My 4th

After a LONG day at work we decided to just stay at the mall and watch the fireworks from the roof of the parking garage.  We were sitting in the back of my truck when this family stood directly in our line of vision.  I thought it was nice.

After fireworks Nori drove us to a bar for a drink and curly fries.

She was supposed to be practicing driving stick shift in preparation for getting her new car today.  As of me writing this at 7:45 she still hasn't replied to my texts, which leads me to believe she's still asleep.  It's possible.

I actually plan on going to sleep shortly.   I am so tired from this week and I am off tomorrow.  I am excited for a good nights sleep tonight.

I'm also excited to see the blog post that Mike is going to do about our 4th of July.  I'm anticipating that he's working on it today and will post it tonight or tomorrow.  Link to follow.

I enjoyed work this evening

After all of the heartache the past few weeks it was nice to have a peaceful day at work for a change.  Props to Noriko, in all the ways my name has been misspelled (Banjamin, Benajmin, Benhamin, etc.) I don't recall anybody ever doing Beanjamin.  I like it.  My family called me Bean for a while in my childhood, and sometimes still even to this day.  Yet nobody thought to go for the full Beanjamin until this evening.

After work Noriko and I practiced driving stick shift in preparation of her getting her first car this coming Saturday.  I'm super envious that she's getting a super cute cabriolet, so I'm giving her stick shift lessons in hopes that she will let me ride shotgun in her cool new ride.  I'm going with her next saturday to pick it up because she thinks she needs me to bail her out if she can't end up driving it home.  She'll be fine though, there is no way I am letting her go in her mom's car so she can give up and make me drive her new car home.  For security I'm bringing Mike so we can take my truck and then I plan on riding with Nori in her new car and making Mike drive my truck back to her apt.  Muahahahaha.

All in all she did pretty good with her lesson this evening.  She's definitely better than she was last year:

07/02/13

We drove around the parking lot for a while, which was hilariously busy on a Sunday night.  Seriously, it was an empty parking lot at the mall but for some reason there was some angry woman in a BMW around every corner, raging at Nori for her experimentation with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears.  Once she got the hang of it we moved on to the traffic circle around the mall.  That lasted us a couple of laps before she was getting a little too cocky.  It was time for the starting on a incline challenge.  

"But why do I need to learn how to do that?  We live in Miami, there aren't any hills!" she said.
"So what are you going to do when you get stopped by a drawbridge and the person behind you pulls up right to your bumper?  Call me? "
"Yes.  Or I'll call a tow truck."

She figured it out though.  There was only a few moments where I worried we were going to roll backwards through the cement and over the edge of the parking garage.  Only a few.  But she got the hang of it eventually, and then when we drove home she was a regular Mario Andretti.  We only got one horn honk and one car passing us on a double yellow.  All in all, I think she's going to be A-Ok.

It was fun to have fun at work today and after.  My life at work lately has been best described by the scene I walked in to when I went to the bathroom tonight:

There was a moment when we were driving Nori home that she was asking me about the mini cooper.  We both had a good laugh about how our job security is so uncertain.  : /

At least I have the day off tomorrow.  They can't fire me over the phone.  Can they?

noriko's nails

She got them done in Japan and said the woman did everything by hand and that it took a couple hours.

I love the monkey.

haters gonna hate

At work they send us emails with excerpts  from different magazines that used our brand or mentioned it or whatever.  They also send pictures of celebrities wearing our stuff and Starr always prints out the ones she likes.

I knew from the last time this happened that Lindsay wearing our clothes would not merit the kind of ballyhoo it so rightly deserves so I took the initiative when I came across that picture to send it to Starr for her to print out.

I expected some backlash from my jealous coworkers (GALA) but nothing as horrible as the defacing that happened.

This is why Noriko should not be allowed in our stockroom.

