sweet home... virginia?!?

today i became a little worried that maybe i love richmond a little too much. i had a meeting in downtown and as i walked through the streets on my way i just was struck by the fact that i really love this place. i love the way the air feels. i love the buildings and the people. it's very different from ca here. people can say things you can't say in ca. even within the business community. actually especially within the business community. over the weekend a friend asked me what my favorite thing about richmond was and my answer is the business community. it's small, it's home town-y, once you meet a few people you're pretty connected. it's supportive and the people want one another to do well, to succeed, to become better for the sake of the community. by no means am i saying the city doesn't have it's issues but it's driven by a group who desires to make things better for everyone.


so what worries me? i want to stay here. that's never happened before.

these are the days when you wish your bed was already made

this is a story about why living in the south is awesome. saturday i went to a french restaurant called can can in carytown. i had a ham and cheese sandwich. with an egg on top. COVERED IN GRAVY. it was FABULOUS.


after we ate lunch we went to a shop called i love chocolate... because... well, i DO love chocolate! i mostly just walked around smelling things. and then i bought a present to send to little dan. he will love it. i almost died laughing when i saw it. it's perfect for little dan. next we went to the byrd for the screenings of the films from the 48 hour film project. that was pretty interesting. we saw 20 minutes films that were made completely within 48 hours right here in richmond.


this city is amazing.


i was thinking about how everybody always says sense of humor is like the most important thing. so anyway a few weeks back i was in the car with someone and it was probably the most excruciating car ride of my entire life b/c they just seemed so serious and not to be having any fun at all even though i was trying really hard to have fun (and fun normally comes so easy for me... i mean i AM the ambassador to fun after all). anyway, this person starts talking about dating and says that the most important thing to them was sense of humor and that they couldn't imagine a life without laughter. at which point i had to do everything i possibly could to keep from laughing. i just thought it was hilarious that i had spent the last half hour wanting to poke my eyes b/c this person had no sense of humor and here they are saying that sense of humor is the most important thing. i suppose really you should be looking for compatible sense of humors.


speaking of being the ambassador to fun... UGH. so at work i sign my emails "your ambassador to fun, elaina" and i get comments all the time from, mostly, dudes about it. one time i had some guy ask how much it would cost for me to be his personal ambassador to fun (it came out way worse than he expected, i'm sure, b/c he was really embarrassed after he said it). at any rate last week i was at a networking meeting and they decided to have everyone stand up and introduce themselves and i got really distracted and flustered and words just started coming out of my mouth and i ended by yelling "I'M YOUR PERSONAL AMBASSADOR TO FUN" simply b/c my brain knows that is the worst thing i could've yelled. at which point everyone busts up laughing and i sit down and thinking good gracious woman what is wrong with you?!?


man i thought james was going to have a meltdown today. so 30 minutes before a party is supposed to start i walk by the room and notice that it is set up totally wrong. and so i grab the servers and start rearranging and taking care of business. i was sweating and running all over the place. i'm really glad we're not allowed to wear high heels anymore. at any rate about half way through james walks by and is like what are you doing? i think he thought i just randomly decided to go in and mess up the room. and i was like hey this room is set up wrong and i'm taking care of business b/c that's what i do yo (i'm not totally sure but i feel that is possibly an exact quote of myself). at any rate he got very upset that it wasn't done right but i was thinking 1. you should be happy it was me that discovered it and not the party host 30 minutes from now and 2. be glad i'm not some neurotic party planner who yells at people (neurotic? yes. yeller? no). so you know, count your blessings bud!


this is what winnie the pooh says: you can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. you have go to them sometimes.


thanks winnie the pooh. that is valuable information for life.


and one last reason why virginia is great:

so i've been talking about this for ages now. here are some pictures from the dance last night. i didn't take my camera with me so that's all i have for now. and here is a picture of me on a segway in case you were wondering what that was like.

it's like, you know

i'm in a very odd mood at the moment. tonight at walmart i met one of the lost boys from sudan. if you haven't seen "god grew tired of us" you should rent it. and then you will understand why my heart aches at the moment. i wanted to hug him and i wanted to cry and i wanted to just talk to him... but what do you say? i can't imagine would it be like to go through what he went through and then one day you're working at the walmart in glen allen. i can't even imagine.

