Category: Thought of the Day

When you have something in your life that sits perfectly on your tongue like a strawberry jam jar sealing itself on the first try, you try to keep it for as long as humanly possible.

Sometimes you get a warning that your favorite thing is going out of production, leaving you with enough time (hopefully) to go through the whole grieving process and then move on. Other times, this highly coveted item disappears from your life suddenly, instilling that god-awful feeling of abandonment, desperation, and unfulfilled wanting deep in your chest.

An example of the latter situation: I like to have a few drops of International Delight Oreo flavored creamer in my coffee (Okay, maybe more than a few drops, but you get the point.) It doesn’t exactly taste like the familiar cookie with the creamy filling, but it’s enough of a similarity where I can get up in the morning with a smile and start my day of answering angry phone calls with excitement. 

I bet you can only imagine my face when I come to find out my local Walmart ran out of this delicious creamer. 

Of course I am forced to go through the stages of grief.

Stage 1: Denial.

My mom and I searched the refrigerated shelves and cooled bins for any signs of my cookie-creamer. We even searched for my second favorite, the Reese’s flavored creamer, but to no avail. I thought to myself, no, there’s no way this flavor, based on America’s favorite cookie, is going to  disappear. Not possible! It must be here somewhere!

Stage 2: Anger.

I became angry with Walmart for not carrying this sweet concoction when I wanted it most. I was so mad with the company, I even contemplated boycotting them until they stocked it again. I would have even written to the Morning Sentinel (one of our state’s major newspapers,) and encouraged others to join me in my noble cause. We would have our Oreo creamer once again! Victory would be ours!

Stage 3: Bargaining.

I decided the next course of action would be to go hunting. If the Walmart in Waterville didn’t have my creamer anymore, surely the one in Augusta would! So, on one of my days off, I decided to take a trip into the Capital and seek my fortune.

No such luck.

I did, however, end up talking with this nice lady who was also searching for her favorite coffee creamer. She advised me to check out the Hannaford supermarket on the other side of town. Apparently they had a much wider selection of creamers for coffee connoisseurs. But when I got there, over half of the shelves were empty. Damn, I thought as I sullenly grabbed a nearby bag of Oreo cookies, foiled again. Maybe the Shaw’s in Waterville will have it?

I jumped on the highway and made my way toward the Elm City. I checked all over Shaw’s, thinking they would have some sort of weird advertisement cooling bin in a strange part of the store.

Nothing.

So, in small hopes shrinking by the minute, I trekked over to the Hannaford’s down the road.

Squat.

Zippo.

Nada.

Goose-egg.

I officially no longer have my Oreo Cookie Creamer. It was gone.

Stage 4: Depression.

By the time I made it home, I had several bags of comfort foods & a sweet cream creamer that tastes like someone melted vanilla ice cream and put it into a bottle. Tastes good, but it would taste better if it were whipped and frozen. Every following morning was a morning of dragging myself from the warm comforts of my blankets and make my way down into the cold kitchen.

Instead of tasting the sweet and chocolaty goodness in my cup, my mouth filled with cold stale vanilla with each swig. Mornings at work dragged. Life became drab and dull.

Stage 5: Acceptance.

Saturday morning springs up, and I rouse myself to join my parents for their weekly quest for groceries at Walmart. I had deigned myself to listening to uplifting music with one ear bud in, occasionally dancing silly to try and embarrass them. (Note: it is difficult, but not completely impossible, to embarrass them – they like to give it back to me on a regular basis. And hey, it’s a lot of fun acting silly!)

As we made our way to the refrigerated section, I was ready to choose the sweet vanilla creamer that my parents had become quickly attached to. I came to the utter and total belief that my sweet chocolaty goodness was gone, and I just had to move on and hopefully find something that was just as good, if not better. That was how life was, and I just have to accept it.

The Surprise.

Just as reach for the sweet cream, I see a familiar label out of the corner of my eye. I turn my head and crane it to the side to get a better view, and lo and behold, there it was! The International Delight Oreo flavored creamer was back!

Before I even have time to think about it, I dive into the shelf and snatch out three full bottles with a delighted squeal. As I turn and hop-skip my way to the cart, I see my mom laugh and two strangers stare wide-eyed in shock.

One of them ask, “is that any good?”

Of course it’s good! I think. But, as the realization of what I’d done sinks in, I smile wide and nod while my face starts to feel slightly hot.

