On the Road Again

After 3 long months of not really travelling, I am finally back on the road, and man it feels good. It is nice to be out and about again seeing the world and getting out of the rut of daily life … although I am sure it also has something to do with Martin being gone and me not wanting to be alone and/or having to clean the house.

The first two Mondays in June were spent in Lake Tahoe’s Incline Village for work, meaning an overnight stay on Sunday night to make it in Monday morning. Lake Tahoe is not a bad place to be in June…that is unless it is June 2011, with record snow fall and required snow tires or chains to get back to the airport the first weekend in town…. Although the snow capped mountains and snow dusted beaches lining the crystal blue shores made it seem even more beautiful and serene.

In sharp contrast to the first weekend, the weather cleared up the following Monday… so much so that I managed to get a horrible sun burn after only an hour in the sun while reading my book on Sunday afternoon… It was bad enough to keep me from the casino bar/restaurant and required me to order room service instead to avoid scaring the other patrons. However, the snow and sunburn couldn’t ruin the trips me…I really have missed the clean hotel rooms, large comfy beds and the glass of champagne on check always helps to set the vacation, err work, mood.

I am off to New York on Tuesday night for “work” again, meaning a full day of friends and shopping on Wednesday, work Thursday and Friday and then dinner and drinks with friends on Friday night!

Men, Women and the Job Market

Just recently, while planning for an upcoming weekend with all of my college girls, I had a huge realization. Of our group of 7 girls (6 with significant others) none of our men currently have jobs. That is not saying they aren’t trying. Most of them are currently and actively looking for jobs after either having been previously laid off (Erin’s New Yorker), in the process of switching careers (Ange’s hubby), recovering from injury (Neff’s man), in between seasons (Jo’s new ball and chain), a few years hiatus (Dana’s better half) or not are legally able to work yet (yours truly).

I am not sure if it is just the economy or the type of guys we choose, but 6 out of 7 seem like pretty high odds. As my mom puts it, we are a group of strong, independent women. As Ray, my brother in law puts it, women had the 18-20th centuries, it is the man’s turn now.

The 5 Minute Catch Up

It should be no surprise that I am horrible about keeping up with people (although Facebook helps immensely) ...and apparently that has now flown through to keeping up with this blog. There has just been so much going on and the stress of it all has killed all of my creativity. And the more overwhelming my life has become, the more daunting it seems to update this blog on the past few months.

But just recently, with less than 10 minutes of a cab ride to home and 7 minutes of battery life left on my cell phone, I was able to have a proper catch up with Erin…it had been 5 months. And it was during those CNN-like rapid-fire questions and answers that I realized that what this blog needed was a 5 minute catch up to get everyone up to speed so we can start again.

So here it goes:

In November, Martin quit his job thereby speeding up his move over to California. At the end of January, Martin made the trek across the pond with his 2 bags and high hopes of getting a visa and job, finally ending our 18 month long distance relationship. February was spent with me working day and night and Martin trying to get settled into his new life in San Francisco. March continued with little luck on the job or visa front for Martin, me starting to re-evaluate my life as an auditor and weekends spent looking for houses ala House Hunters on HGTV. In April we were rejected from 2 house offers and no big news on our “lofty” goals, but our relationship continued to settle into normalcy. And finally in May, we were able to sort out the visa situation for Martin (meaning Martin had to head to Germany for the processing), had our third and final offer get accepted on a house meaning Martin will have a project to work on (more on that to come) and I have transitioned into a new role at work.

With the ambitious goals set out for us in February - visa, job, job and house – I say we are doing surprisingly well. Hopefully things will start to settle down soon, especially once Martin gets back home and we move into our new place.

The End of Lent… Happy Easter!

To caveat this post – I, Lisa Gimbel, am not very religious, never really have been and don’t really see it in my future. However I am, or at least try to be, sympathetic to most, if not all religions, acknowledging the fact that they provide so much to so many people. Unfortunately, at times I may inadvertently say and do things that might be construed as sacrilegious…(My thoughts of stealing a hotel room bible is just one example… in my defense, I consider it one of the classic pieces of literature that I should probably read and I figured why spend money on something so readily available. That, plus from my understanding, the bibles are there to help spread the word of the Lord and what better way than to take Him home with me.)

My yearly tradition of giving something up for Lent might also fall into this category.

My entire exposure to Catholicism can be boiled down to a few Sunday outings to church, my dad’s stories of growing up with “penguins” and every Catholic person I know claiming to have more guilt laid upon them than anyone else. But needless to say, I find the idea and concept of Lent fascinating; if for nothing more than challenging yourself to give up something for 40 days and 40 nights…. Hey, I gave up eating four legged animals for 2 years just to see if I could (which come to find out I could…that is until I got a job at Toga’s sandwich shop and felt the need to try every sandwich on the menu. I am now a full blown four-legged animal lover…Mmmm, bacon.)

But I digress….

Every year, I try to give up something for Lent, and while most people claim my sacrifices don’t count, I have to counter that I am unselfishly giving up my right of choice, which in itself is huge.

One year in college I gave up bananas. I wasn’t a huge fan of bananas at the time and therefore thought it would be an accomplishable challenge. Unfortunately for me, whether it was the lack of potassium or bottle of Rum I had consumed, I gave in to my temptations on Day 38 while at a party after noticing a bunch of the beautiful yellow fruit on top of the refrigerator of some random apartment.

In my San Francisco hey-day, I gave up tequila shots after 10pm…yes, that is correct, tequila shots were forbidden, but only after the witching hour had arrived. This choice was more for health reasons given that my tequila in-take typically increased after 10pm and, on weekdays that didn’t always make for the most productive workday the following morning. Surprisingly, although tempted on numerous occasions, I was able to restrain myself and make it through the 40 days…The fact that my tequila in-take between 9:15 and 9:55pm increased significantly during those 40 nights is just a side note.

And this past year, after much consideration, I gave up Bud Light for the occasion. It originally began as Coors Light, but I figured that would be just a little too hard, even for me, so I settled on Coors Light’s second best. And of course, like all challenges, it wasn’t necessarily a smooth road to the finish. On St. Patrick’s Day, during hour 2 of the 8 hour marathon, I was informed by the bartender of the bar we had strategically posted up at, that they were out of Coors Light and my only two options were the $4 specials of Bud Light or the $8 Harps. It turned out to be one of my more expense nights on the town.

Twenty-five days later I was struck with another challenge which I heroically overcame. While on a trolley party for work (a moving bar that drives around the city on a city-wide pub crawl) my options were limited to Budweiser and Bud Light… I stuck with Bud Heavy and ended the night with a severely bruised foot. I am not sure if they are related, but if I had to guess....

At the end of 40 days and 40 nights, I am thankful to say that I made it through without giving into temptation (or convenience). And even better, I have not developed a strong liking for Bud Light…unlike my love of bananas which arrived only after giving them up for Lent.

Happy Easter!