The more I try, the worse it gets

Do you ever have one of those days/weeks/months/... where you work so hard to get on top of things, feel like you are, only to realize you are further down than you were before? I think I need a break. I don't think I have properly transitioned into the work force, at least not yet, and miss not having the summer vacation. I discovered a while back that most of my vacation days I negotiated for when I started haven't been used, and factoring in those that will be used at the holidays and those that can be carried over, I still have a week that will be lost if I don't take it in the next couple of months. The catch is that I haven't taken days yet because it is very busy here as we transition into our new space and expand our business - in other words, there is no time for vacation, I'm lucky if I can get away with a 40 hour week (but I do love what I do).



Timing. I oversee about 20 projects - quite a lot but doable, except for the timing. There are 6 projects that are at the most critical stage and require the most handholding, keeping track of numerous items as well as the usual research, calculations, and teaching. I would think 2 would be doable, but three times that amount has me taxed. By the end of the day more issues have come up despite me being on the phone/in meetings all day. It will never end!



Car. Wonderful trip to Syracuse in which I drove - thought I could keep track of time. We were able to get back at a decent time on Sunday and my car did wonderfully - 37 mpg! Hybrid-shmybrid. You ask yourself, what is wrong with this picture. The car did wonderful except... I couldn't shift most of the way back! That's right, we would pull in to a rest stop and I go to downshift and there is nothing - I can't get it into any gear - they were all closed for business. Not sure what is wrong, (not sure if I want to know), but for now, I am leaving the car in the driveway and thanking my lucky stars I use public tranportation for 90% of my transportation needs.



Fighting. Granted it is fighting the good fight, but it gets exhausting. One project I am working on has a green roof in the design and now I am facing the architect taking it out for the most ridiculous reasons. I am a patient person, but this is starting to wear me down. I can argue the tough argument, but arguing the silly fight is draining. (This is from a tour I gave last fall, it was on my camera).



The list could go on, but one can only complain so much. At least I feel like I am accomplishing something (even if I'm not keeping up). Maybe I need to start a new knitting project (even though I need to finish three projects - sew the pieces together).

Weddings, Weddings, Weddings!

The theme for last weekend was Weddings! It actually started on Friday. I had to return something at Filene's and didn't realize that it was the annual, Filenes Basement Running of the Brides. (check out the link - it has steps on how to organize your 'team'). This event is institutional, think I first learned about it on Seinfeld and didn't realize it was in Boston. On the way into work the line was six people deep and around the block. By the time I went at lunch, the crowds had subsided (lucky since the return counter was located behind where the gowns were - I don't think I would have made it - they are vicious)!



Than bright and early Saturday, Noah, Andrea and her boyfriend Chris (the first two are coworkers of mine) drove to Syracuse for Colleen's wedding (another coworker). I finally have pictures too as I was the only one to bring a camera! Granted it's digital, so not the best at getting motion shots. Warning these pictures are blurry:

Colleen is catholic and unfortunately had a young "old-timer" priest who talked about how they should reconnect every evening after Colleen made dinner (audience laughs, he's confused and edits, "or after she get's take-out"- I guess that's his idea of the modern lifestyle, mind you, still the woman's responsibility).

Waited and waited to get a shot of them leaving the church, and this is what I get! I even forwent the blowing of bubbles to no avail.

Between the hotels, church and the museum (where the reception was), they had hired a trolly to shuttle the guests. This is us (mare, me, noah, chris) on the way to the wedding. Andrea was taking that shot, so here is her "sexy mama" shot at the dinner.They had the reception at the Everson Museum which was designed by I.M. Pei and was really a great setting (especially considering it was raining all day). The dinner was upstairs in a gallery and the drinks and dancing were downstairs in the lobby. It was such a lovely setting. You could socialize and than go and wander through (some) of the exhibits. It was a really great pairing of a traditional type wedding with a wonderful setting.

