After Joe’s two-week medication trial, he went in again for more tests. This time his thyroid level was normal! So it’s two pills a day for the rest of his life. Well worth it though for the spunkier, happier, warmer-eared dog that is the result of it. (Original post about Joe’s thyroid.)

Last week my manager and I went on a press check in Modesto, which is about 1 hour east of where we work. I drove and he was the navigator, all the while making jokes about getting stuck on some strange back road and that that’s how all horror stories start.

The press check was quick and went fairly smooth, no hiccups. We happily left the printers, thinking we’d be back at work in no time.

About 24 minutes out it suddenly felt like we’d been on that patch of highway for a bit too long, so I asked my navigator how long we should have been on it. “About 15 miles,” he said. Doing the math I quickly realized that our exit was not coming up and I suggested we take out the big map. He wanted to go a little farther to find out first.

Soon after we realized that we went south instead of north. So we took a risk and cut across to the west on a road that looked like it would get us closer to home (all we had was a small, unlabeled Google map). More scary side roads with the possibility of running into the strange curio cabinet shop where we would surely be murdered.

Finally, something he recognizes, Anderson’s Pea Soup. “Oh I’ve always wanted to eat there,” he says. So we stop for lunch. What a funny little place. The inside was filled with useless knick-knacks and the restaurant theme was Danish.

From the ceiling hung a couple of flags with the characters, Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee (you can see them on the Andersons’ web site), splitting a pea for soup – oh did that crack me up. I made a comment about our waitress’ hairy face, and my manager warned me not to make such comments or our horror story might end there.

With our bellies full we headed back to work, the right way this time. And after many more miles finally got there. Luckily our story only ended up a mild horror story, though filled with 100 wasted miles and a pit stop at one very funny pea shop.

The October logo was extremely tough, only 3 of the 4 guesses were correct! Congrats to Sean for being one of the lucky few. I’ve tried to choose another hard one for November, give it a try!

I volunteered to represent my department at the company meeting Sumo wrestling match. There were 8 departments altogether and I was put up against the only other female. She was much shorter than me and very competitive. Her department cheered her on and put a sign up in their windows facing the “ring”. She could barely move around in the suit. I easily knocked her down the first time. Let her push me out of the ring the second time. And then knocked her down again twice. She was trying way too hard, which just made it easier to beat her. It was a lot of fun! Everyone left before we could do all the rounds, so there was no overall winner. Afterwards some of my fellow marketing buddies also tried the suits - Ryan and Ken.