Red Letter Day

So occasionally in life we have those really great days where everything just seems to go right. I like to call them "Red Letter Days", although until yesterday when I looked up the origin of that phrase, I didn't know exactly how it came to mean what it does. It basically now means "any day of personal significance" which I guess I can choose to mean whatever I want it to :) For me, it's never really a planned thing, it's a day that just ends up being really great. If you want to know the whole origin, look at the wikipedia article.

So my day started off great because I got a good night's sleep. At work, I had several meetings during the morning, including two really interesting ones about the project I am on, which I really like. Lunch was our monthly EAGLE at IBM meeting (GLBT IBM group), which is always fun, and is especially fun because we're planning what to do for June (IBM-recognized Pride month on their diversity calendar) and the IBM-sponsored Pride booth in July. Besides getting the chance to meet some great people by being involved with this group, it reminds me that I am fortunate to work for such a progressive company that supports and encourages diversity.

Before that meeting, I got a chance to try our new-and-improved IBM cafeteria - ok so to be honest, it still pales in comparison to the one at the IBM Hawthorne site in New York, but they DID improve it quite a bit, and now even accept credit cards. The salad I got was actually quite good...probably still won't go to the cafeteria much, but nice to have an option. And starting Monday the coffee shop and cafeteria are going to switch to serving Caribou Coffee - hooray!

Anyway, the afternoon went really well, I was able resolve a bunch of issues that have been going on for the last month. I actually got so much work done, that at 4:00 I decided to leave and go take care of something I should have done a long time ago - switch insurance agents. I have never been very happy with the agent I have, and given that this is State Farm Insurance whose slogan for the last thousand years has been "Like a Good Neighbor", AND since there are 20+ agents in Rochester, I probably shouldn't have put up with this for 11 years. But Monday they finally went over the line, and I'm done with them. I'm not going to post the agent's name or incident details here, but if you want to know either, just ask me. I had heard many good things about Bruce Fujan, and his office is close to work and my house, so I went over there at 4...the minute I walked in the door I could tell this was going to be way better. The person at the front desk was very friendly and helped me immediately and introduced me to the staff and helped me with my paperwork. She also said that Bruce was out of the office but would call me as soon as he was back to set up a time to meet him personally (BTW I have never met my old agent in person in 11 YEARS!). I figured that meant he'd call me the next day...but at 6:30pm, he called just to say hi and to thank me for choosing his office, and that as soon as they got the paperwork done he'd call to set up an appointment. Yeah...this is how it should be.

BUT, the best part of the day was just starting! At 4:30, I headed down to the David's Bridal to meet my friend Shelley, who was going to be trying on wedding dresses. OK, so yeah that sounds funny, but I've never had a chance to be involved in helping someone pick out a wedding dress, and I probably never will (I've been in so many weddings I have the tux process down pat though). Shelley's mom was going to meet us there at 5, driving up from her home town, and it ended up that her dad came too. I think that us all being there helped Shelley to stay calm:) and the whole process was a lot of fun (the person helping us was VERY friendly and helpful too). I don't know exactly how many dresses we tried on, but Shelley looked beautiful in all of them, and when we finally found "the one", her mom was in tears. Oddly enough, the one we ended up on was one that her dad actually picked out of the book...way to go dad! And during the process we convinced her that she needed a veil, and by the end also accepted having a tasteful tierra! I also get to store her dress at my house until the wedding, so the fiance won't see it :) Shelley's wonderful parents invited me along to dinner with them at Newt's, which was very generous of them (and I love Newt's!). NOTE: I have pictures of the dress trying-on but I cannot post them because the fiance might accidentally see them - but be assured the dress is awesome!

BUT...the fun was not over! I headed to Lourdes for my Wednesday night Notochords jazz band rehearsal at 8:00pm. Notochords is always fun, but for some reason was particularly fun that night (and it wasn't just me, the director kept commenting on how great the band sounded that night). We have two gigs coming up in June, one at the Blue Moon Ballroom at 8:00pm on Friday, June 6th, and a concert-in-the-park at Chatfield, at 7:00pm on Thursday June 19th (plug: I'd encourage people who like outdoor concerts to go to the concert-in-the-park in Chatfield, they have a great outdoor sound shell and it's a fun time).

I got home after band, being really full of energy, but knowing I needed to wind down. Erin was at home watching the end of the Family Guy movie, so I watched the rest with him (a very funny movie). A nice end to a great day.