I started, as a temp, at my job almost eight years ago. When the temp agency first called me to tell me about my new office assignment, they also informed me that I would need to dress up for this particular office. And by “dress up” that meant ” wear hose”. I showed up for my first day wearing black slacks, black hose and a black top.

Eight years later, and now a full time employee, and I’m still wearing the same black outfits. Except now instead of chunky Dr. Martins I’m sporting pointy heels. And instead of full hose I’m rocking the knee-highs.

By initially being given the dress-code of “hose” I assumed that meant that everyone that worked for my company also had to follow the same dress code. I quickly learned that wasn’t the case. I seem to be one of the few that actually adheres to it.

Since I work in the construction world there I have a lot of fellow coworkers who have spent a great deal of time out on construction job sites tromping around in mud and rain. They now are stuck in an office, and for some reason, think that they might need steel toed shoes at any given moment. And so, they wear their steel toed boots and keep their hard hats nearby. It goes without saying that they are also wearing jeans, right?

On the rare occasion that I do wear jeans to the office, they are a nicer denim trouser that I wear with heels and my typical dressy work shirt. (I also must tell you that I only paid $12.99 for them. Ann Taylor Loft, marry me.) Never would I wear a tennis shoe or a t-shirt. It just wouldn’t feel right, to me.

What I’m saying is that the corporate world seems to be a little more relaxed these days. I would say the majority of people I see walking into my building are dressed in jeans or casual khakis. I would fall over dead if I saw a man wearing an actual suit and white shirt. Or even a tie. The King doesn’t even feel comfortable wearing a suit to church anymore. (He always wears a tie to church.)

The thing is, I’ve heard this is mostly a West Coast phenomenon. Word on the street is that the East Coast still typically dresses up for a day at the office. I remember Metalia, who works in NYC, ask once if it was appropriate for her to wear short pants and heels to her office. I was all “dude, I wear that every day in the summer and it’s totally appropriate.” But for her, working in the stock broker world, it just didn’t feel right to be wearing what was essentially shorts to work.

The King works in a very creative field. Meaning that his coworkers like to show how creative they are on the inside on the outside. We’re talking pink hair, short skirts and kicky shoes. The King usually just represents with a polo shirt and jeans. Most days the jeans are even washed. As of late he’s been particular to the Simple Eco Sneaks (found super cheap at our local Ross). So The King’s office is even more casual then my office.

And yet, I still dress up for my eight hour work day. Because I feel like in order to be taken seriously, I must be wearing slacks and heels.

So tell me, how do you feel about your office’s dress policy?

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Hey did you notice me new blog header?! Click over to view it if you’re reading this via a blog reader. I figured we needed a little something more Christmasy here hola,isabel. Thanks to Carrisa for putting this together for me.

I remember learning about the underground railroad in elementary school and thinking how crazy it was that there was this train that ran underneath the ground that the slave owners knew nothing about. I mean, how were the rails laid without anybody noticing? And who was forging all the metal for the rails? Let’s not even get into the semantics of the tunnel digging. I mean, dude, how did the slave owners not notice piles and pile of soil?

Seven year old Isabel could not get her head around this topic. And since none of my classmates seemed to have any qualms about believing in a railroad that ran underground, I just accepted it as truth and did not think more of it.

I mean think about it, never once did a teacher explain to me that trains weren’t used. Sure they told the class that abolitionist were helping the slaves escape, but they never said it wasn’t a railroad. They just kept calling it the underground railroad over and over again. Naturally I assumed it was just that.
I’m not sure when I came to the realization that the underground railroad was a code name for a network of secret routes and safe houses that slaves used to escape to free states with the aid of abolitionists (thanks Wikipedia).

Duh, it wasn’t a real railroad.

I recently told The King about this not-so-proud life moment of mine. He laughed. He laughed some more. He brought it up to friends and family. And then he laughed, again. Okay, it’s funny. But it’s not that funny. I mean, I can’t be the only one that thought the underground railroad was an actual railroad.

(I blame the public school system. Yeah, let’s blame them.)
I decided to ask my coworkers about this last week. Come to find out they agreed with The King that it was funny. That is until another one of them spoke up and said, “so it’s not underground?”

Haaa! At least I figured it out before I hit middle school.

While my coworker admitted she knew the underground railroad wasn’t an actual railroad, she thought it was a system of underground tunnels the slaves used to escape. This is a grown adult with a college degree.

(I blame the higher education system for this.)

So tell me, have you ever been a little confused about something like this? Please assure me that I’m not alone.

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What to read how my first time making homemade macaroni and cheese went? You know you do!

And come on over to my latest SeattleMomBlogs post to join the discussion about Flexible Spending Accounts.

Last week some of my coworkers were in Oklahoma on a business trip. Since they’re nice guys they were thoughtful enough to send me some pictures of the Tulsa area for my enjoyment.

