I'm sitting here in my office and it's warm. Like, I'm sweating because we don't have AC kind of warm. Meanwhile, my sister Jenny is across the country, sitting on her porch wrapped in warm woolen sweaters, and breaking out the jackets for the kiddos. Autumn is a weird time in the Bay Area. When most of you are in the throws of summer in mid-July the Bay Area tends to be foggy and cool. I feel like we get our warmest weather in September, which is really kind of a bummer for me because autumn is my favorite season and I want nothing more than to embrace it with the rest of the country.
After dropping Alan off at BART this morning I swung by the Peet's in my neighborhood to get a pumpkin latte (they've gotten rid of the "spice" - something to do with copyright and Starbucks, I think). Holy geez I'd forgotten how expensive specialty coffee can be! To think that when I worked in the city I used to get 1-2 of these a day. No wonder I can afford to buy gorgeous purses now. I'm saving a ton of money not buying fancy coffee drinks.
So yeah, working in the city ... I realized this morning that it was two years ago this week that I made the decision to leave agency life and pursue something different professionally. We'd just come back from our end-of-summer trip to Tofino and the crap was hitting the fan at work and I was taking the fall for pretty much all of it. The hardest part was that people were lying and rather than giving me the benefit of the doubt, the Powers That Be were listening to newbies and eating up the BS they were shoveling their way. I was so hurt and frustrated and generally worn out. On the one hand, it feels like just yesterday that I walked away from that world, but on the other hand it feels like it was a lifetime ago. I'm so happy that I found my current job.
Speaking of which, I fly to Portland tonight for an offsite for one of the groups I'm involved with. I found out yesterday that I'm going to present. I told Alan last night the topic I'm presenting and he laughed. You see, it's a fairly technical topic. Admittedly, the way in which this part of the topic is being addressed is from a non-technical standpoint, but still. The fact that these phrases roll off my tongue like nothing is quite comical around these parts. I'm not lying when I say that I can't figure out how to properly connect my Mac to the TV - I'm not exactly known as a technical wizard. But strangely I can explain, quite adeptly, a lot of IT/consumer security information and engineering processes. I even sound smart sometimes! Aside from the fact that this trip is pretty much immediately after getting back from Kauai I was somewhat looking forward to it because Portland is my go-to for cold weather. I was totally stoked to pull out the warm sweaters and boots for this trip. And then I checked the weather. Um, yeah. Eighty to 90 degrees. Not cool Portland, not cool at all.
I fly home Friday evening and then we leave again for one of Alan's childhood friend's weddings at the beach. Typing that I just realized that I have to pack for Portland today *and* pack for the trip to the Coast so that Alan can bring my bag with me when he picks me up. It's a wonder I'm not more stressed. That'll come at 3 p.m., I'm sure. Unfortunately Alan can't take me to the airport tonight. He started a new job a at Salesforce a couple of weeks before we left for Kauai and with their user conference coming up it's kind of a busy time for them right now. It's obviously early days yet, but so far everyone he's come into contact with absolutely loves the company, so that bodes well for his future there.
Okay, back to work. And packing. And sweating.
