just laura

Happy New Year!! Rang in the festivities last night with parties at Beal’s, Shawn & Dot’s, and Thomas & Bryan’s houses! Best wishes to everyone for a fabulous 2002!

Well… Wednesday I finally flew back home to Seattle after two long weeks in Austin. It was great being in Texas and being able to catch up with so many old friends… it was just hard to get out of the house and coordinate transportation. I’m now back in my own apartment enjoying my first week of unemployment… it’s been great! I’ve gotten to spend time with Dieter, run errnads, do job search stuff, and have plans to do scrapbooking and general life catch up. :)

To kick off my first week of unemployment, last night Dieter and I went to see Ron Jeremy at the Graceland. Ronny did a short standup comedy routine, and the rest of the evening was him MC’ing contests where people from the audience got to be silly on stage. While parts of the evening were pretty entertaining, I think my IQ dropped from just being there. Highlight of the evening: a hug, kiss, and autograph from the Hedgehog himself. :)

So… I seem to have a slight problem here. While I enjoy subbing at the child care place (the kids are fun and the money is pretty easy), I keep getting sick. I guess I forgot what little germ factories young kids are. I’ve subbed in Nov, Dec, and Jan, and subsequently gotten sick in Nov, Dec, and Jan. Not a good track record at all. So, this makes me guess I should rethink this whole subbing idea. Anyone have other suggestions to make money while still looking for full time work?

Well, today was an interesting day on the job hunt. I met with Dan who was fabulous and gave me tons of contacts from his magical rolodex! I could be busy for weeks just contacting the amazing folks he gave me! Not to say any of them have jobs available to offer, but informaional interviews can be just as good for generating contacts and maybe even streamlining what I’m looking for! What else on the job front today? Got my first offer for full time employment! Yeah! Sadly though, it’s at the child care place, the very place that makes me sick since I’ve got no immunity to the germs the little kids carry and unleash on me each day at work. What to do, what to do! Guess I’ll have to figure it out sometime soon!

In other news, I got a Christmas card just last week from my old friend Debbie! She was one of my best friends way back in 8th and 9th grades… about 10 years ago! We’ve been largely out of touch in recent years, and getting the note from her was a major surprise! Tonight I finally wrote her back and hopefully I will hear from her again soon! Crazy!

And in yet other news, it’s only 10 more days till I’m one of the Olympic Torchbearers as the flame comes through Seattle on it’s way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 games! I’m excited to know I’m “community leader” and that I’ll be doing a little stretch of road on Broadway… the trendy shop and cafe street just a few blocks from my Capital Hill apartment. My uniform arrived in the mail last week, and my parents just booked their flight up from Austin to see the event. (It’s quite possible they’re more excited than I am about this “once in a lifetime” opportunity!) I doubt it’ll be on the news, but you can try checking the olympics website for possible photos of me. I run Jan 23rd at 5:45pm Seattle time. Wish me luck not tripping and not catching anything important on fire.

That’s it for me tonight. Am in a babbling mood every which direction I go. Take care guys! G’night!

Oh, and in final news, belated birthday wishes go out to Laura Beal, Scott Lochmann, and Captain Mike Thomas! If y’all know them, tell them I’m a schmuck for not being more on the ball with dates. (It’s not like without a valid excuse… I’m unemployed and don’t really look at the calendar much anymore!). Take care, and congrats to us all on getting so darn old!

Did I mention anything yet about our trip to Canada this weekend? Crazy story, involving us almost getting detained at the border. Whooops. More on that to come later. Tonight, I’m busy eating potato soup and ice cream. Yum!

Last night Elisa, Dieter, and I joined Andrew at his friend’s house for a good old fashioned Pajama Party! Most people came pretty conservative in pants and sops sets, but there were a few see through nighties to keep the crowd’s interested perked. Actually marathons games of Jenga seemed to keep the party going well into the 3am hour when we decided to head out. We decided to incorporate many games from our youth slumber parties to make it an even better game and the result was basically Strip- Spin the Bottle- Naughty Dice- Truth or Dare Jenga. We were pretty content with the results, (which weren’t too crazy, despite the new rules) and had fun playing for hours. :)

Tonight I had a lot of fun, and I have Charles to thank! Today I got to be an official Olympic Torchbearer for the Olympic Torch Relay to the 2002 Salt Lake City games. It was great fun, but I’m tired and will write more later! G’night!

Oh, and before I forget… I had another one of those moments when I say to myself, “Whoa… I’m sooo living in Seattle…” Tuesday before my parents came into town, I walked down to the Pike Place Market to get some fresh tulips to make my apartment pretty. Well, when I walked to my favorite flower booth, I realized my friend Brian was working there! I had no idea I’d run into him… quite crazy! Anyway, he totally hooked me up with flowers and I felt completely connected to the whole market scene as I was walking away. What a fabulous little event! Totally made me feel awesome! Thanks Brian!

So I just got back from the airport, where I saw my parents off on their way back to Austin. I wasn’t planning on going, but since they were expecting to take the torch with as a carry on, we decided I should go with in case security refused to let them pass or board. Luckily, after multiple checkpoints, many searches, and much discussion, the local authorities, the FAA rep, the folks from American, and the head of airport security finally agreed to let them on the plane with the torch. I’d want to rant for a while on how they’re going overboard, and that any pointy object could be a weapon, so could anything a few pounds heavy, but I guess I shouldn’t rant since they’re just doing their job. Anyway, Mom and Dad finally were allowed on, and so all’s well that ends well. :)

In other news, while they were here, we went to the Museum of Flight and I bought a yearly membership. So, if there are any Seattle folks who want to come on out with me, I get to bring a guest each time. It’s pretty cool… nice, informative, free tour included.

What else? Oh, I got my new laptop! Mega thanks go out to Eric!!! It’s fabulous, small, has software, had DVD, and is just dandy! I’m debating buying an internal modem (the only thing it’s lacking since I’m still too cheap to get cable/broadband). We’ll see. If I do, it’ll be super portable and oh so amazing! Thanks again to Eric, my personal laptop hero!

Oh my gosh! Looking back on the last several blogs, I realize that I never mentioned other exciting news: I got a job!! I’ll be a program coordinator for an organization here in Seattle, and I’m quite excited! It’s a staff position, not a volunteer position, so it’s a real paycheck and everything! Wohoo! I went in last week and met everyone at the staff meeting, and I actually start working this week! Yeah job and paychecks!!!

Okay, so I guess I should really blog more often… so much news to share! I went in for allergy testing last week and the results were surprising. I knew I was allergic to dust and to pollens, but when they finally did a skin test last week, I also found out I’m allergic to both cats and dogs! Crazy! I guess I always attributed any signs of allergies to dust or pollens, and not to the animals I’ve lived with since middle school! Insane. Anyway, just thought I’d share. Was quite an eye opening doctor’s visit…