I found this picture to be perfect, on so many levels.

And since I know Carrisa lives in Tulsa I immediately forwarded the picture to her and told her I didn’t realize her husband was into flannel that much. Or that his mullet had grown so long since last I had seen him.

I also told her I liked her blue van.

She wrote me right back and congratulated my coworker on his ability to capture every single Oklahoma stereotype in one simple photograph. And then she told me to stop making fun of her awesome blue van. And her husband.

(She’s nice to play along with my lame ass jokes.)

The following day my coworker sent me yet another picture he took in Oklahoma.

I guess the fine folks who live in Oklahoma are staying true to the thug life and representing. (What do I know? Maybe Tupac is, in fact, not dead.)

When my coworker told me that he took the above picture outside the Jenks, Oklahoma post office I got giddy. Dude, Carrisa works in Jenks. Maybe she’s the president of the Tupac is Not Dead Club, Jenks branch.

Again, I e-mailed her the picture to see if she recognized it. Thankfully she didn’t. But she did recognize the post office. She says it’s the one she uses when she sends me a package.

It’s like all of my world got extra close last week. Maybe I’m a nerd but I think that’s pretty cool.

So tell me, have you seen any good graffiti around your neck of the woods lately? Whatever you’ve seen has got to be better then what was found in Jenks, Oklahoma!

The guys in my team at work travel. They travel a lot. Every other week two groups of two guys board a plane and head to one of the same midwestern states they’ve been a dozen other times. They do a lot of driving while on these little trips, which means they get to see a lot of these same midwestern states. Over and over again. Nothing against places like Nebraska and Iowa, but I hear there isn’t too much to see there time and time again.

In an effort to spice their travels up a bit the guys have started little games with each other. They keep spreadsheets to see how many frequent fryer miles they can amass and where they could go with all of their miles (which, of course, they never do). They see who can stay in the nicest Hampton Inn. They see who can eat the most unusual food item. They try to visit wacky places and take picture proof to share with the rest of the team. Or they visit places that most of us may never get a chance to see in our lifetime.

(The Oklahoma City Memorial, picture taken last week by my coworker.)

The last few years they’ve taken it up a notch. Instead of just trying to get over 200,000 frequent flier miles they decided to see who could visit the most states. And since that wasn’t enough, they’ve also taken to visiting each state’s capital and taking pictures in the capital’s rotunda. Each team will come back from a trip and force ask me to look at their pictures of the capital and choose which one I think is the best for the yearly powerpoint presentation. (Oh, you think I’m kidding. But I am not.)

These guys are very specific on what it takes to check a state off the list. You can’t check it of if you’ve only visited it via an airport. There is even a gray area if you’ve only driven through the state. Even if you’ve stopped to get gas and have lunch, they might not let you count it. It just depends.

They take this very seriously.

Since I don’t travel to the extent that they do, I’m a little more lax on my interpretation on the rules.

Before The King and I got together I had only been in a plane two times. Once when I was too young to remember and once when my first husband and I went to Disneyland. When my ex and I went to Disneyland, we had to change planes in San Francisco. If anyone ever asked me if I had been to San Francisco, I totally told them I had been. I mean, technically I had. (I’ve since been on vacation twice to San Fransisco, so there is no more gray area on San Francisco.)

I’m always giving my coworkers a hard time and telling them it totally counts if you’ve only been to the airport in a state. I mean, technically you’ve been there. I truly believe that. Of course they get all defensive and tell me how lame I’m being and that no, you can’t count it. Loser.

The King knows all about this little game my coworkers play. While on our latest vacation, when we had some down time, we tried to decide how many states we had visited in our lives.

And that’s when we had to make a final call on whether or not we would let these gray areas into our lists. Even though The King has never really been to Pennsylvania, he’s had a layover there. Will he count it? What about the time my family drove to Yellowstone National Park? We drove through a number of states to get there, but didn’t actually stop in any of them.

And what about train rides?

On our train ride from Washington D.C. to New York City last week we went through four states (and one Federal District). While we have visited some of those states before, Delaware was a new one. So do we count it?

I brought this up with my coworkers today. They just laughed and said that train rides are just like airport visit; they don’t count!

I begged to differ stating that at least on the train we could see the state’s landscape, the people outside the window, and cars driving on the street. It was much more personal then being in an airport. While my feet weren’t actually touching the state, I was there. I was a part of it.

I thought surely they would see my side of things.

Alas, they did not and I was not allowed to check it off my list of states visited.

So tell me, do you think I should get to count a state that I only traveled through via a train? And if not, how can I convince my coworkers that I’m still cooler then they are?

Like most girls, I had a few years of bad boyfriends. You know the kind, they borrow $20 and never pay you back, or they conveniently forget to bring their wallet when you’re out on a date.

