And This is Why I'm Not a Mother

Sometimes I worry how my children will turn out. I don't really know much about parenting but it seems like there are certain things that work, and certain things that don't work. But then, there's so much gray area it all just gets way too confusing. For example, something that doesn't work - hitting you kid. Something that does work - hitting your kid. And by hitting I mean spanking, or whatever it is that parents occasionally use to punish their children for bad behavior in order to teach them some sort of lesson. Anyway, this is not the point I want to make because I know "spanking" is a hot topic in mommy-world right now and people get really invested in the debate. My point is that some behaviors seem like they they would encourage a child to become the best person he or she can be, while others might stifle a child and prevent him from developing into a productive human being.

You would think that showering your only child with love and attention and investing in word-of-the-day toilet paper would produce a happy, smart, socially successful child. You might also think that leaving your 4-year old in the company of the family dog while you gulp back a few too many glasses of red wine with a man you just met on jdate would produce a bitter, mal-adjusted kid. But I now have living proof that this is not always the case.

So where do things go wrong? Clearly there's the whole nature v. nurture discussion but seriously, I guess this is why I'm not fit to be a parent. I feel like even when adults try to be the perfect parents, a child can still turn into a college drop out living at home with no job and a chain smoking habit that dulls the skin, yellows the teeth, and leaves you saying whaaaat happpenddd?

An Epic Quest for BBQ Sauce

Tomorrow, my company hosts a one-day, indoor, Farmer's Market for a law firm in downtown DC. This project has been in the works for several months, but apparently, it is an annual event.

The original market mission was to provide a team of overworked, stressed out lawyers with fresh, local produce to encourage eco-friendly habits and healthy eating. Unfortunately, farmers are busy people and they don't have time to just mosey on over into the heart of DC for a one-day, single-company event. So, in an attempt to procure enough vendors to fill the large, open space and draw the lawyers away from their desks during billable hours, the on-site coordinator requested gelato. Then chocolate. Then cupcakes. Then, McCutcheon's famous BBQ sauce.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of BBQ sauce. I don't really care for condiments in general but there's something about BBQ sauce that has always skeeved me out a little bit. I think mostly because I don't exactly understand what it is. It's not ketchup, and it's not A1. It's sort of sweet and goopy, but when it's spicy it's usually too spicy. I dunno... I guess a lot of people like it, but it's just not for me. Anyway, the law firm's event coordinator, Ebony, was a BIG fan of this famous "bone-suckin" sauce in years past and she would not allow the fair to take place without at least 2 cases present the day of the event.

So, despite the mountain of work sitting on my desk waiting to be dealt with, I drove from DC to "the historic town of Frederick, MD". What I thought would be a 45 minute drive turned into 2 hours of gnarly traffic, road construction, and bumpy back country roads. By the time I arrived at the cannery my legs had completely tightened up and my ears were ringing from hearing the same 3 songs on Hot 99.5 (Only Girl, Like a G6, Just the Way You Are).

And, while I'm thinking about it, what IS IT about 99.5? There are more than 5 songs that exist in the world right now... why do the djs feel obligated to play the same ones over and over and over and over?!? You really don't realize how little variety there is on the radio until you're in the car for several hours straight and able to memorize every ridiculous lyric in the top 10 countdown (with Ryan Seacrest! gagggg)

But I digress.

I picked up our wholesale order of BBQ sauce - as well as some apple butter and blackberry preserves (in an attempt to bring something wholesome and "farmer-y" to the table) and drove back to the office as fast as I could. What I thought would be a quick detour on my way to work ended up taking my ENTIRE morning. I returned to the office triumphant in my quest for sauce but dismayed to find it was already the afternoon. The clock read 12:02 pm. Ouch.

The worst part about this whole adventure is that my healthy, wellness-centered "market" has now become a kind of fair. Just a big, indoor fair. With BBQ sauce.

Now that I've figured out how to upload pictures, I can share my recent health fair images!

Here is a picture from a recent health fair I organized at a radio station in downtown DC.

With only two screeners, it was my smallest so far, but it went really smoothly and all the participants were wonderful. No one was squeamish, everyone bled well (sounds gross I know), and none of the employees fainted!

Even better - we had no machine mishaps and the schedule was booked solid from 9-3. Overall, the screening was a success!

R.E.S.P.E.C.T (why is it so effing hard to get any?)

My job is amazing. I think I've described it in bits and pieces before but basically I'm an event planner for a corporate wellness company. That means I plan health fairs, employee wellness challenges, and biometric screenings for local companies that want to make their employees healthy and happy. I do a lot of hiring of local screeners and plan events with the hope that the screeners are happy, the client is happy, and my boss is happy. Sometimes this is easy and sometimes things get a little nuts.

One issue I've encountered over the past month of employment has been the utter lack of respect I get from people who are older than I am. My job isn't exactly what the average person waltzes into right out of college. It's actually in pretty high demand and many of the biometric screeners, nurses, and dietitians I work with have been vying for jobs exactly like mine. I have an enormous amount of responsibility and I manage many individuals at a time. It's exhausting, time-consuming, and at the end of the day, extremely gratifying.

