Jase Does Oklahoma pt. 1

Last weekend Rick and I ventured north to the red soil of my boyhood, the beautiful state of Oklahoma, where yours truly was born & raised, thank you very much.



About 30 of my family members, many of whom I have not seen in years - including my grandma - were getting together in my little hometown for a lunch at a local buffet/steakhouse place. Needless to say, at first I was having some moderate anxiety about the whole thing, as again I hadn't seen many of these folks in a few years - mostly since mom passed away - and here I was showing up out of the blue with my 21 year old boyfriend in tow.

Friday we drove to Oklahoma City, arriving just in time to meet my oldest friend downtown for what turned out to be one of the most AMAZING meals I've had in a long time. We met at Trattoria il Centro inside The Montgomery building.



I had a Blood Orange - Skyy vodka, fresh squeezed blood oranges, and triple sec - AMAZING!!! Then a wedge Caesar salad w/ the best dressing, and some pica (read: spicy in Spanish - thank my Latino boyfriend for that influence) red sauce on penne pasta. They actually wrapped it to go in a foil swan similar to this one



After that we headed to Yukon, on the west side of OKC where Nikki lives.



Very shortly after we arrived at her house we got a taste of the infamous Oklahoma spring weather - thunder, lightning, and pouring rain with high winds. We decided to stay in that night for obvious reasons.

Day 2 coming soon...

5 Days Off!

Woo hoo! I took off Thursday - Monday, and thank God - it's just what I needed! My schedule is pretty tiring during the week. I work four 10-hour days at work, and I take the bus currently, due to car drama. I work in one of the burbs of Dallas, and it takes me an hour & a half to get to work and the same to get home. So for 4 days out of the week, I'm out of the house from 5:15am until 7:00pm in the evening.

Before you start projectile vomiting, it's worth it because of the extra day off each week. I work with one other person who does the same job as I do, so we easily rotate our days off and let our boss know what we've scheduled. So every couple of weeks or so I end up with a Friday and a Monday off, making for a scrumptuous 4 day weekend. Hence, I cannot complain. This was one such weekend, and I took PTO for Thursday to make the 5 day stretch. I'm off from my classes (I'll post more about that in school drama, later) this week too, so I figured it was the perfect time to do so.

Plus, the weather has been sunny and in the 70s. Man, it's been nice these first two days, and I still have 3 more to go! Whoooooo-hooo! I've been productive so far (well by my standards I guess) - trips to the grocery store, a bit of spring cleaning, got Fernando the maintenence man to come replace our garbage disposal and fix our kitchen faucet, seriously caught up on some sleep, and messed around with my blog (a lot, as you can see by the fresh new layout). I've even logged in and checked up on my work email a couple of times. Boo, I know...I need to leave it til next week. Plus, I've exclaimed, "Foo! I'm on vacation!" several times when Rick has questioned my bedtime habits, beer-drinking at 1pm, etc.

In a couple of months work is issuing me a laptop so I can start working from home a couple of days a week, and going to the office for the other 2 days. Suh-weet! I've been trying to connect to the network via my home computer in the meantime, but apparently Cisco is ASS and does not support Windows Vista for their VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection. Ugh, thanks for not being with it, Cisco. Hell, I could be working from home already! Oh well, again, I cannot complain.

My other half Rick's alter ego Lacienega is cooking up a web-based gossip show with local musician and rising superstar Halohead. It's called The Loop Show. Here're a couple of teaser trailers they've made: