This past Saturday was ExxonMobil's Procurement group Christmas party. It was held at the Ritz Carlton in Tyson's Corner, VA. Since it was a formal event, Michael wore a black suit (although I still wonder if it was dark blue...either way, his pants matched his top) and a maroon colored tie. I wore a black satiny dress. The first hour was a cocktail hour, so we got there about 45 minutes into this time, 15 minutes before sitting down to eat. I met some of his very nice co-workers and I also met some of the nasty old men that work with him. I found out that sexual harassment occurs everywhere, including high paying corporations. Apparently, Michael hasn't seen this trend in his office, but I got a taste of it Saturday night and I don't even work for the company! Anyways, the sit down dinner was very nice and as good as you could ask for when feeding 150 people at once. Since I wasn't able to eat the appetizer, they made me a special salad which was very nicely plated with care. For dinner, they got lobster and filet mignon and I got a layered vegetable dish, some potato layered thing and a spinach flan (as they called it). The dessert was also a good dish, but I have no idea how to describe it....another layered fluffy pie-like thing. Everything was the best catered dinner I've ever had. They also had more desserts to nibble on throughout the night which included a chocolate fountain with assorted fruits, brownies and marshmallows to dip. Christmas decorated cookies, mini-creme brulees, um...and other desserts too but I can't recall what. They also had espresso and hot teas to prepare if you wanted. The drinks continued to be free all night including a martini bar with only top shelf liquor. I presume the one dirty man in particular, Dick was his name, spent most of the night hanging around that martini bar. I actually hope this was the case, because, if not and he was sober, I'm pretty certain he will never have a chance with the opposite sex and friends are out of the picture too. Oh, and my wonderful husband left me ALONE with this man on several occasions to fend for myself. So much for chivalry.
On Sunday morning we decided to uninstall the currently inoperating over-the-stove microwave in preparation for installing the new microwave we bought last week. After trying to figure out how to get the old microwave out to no avail, Michael ended up removing the cabinet above it. After removing the cabinet, we discovered more dead bugs everywhere. Yuck. Bad memories of cleaning that disgusting kitchen came racing back to me. In addition to bugs, the ceiling was also fairly moldy. Yay...more mold! He got the microwave off after cutting the plug into 3 pieces. Now, we had more to deal with than we originally presumed. So, back to Home Depot for some mold deterring primer. After returning home, we decided to remove the next cabinet over to see if there was mold growing on the ceiling there too...which there was, but not as much. It was pretty obvious that the mold was growing in the areas where condensation could reach from cooking over the stove. Oh, and more bugs were discovered too. Michael was nice enough to clean up all the bugs, kill the mold and paint the ceiling. Sometimes he does good things :) While we were waiting for the paint to dry, we decided to pull up the carpet on the staircase. I expected this to take a maximum of one hour to complete as the entire upstairs only took us a couple hours, granted with 2 more people but still a much larger area. Very quickly into beginning to remove the carpet (with respirator attached to my face...I was not going to have another episode like the last time we pulled up carpet) we realized there are 100 times more staples and tacks on a staircase then on a flat floor. It was ridiculous! Seriously, there must have been several thousand staples on that entire staircase. Starting that project at about 3:30pm, I did not finish until 10:45pm. Granted again that, after the initial removal of the carpet which took maybe 3 hours, I worked on this pretty much alone since my husband isn't very good with tedious tasks that require patience such as removing staples. Regardless, it took WAY longer than we expected and I'm definitely paying the physical price for my labor today. Even with utility gloves on and, whenever a blister began to appear I would cover it to keep from it getting worse, I still managed to get 5 blisters on my right hand. I have scrapes and scratches all over both arms (making me look like my husband after trying to pet one of our cats). In addition, my right hand's bones/tendons/ligaments are extremely tender. I definitely strained them. I have a wrist brace on today because it hurts for my wrist to bend. This isn't the first time for me to strain my right wrist and hand so I'm prepared...kind of. My lower back is also quite sore today, but that is minor in comparison to my poor right hand.
Needless to say, we didn't end up putting the cabinets back up last night in the kitchen and the new microwave is still not installed. Tonight at 6:30pm we have a consultation with a lady who works for a pet sitting company. She is coming over to meet the kitties in prep for our trip next week. After she leaves, hopefully Michael will be up to finishing our kitchen project so I can get my kitchen usable again. If not, I guess we'll be eating out tonight. But only if we avoid the times between 8 and 9pm. It's the season finale to The Sarah Connor Chronicles tonight.
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