TGIS

Blah, arrrggghhh...this week has been absolute wreckage. Productive wreckage, but wreckage nonetheless! I do have to say this: businesswise, we have made more concrete progress in the last 2 months than ever before...I mean, than in any 2 months before. But sometimes it feels like one step forward and 5 steps back. Oh well, perception is everything, I'm sure. I love what I do, and if I'm exhausted after it, at least it feels worthwhile!

I truthfully do not know how I got through doing this alone for so long. I have the best possible person to help me through the day-to-day now, a total right hand who GETS IT...as well as a business partner who gets it as well. Although I've had that since the beginning. I love JC more than life itself, did I mention that today? HA! As if I could go a day without.

Any Way You Want It. Really. Any.

We went to the Journey concert last night, which was such a blast...especially considering we don't get that many big shows here, AND JC got a call the day of the show to say, bad news...there's a palm tree right in front of your seats...Ha ha, LOL, JK, we moved you 20 rows forward because of the palm tree! Wah!

OK, so in case you didn't know, the lead singer of Journey is now this little bouncing-off-the -walls Filipino guy who looks like he's 15 and who they found on YouTube (I'm not making that up, Wikipedia it bitches), but he's actually 41 and sounds EXACTLY like Steve Perry, I'm serious, EXACTLY. You would think it's not really him singing, but if it weren't, they would have gotten someone who, no offense to anyone involved, looked more like the other band members, KWIM?

Ha ha. You know what I'm sayin'.

The show rocked, of course it rocked. Honestly, though, the highlight for me happened not on stage, but in the aisle near the end of the show. This older drunk gentleman decided he needed to dance. It started out with him shaking his hips around and doing a few dizzy twirls, and then I think someone made the mistake of catcalling him, and he fully broke it down. Gyrating, hip thrusting, and the finale was him ending up on his knees doing hip rolls with his head back nearly touching the ground! The crowd LOVED it! People on the other side of the fence in the beer garden were having hysterical fits, screaming, reaching out for him, and he was grabbing hands, humbly thanking his fans, while one of the biggest bands in the world played "Don't Stop Believin'" on the stage way behind him! It was truly his moment. God bless him.

So, what did I learn today, at the Journey show? I learned, ok, I learned that no matter how old or young or sexy or not so sexy, if you think you got game, you got game. OK. Now I get to go off to the gym and do a spin class. I, people, do not have game. For the record or whatever.

Pua, the flower

Our lovely little Pua passed away this week, which has thrown me into this angsty awful turmoil...I miss her so much, and I'm the one who has it easy, as I knew her for 2 1/2 years, not 10 like the rest of her family. I dropped popcorn on the floor the day of, and I honestly thought, oh, Pua will come grab that up...then realized. And at night I want her to come put her sweet little boxer head on the edge of the bed SO BAD. The last two weeks of her life were so horrendous, she was desperately suffering and it was so hard to know if there was a chance she would recover or not.

Many things went wrong with her in those two weeks, as she literally went from racing around on the beach to completely unresponsive, over 14 miserable days. It felt endlessly long and as sudden as the snap of a finger, all at once. I know that plenty of my friends have lost siblings, fathers, mothers, and I know Pua was a pet, not a person...the problem is that she was a member of the family, and she seemed far more human than dog. She always understood what was happening, emotionally if not logically. We have Kiko, the big boy boxer rescuee....and he's a comfort and a constant reminder, all at once. He walks in the room, a brown blur, and it's startling for a second. For the last year or so, I called her Goddess Pua, my little nickname for the wonder doggie.

Spinning With The Devil

JC and I just joined a different gym.

This is good because it means going to the gym suddenly sounds fun again! Everything is new and different and that's motivating. That line of thinking will probably last a week or so, but let me be happy for now!

Well...maybe happy is a stretch..I did a spin class this morning. If you do not know what spinning is, go down to your local gym and ask to take a spin class. At that point, you will be put on a waiting list, possibly be asked to pay to reserve a bike (even if you're a member), and it will be well known that you're lucky they're allowing you to sign up for this super-exclusive club called Spinning, because spinners are hardcore. And spin class is not like kickboxing or yoga, where you can pretty much always squish another body into the room. In spin, if you don't have a bike, you don't Spin! And there are always less bikes than there are eager potential spinners. At my old gym, there were seriously near-fistfights and rifts in decades-old friendships over bikes.

What these people are competing so desperately for is pretty much an hour of sheer misery that will having you crying out for your mama! This is proof positive, yet again, that humans, especially women, will decide they want ANYTHING if you tell them they might not be able to have it,because someone else wants it too.

Where do they come from?

I got this phone call yesterday:

Me: ELise Clothing Company. Hello. Hello.

Hyper, cracked out nut: HELLO?? HELLO? HI! Is this....(static static static)

Me (ready to hang up already) This is Elise Clothing Company.

Nutcase: HI! Is this the owner? OK, I heard you're thinking of opening other boutiques--

Me (sure someone's trying to sell me something): Yeah, we are kind of considering possibly expanding.

Nutcase: GREAT! Well, I'd just love to take you to lunch, get you a resume, and GET INVOLVED!!! Your business has just exploded!

