Sunday, May 15

I woke up at around 9:30 this morning, and just couldn’t fall back asleep for the life of me. Stef and I had originally planned to get up a little early so we could go out somewhere for a nice Sunday breakfast, but those plans got scrapped when we couldn’t decided on a place to go, so we just stayed in and had a couple bowls of granola and yogurt, the breakfast of champions. Stefy bought “Uncle Buck” on DVD when we were at the mall last night, so we decided to watch it this morning since she’d never seen it before. It’s still one of my favorites. Miss Spiro couldn’t stick around for too long since she had to get home and have an early dinner with her folks, so she hit the road by 2:30 or so. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon and evening loading software onto my computer, and getting all the new system preferences set up in Tiger. By 6:30 or so I was getting a little bored with the computer tinkering, so I sat down with a light dinner and watched another one of my all-time favorite movies: “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”. People can Trek-hate all they want, but those last scenes with Spock always bring a tear to my eye: “The needs of the many… outweigh… the needs of the few… or the one.” Anyway, aside from getting my geek fix for the week, that was pretty much it for tonight. I was getting pretty sleepy by 11 p.m., so I went to bed a little early tonight. Tomorrow is an early morning. I need to be all rested for the good ol’ Affordable Housing Conference.

Saturday, May 14

Ok, I had the alarm going off at ten, so it was a pretty decent night’s sleep. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get dressed and make a quick trip to Target before Kim and Dan’s party this afternoon. Stef and I hit the road by about 1:30, and made that stop by Target so we could grab a nice card for the new couple on the way to Kim’s parent’s place. They live waaaay out in BFE, so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to figure out where I was going. Of course, I managed to get turned around a little bit while navigating those crazy country back roads, but I eventually figured out where to go. It was a little cool and cloudy when we finally got there, but it was nice enough to have people outside under the tent, so that’s where we headed. I re-introduced Stefy to all of my co-workers before grabbing a bite to eat, and we all sat out and chatted for a while over lunch. Wanda and Jim were already there, as were several others from the office, so we just had a nice leisurely time enjoying the party. The sun finally started to peek out after we’d been there for about an hour or so, and it started to warm up a little bit. Stef and I were about to bug out of there shortly after four, but Christi finally showed up, so we stayed for another twenty minutes or so and chatted with her and a group of other people. I was really glad that Stef finally got a chance to meet everyone for longer than five minutes, and of course it’s always fun to show off my girlfriend at events like this. So anyway, we took off by 4:30 or so, and decided to kill some time in the late afternoon up at Eastwood. We started by looking at the Gap for another pair of work pants for me, and Stefy helped me pick out some really nice Khakis that should look good with most of the shirts I already own. We poked around the mall for a little bit after we were done at the Gap, and eventually ended up at Ann Taylor. I hadn’t known that Ilana from the office was working there today, so we said hello to her for a sec, and then did some looking around while we were there. Stefy found this cute green dress that looked absolutely fantastic on her, so she decided to buy it to wear at her nephew’s baptism next month. So, after Ilana checked us out and we were on our way home, Stef called up her mom to tell her about the dress. After describing what it  looked like, Teri figured out that it was the same dress she’d bought from Ann Taylor a week or two before, so it looks like the Spiro women will have to fight it out over who gets to wear the dress when. Anyway, Stef and I finally made it back to the apartment, and spent a pretty lazy night here watching some TV. We caught part of Will Ferrell’s appearance on SNL tonight, but it was still a pretty mediocre episode, despite Ferrell’s best efforts. All-in-all it was a pretty fun day though. I’m glad that Kim’s party didn’t get rained on, and I had a lot of fun showing off my girl.

Friday, May 13

I was only at work for about 10 minutes this morning when Wanda came bustin’ out of her cubicle, saying how hungry she was for some donuts. It sounded like a nice treat, especially since I skipped breakfast this morning, but neither her nor Ilana were really itching to head out and actually PICK UP the donuts, so I volunteered to make a run to QD. That place is just an absolute zoo at 8 a.m.—I swear to God, the donut display case was practically empty when I got there. Still, all I really cared about was getting at least one sour cream donut, and Quality Dairy did not disappoint. The rest of the morning flew by, mostly because we all ate lunch a little early, since everyone had ordered from Cottage Inn and it got delivered at 11:30. All I brought to eat today was some easy mac, but since Wendy had half of a calzone left that was untouched, she shared the rest of her sandwich with me. It was goooood. The office was pretty bare bones by 2 or 3 this afternoon, so it was pretty much just Wanda and me around holding down the fort. She took off at around 4 to run to Frandor so she could pick up Kim’s wedding present from Linens ‘n Things. I wasn’t far behind her though. I made a stop at Comerica bank to drop off part of this week’s deposit, and then made my own way out to Frandor for some shopping. CompUSA was my first stop, since I was anxious to pick up a new spindle of blank CDs. I poked around for a bit, and saw a sale rack that had a 100-pk of blank CDs going for $19.99. So, I grabbed the spindle, and went to check out. They rang up at $27.99. I asked the dude what the deal was, and he called over a manager. She said that the sale didn’t start until 5 p.m., and that they couldn’t give me that price until then. I looked at my watch... 4:50. I asked if they could just give me that price now, and the lady told me quite bluntly that I’d have to wait the ten minutes. So, I told her that I was walking out of the store with my $20 instead. God, what a biatch. Seriously, what ever happened to customer service in this country? I dunno… it just pisses me off. Well anyway, I went over to Linens ‘n Things, grabbed a couple of things from Kim and Dan’s registry, and just got the hell out of there. Stefy called on my way back to the apartment, asking if I would mind her coming up tonight instead of tomorrow, so I told her to take off as soon as she could. Miss Spiro got here at around 8 p.m. tonight, and we spent the night on the couch watching “The Phantom of the Opera” on DVD. I’m glad to finally be getting a chance to see the movie. The play definitely makes a lot more sense now, since the movie does a good job of explaining some of the more confusing plot points. So, it was pretty much a quiet night at home with my girl. Nights like this almost make me miss her more than the days when she’s not here at all. But, I suppose I’ll spare you my sappiness for now. I was just glad to see my girl today.

