First week of November, we celebrated some birthdays. Also put together travel arrangements for a trip to the franchise headquarters in Florida the following weekend (Nov. 11-12)

Left Amarillo on November 11 at 5:30 am for a flight to Houston then a flight on to Tampa. Drove from Tampa to Sarasota. First time in Florida! And I only got 1 day of meetings out of the trip. Argh. The "Franchise Director" took us to dinner at Bonefish, which was pretty good. The bang-bang shrimp were totally yum, as was the tilapia with mango salsa.

On November 12, the director guy met us in the hotel lobby that morning and had us follow him to their headquarters. After I saw a sign outside our hotel warning against swimming or wading in the ponds BEWARE OF ALLIGATORS I looked for alligators in all the little ponds, but didn't see any. When we finally arrived at their building, we were greeted with a sign that said, "Welcome! {and had our names plus two other guys there for the Discovery Day meeting}" Ugh. I hate attention like that. Then to make it worse, we had to shake EVERY single person's hand who works at headquarters, I'd say about 20 or 30-something people. We then got to sit in and listen to everyone's speeches on the company etc. They are getting a new logo, so that'll be good. I really don't like the one they have now. Then we drove to Bradenton to see one of their stores in operation. Didn't spend too much time there as we had a flight to catch at 6 pm, and we still had to drive back to Tampa.

This was kind of how the trip was (a blur) Oh, and those little c-shaped things in the sky were kite surfers.


By the time we got back to Tampa, we had about 45 minutes to check in the rental car and get through security and to our gate. In the rush, I accidentally left my checkbook wallet in the car, but didn't notice until it was time to turn off all electrical devices. When I reached in my purse, it felt like something was missing, as I looked in my purse, my heart sank. No checkbook wallet to be found. Damn. So I called my mom real quick before the plane took off and told her what happened and for her to call Enterprise right away. As soon as we landed in Houston for our layover, I called mom, and she said the manager looked through the car, and didn't find anything. What a bunch of BS. One of their employees took it when they moved it I'm sure. I know I left it in there because it's the only time I took it out when we had to pay the $1 for the toll bridge. And I had already taken my driver's license out that morning and put it in my back pocket so I didn't have to dig around for it later. So I guess that was a good thing. But everything else I had in there was gone. $160 cash, all two of my credit cards, my old college ID (DAMNIT) my checks, my checkcard, my Sam's card (which I still need to resolve), and all the smashed pennies I had been collecting from every trip that we have been on. *sigh* Pretty much the most idiotic thing I've done in a while. Mom put a fraud alert on my name, so that was one less thing I had to worry about.

Finally got home at almost midnight, and I immediately got online and reported my credit cards lost/stolen. The bank stuff would have to wait until the next morning. Took care of my check card as soon as it was 8 am. And got a new checking account during lunch. What a pain.

The next weekend ( Nov. 17-18 ) I contracted either a stomach flu or food poisoning, and that put me out of commission both Saturday AND Sunday. All I could hope was that it would be gone by the time Thanksgiving rolled around. Blech. Worst feeling ever. Apparently I am not having very good luck the past few months.

On November 21, I got half a day off During which I did payroll for Dad earlier than usual, and I had enough time to make the spicy cranberry chutney and double layer pumpkin cheesecake. Both which were tasty. Also got an envelope from Tampa in the mail. When I opened it, it was an undeposited/uncashed check that I was holding to deposit until the end of the year. The bastard who took my wallet sent me that stupid check and nothing else. It just pissed me off even more than I was about the whole thing. Why the heck would someone take the time to send that and nothing else. Totally beyond my comprehension. I went all CSI on it and after I opened it and realized what it was, I went and got my tweezers and put it in a ziplock baggie. So, I'm filing an out of jurisdiction police report or something like that... and submitting that as evidence.

Thanksgiving Day I headed down to Canyon to my parents' house. Mom had already put the turkey in the oven by the time I got there, and she was working on the sweet potato casserole. I enlisted myself to make the green bean casserole (the easy way) and my brother and I ate some tamales for breakfast. Thanksgiving meal was ready by 2 pm, and my Uncle and two cousins joined us. Everything was yummy. I'm lucky Mom is a good cook.

The next day we didn't do too much. No crazy black Friday shopping for me. Besides that it's way too early, it was FREEZING and snowing outside, and I'm a wuss. I don't like being in too much of a crazy crowd of shoppers who need to get their stupid free ornament or coupon before everyone else. No thanks. That night though we were invited out, so we hung out with some friends at R&R Bar. Nothing too crazy then.

Saturday was another cold day. We went to Mulligan's to see Marcos & Lisa. Chris and Angela joined up with us there, and we had dinner and watched some football game. Then Chris, Angela & Jon wanted to go to Midnight Rodeo, I was relectant to go. Didn't really feel like it. We ended up in the Piranha Room, my 18 year old cousin was there with no minor X's on her hands, I was tempted to rat on her, but ehh.. And some skanky girl began to yell at Angela. For what, we don't know. She then threw a drink on Angela's head, and I said, "hey what the hell are you doing?" and she began to yell at me I told her to cool down and to go shake her ass somewhere else. Apparently she didn't like that, and punched me right in the left jaw/cheek. Woah. I couldn't believe it. After the stars had gone away and I realized what happened, she was running toward the bathroom. I was trying to tell Jon what happened, but I couldn't really do it because my mouth kept filling up with blood. I had a huge gash in my mouth. So we got one of our friends who is a bouncer there and told him what happened. Then they went looking for the girl. She had holed up in one of the bathroom stalls, and about 45 minutes later came out. Midnight Rodeo charged her with criminal trespass and had her arrested and taken to jail. I went home and iced the heck out of my cheek. See...no good luck.

I filed a police report on Monday ( 11/26 ) against her. The policeman was totally nice. He had to kind of hurry through it because he got a call on a shooting right when we were finishing up the photo shoot. As he was leaving, he said, "please be more careful out there dear." awww...

My cheek was swollen pretty much all last week despite freezing my head off with ice. Towards the end of the week it began to form a bruise, but the swelling was going down. Blah. Almost all the way gone today, there are a couple of little bumps from her smashing my cheek into my teeth. I believe that is the last time we're going to be going to Midnight Rodeo. Thank God.

Still trying to get something resolved with the Enterprise claim department. Dad got the insurance on the rental, and the manager told me that I could make a claim and get some of my money back. Whether it be for the cash in the wallet or the wallet itself or both. But I've left a million messages for the guys in the claims department with no call back. Argh.

Also over this past weekend, Jon's great-grandmother died. The funeral was today, but I couldn't go because golf and "meetings" are is more important to the people around here.

I also began to really organize and clean the house to my specifications. We're having Christmas dinner the Sunday before Christmas, and I want the house to be somewhat presentable.