ago I went to have drinks with my ladies at the Chocolate Cafe. It is place that does chocolate everything and they have a small apertif area (BAR) and make the best chocolate martinis. They make a tequila martini with chocolate drizzle that is...well that is all you need to say "I am slowed down and this tastes good." We all got there one after the other and just fell into the conversation. Some of these women I have known for a few years, some of them are newer friendships.....but what I loved is that everyone just meshed. We all laughed so hard.

This group of people has energized me in so many ways.

I adore their company.

Going back....

...and reading previous posts is an interesting venture. One word keeps popping out at me. That word is sad.

I'm striving for gleeful...joyous...at the very least content. Sad needs to be banished.