Me (wondering why this freak is way more into my life than I am): That's very nice of you and everything, and thanks for being so interested. You're welcome to drop off a resume, but we're not hiring anytime soon. We already have an employee here and we don't even know when or where we'll be opening another store.

Her: O-KAY! Well, let me tell you a little about me. I've never done retail before, but I did PR for a makeup line, back when Ralph Lauren had a makeup line. I was great!

Me: Uh-huh.

Her: And I sound young, but I'm actually forty-four. I've also been a schoolteacher.

Me: Right....

Her: And I just think it's just great what you're doing, and I want to be involved. So tell me, what kind of things would you like included on my resume?

Me: Well....

Her: Like I said, it's great what you're doing. It's just exploded. And I used to be a teacher, so obviously...

Me: Ya know...

Her: Should I bring it by now or later? What kind of timeframe? I know you're moving, so I don't want my resume to get lost.

Me: We're actually not moving. We're thinking of opening a SECOND LOCATION. Different.

Her: You know, I've done management too. I'd definitely be interested in that. And I'm forty-four, I'm not that young, so...

Me: Yeah.

Her: So it just looks like you're moving?

Me: NO, we're not moving at all. We had a sidewalk charity sale last weekend, so maybe that was confusing. If so, trust me, I'm sorry.

Her: So the resume. I'll e-mail it to you!

Me: Drop it off. At your leisure. And please drop off the largest possible Costco jug of whiskey, as well.

Because I have so much spare time....

Is Michael Jackson really doing a farewell tour? And are people really screaming hysterically and passing over it?

People got too much free time, that's all I got to say.

Another piece of evidence that people got too much free time: Scrapbooking! Do you even know how hardcore these people are? They throw parties, like Tupperware-style, only with stickers of baby bonnets and birthday cakes and page protectors and little sticky tabby things to attach pictures and acid free this and that and paper in 20,000 acid free colors...for realz y'all. I only know this, of course, because I USED TO BE a scrapper! OH yeah, when I was 16 baby, I scrapped like a fiend. AND THEN I GOT A LIFE. Too much of one, as it turns out, but that's my issue.

Seriously, I think where I must have gone wrong in life is not becoming a stay-at-home wife at an early age. That is what appears to allow one to do stuff like grow herbs and make sun tea and stick little thought bubbles on pictures of people to preserve for all eternity. I don't get, though, how people manage to have kids and still have time for all this stuff. That, I don't get at all. Kids are time-consuming. Plus they cost money. A lot of money, it looks like.

OK, that's it. Time to either shave my legs or watch Chelsea Lately. Guess which one I'm gonna pick? Bah ha ha.

Friggin' Sick

AAARRRGGGHHH! Today I actually wanted to go back to work. I mean, I worked our huge charity sale and one other day while my parents were here, but I haven't worked a normal day in forever. I wanted to get some of my routine back.

Yeah, my health had other ideas! At the beginning of the day, I felt like ASS. I thought it would improve as the day wore on...I'm getting over a cold (so I thought) and I usually feel worst in the morning if I'm not 100%.

NOT. Mid-afternoon, I was fading fast (read: dying) and found out my beloved boyfriend HAD THE AFTERNOON off, which he'd neglected to tell me! I threw out an armload of hints that he could finish the day and let me go take a desperately needed coma-style snooze. OH, but how would I get home? We're a one-Expedition family right now (should probably trade it for two teeny cars), so I would have to go home only to drag myself out a couple hours later to get him. Bah!

Luckily, it turned out April, only the world's most fantastic employee, was right around the corner finishing up errands and she showed up to finish the day. I just woke up from a 4-hr nap and I'm sitting here wondering how sick I am...I hate when I feel crummy. I start to think there's something serious wrong and that freaks me all out. I also hate the doctor, so I start weighing odds that I'll have to go and sit on the yucky cold table. The full-body ache is what's got me most concerned. So guess who's going to be COMPLETELY unproductive tomorrow!

Lazy Ol' Tired Me

I've just had the most unreal week and a half...my parents have been here visiting, which means I got to be a tourist in this island paradise I inhabit! I took a full week off, an absolute first...well, I've taken a week off from the biz before, but not when I was staying here and physically COULD HAVE worked! I felt free, but kinda guily and lazy. I learned to live with it, ha!

We went on a snorkel trip on the Quicksilver, the boat I used to work on, which was SO fun. We were about halfway to Molokini, the island where people go to snorkel, when we came upon a competitive group of whales. The captain stopped the boat and we got an hour-plus whale show. There were 7 or 8 males competing for one female (kinda like a bar at closing time) and they were being very aggressive...headbutting, tail slapping, coming up out of the water again and again. It was incredibly cool, my second awesome whale encounter this season...if you haven't read about my other (pretty scary) whale encounter, check my myspace blog!

We also did a ton of other tourist stuff...a luau, magic show, drove to Hana...and my mom got to be part of our store's charity sale, which was unbelievably successful and she had an absolute blast. My dad and I only minorly beefed once, which I then wrote about (and deleted) on here! All is well, I just get out of practice on handling his quirks when I'm not around him for awhile.

I'm back to the grindstone (with an exhaustion-induced head cold), so don't worry, I'll turn back into snarky, bitchy ol' me really soon here!