For now, things are back to being good. The sun is shining (or at least it was when I began writing this post), the fridge is full of Oreo creamer, and the uplifting music is making my emotions soar higher than the clouds. Life is back to the way it should be.

That is, until the Oreo creamer runs out again.

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to venture into NYC and sit down for a job interview as an Executive Assistant.

Of course I jumped at the chance to work in the City that Never Sleeps. Who wouldn’t?! I’ve never been one to sit idly by and and let unspoken opportunities slip by me like an eel that glides by the fishing boat in the early spring mornings, and I wasn’t going to start now.

Thing is, as great and chaotically-organized city as New York was, the interview was, unfortunately, the exact opposite.

What should have been the first leg-jerking red flag was how the interviewer, a staffing company I’d never heard of, refused to do a Skype interview. Now, traveling to NYC was possible (I wouldn’t be writing this blog if it weren’t), but at this moment my purse strings are particularly wound tight. I couldn’t really afford to make a stay-over trip in the city, then head home a day later. Hotel rooms were expensive. Eating is expensive. Rule of thumb: the bigger the city, the more expensive things will be. Always has been, always will be. But, the woman I was emailing was adamant we meet face-to-face. So, seeing it as a test to see how willing I was to go the distance (Disney reference, anyone?) I asked my bosses for the green light to travel last-minute to the city. They weren’t exactly thrilled to see me go to a potential job-offering, but they wanted to show their support, (Bless their laid-back souls).

Traveling alone was something I’d done before, just not to as big of a city. The closest to a bustling city I’d traveled to by myself was Saratoga Springs, NY. (Awesome city, by the way. You should visit!) Understandably, my parents weren’t the most keen on my solo trip. So, with the green light from her own boss, Mom packed up some things to be my travel buddy. (She also had never set foot in NYC, so this was a win-win trip for her.)

After driving 7+ hours, we made it to our hotel late Wednesday evening (my interview was Thursday, so sleeping was top priority.) The room was fantastic, the food delicious, and hotel employee behavior was satisfaction. I completely recommend staying at the Stewart Hotel in NYC. You’re literally minutes from Madison Square Garden, shopping stores, and all sorts of amazing food! And it’s reasonably priced, too!

The next red flag I should’ve noticed was when I arrived to the staffing company building, the receptionist wasn’t even expecting me and had me fill out an application page, as if it were my first time applying. After I had waited for 10 minutes, the interviewer – the vice president of the company, none the less – had me sit in a small bland-white room at a cramped table opposite her. She then pulled out my resume that she had printed from my LinkedIn.com page, and proceeded to ask me where I was from. That wouldn’t be a problem…except my resume shows my address at the very top under my name. She was “surprised” to see I was from out of town and asked why I even bothered to apply to a job that wasn’t even close to where I lived. Before I could answer, she asked me why I had two Bachelor’s degrees, instead of just going for my Master’s, and I quote, “like any normal person?” In other words, she didn’t even bother to look at my resume.

I probably looked like a goldfish, or a koi, stationary at the front of the glass, with my mouth opening and shutting slowly like some animatron doll at Disney World. All of my preparation that I had practiced, all the answers I had looked up and rearranged to sound like my own intelligent responses, flew right out of my ears and up into space. I ended up stuttering my answers and found myself defending my decisions and actions in my life.

On top of that, the interviewer then proceeded to tell me that she would not be sending my resume to the company for the Executive Assistant position. Instead, she would be sending it in for the receptionist open position. Her reason: I had virtually no experience and had “just graduated from college” (please note: I have officially been out of college for almost 3 years. Will be 3 in May. Also, I’ve had at least 3 years’ worth of jobs where I performed assistant-related actions). It would be all fine and dandy…if the receptionist position was what I had actually applied for. Plus, it would have left me with a range of 40k to 48k per year, if the company was willing to pay me the 48k max, as I was told.

Long story short, I was being berated and insulted in every direction possible. To this woman, I wasn’t worth her time, her resources, and after the moment she found out I was from, as she called it, “Backwardsville No-where” Maine, I wasn’t worth the skin or breath I was given at birth. As far as she was concerned, I was a high society wannabe hillbilly. What made it worse was when this “interview” (which didn’t even last 3 minutes) was over, the interviewer didn’t even stop to try and shake my hand. She would have bolted and run away to the safety of her office if I hadn’t forced her to stop and shake my hand. I even watched as she wiped it on the side of her pants as if I had some sort of “low-class cooties” that she didn’t want to catch.

