This Year's Menu: Guilt and Tofurkey

Holidays are so freakin' stressful. Every year, I get so excited about the holidays. I used to hate them (back in my married days). I would absolutely dread going to my visit my in-laws, not because they are horrible people (they are not), but because I hated spending my one day off hanging out with people that I only liked a little bit. The year that my husband and I separated, it was literally Thanksgiving Day that he moved out. I skipped Thanksgiving that year. I was such a hot mess of depression and anger and sadness that there was not an ounce of celebration in me. I think I had peanut butter and jelly for Thanksgiving dinner. My mom, my brother, and my sister-in-law tried to get me to come to dinner, but I was miserable.

These days, holidays are better. Last year, I made my very first Tofurkey. I tied my first real (as a grownup) Christmas tree to my car and drove for an hour at 75 mph to get it to my apartment, where I set it up all by myself. I was ready to decorate for Christmas before the Halloween decorations even went up. Divorce made the holidays better.

The only thing that stresses me out about the holidays now is where to go. I'm a divorced kid with a divorced kid of my own. Holidays are like a big, giant game of tug-of-war. There is simply not enough Carrie to go around. I only get one day off for Thanksgiving; working in retail means being at work at 5:30 am on Black Friday. I am attempting to balance Kylie's time with me and with Rat Bastard. I worry about seeing my mom and my brother's family, as well as spending time with my dad. My extended family lives a zillion miles away, so my dad doesn't really have anywhere else to go. I don't want my dad to spend Thanksgiving alone, even though he tells me that I shouldn't stress about it. But I stress.

Let the holiday guilt begin.

This year, I have no idea what I am doing. My brother's family wants to have a potluck at their house (I'll be bringing the ice). There is also that incredible desire to sit at home in my PJs and share pumpkin flavored ice cream with Kylie, straight out of the carton, a spoon for each of us. Thanksgiving is a time for us to be thankful, and there is nothing that I am more thankful for than a paid day off from work, when my store is closed, and I don't have to worry about anyone screwing something up in my absence.

On a fun note, I get to go to a wedding the weekend before Thanksgiving. I bought a new dress. I never go to weddings, and I never have an excuse to buy a new dress.


My mom and I had a good laugh at the fact that I took this photo in my bathroom. I don't really know any other way to take a photo of myself. I tried to get Kylie to do it for me in the kitchen, but my head kept getting chopped off in the picture, or it was blurry, and then she got bored and started photographing herself instead. So I resorted to the sexy toilet backdrop. It's like bathroom porn.


So here's what I'm thinking for the holidays:

I haven't really decided what I want to do. So what if Thanksgiving is a week and a half away and I am leaving everyone hanging? I promise to show up for Thanksgiving this year. I just haven't determined when and where that will be. And if I don't show up? It's because I am taking photos of myself in the bathroom. Wearing that dress. And maybe eating a Tofurkey.

Thanksgiving is not the same without the Tofurkey.

Keeping My Head

When I was in seventh grade, my English teacher (Mrs. Hall) assigned us the task of memorizing the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling. It was daunting to say the least. To this day, though (almost 16 *gulp* years later), I still remember quite a bit of it. Last night, I was laying in bed, rehashing some ups and downs from the past few months, and the first two lines of "If" popped into my head. I instantly felt better.

Yesterday, when I was driving to work, I called one of my best friends, Jennifer. I needed someone to talk me through all of the goings-on in my head. Sometimes my thoughts are simply too confusing. We have been friends since I was 16. Her mom hired me at the pizza place that she managed. I was so horrible at making pizza (the pepperoni had to be perfectly placed) that I was banned from the line. My career in the food industry did not take off, but a great friendship did. To this day, Jen and I may go many months without talking, and even longer without seeing one another, but I can pick up the phone and call her with my latest crisis, and we pick up right where we left off. No one knows my deepest, darkest secrets like she does. No one else can finish my thoughts and my sentences. There is no one else that I would rather share a jail cell with.

This year has been a time of triumph and challenge for me. I have made decisions, both good and bad, that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I have hurt people, and I have loved others with such ferocity that it made my own heart hurt. I have become a better, stronger person because of the paths that I have chosen. I have realized that I am a very lucky girl, and that I am stronger than I give myself credit for. Others may judge me and think that I am a lesser person than they see themselves, but life throws us all a curveball now and then. We are the only ones who choose for ourselves whether we catch it and continue to play the game, or if we simply duck and quit. I absolutely suck at sports, but I am not a quitter.

There is a version of "If" written specifically for women, as the original version is directed to a man. My very first mentor, Vicki, gave me a graduation card when I finished high school that had the alternate poem written on it. It's also very beautiful, and very much worth searching for on Google. Here is the original poem. (Hopefully I won't go to jail for posting it. But if I do, I will blame it on Jen so at least I will have great company in the slammer.)