i've had a challenging week. just another day and then some marketing stuff saturday morning and then i'm safe. i just need to make it through tomorrow without having any sort of freak out. today was close. ha. yesterday i had to buss tables for over 2 hours. i'm probably the highest paid busser to ever work for d&b.

we went on a segway tour of downtown richmond on tuesday. AMAZING. my favorite part was when someone asked our tour guide if they could take a picture of the segway and the guide said 'no, we're araid you'll sell it to the chinese and they'll steal the technology.' no one else laughed but i was crackin up.

richmond is a pretty amazing city. the term deadline was coined here during the civil war. and i don't get the terrible bad feelings from the buildings like i did in new orleans. anyway, learning to ride the segway was a bit of a task. after a while you totally forget you're using one but at first... yeah i was afraid to move. and if you have spent more than like 10 minutes with me out of doors you know how big of a pansy i am. but i didn't die. i didn't fall off the segway. i didn't get hit by a car. i consider it a successful evening. also, we saw the first lady of the state.

second best segway story: so i'm cruisin along with my bud and this lady was like standing on the stoop of a building (in my imagination she on a stoop though i don't think she could possibly have actually been b/c she was in front of a business) and she yells 'hey toothpick!' at which point katie stops to go talk to the lady. i think it is awesome that katie will stop to talk to someone when they yell hey toothpick at her. way to be awesome.

so tonight i got my eyebrows waxed and my hair cut. lets just say i will be wearing a baseball cap pulled down to my eyes for the next few weeks. how could they possibly both have been terrible at their jobs?!? this is what i get for being impulsive. i should have gone to godiva and bought chocolate like my original plan. but instead i just got everything on my head messed up. YAY. the good news is i will more fully appreciate my eyebrows and hair when it grows back to looking human. in the mean time i get too look like a goober.

why, exactly, do bad haircuts happen to good people? and can i call in sick of my hair? i really need some serious chocolate, a hug and a wig. what a week!

they called me eddie

so i'm eating left over lasagna and puddin' cups for dinner. that makes me feel like a dude. i don't know why. is that how men eat? pudding and microwaved lasagna from tuesday? i think that's what it must be like.


this was the world's longest week where nothing worked out like i wanted it to. stupid universe. so tonight i was supposed to go see hamlet but we thought it was going to rain so we didn't go. i wanted to cry and it put me in a nasty mood. i can't help that i am ridiculously obsessed with shakespeare. it's just one of those things. shakespeare, disney movies and a new guy every two weeks. and then it didn't even rain during the time of the show. LAME.


i have this goal to learn something new every day. mostly i want to learn how to tie a tie. but i haven't learned that yet. so far i have learned that some bridge some where is the most photographed in the united states but i didn't believe it. and i learned to make lasagna. and uhm i don't think i learned anything else. oh wait! today katie told me that there is a plant called a plantain and it's not the quasi banana. i didn't believe that either until she sent me a link where i saw the broad leaf plantain. and then i stopped thinking she was a liar. i also learned who glenn beck is. so that's two things for today!


oh! i almost saw a man almost drive through a panera. that would be a way cooler story if i had seen him almost drive though the panera. or if i almost saw him drive through a panera. but instead i almost saw him almost drive through the panera.


the corporate big bosses came this last week. i didn't do anything ridiculous while they were around. i acted pretty normal. the regional over new stores told me that he thinks i'm doing more sales than tulsa b/c my office is bigger. i think steam came out my ears a little bit. but i didn't even do an eyebrow flick that i am aware of.


last week i was up in maryland walking alone in the woods and i met a family of deer. there were 5 of them. and one started to follow me. i was really afraid it was going to attack me and kick me in the face until i died. i'm REALLY afraid of that happening. jon told me that if you see a deer in the road and you know you can't stop then you should hit the deer going as fast as you can. that way you hit the deer like a ball on a tee. otherwise the deer will land on the hood of your car and will kick through your windshield and kick you until you die. this is why i am scared of everything.