My mom and I spent the rest of the afternoon checking out Macy’s, dining on this amazing dish that had mini octopus, gigantic shrimp, and perfectly plump noodles, and observing how quickly people move around in the city.

For a few brief moments, I felt absolutely dirty from the “interview”. It was as if I had cannon-balled right into a giant mud pit, then promptly sashayed into a soiree for high-class socialists. My mind quickly slipped into that medieval belief that whatever social class you were born into was the class you would live and die in.

But, as quickly as I fell into that depressive mind-frame, I flew out of it. I may have been born in a “lower class”, as this woman believed, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stay there for the rest of my life, making piss-poor life choices and spending my money away on frivolous things. I come from two families of intelligent people. I come from first-class cooks, adventurers, warriors, and peace-makers. I come from healers, work-horses, and socialites. On several occasions, I have seen family members, both past and present, walk into rooms and instantly command every single person’s undivided attention. I myself have turned tides in council decisions.

I am NOT some sort of “unintelligent hillbilly” as this woman claimed me to be. This piss-poor interview, whether I care to admit it or not, has taught me an important lesson: there will be people out there in this world who will take one 3-second look at you and assume you are nothing. These people will continue to make you feel like you are nothing, most often-times to feel like something important themselves. The key is to not let them get under your skin. I know, I know, that’s easier said than done. I can attest to that fact. But the way I see it, if this woman, or anyone like her, tries to put me down, there’s a good chance it’s because she sees my worth and sees me as a threat. Good. Let me be a threat to her. That just means I’m stronger, faster, better. (think of the song from Daft Punk, not that mangled copy from Kanye-what’s-his-name).

The City was amazing, and the opportunity to show it to my Mom for the first time was an excellent memory-making experience.

The interview, to say the least, was much to be desired. If Windsor Resources LLC wants to actually stay alive as a business in this world, they need to start treating people better. I highly suggest everyone staying far away from these people if you want to get a job and be treated like a respectable human being.

I love snow days.

I don’t like driving during snow storms, of course. Not only are my tires in need of replacement, but there are drivers out there who think they can still go 45-50 mph around deep curves just because they have 4-wheel drive. (yeah buddy, I see your tail lights inches from my backside. Back it up!)

Picture this: The snow is drifting down to the white-clad ground, dancing around on swirls of wind like seasoned dancers twirling on a humongous dance floor. Trees turn white against dark storm clouds, creating an image so beautiful, you can hardly believe you aren’t in a painting. There aren’t a whole lot of animals out, with the exception of a cardinal or a couple chickadees darting toward the bird feeders, then sweeping through the snowflakes like aerial aces as they flit toward the snow-laden branches of the lilac bush and eating their seeds. All is quiet as the scene unfolds. And yet, the silence becomes so loud, thrumming in your ears like an orchestra reaching its crescendo, that you want to both cover your ears and want to crank up the music to as loud as it can go.

I love these days where I can just sit and watch the snow fall and the world comes to a gracious halt. It reminds me to stop what I’m doing and to just take care of me. I can focus on why I’m feeling hurt, or sad, or angry; frustrated, annoyed, or a mixture of the above. I can freeze those emotions in their tracks and figure out why I’m feeling them in the first place. Once I’ve come to terms with their roots, I can wash them away and feel clean, just like the snow and how it melts into spring.

There’s also another part of these snowy days I love: the beauty. Have you ever woken up in the early mornings after the storm, and as you’re driving to work, you look over to the left and see the sun creeping up above the dusted trees, and watch in wonder as the field below begins to glitter like millions upon million of diamonds? Or how about when you’re walking through the woods and little flits of snow falls from the branches high above your head as the squirrels, chipmunks, and birds race each other to the other side of the forest, waking up everyone else in the process? In both of these scenarios, I can’t help but feel happiness bubble up from my gut and spill out over my lips into a wide grin.

It’s sort of Nature’s way to remind me, to remind us all, that we can slow down and take care of ourselves. It reminds us that even though life seems cold and grey, there is beauty in winter as well.

2018 has been one hell of a year. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

Last year has been an emotional, physical, and spiritual roller coaster for my family. Not only did my family lose two well-beloved furry family members, we had to cope with my mom’s surgery that took a more complicated turn, thus ending in a longer R&R session for her, (If you knew my mom, then you’d immediately guess she wasn’t too happy at the thought of having to stay put and do nothing,) and student loans were barring down on me harder than ever before.

