I Shaved My Legs For This?

Last week, Jimmy, as Director of Process Engineering and, his team of project managers and the VP of Process Engineering were to be given one of the ABC's (Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc) Excellence in Construction awards. Stellar had a huge part in the building and development of Starbucks' new "green" roasting plant in Sandy Run, SC. Starbucks was even granted an LEED Silver certificate for new construction. What does that mean? It means that the roasting plant was built primarily with eco-friendly products and will run with much less negative impact on the environment.

And because of this, I had to shave my legs.

Receiving an award means going to an awards dinner and getting all dressed up, something I don't really like to do. One, it's hard to find a dress that looks halfway decent when you're as big as I am, and two, finding shoes that won't render me a cripple is even harder to find.

I got super lucky in that I scored on the second dress I tried on in the first store I walked into. YES! I still looked as fat as ever, but at least it camouflaged a wealth of rolls and pits and dimples. Shoes I bought from Zappos, and I've got to say they've got the best customer service this side of Disney.

The fact that the shoes were instruments of horrendous torture is not the fault of Zappos, but instead the fault of my feet never being in anything more than flip flops, and more times than not, barefoot. Thus leading to the necessity of getting a pedicure so my big toe which would show through the peep-toed shoe would look halfway decent.

The pedicure was lovely, and of course administered by a man who either did not know much English, or just chose to make me believe so by nodding his head and smiling a lot, but not saying a word. Mikayla was with me and had her first pedi experience which she thoroughly enjoyed. I'm sure the two men tending to our footsies thought we were kind of demented with all the giggling and twittering we did over the very powerful massage chairs. At one point Mikayla put hers on the percussion setting and I thought for sure she would either bounce right out of the chair, or lose a toe to her mute technician. Good times!

Finally, Friday arrived and Jimmy flew in that morning after a 10 day business trip in TN. Yes, another big project, this one developing something or other for pizza dough-making. I heard lots of groaning and grunting about the dough balls dropping in the wrong place but tuned that out so I could prepare to actually leave my house looking like something other than the makeup-less, hair-akimbo slob I usually look like.

Here's the finished product. Do not adjust your screen. That actually is me looking halfway decent and smelling fresh. Oh, and without any stubble on my legs or pits.

It has been brought to my attention that having a huge, honkin' tattoo on the front of my leg is not exactly conducive to looking properly dressed up. I tend to agree, but I do love Jesse the frog. How could you not?

Picture courtesy of the artist, Jesse Britten's web page, Third Crow Tattoo.

Look! Makeup! Earrings! A necklace! Holy crap!

Wow, even got a picture of Jimmy and I together. He may look a bit peaked and bloated, but after 10 days of being in a hotel, eating at restaurants and drinking like a fish will do that to you. So will being up 30+ hours with no sleep, which he was at the time this picture was taken.

Seems my bangs were curling up with every passing second. Damned Florida humidity!

I'm going to make this part short and to the point. The cocktail hour was ridiculous. We had to sign in to receive one ticket per person for a free drink. After that, it was a cash bar. No appetizers. Not even a celery stick.

The hotel was nice, the centerpieces lovely.


The food sucked and the portions were more along the lines of an appetizer. Having worked in the hotel industry many years ago, I was not happy to see our slices of cake set on the table before we even entered the room. Very tacky if you ask me.

The service sucked ass too. It wasn't until I was nearly done with my dinner that a server came by to refill my water glass. By that time I had already drunk my whole glass, plus Jimmy's and was eyeballing Jerry's next.

I think Jimmy and Jerry are a very cute couple, don't you?

Jimmy, the director, Jerry the VP. Two pollacks in a pod.

Oh, did I mention this dinner was so boring I nearly nodded off in my 1/4- cup- size serving of luke- warm mashed potatoes? Yeah, see how you'd like sitting through at least 50 awards being given out and the subsequent speeches that came along with it. Torture!

$110 a pop and this is what I got? Thank goodness the money wasn't coming out of our pockets!

And speaking of torture. You already know I have a swelling problem, right? Well, this is what my feet looked like after 4 hours of sitting on my ass with the shoes off and hidden under the tablecloth.


I'll have you know that my feet started hurting about a millisecond after I slipped them inside the shoes. I had to walk around like a Geisha girl because my feet were cramping so bad.


Lovely shoes, not so lovely feet and ankles.


It's inhuman dammit! Oh, and those marks on my foot below? Skeeter bite scars! Oh yeah, the opposite big toenail can do major damage to a skeeter bite.

I was so happy when the last award was given out and the dinner was brought to a close. If not for the utter exhaustion of the whole team after their stint in TN I may have had to suffer through drinks at a nearby restaurant.

One last picture and we were gone!

Jerry, Jaime, holding the funky-looking eagle award, Jimmy, and Tony. Who is not in Jimmy's division but who also works for Stellar and won an architectural award.




I am so never doing this again!




Pssst! If you love me, you might love my sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!