you want to make a memory

Bon Jovi has gone country, and it breaks my heart. However, I still love him - true love grows and changes over time, just as we all grow and change throughout our lives. Yes, I'm crazy.

I don't know which is worse, so I'm putting it to a vote - is it worse that I downloaded 'You Want To Make a Memory' off of Bon Jovi's new country-ish album, or that I downloaded Rihanna's 'Umbrella'? She pronounces it 'um-ber-ella', and the main chorus is 'under my umberella, ella, ella, ey, ey, ey'. She performed it at the MTV Movie Awards for no explicable reason, and I like it for an equally inexplicable reason. So please feel free to weigh in and tell me I have terrible taste.

Today was a pretty great day (sorry Michael)...yes, I had to go into work, and I didn't sit down at my desk all day, but I still enjoyed myself. First off, I saw an allergist - that actually kind of sucked, because she confirmed that I'm allergic to bananas, tomatoes, and watermelons, warned me that I may be allergic to (or could develop a reaction to) avocado, kiwi, and red wine, wrote me three prescriptions for allergy medicines that I'm supposed to take every single day, referred me to get a skin test for allergies, and asked me to bring her pictures of my bedroom so that she can see what the conditions are like and whether it's clean enough that I can benefit from doing allergy shot therapy. I can tell her right now that it isn't, but I may take this as an excuse to hire someone to come in and vacuum/clean for me :)

Basically, I've ignored my allergies for years, thinking that it was a sign of stoicism, since I a) hate to acknowledge weakness and b) am usually too lazy to go to the doctor to get prescriptions renewed, even though I know that I need them. I've been aware of the reaction to bananas for years, but ignored it; I started noticing the reaction to tomatoes about a year ago, but ignored it; the watermelon snuck up on me (and my dad theorizes it is revenge for the watermelon I left in my trunk several years ago).

I probably would have continued to ignore it, but I decided I should get a medical opinion on the matter, and she told me that there was a risk that I could develop a really serious reaction in the long-term, rather than just having the small lip blisters and itchy palate/tongue that I currently get. I'm devastated, since I love raw tomatoes - that means no fresh salsa on my burritos, no greek salads, no BLTs...no fun. Luckily, the proteins that cause the reaction break down with temperature changes, so cooked/canned tomatoes are fine (preserving my ability to eat ketchup and pizza), and apparently I can have frozen bananas in smoothies. Bleh.

Anyway, after that, I had lunch (no tomatoes, sigh, just a tuna melt) with Heather, had some more meetings, and then left for my team offsite. We played bocce at a bona fide bocce court in Los Gatos - they're hardcore, and apparently they have league bocce nights, just like at bowling alleys. I'm way too competitive, and so even though I'm a manager and should be nice to everyone, I instead spent far too many shots just trying to hit other peoples' balls out of the way. My bad. After playing bocce, we had some delicious Italian food and some great conversation. My team surprised me at the end by giving me a token of their appreciation in the form of movie tickets, a gift certificate to Blockbuster, some movie snacks, a card, and a photo album with pictures of all of them. I was completely shocked and touched - I'm in the middle of a massive transition at work and so won't be managing any of them directly starting in July, so this was a nice way to say goodbye.

After that, I came home, watered my flowers (some of which were looking rather unwell--I apparently watered unevenly before going to Ojai), talked to my parents, my sister, and my niece Allie (who had a birthday today!), and then worked until now. Now it's time for me to go to bed - goodnight!