The summer I turned 21 I met Josh. Or rather I was reintroduced to him. We had gone to high school together but had never paid any attention to the other. Mostly because I was a few years younger then he was. In the time since Josh had been in high school he had managed to get married, run away to Iowa with his teenage bride, had a kid, and then got divorced.

He did all of this while I was busy in college and working as a waitress at a truck stop.

(Hey wait, isn’t that a song? I was working as a waitress at a truck stop. Oh, maybe not. Back to my story.)

Josh was on probation, he drove a crappy car, listened to bad music, had horrible friends and wasn’t even good looking. Let’s be honest, if he would have been some hott guy it might have made sense why I was dating him.

I guess I dated him because his family hated me and I had to convince them otherwise. I could never figure out why they hated me. Between the two of us, I was the better person.

Hey, I’m just being honest here.

Josh didn’t have a job. He never had any money, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t dealing drugs on the side. Josh’s dad owned his own construction company. His parents were wealthy, so he lived with them at their house. He had a roof over his head and food to eat, but no spending money. Hid dad would get him construction jobs here and there. Josh usually only lasted a few days at them.

He would say, “why bother with a job when I do just fine without one?”

As crappy as it sounded, I could totally see his point. While I was getting up and going to my summer job everyday, Josh was sleeping in and roller blading with friends in the afternoon. He didn’t have a schedule he had to adhere to. He did whatever, whenever.

Sure, he never had money. But he didn’t need it. He was being taken care of by his parents. And since they loved his daughter, he could usually get just enough money from his folks if his kid was around.

(I know what you’re thinking, “why didn’t you marry this guy Isabel? He sounds perfect.” Hey, I told you I had some bad boyfriend years.)

Plus it was the summer, so most of our dating activities could take place outside, where life is free.

Josh had it made in the shade.

Eventually Josh and I broke up. I have no idea what ever happened to him. He’s one of the few boyfriends that seemed to have literally fell off the face of the planet.

Sometimes when I’ve had a hard day at work I think about Josh’s and his work ethic. I think about what it must feel like to not have have a job. And more importantly, to be okay with not having a job. What would it feel like to wake up every morning and not have to think about if you have a shirt ironed, or remember where your laptop case is, or what’s going on at your kids daycare.

What if you could just stay home all day and just hang out?

On my way into work this morning I walked by a group of teenagers sleeping at the park. I don’t think these are homeless kids who are down on their luck. I think these kids are simply like Josh. They don’t feel the need to work.

And while my gut reaction is to want to yell out “wake up and get a job, you losers!”, I wonder if maybe they know something that I don’t.

Maybe, with their dirty clothes, messy hair, backpacks and no time schedules, they’re the smart ones.

Like most people that work together, my coworkers and I tend to buy treats and share with each other. I have a strict all shared treats must be individually wrapped policy. My coworkers roll their eyes and mock me.

Dude, I’ve seen my coworkers hands and I’m not taking any chances.

I feel even better about my policy after reading an e-mail The King forwarded to me this morning.

• During an hour’s swimming at a municipal pool you will ingest 1/12 liter of urine.

Okay. I love to swim. Why just a few summers ago I bucked up and took adult swimming lessons at the local municipal pool so that I could actually learn how to swim. I didn’t realize that while I was practicing my breast stroke three days a week I was also drinking someone’s piss.

• In an average day your hands will have come into indirect contact with 15 penises (touching door handles, etc.).

It’s bad enough that I have to come in contact with one tiny penis everyday during diaper changes. Now I have to worry about the 15 other penises I’m touching.

• An average person’s yearly fast food intake will contain 12 pubic hairs.

I only eat fast food a couple of times a year. So I’m thinking this number is a little high in my case. Although this is one more reason why I’m a fan of the Brazilian bikini wax. The fewer pubes out there in this world means the fewer I have to eat.

• In a year you will have swallowed 14 insects - while you slept!

Yep. Sounds about right.

• Annually you will shake hands with 11 women who have recently masturbated and failed to wash their hands.

I’ll be honest, this number surprises me. First, I’m surprised that that many women masturbate during the day. Secondly, women are clean. We wash our hands when we’re done.

• Annually you will shake hands with 6 men who have recently masturbated and failed to wash their hands.

Dude, there is no way that there are fewer men then women who are masturbating during the day and not washing their hands. No way. And from here on out, I’m not shaking anyone’s hands. That’s all I’m saying.

• In a lifetime 22 workmen will have examined the contents of your dirty linen basket.

I’m not sure what this means. Are they saying people that come in your home to do work will look at your dirty undies? I guess it’s a good thing The King is so handy and can do all of the fix-it work around our house. He can look at my dirty undies any day of the week.

• At an average wedding reception you have a 1/100 chance of getting a cold sore from one of the guests.

What’s an “average wedding reception”? Do you know? From here on out I will no longer shake hands or go to average wedding receptions.

• Daily you will breath in 1 liter of other peoples’ anal gases.

True dat. Especially if you are married to The King.