Thursday, May 12

Another fast day at the office today. I took a break at around noon when my dad came to pick me up for lunch. We headed downtown and hit up my favorite burger joint for lunch—Kewpee’s. My dad and I ordered the requisite olive burgers, and we sat and chatted for about an hour or so. Originally we thought that Sherry might be joining us for lunch, but I guess she couldn’t get away from her office or something, because she never showed up. Anyway, dad and I had a nice time, and he dropped me back off at the office afterwards. After a couple of hours my afternoon was dragging a little bit, but I managed to re-focus my efforts on the new newsletter design, and I think it’s finally starting to come together. It was kind of a quiet day at the office on the whole though, since about half our staff seems to be out for the week. Saturday is Kim’s wedding party, so I think her and Mel are home getting things set up for that, but it just seemed kinda dead today. Anyway, my night was a little dull again, since I pretty much spent my time finishing my back-up procedures, re-formatting my iMac’s hard drive, and installing Tiger. I always get nervous whenever I have to erase a hard drive, no matter how many times I’ve double checked that everything is backed up somewhere. Anyway, I think everything turned out okay, because I had 10.4 up and running by bedtime, so now it’s time for sleep. Of course, I talked to Stefy for a few minutes on the phone before my head hit the pillow, but I think my girl was pretty pooped out too, so we kept it short. It’s amazing how tired you can get after working for nine and a half hours.

Wednesday, May 11

Day three of my 9 hr/day workweek. I don’t know how, but the days keep flying by. My new project has been to re-design our monthly newsletter using Adobe’s InDesign—which I should’ve been doing from the start—and it’s progressing quite nicely. The biggest disappointment with the one we just sent out is that the printer we used was a bit of an idiot, and cut off all the margins I originally included in the layout. Hopefully this one will look a lot better though. Anyway, my day went by pretty fast today, and I got back to the apartment shortly after 5. There was not Stefy around to surprise me today, so I just took it easy and spent the night backing up some files on my iMac. I’m hoping that I’ll finally be able to install Tiger on my machine tomorrow, so I need to make sure everything’s safely stored on my external hard drive before I do a clean sweep of my computer. Anyway, it was a pretty low-key night, to say the least.

Tuesday, May 10

Okay, so today didn’t go by quite as fast as yesterday did at the office. Still, I managed to get quite a bit done. I’m quickly learning how to use InDesign, so I started putting together a template for later use with our newsletters. Christi stopped by my cube and chatted with me for a little bit this afternoon, and told me about an idea she has for putting together a DVD for the Trust Fund that could be used to solicit new investors. And guess who she wants to work on it? So yeah, that could be a good way to shoehorn another raise through later in the year here… not getting my hopes up yet though. Anyway, I got a call from Stefy at around 4:15 saying that she was out for a drive, and was going to visit some friends for dinner tonight. She said I should cut out of work early, but I told her I wasn’t leaving for another half hour or so. On my way home I was starting to get kinda sad, missing my girl and stuff, but as I pulled into a parking space in front of the apartment, I had to do a double take when I saw a blue ML 500 sitting there. Stefy popped out of the car right away, and had TWO surprises for me, aside from her unexpected visit: Dave Matthew’s Band’s new CD, and a big sub from Jersey Giants! Seriously, what a great girlfriend. She brings me food and one of my favorite band’s new CD on the day it comes out. I was pretty excited, to say the least, and her little visit turned the tables on what was looking like a pretty boring night at the pad. Part of the idea for her visit was that we’d be able to watch our usual Tuesday night slate of shows, but leave it to Comcast to kill that idea. Our cable was out on both TVs, so that sent us searching for a backup plan. I called my dad and asked if we could come crash their TV for the night, and he said it was no problem, so we took off for D-Town as soon as we could. Stefy and I got out to my dad’s just after 7, so that gave us a good hour or so to play with the girls before their bedtime at 8, which was pretty convenient, since that’s when American Idol was starting. After AI Sex and the City was coming on TBS, and tonight they were showing the last two episodes of the series, so we stayed until about 10:30 watching those. I thought it was a really good way to end the show, even if Carrie DID end up with that cocky prick Mr. Big in the end. I guess he sorta redeemed himself though. So, that was pretty much it for my Tuesday night. It was so much fun to get to see my girl tonight, especially since I wasn’t expecting it. I really can’t say it enough—I have the best girlfriend in the world!

Monday, May 9

My first full day at the office of the summer. It was pretty low-key without Wanda today, but the day actually flew by. I spent most of my time trying to teach myself how to use Adobe InDesign for future work on our Newsletters, so that helped pass the time. It was a little after 5 by the time I got back to the apartment for the night, but I pretty much turned around right away and headed to Meijer for some grocery shopping. While I was there I decided to pick up a bunch of little trinkets for my room to help me get some things organized, so the trip took a little longer than I expected… and a little more expensive, to say the least. I guess tidiness has its price. So, I came back to the pad and spent most of the evening cleaning up my room and getting some things put away in their groovy new containers. What a great way to spend an evening, huh? Well, that was pretty much it for today. I talked to Stefy on the phone right before bed, and was glad that we finally had a chance to connect today. I was pretty zonked while we were talking though, so I had to cut the call short, but it was a good lead-in for a nice night’s sleep.