i'm also EXTREMELY afraid of thunderstorms. last week my power went out and i didn't know what to do. and tonight i was driving home and a crazy storm started. it was raining so much i couldn't even see out the windshield. and i had to roll my windows up. i love driving with the windows down here. except when it makes me drown. and then a storm warning came on the radio and it says "SEEK SHELTER AND STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS." i don't know why anyone thinks that helps. that is just scary! plus it sounds like a robot. and i'm like hey can't they get someone who doesn't sound like a robot? maybe a nice soothing mom voice saying 'now would be a good time to go home and drink hot chocolate.' anyway, there are windows every where in a car! i managed to white knuckle it the entire way home... like full lean forwards, shoulders at ears, death grip on the steering wheel, holding my breath style. the good news? i didn't die!


i painted some tights up for this alice in wonderland party i'm going to next week.

i hand painted those while i was wearing them. i'm really impressed with how they turned out. when i'm all dressed up i'll take pictures of the entire outfit. so watch out for that!

today i really needed my back popped. the top part of my spine was killing me. anyway a man picked me up in the kitchen and popped it. AWKWARD. at first i was like this is a great idea until he started to do it and then i realized it was the worst idea in the world... especially in front of all the employees in the middle of the kitchen. it mostly involved him grabbing me around the rib cage area and making the top part of my spine arch. which 1. totally pops your back and 2. is a great show for all the kitchen workers. so, you know, two birds. ::sigh:: i was mostly shocked at the fact that he without out any real warning picked me up off the ground. i'm now very paranoid that at any moment a person could walk up behind me and pick me up off my feet. i would never see that coming.

a story or two

i was just thinking about this one time i had the stomach flu... i thought i was better so i decided to eat some chicken and stars soup and it turned out i wasn't better so when i puked, i puked stars. i thought that was hilarious.

the other day i was out running errands and i saw a bird fly into the side of a car. when it hit the car the feathers popped off. i wonder why that happened. i also wonder if you scared a bird really badly if feathers would pop off. they must have like a feather ejector button or something.

ok time for more cold medicine and sleep.

things i love: a list

* when you get a soda from the fountain and you take a sip right away and all the little bubbles pop all over your face
*the idea of getting run over in the parking lot by karen (a front desk employee at work). what happened to elaina? oh, karen hit her with a car in the parking lot.
* naps
* flowers
* getting flowers
* getting flowers at work
* hitting budget
* people saying i'm funny
* painting pictures
* pudding
* vanilla anything
* hot dogs
* cotton candy
* state fairs
* people who laugh a lot
* road trips
* conversation
* party hosts who love me
* VIRGINIA
* other people's quirkiness
* peanut m&ms
* roller derby
* farmer's markets
* driving with the windows rolled down
* anything having to do with ca
* when people point out weird details about your life
* meeting people who have never been to ca
* elton john
* people who give me cookies
* yellow cake with chocolate frosting
* wooden spoons
* singing in the car
* snow cones
* lobster
* when people say "i knew you were going to say that!"

i have gotten some sort of sickness again. it makes me want to rip my throat and ears out. i'm being such a pansy about being sick this time around. i'm just too worn out to be a trooper... so i've decided to be a big baby about it. the good news is i bought a big box of top ramen when i first moved in so i have soup for the next ten years.

that's a goof one of e-mail

here are some pictures of my office. actually this is my entire office. i have this desk and this whiteboard. i have this little corner in the world and some times... it makes me CRAZY.

today i was in such a loopy mood. it doesn't help that my gm was in the office all day... because that man only encourages me to be more goofy. at one point today he was making race cars noises. and the other day he was pretending to be the 'guest satisfaction robot.' but this isn't about him. ha.

so we're in the office today discussing some business, like we often do on mondays. i had moved to his side of the office as we were talking and once i'm over there i notice this paper taped to the wall that says "deposits error log" and my brain decided that at that very moment i needed to very loudly, in a robot voice say "ERROR." so here we are talking about marketing and sales and in the middle of the conversation my face goes blank and i shout ERROR like a robot. the look on james' face was priceless as we both bust up laughing. i was just like i'm sorry i'm not totally sure what just happened but i'm pretty this conversation just ended.