Haha I do love the knuckle tattoos though:

I kind of want to get that.

how to break into a 2004 Ford Ranger at Aventura Mall

I blame my pants for locking my keys in the car. See the problem is that they are too tight so I can't put much in the pockets, thus I left my keys on the seat and didn't realize until after I'd locked and shut the door.

Thankfully Elliot and Mike were there to save the day.

They worked tirelessly until their mission was accomplished.

The video they made was as a response to the available "how to break in to a ford ranger" videos, which mostly sucked.  I like theirs a lot better.  And it's already come in handy!

After Elliot showed me the video he said, "Oh and we left you a surprise in your truck".

Thanks guys.

"You can hold my Balenciaga"

That was the last thing she said before we departed on Nori's wild ride.  She actually did fairly well, only stalling out once as the first placeholder at a left turn light.  Oh there was honking and shouting, but she's too adorable for anybody to stay mad at for long.

So many thanks to Nori for assisting me on my horrible life chore today.  For the first time in a month I felt the knot in my stomach undo a little bit after I got home tonight.

There's still the matter of what's to be done with the sunken Benz, but at least I know that I won't be getting in to any more trouble with lady law.

So I go back to work tomorrow with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.  Look out Boca Raton!

it always goes back to this

I don't think of myself as that white, but everyone else seems to think that I am.  When I told Gala that Noriko and I were going to hang out her immediate reaction was, "Oh good, she needs to spend more time with white people".

Because I was going to take her to play badminton and then see the great gatsby afterwards.

I guess I need to embrace my whiteness though.  The first step was downloading words with friends, so if any of you want to play just find me through facebook.

another great day off

Even though I really just wanted to curl up in bed all day and avoid the world, I pushed myself to go out for a bike ride.

I made it maybe a mile before I hit a patch of uneven pavement that threw me off my bike, causing me to slide across the pavement before coming to a stop in the grass.

I basically slid in baby cobra so as painful as those look, I think I took most of the impact in my shoulder.  It really hurts and when I move it it pops in and out of place.

I decided it would be wise to tend to my wounds with proper first aid as, knowing me, if I didn't I would surely get some sort of infection or something.  At target I found bandaids that I would have gotten had they been a little sturdier and better equipped for gaping wounds:

At least Nori would have approved when I hobble in to work tomorrow.

Jonny, you in danger girl

On my break today I check my phone to find approximately 8 million text messages from Jon.  Apparently he is in Las Vegas and staying at the same hotel as Whoopi.  I guess he ran in to her at the pool, told her he loved her, she said she loved him, one thing led to another and now he's meeting up with her after her show tonight.

Jonathan is in danger of having me fly out there and tag along wether he likes it or not.

Can we also talk about how this is the third person I've known personally who has interacted with Ms. Goldberg and they all have had basically the same experience in that she was nothing but gracious and wonderful.

I'm super excited for Jonathan and I'm however many hundreds of miles away.  I can't imagine how much he's been freaking out all day waiting for tonight.  I think he still has a long time to go too with the time difference.  He must be dying.

When I told Gala and Noriko about all this today at work Nori reminded me that she has only lived in the U.S. for 4 years by saying, "Who's Whoopi Goldberg".  Gala threw out a few classic roles but they were met with no recognition from Nori.  Finally, determined to prove that everyone knows and loves Whoopi, I said, "she was one of the hyenas in the Lion King".

"ooooh the funny one!"

she's single!

Saw this on my way out of work.  Initially I read it as Ms. Doom, then thought it was Ms. Boom.  Upon closer inspection I realized it was just an orange leaf that made the d look like a b and that it was in fact, "Ms. Doom".

I like it.  She either was married to Dr. Doom and divorced him, or she's his daughter.  No matter which, she's obviously well connected.  I'm going to keep my eye out for her now whenever I'm at work.