However, I'm 22. The average age of my screeners (health professionals who I hire and fire at my discretion) is probably about 40. Some of them are youngish college students with flexible schedules but the majority of them are moms or even grandmothers with decades of nursing experience and strong backgrounds in the wellness field. Whenever I take control at health fairs, some snide screener always feels the need to comment on my age, or my "cuteness", or my "tiny waist", or something equally irrelevant and inappropriate.

The point is - I do my job and I do it well and I do NOT appreciate people making me feel inferior simply because I have chubby cheeks and an enthusiastic, cheerful disposition. Some days, I even find myself wishing for a few more wrinkles or a some wisps of gray hair just so I might command a little respect (but, of course, those are fleeting thoughts!)

I know I shouldn't be complaining and I'm incredibly lucky to have such a fabulous job in a field I love right out of school, but how can I make people realize I know what I'm talking about? Hopefully, as I gain experience, I'll become more confident, and in time, perhaps that confidence will garner its own respect from those around me.

My Life in Bullet Points

I'm literally too busy to write in complete sentences so for now this bullet-pointed blog post will have to suffice. Oh look, that was actually a complete sentence! (As was that one...)

My days go something like this:

6:28 am - wake up
6:40 - run
7:50 - shower, pack lunch, eat breakfast
9 - go to work
5ish pm - drive home
6- snarf dinner because I'm so starving and exhausted I feel faint
7 - walk around the block a few times until I hit 10,000 steps on my pedometer
8 - eat dessert
9 - get in bed and watch 5 episodes of arrested development back to back
10 - sleep

This has been my life-schedule for the past 2 weeks with literally zero variation from day to day. The most exciting things that happened this week were:

1) seeing a cute puppy on my morning run
2) going for a walk midday and absorbing some vitamin D
3) walking to Target with my roommate A and buying a family sized pack of Twizzlers

I can't wait for the weekend :)

You Know You Have The Best Job In The World When...

So today my boss, a 51-year-old divorcee, brought her hermetically-sealed wedding dress from 1985 into the office. And what a wedding dress it was. Bedecked with crystal beads, a see-through lace bodice, and linebacker shoulder pads, the gown was like an 80's prom dress on crack.

I guess sentimental keepsakes become a lot less sentimental after you've started collecting alimony checks...so my boss, JR, ripped open the careful packaging with nary a care in the world and yanked her many-thousand-dollar gown out of its womb. After laughing hysterically for a good 10 minutes, she finally worked up the courage to try on the monstrosity. (Mind you, this entire ordeal occurred at 1 pm on a Friday afternoon.)

JR headed into the conference room, stripped down, and stepped into the past. At 51, JR, a registered dietitian, has run half a dozen marathons, keeps an elliptical in her 7x10 foot office, and eats nothing but kale and rainbow char. Her figure is that of a 20 year old lingerie model. So, it comes as no surprise when the dress she proudly wore 25 years ago slips easily over her hips and waist and settles nicely over her frame with only the slightest hint of tightness across her upper back. We all laughed and took pictures and then came dress-up time!

DF, one of the younger Program Managers, is about the same size as JR - 5'6, 120 lbs; slim, lean, narrow. She excuses herself to the conference room and pulls the dress on; it fits like it was made for her. She twirls around the office for a bit with a fake bouquet made from pipettes and recycled paper. After a few minutes, she tosses her faux-bouquet behind her back and EB, a co-worker engaged to be married on October 23rd, lunges for the paper flowers, catching the bouquet just before it hits the floor. She holds it up, victorious, and we all cheer and laugh.

The fun was over but my smile lasted for the rest of the day. I can't believe I get paid to do this. I must have the best job in the world.

Apparently, I'm a Klutz in DC

In Chicago I liked to think of myself as a fairly high functioning individual. I cooked and cleaned (occasionally) and did laundry. I knew how to wash dishes without breaking them and I drove my car without crashing it.

Then. I came to DC and my life seemed to fall apart. I started stumbling down stairs, dropping cups, spilling food. I went to costco with my mom and tried to make myself useful by lifting boxes of food out of the shopping cart and into the trunk of her car. Of course, the box I grab has a broken bottom and food tumbles out in every direction forcing me onto all fours in the crazy costco parking lot on a Saturday morning. I scrambled around collecting oranges and water bottles, praying I wouldn't get run over by deranged soccer moms.

So, I realized the klutziness was a real problem and decided to go above and beyond in my attempts to remedy this. I started going to bed earlier, thinking that an extra hour of sleep might help me stay focused throughout the day. I started drinking out of my camelbak water bottle during all our family meals in order to avoid knocking over my glass into everyone's meal. I even surrendered my new cutco knife to my mother so I didn't slice off a finger while cutting up fruit in my new apartment. Yet, despite my preventative measures, I still managed to sprain my finger, burn macaroni and cheese, and ruin my parents new stove in a 30 minute period after work today.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Is it DC? Is it post-work exhaustion? Am I reverting to childish tendencies because I'm in my childhood home? Maybe once I'm all settled in my new apartment the klutziness will fade. I don't know though... thoughts?