Note that almost half of the young ladies had the floral print, strapless dresses. This was at the beginning of the night, after dinner - fairly tame.

I was suprised how quickly the night went - lots of dancing and we all had a great time. It was great having a group of people I knew fairly well to hang out and enjoy the night with. I ended up knowing quite a few people (from Colleen's bachelorette party, and old coworkers of hers I had met). I met some new people and including a fellow who had done the same exact same undergrad program at my school. He was a freshman when I was a senior. It was fun to reminisce about the college days, the different fraternities (most of old fraternity row has been confiscated by administration - a shame), classes and professors and good old Butterfield Hall.

I just noticed when I posted this picture, that if you look closely, it includes a guy on the left that Colleen has been wanting to hook me up with. He is good friends of theirs, but is a musician and a bit younger. Colleen really wanted her wedding to be an opportunity for matching up various single people, as that is how they met and in the end got married - keep the circle of love and marriage alive. All in all the wedding was great and well worth the 11 hours of driving - so much love and happiness. I really wish the best for them in their future together.

FYI, the groom does have a name and it is Mark.

Author unknown

So I thought I'd post my anonymous mail I got the other week. Being that I lived in San Francisco for quite a few years, I occasionaly get San Francisco post cards from friends who still live there. This particular post card is interesting since it features the famous Painted Ladies (one of the most photographed sites in SF) but also borders the small park that I hung out in almost every day the first week I arrived in SF. I'd be apartment hunting, driving all over the city, trying to find a job, living in a Youth Hostel I had to vacate during the day. By midday I would be tired and found this park a relaxing place to take a rest, and still be able to keep an eye on my car that was chock full of everything I owned.



So, here are the clues:

It is from someone visiting - rules out friends living there.

It is signed R.F.

It is addressed to Susanne (not Sukey or Suzanne).



My guess is that it is from my cousin Rachel Farmer (the only person I can think of with those initials). However, family usually calls me Sukey. My only other guess is that the park (I can't remember it's name, but it could have had the initials R.F) is sending me a friendly postcard (from almost 10 years ago) just to touch base later on in life. That makes me a little nervous as it raises questions of how it was able to hunt me down (I've since lived 7 different places, 4 different states since then). So I'm going to go with the more rational explanation - thanks for the postcard Rachel (or whoever...)!

Forgot One

Yikes- time has flown by, but realized I forgot to jot down my dinner with Sam the other night (weeks ago now). It was great catching up with him - ended up meeting up in the North End. While sitting and eating dinner in the Daily Catch there (a super small restaurant with literally three tables and the kitchen pratcially in your lap), we saw a small Saint something parade go by - the North End is great as it has become touristy, but is still full of real italian locals (non-gentrified). I forgot how strong his personality is - he is such a great guy and very entertaining - endless tales of his life between than and now. He had me in stitches and by the end of the night, my face was tired from smiling so much. I was right, he had grown up in Brookline, currently lives there now and turns out to be quite a good resource about finding the good local haunts (yeah for me).



I'm really glad to have reconnected with him - he, of course, has three gorgous little kids (all my friends seem to have kids now, I must have missed the memo). The interesting little tid bit was that we were catching up on mutual friends (well his friends that I knew). Actually had a cannolli (or rather stood in line for one - Modern was very busy that friday night), with Ramus (spelling? a roommate of his I knew kind of - he was an electrical engineer).



The funny tid bit was about his other friend/roommate Jamie. Now, if you knew me in college, you would recall I had a huge crush on this guy. It was a strange relationship we had (it was a strange time after all - college). He was a bit of a ladies man in a strange catholic guilt way - really a sweet guy underneath it all. He wasn't very academic, or rather hadn't found his calling. Well, it turns out his calling a-came a-knocking. I don't know what or where he would end up, but this was my last guess ever - he's been three years training to become a priest. A priest! The catholic kind. I cannot stress enough that this was so far afield from his path as to be in another country, another universe. Still very strange. It's a funny world we live in and it sure keeps thing interesting by dropping in these little curve balls. So that was my night: great company, great food and good stories.