What do you think she looks like?  I asked google and it mysteriously came up with this:

source

which, while not really relating, does help me with my new years resolution from last January that I kind of forgot all about.  If you're interested the post is here about how I was making it my resolution to post more about Beyonce.  I feel like I've let everyone down.  I've posted hardly anything Beyonce all year.  What's weird is that I just told Noriko the story of Dan paying the DJ to play nothing but beyonce for my birthday.  Clearly it's a sign for me to make good on my new years resolution while I still have time.

So you can expect a Beyonce heavy next couple of weeks.

foreshadowing of things to come

Just as I was getting to work I looked in my rearview mirror and saw what I initially thought was a woman dressed head to toe in a teddy bear outfit.  It turns out she was just wearing a bear hat, but still, it was startling.

I let out a sigh of relief when I turned in to the mall and she continued elsewhere.  That being said, there was no shortage of crazies todays at work.  I'm just thankful that Gala is back so I closed with Noriko instead of all by lonesome.  I feel like I'm finally figuring out things so hopefully this holiday season will go by smoothly, despite how the past few months have been.

We'll see, either way I am looking forward to getting my first commission check next week.  I haven't looked at my sales so I have no idea what to expect but it will include half of October and all of November so it should be pretty decent.  I'm hoping I'll have enough after my bills that I can upgrade my phone.  If not, I'll just blow what's left on this:

source

cleavage for Obama

What a day!  And I still have to wait up to see the results.

I woke up this morning at 6:00 (before my alarm even went off) so I could vote with Heather before work.  It was definitely an interesting crowd at our local mall.  I think I can speak for both of us when I say our favorite was the old man directly behind us who tried to cut us in line pretty consistently for the entire hour and a half we waited.  Although a close second was the two little girls who became friends in line while their mothers were waiting.  At one point I overheard one of them say to the other, "my mom is voting for Barack Obama, who is your mom voting for?"

At least we had some camaraderie amidst the sea of sour old faces painted on our fellow voters, clutching their "who to vote for if you're conservative" flyers they had no doubt received at their local Elk's club meeting.  But nonetheless I'm glad I did my part and voted.  I only saw a few other people at work today sporting stickers like mine, but a lot of people assured me they voted early.  I commented on one older lady's sticker and she said, "Oh I actually voted last week but my husband voted today and when he came home I stole it from him.  I said, 'you're not leaving the house today and I am so I'm taking this with me'".  Haha I loved her.  UNlike Noriko who stole her mom's "I voted" sticker because she was too ashamed to admit she forgot to register.  For shame.  At least we all know who to blame if Romney gets elected.  I don't even want to type it and possibly conjure it in to existence.

Anyways, thanks to my voting this morning I was able to stay at work for my full shift today, which turned in to staying an hour and a half later.  A half hour before I was going to leave I got a mother daughter combo (my favorite) who were still trying things on when it was time for me to clock out.  I decided to wait it out to make sure they got everything they needed.  BIG mistake, HUGE.  The mom ended up wanting to pay with a check, which of course didn't go through.  The register wanted me to call for authorization and nobody knew how to do it.  All of my managers were either in a meeting or on break so I ended up being stuck running around like a chicken with its head cut off for a good hour. The daughter finally ended up paying for it herself, even though it was her birthday present.  And to top it off, because I was elsewhere trying to track down a manager, she ended up leaving without one of her dresses because they didn't realize I had put it in a garment bag and not in with her other things.  DIOS MIO.

But I'm finally home, eating my leftovers from yesterday, and venting to you all.  Once I feel like myself I will decide if I want to watch the election results online or head out to a bar to watch it with others.  I don't know if it's a good idea to be at a bar if it turns out that Romney gets elected though.  I may just drink myself to oblivion.

Let's all hope that doesn't happen.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Noriko's talons

I'm going on record as saying the best part of my new job is seeing my coworkers' nails.  I never cease to be amazed by Gala and Noriko's nails.

I have to give this weeks to Noriko though.  The drips are too cool, but then she showed me the other hand and I died of envy.

I want to be her when I grow up.