2005-05-06 - 12:24 p.m.

Hooray for birthdays and hooray for everything. Last night was fun. I left work early to be home in time to enjoy an evening with my 2 #1 ladies.

Here�s the haul for Shmuppie:
Clothes and book from Aunt in Chi-town
$50 from Grandpa to be spent on toys
Clothes and a Nemo game from LI relatives
Toys and stuff from Brother-In-Law and family in NC. Among them was a toy cell phone. It�s loud. They�re kid turns 1 in a week. We�ll, conveniently, be there. I�m suggesting 5 gallons of gas and a flame thrower. There was also a tiara and clip on Princess Earrings (remember that for later).
Some toy from a former coworker of JewelrySlut�s

We got her the Fisher Price Dr. Kit. They have not fucked it up yet. It�s still as cool as it was 25 years ago. She enjoys listening to our tick ticks.

She also got the tunnels. I described them a few entries ago. They�re quite large. Let�s see how large.

This is the view from the living room into the dining room where it starts

This is it as it snakes down the hall towards the bedrooms.
It�s not too much, is it?

Peek-a-boo!

What�s better than, after crawling around the house for a while than a big ice cream cake?
If you can�t arty on your 3rd birthday, when can you?

Never Ever give Daddy some clip on earrings and the camera. Results are not good.

So, we�re back to working or something today. We�ve narrowed a list of 18 houses down to 6 at this point. Of those 6, we�re trying to get it to 4 by next week so we can go see a few and get one. We�re renting at first. Even if I can convince the people here to keep me on for a while, we�d rather not buy a house right away. Renting for 6 months or so allows us to look around to find the right town to move to. NoGoodMother is not happy about this whole thing. So, in her fashion, she�s not talking to me. Rather than say something like �Have you really thought this through?� she�s just clamming up. My father thinks it�s possible that she may be uncomfortable with only having him around. No kids for hundreds of miles (read no buffers). Why they didn�t split up last summer is beyond me.

Go read Da Pimp today. Word up.

So, like an hour ago, MustachedManger comes over and whispers to me: �You sly son of a bitch. Nice move.�
Me: (Coyly) what did I do now?
Him: The job you applied for, nicely done.
(I had submitted for an internal posting about a week ago. I knew I wouldn�t get it because people at HQ are afraid of me. Plus, this location we�re at is cursed. You can�t get hired from it, you can only quit)
Me: Let�s go for a walk.
I then outlined what I was really doing and he cracked up. He�s happy for me but may be happier for the gaping hole I�m leaving in my wake. The whole �Shut down everything� project has been mismanaged from the start. Instead of using the people here (like me) who could help out, RedHeadedMeatCurtains hired 2 friends (with no prior working experience in an office) to manage the project. Wanna guess how it�s gone? They brought me in a few months ago, and now they really rely on me. Sorry, folks, I�m leaving. If you want to keep me for a while, give me a laptop. If you don�t, so be it. Either way, I�m moving. MustachedManager thinks this is going to be utterly hysterical. He can�t wait to watch it go to shit.

RedHeadedTinkleDrinker does know that I�m leaving. She says we need to talk about it. When do you plan to do this, Sweetie? Time is going to run very short very soon and there�s going to be a LOT of work to do to set me up remotely. I don�t even know if I can control my printers remotely, but think I can. There�s only one way to know�testing of the systems. This can not be accomplished in 2 days by an unmotivated person. We�ll see how it goes.

I want to get in to Shmuppie�s exciting birth, but don�t feel like it right now. I also owe HOAR! answers. Maybe I�ll start writing a draft of that this afternoon and post later on.

Enjoy the pictures.