so the rods (regional operation directors) and some other corporate mucky mucks are having a little conference at our store next week. ::elaina puts face in hands and shakes head:: it's not that having the rods there is a bad thing... it's just that i act like a TOTAL idiot whenever they show up. i really have no idea why i do it, or how to make it stop. every time i meet a new rod it never fails that i do something really, REALLY stupid. for example... one time towards the end of my work day i was sitting in my office bored out of my mind trying to kill the last 15 minutes before it was time to go home. everyone else in the office was already gone and i figured the rod had left too. anyway i'm sitting there typing over and over again 0.7734 on my calculator (because for whatever reason that is an extremely entertaining way to pass 15 minutes) when my office door opens and someone walks in. at the time i was in the habit of not looking when someone walked in and just ignoring them until they said something, which was exactly what i did. i just kept punching away on the calculator... and eventually i looked up because the person hadn't said anything and who should be standing there but the rod, who says "busy crunching those numbers?" and i just looked at him and said "yep" and kept on doing it. sometimes i don't know what's wrong with me.

today one of the servers walked up to me and was like i want your job, it seems like a lot of fun. and what was my knee jerk reaction? "NO IT'S NOT!" from the woman who had just shouted error like a robot at her boss.

send up a signal, i'll throw you a line

i louvre the 4th of july like no one's business! i had a third of july celebration that involved watching mr. smith goes to washington as a warm up for the festivities to come the next day. SOOOO. 4th of july. where was i?

that's right, that's the white house ladies and gents (the backside to be exact... items of interest: (a)sniper on the roof (b)the white house is behind bars and not me). we went up to the capital for some ol' fashion independence day hi-jinx... 1776 style. over all it was a delightful experience. got to see lots of monuments, the smithosonian museum of american history, and eat hot dogs and a popsicle that's like a firecracker... and of course SEE FIREWORKS. there were some people setting off fireworks as we were walking to the metro.

a moment please...

1. metro - doesn't that make the train seem like a sophisticated way to travel? it's not. (more to follow on this)

2. fireworks - it is illegal to set off your own fireworks here on this side of the country (i think it's all the trees). sensible seeing as how people were like setting off fountains in the middle of crowds of people. imagine what they would do if it was legal! it reminded me of the time john tried to light a handful of sparklers off my sparkler, which totally worked except that he was then pointing a handful of lit sparklers at my arm and this causes pain.

3. weather - it's not hot here on the 4th of july. weird right? it wasn't humid either (which you wouldn't know from my absurd hair... it appears to expand and contract throughout the day in the pictures. i look like a red headed lion for the most part.). it makes me think that east coast people are PANSIES when it comes to summer time weather. (also it makes me SO happy to not be in arizona. sorry arizona.)

this is me with the ca state flag (you kind of have to use your imagination). the 4th of july makes me a little homesick so i took a moment at the ca flag to think of you californians. i have to admit i may have teared up a bit during the fireworks when i was thinking about how much i miss you all. but don't tell anyone... that would totally ruin my street cred. (ps mom - don't be sad about me crying... i'm just a pansy! too much time on the east coast.)

ENTER THE METRO.

as a west coaster, i have little experience with public transportation. but boy did i get an education on just exactly how much fun it can be. this next picture is the perfect representation of the experience of getting on the metro.

i'm not sure how i wound up being the only person not totally blurry... or why nate looks like he has a moustache. anyway, the important thing is that it was wall to wall people like you've never seen before. i was confused b/c it was a line so i didn't see why we all had to stand so close together. i think it was practice for what was about to follow...

that's a picture from before we really had to squish together.

i have never been so glad to be tall. there is, luckily, a lot of fresh air above everybody else's head (please keep in mind we all had to hold onto the bar above our heads... after we had spent the entire day running around the city. lets just say it was less than lovely.) i'm sure i would have had a claustrophobic / personal space meltdown if it wasn't for the fact that i had a clear view from way up above. i'm not sure why the people in the back look so small, seeing as how they were only maybe 2 feet from me. i also was accused of groping a man, but it totally was not me.