"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.

If you can dream and not make dreams your master,
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build them up with worn out tools.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them, “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And, which is more, you’ll be a Man, my son!"
-Rudyard Kipling

The Little Black Dress

Today, I worked with one of my favorite people on the planet, Ha Young (say it with me...."Hi Yung.") She is as funny as she is beautiful, and our day is never dull when the two of us are in the store together. I have been out of the store for a couple of days because of a meeting and my day off, so coming back was like coming home. Ahhh...store, how I have missed you.

We were pretty wired today. We had great customers, and we were having a blast with them. Everyone that came in left with something, and that was a great feeling.

About an hour before Ha Young left for the day, two women came in, presumably a mother and her teenager-ish daughter. The mother asked if we had any black dresses. Ha Young and I were all over this request; we just received our new holiday collection, complete with several Little Black Dresses. You want slinky? We've got it. You want sexy? We've got that, too. Slinky and sexy were not what the mom and daughter wanted. The mom told Ha Young that they were going to the Islands (i.e. St. Something-or-Other), so they needed something more island-appropriate. Ahhh....why didn't you say so? We've got that, too. Ha Young took them toward the back of the store where some of our leftover summer product was on clearance.

A few minutes later, they walked past me empty handed. "You didn't see anything?!" I called out to them as they passed by. They shook their heads. "Too bad," I said. "Please have a great time in St (whichever island they mentioned). Ha Young and I are willing to come with you if you'd like! We're lots of fun!" The mom and daughter smiled politely as they scurried from the store. I turned back to Ha Young, who was looking at me with pure mortification.

"They're going to the Islands for a funeral, moron!" she said. "Didn't you hear them say that?"

Geez.

But then again, I'll bet Ha Young and I could even make a funeral fun.

Un-Friended

**Disclaimer: The name of the person in this blog has been changed at her request, as though I have more than one assistant.**

I am convinced that Facebook is going to be the beginning of my demise.

No, Facebook will lead to my ultimate nervous breakdown because it reminds me of how unpopular I am. There is a rule that all Facebook users know. It is unwritten, but it is important. The rule states that if you are friends with your boss on a social networking site, do not say anything that you do not want your boss to read on your status updates. Here is where things got tricky.

I am/was Facebook friends with the majority of my staff. A month or two ago, my assistant (Damber) decided that she hated me. This is right about the time that she found out that she was pregnant. Suddenly, she was leaving status updates on her Facebook about how much she hated work, how unhappy she was, blah blah blah. It all really began when she requested two weekends off back-to-back, and I told her that she couldn't have them both. (Hello, welcome to retail management...NONE of us get back-to-back weekends off!) This sent her new husband into an absolute tizzy on her Facebook page. He posted a rant about how she should just quit her job because she doesn't need to work (she does, but that's okay if they want me to think otherwise), and he went on to say that I write the schedule to suit MY needs without considering anyone else's, blah blah blah. I was pissed. I'm all for freedom of speech and whatever, but I wasn't okay with that. I told Damber that if she had a problem with the way that I ran my store, she needed to address it with me. She assured me that everything was great. Sure.

Things have pretty much spiraled since then. Damber is growing bigger and bigger, and crankier and crankier. Everything that I say to her at work results in days and days of not speaking to me. When I went to Asheville last weekend, I kept tabs on the store via Facebook. Damber was simply miserable. Every post was angry, frustrated. I was stressed out before I even came back from my mini-vacation. I knew that things had not gone smoothly. Sure enough, when I returned on Monday, I could tell that things that I had delegated to Damber had not been completed. Paperwork was not finished completely. Projects were unfinished. And instead of leaving me an update of the going-ons of the weekend (as I requested), I got nothing. It was almost like she slacked off and then tried to hide it. And when I addressed the issues with her that afternoon, she had a tantrum. She refused to talk to me.

Then she apparently asked our District Manager for a transfer. To anywhere.

So she un-friended me on Facebook. Then my other keyholder un-friended me. I am getting dumped all over the place.

Here is my take on the situation. Anyone who does not like working for me can go away. My job is not to make friends at work. Everyone on my staff hangs out with one another (except me). It's simply not appropriate for me to do so. It also leaves me somewhat on the outside of everything. I addressed a work-related issue with my assistant, and it made the rounds to everyone on the staff. One bad apple has the ability to spoil the whole bunch. My "bad apple" will be popping out a kid in about six months. I hope she gets super fat in that six months. I hope her kid is ugly.

That makes me sound petty and mean, doesn't it? Oh well. I suppose that I am.

Tomorrow, I will put up my "Now Hiring" sign. Maybe they will all get the hint. They are all replaceable. I have every intention of doing just that.