Office Monkey

Which normally would mean that for business reasons I’m going onsite to watch customers use my product.

‘cept, I don’t have products, which means this probably has something to do with Mandrina.

We’re going to Florida to visit potential wedding sites.

We’re choosing Florida rather than Seattle — which, being where we live, would make a bit more sense — due to the proximity of elderly and infirm relatives to Florida versus Seattle. Thinking about it that way made it just a might easier to make a tough call.

It’s not a definite that we’re getting married in FL, but it is increasingly likely. At the moment, we’re just going to go visit a few potential sites for the ceremony, reception, rehearsal dinner, and possibly the wedding night, as well as visits to the sole bakery in the area (that was my one demand), florists and photographers.

Mandrina’s best friend and maid-of-honor, Tara, will be coming up from Tampa for the weekend, and touring sites with us.

We’ll be staying with Mandrina’s lovely mother and maternal grandmother.

We’ll be having brunch on Saturday (this is a semi-mythical brunch to me, as it’s been mentioned as, “Granny has invited us to Brunch,” far more often than it has been mentioned as “Granny has invited us to brunch.”) with Mandrina’s paternal grandmother.

On Saturday evening we’ll be attending THE fundraiser event of the year for Pensacola Little Theater, where Mandrina’s formerly done shows.

On Sunday evening, we’ll be having dinner with Mandrina’s father and stepmother.

And in the midst of all that, we’ll be seeing places to get married.

Not that I feel at all intimidated, no sir.

I need to find someone to check on my cat while we’re gone…

There are enough features in Wordpress 2.0.1 that I’d rather be running it…

So I’m going to upgrade Mandrina and my blogs to the new version. Unfortunately, that means I’m going to have to gut my neato shared-wordpress installation, and switch to local copies.

*sigh* There goes my pretty little hack.

This tells me something may be wrong with my work situation:
7:30am – Wakeup to alarm clock.
8:00am – Leave to get estimate for electrical work on new house(!! — I’ll post about it later. )
8:35am – Wonder where electrician is.
8:40am – Call and find out that electrician didn’t actually schedule estimate.
8:45am – Call alternate — and previously more helpful — electrician to find out if he can do last minute estimate.
9:10am – Greet arrival of alternate electrician, poke and prod around house, getting an idea of work and labor.
10:30am – Head home to shower and get ready for work.
11:00am – Be greeted by cat at the top of the stairs.
11:30am – Remind self that I should be going to work.
11:45am – Take shower.
12:00am – Remind self that I should be going to work.
12:15am – Greet surprised fiancee when she comes home from iceskating lessons.
12:30am – Finish making “bag lunch,” leave for work.
1:00pm – Arrive at Office.
1:15pm – Eat lunch in office.
1:45pm – Eat cookies via Abigail.
2:00pm – Decide it’s okay to take a nap.
2:10pm – Get interrupted.
3:00pm – Start watching the traffic home.
4:00pm – Decide it’s okay to take a nap.
4:10pm – Get interrupted.
4:30pm – Bring up traffic again.
5:40pm – Start writing post bemoaning lack of interest in work.

Mandrina and I had been shopping for engagement rings since last year around this time. We’ve hit nearly every jewelry store in the region. Some more than once; most recently I was going alone in the interests of being able to surprise Mandrina with the proposal (which worked).

Unfortunately, I feel a little bit guilty for all the work I made people do regarding finding out how much custom rings would cost. I mean, I know it’s their business, but still!

So I ended up going with a complete unknown, who made the ring at a low price and in exactly the time frame I wanted. Heck, Jason ended up coming to our Super Bowl party last weekend; he’s a good guy.

Yesterday, I got a call from Courteny or however you spell it. Mandrina and I first were helped by Courtney last March or so — lovely lass, very helpful, gave us free drinks and chocolate chip cookies!

She calls, and wants to know how the search went. I can’t quite bring myself to tell her that I happily went with another vendor.

So instead, I tell her in a deadpan voice, “Well, things have changed somewhat, and well, I’m not looking at engagement rings anymore.” “Oh, I’m so sorry!” “No, it’s okay, we’re still together, just… some things came up.”

Perfectly, 100% true. ‘cept, I doubt she took that as the true-to-life meaning, and instead probably thinks she just called a potential customer and asked him about getting engaged to a girl he’s on the verge of breaking up with.

Whoops.

I’m a bad, bad man.

I want to be a Foster Home!