Quick Update

I have so many things I wanted to jot down and have become back logged so decided to do a quick recap/update. Figure it's better than nothing. Not in order of importance, but hopefully chronological:



1. Blinddate (7/22). Long story short, went well, but no sparks. In fact it turns out we are on differing sides on quite a few political issues. Normally I wouldn't talk politics on the first date, but since it was one of his two interests (and I know nothing of sports), discussions went there. Suprisingly it was quite fun discussing the topics and realized his decisions were based on good principles, but just in a very black and white world (in my opinion). We had fun and hopefully a friendship will form out of this.



2. Bridal Shower (7/22). In support of my coworker, Colleen (her wedding is next Saturday!), I went down to the Newburry Street area - very foo-foo and I haven't been in that part of Boston yet, which was nice. I got to meet a lot of her friends, but unfortunately, wasn't feeling to well after dinner so had to bow out of dancing (ok, I was planning on skipping that part anyways, but honest, I really wasn't feeling well). She had a grand old time being princess for the night and being surrounded by a wonderful group of girls.



3. Visit with Tellings (7/23). Turns out I visited them on a private island, Naushon Island, owned by the Forbes and you have to be family or be specially invited to visit. I had a great time visiting the Tellings. I got up early, still a little bit dehydrated from the night before and headed off down to Woods Hole. I wasn't exactly sure how long a drive it would take (just under 2 hours), but had found out there was only one ferry that day so didn't want to miss it! I got there about a half hour or so early which was good as I had to park a ways off in the secret parking lot (I still have the pass, undated so can park down there again in case I wanted to go to Martha's Vineyard). It was great seeing the whole family (sans Ned - the middle kid). Very strange catching up with Sally and Ned, the two kids I had babysat. Even though they were taller than me, they looked somewhat the same, but the strange part was that their voice didn't match anymore. Very errie. Sally has been doing a great job of being a single-mother and raising her daughter, Daysha (spelled phonetically here), who is 2 years old - very sweet and not too spoilt like many kids these days. Hopefully, I'll see more of than as they live up in Vermont.



4. The following week. No clue what I did that week. Work, work, work. I'm sure there were some interesting things. Caught up with Galen, a coworker after celebrating another coworkers birthday and he was very supportive of my whole house situation. Interesting to hear about some unrest at work from others. At the end of our evening he said something criptic about my job, which has me curious but haven't been able to figure it out yet.



5. Wellfleet (7/29-30). My dad and Barbro brought up my brother's bike (or rather brought down as they are up in VT). I talked them in to visiting Wellfleet out on the Cape as one of the projects I am working on, Audubon Wellfleet Bay, has pretty much finished construction and was having a barbq. We never made it. After sitting in the unairconditioned car stuck in the traffic going over the bridge to the cape, we didn't get to Wellfleet until much later than planned. The director I knew there was nice to give us a personal tour and it was great to see the finished product. Luckily, we didn't just drive out for a 20 minute tour. We had a great time staying with a friend of Barbro's, Lisa and Cole's who live in Wellfleet. It was gorgous, and we had a relaxing evening chatting. They took us on a tour of all the wonderous beaches and I really want to go visit again.



6. Following week. Still no clue.



7. Unglorioius weekend (8/5-6). After the two previous weekends where I vacationed on a private island and stayed at a gorgous place in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, this weekend was pretty low key. In an attempt to get on top of things, I decided to focus on issues at work and ended up coming into work on Sunday - free parking and I went to Filene's Basement at lunch. Got a lot of work done and felt much better this week. So much so I am planning on coming in again this weekend - but that's the last of it.



