Kiwi land bound

My trip is booked. Unless something comes up that causes me to use my cancellation insurance (which I decided in the end to purchase since it is a leisure trip after all - may as well take all the stress out of it if possible), I'm heading for the South Pacific in the New Year. Because of the way Christmas and New Year holidays fall, I will be away from the office for 7 weeks. It's going to be fantastic. And last minute, a friend decided to purchase a ticket as well so now I've got company. Most excellent.

I buy mine from Safeway

I just had the most sexist comment made toward me that I didn't even realise what the guy meant at first. I am still feeling a little incredulous. I was speaking with a client about some air monitoring at his site and asked if he wanted full time inspection or if he'd prefer we make several trips per day to collect the samples. His response was that I could just come out for the samples and spend the rest of my day doing something else - liking baking bread. More often than I'd like to admit, I do not get a joke. At first I thought he must be making a joke and my slow sense of humour was not picking up on it so I kind of did a half laugh, said goodbye and hung up. But no, he wasn't really making a joke - he was taking a dig at my gender. How does one respond when it is to an important client? I can't really tell him to make his own swear word bread (which was my boss's response when I told her). I mean, we are trying to get him to hire us.

Oh well, if we get the job and his attitude continues, I'll deal with it then. If we don't get the job, we won't be dealing with him. I just didn't think professional men said crap like that anymore.

And I guess the best revenge would be to actually bake him a loaf of bread. One bite and he'd realise that I am much more capable at providing him with the professional skills at his job site to make sure everything runs smoothly for the next several months than I am at baking bread.

So I have a new roomate! I've given up the spare bedroom for a new friend and her extremely well behaved border collie. So far it has totally been worth it. I came home from work at lunch today and played catch. Plus it has also caused me to clean out the garage (which I love so much now that I almost wanted to just go sit in it today because it's so clean. Isn't that weird?) and organize the kitchen. Next, I have to work on my bedroom. I'm going to do another purge of clothing and this time, having less room to store them, I will be brutal. It will feel so good to have less stuff. I really aspire to be a minimalist but have all the tendancies of a packrat. The war within myself is constant.

Ahhh, autumn. The time of the year when the leaves become really good boundaries for fantastic games in the park. What?

I saw the coolest thing yesterday. There was a bunch of kids at the park down the street from my house. They must have spent an hour raking all the leaves in one half of the park and then they spread them out in numerous lines and made a game of it. It must have taken them ages - it was quite intricate. I applauded them from my car and wished I'd had my camera.