Of course, it didn’t exactly help with all the political, environmental, and economical atrocities swirling all around us like an overgrown Nor’easter crashing into houses, tearing apart schools, and attempting to drown everyone and everything in sight.

On top of that, I wasn’t able to sign a contract with an agent interested enough in my book. Again.

I wasn’t exactly feeling like I was on top of the world.

As December was drawing to a close, my parents and I decided we were going to deviate from our New Year’s Eve norm and have a little party. We invited a couple of our closest friends, who happen to work at the same place Dad and I work, and ordered a butt-ton of Chinese food (a tradition in the LaBree household – the superstition is almost every year we have Chinese food on NYE, we have a good financial year. If we don’t have Chinese food, we have a crappy financial year. Like I mentioned, it’s worked almost every year. )

We also decided we would have some drinks to help ease in the new year. Not only did I bring my favorite flavored vodka (the brand is called Kinky… don’t judge,) one of the young men brought in Fireball, while the other brought in rum, whiskey, beer, and fruit punch. While Mom and Dad watched, the three young people (myself and the other two guys) got sloshed and took some uncalculated and unnecessary risks. Even more so after we watched the ball drop and the parental units went to bed.

Felt like I was back in my college days.

I don’t remember a whole lot of the night – I was trying to keep up with the other two… very bad idea – but I do remember heading downstairs after we all went to bed sometime around 5:30am, fed the cats, and proceeded to lose my dignity in the bathroom. It was most definitely not a pretty sight.

The following morning was rough. I managed to navigate down the stairs without stumbling and falling to my painful doom, shuffled into the bathroom to relieve my already dehydrated bladder, then made my way into the kitchen, where Mom and Dad were giggling and smiling ear to ear as the three of us young’uns crumpled into our respective seats, took several pain pills, and gingerly sipped on our coffees and waters.

Throughout the entire day we rested, the men went out to fish, and we watched movies all day while eating left over Chinese food.

To be honest, I am thankful for the hangover. I know, I know, that’s an awfully strange thing to say. But hear me out: in drinking too much, I let go of all the hurt and anger I was holding in my heart. Of course, there are plenty of other ways to do that, but I think this was the way for me to do it. The hangover was a consequence, and a reminder, that holding on to so much hurt, pain, and anger was doing me a disservice. I was holding myself back when I should have been pushing myself forward. And now, with the new year, I get to start over and move on. No more looking back, no more holding on to what I failed to do. Failure is only a part of learning. If I didn’t fail, then where was the learning?

So, here’s to a new year and new beginnings. I have a feeling this year is going to be a good one. I pray it’s a good one for all of you as well.

Last week, while I was working on an order for a customer, I heard the tell-tale coughs of a budding cold echo from the other side of my work cube.

It started out as a small raspy cough – something seemingly harmless and innocent enough, so long as it was caught early on – but as the day went on, that cough turned wet, coarse, and could rival that of a seasoned smoker’s struggling lungs.

Instead of staying home and preventing her cold from spreading to others like any other sensible person, my coworker sneezed over her left and right shoulders, coughed whenever she could without covering up, and did little to wipe down her station with Lysol or Clorox, of which there were plenty to pass around.

I did everything I could to keep the germs at bay: I sprayed every inch of my desk with Lysol, wiped every corner with Clorox, ate all kinds of fruits and veggies, took my vitamins, the works. I even drank enough fluids to match a race horse’s full bladder.

And yet, as I woke up on my day off, I knew it was all in vain. My nose was clogged, my throat was as dry and cracked as clay baking in the sun, and it seemed like every muscle in my body ached with pain. I had caught the dastardly cold.

I stayed in bed almost the entire day, and the entire following day. My cats took turns sleeping next to my head and sleeping on my stomach, trying to make me feel better.  I remember having fitful dreams as I rolled side to side, trying to get away from the heat and aches. For some reason, I kept dreaming about the numbers 125 and 128. Why, I couldn’t even begin to guess the reason.

Then on Saturday, one of my worst nightmares came to life: I lost my voice.

I had to spend the entire night at my other job – one that also relies heavily on my speaking with customers and helping them complete their orders, either gesturing wildly to try and convey my standard questions, or squeak at them like a mouse with its tail perpetually being stepped on.

And today, on this snowy Monday morning, still with no voice, I sit in my chair at my day job waiting for faxed orders to come trickling in, as it is the only job left that doesn’t require me to speak anymore than absolutely need be.

Should I have stayed home? Probably. Could I have actually stayed home and slept, allowing my throat to heal? Not with this wallet size.