That's about it I think. I'm sure I've forgotten tons, but just need to cut my losses and move on. In knitting news, I am done with my sweater, the pieces part, am working on putting it together and working on the collar. The book this pattern (and many others I like) is on loan from Cece, but I found a copy on ebay (very suprisingly) and almost got it but then someone came in at the last minute and outbid me (very frustrating - it should have been mine!) I will have to resort to photocoping my favs. This weekend, in addition to work, I get to visit Andrea at her new housewarming party (ok, apartment). Supposedly we will be sunbathing by her pool, but frankly, it's been very unaugust like around here, which might be good as I'm not a big bathingsuit person.

Well, that's all for now - home to enjoy movies I got from the library and just relax!

What Hell might be like...

...if I believed in Hell. Last post for the day, still have an afternoon left of lecture (about 3 hours) and am working on my last sleeve of this sweater (that has taken FOREVER). I have about 2 hours left of knitting. Perfect you might think, except, I forgot to pack an extra ball of yarn and I just ran out! I'm so close to finishing! Inches from the top of the sleeve and just the collar to go. I could be done knitting tonight - I could have a completed sweater by the end of the week. I could have finally found out if this sweater that has taken so much of my time actually will fit (I've been worried these last couple of weeks, realizing that the pattern had an extra-small size - I thought I was knitting small - opps)! Now I must suffer and sit in peace, accomplishing nothing and just listening to the lecture, fighting off the afternoon urge to nap. How sweet knitting is, and how much I miss it when it is gone.

I fell off the face of the earth

Just checking email before lunch was over (my brother is coming to visit tomorrow before he heads off to India, but no longer has a cell phone, or any phone, but has email - a little hard to coordinate), and I just got an email from Sam. We went to school together, he was a year ahead of me in the Civil Engineering program. Ironically, I visited him here at MIT 9 years ago (he was getting his masters and trying to talk me into going to MIT instead of Berkeley/Stanford) before heading off to California.



Fast forward, I was in Brooklyn with some friends and I remembered that was where he grew up (thought he meant Brooklin for the longest time) so did some googling and sent him an email. Than, as most of you are familiar with, I dropped the ball. I don't know why I am so bad with correspondance (email, phone, letters - you name it, I'm no good). Anyways, he followed up and we traded emails and phone messages, but that was it. Again with the ball analogy, the ball was in my court and I didn't send it back the last time. Now time has gone by, realize I should have a party to invite him over to, but that takes time and in the summer it's no good as my apartment is too hot, and who else do I invite? Anyways, it got too big and it all got dropped.



But not this time. We are going to finally meet up this week some time. I am so excited - he is such an interesting character (he's the second from the right, giving attitude). Hopefully he hasn't changed too much. Last I knew he was getting married, so he might even be a father now! It will be so fun to catch up and reconnect. All I have to do is call him tonight to coordinate....

Super Hot/Super Cold

I'm so behind on my posts, but wanted to just complain about the weather. These last two days I have been at energy modeling workshops at MIT. Outside it is hot and humid. Today it's supposed to get over 100 degrees with the humidity factored in - tomorrow even worse. Right now I am freezing! Granted I am wearing a skirt, but I have three layers on, even socks (I take them off when wearing my sandals - I won't go there). Yesterday morning, I had to leave the workshop to go buy a sweater/sweatshirt. Only, I found out that MIT students don't shop. The school bookstore was super overpriced and I walked and walked and there were no clothes stores around. After about 45 minutes, I was too hot to even think about buying a sweater so headed back to the classroom/workshop, only to be cold the rest of the day.



Granted, I appreciate being cold rather than hot. However, the irony is that I am at an energy conference - and here we are using more energy than is needed. These models are used to help fine tune the design so less energy is used and to understand better how the building and systems function, especially MIT who has put together a campus wide mandate. It might just be me. It's like the old days when I was the only girl in class (or there were only a few of us). Yesterday it was me and one other woman. Today there are four of us (out of about 30 people) - back with the boys (who have more mass and probably aren't cold)!