Pep Talks

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I was in a training class in downtown Minneapolis. During the training, I learned all about managing diversity (not to be confused with being politically correct) and I did enjoy the class.

One of the benefits to my working (or training) on Monday was the fact I was able to choose to take off Wednesday or Thursday (not allowed to take Friday or Saturday for some odd reason). I chose to have Thursday be my day off so that DM and I could go to the Chalet a bit earlier than normal for Thursday night karaoke.

With this pre-planned day set a month in advance, I found out my team's monthly meeting would be scheduled for today. So even with a day off, I went into work. I was only required to stay for two hours though. At our meeting, our team had a bit of fun with a getting to know you activity where we had to find people in the room that could answer yes to certain questions (ranging from birth order, travel history, and skills). It was quite interesting and I may use the set of questions for a blog post some day. The questions were all ones that Steve and I (plus a few from bankers) came up with on Wednesday night.

After the meeting, I called DM and drove out to her place to pick her up. We were in the car trying to decide what to do for a few hours before karaoke and ended up back in Mounds View, watching episode after episode of Lost on my computer. This show is way too addictive. We both blame James, jokingly, that he is evil for directing us towards this show. But it is really good. And I can't believe we have to wait until November 9th for the next new episode to air!

Once our Lost fix was satisfied, we headed out to the Chalet for some singing and talking. I normally do not sing on Thursdays (there is not much of a reason for this other than I get there late and I have usually just gotten off work and want to sit back and relax). I was in the restroom tonight and this woman whom I've never seen before started talking to me.

W (woman): Are you going to sing? I haven't seen you get up tonight.
Me: I don't know.
W: Oh, you should. Karaoke is fun. You can do it.
Me: Uh..
W: What's your favorite song?
Me: I don't know (I'm not about to go into this topic in the bathroom with some stranger).
W: Not just a karaoke song. I like "Natural Woman" by Carole King. But I can never find it at karaoke.
Me: "Natural Woman" is a good song.
W: I'm getting a keyboard for Christmas so I can know it. I also like "Sail Away" by Styx.
Me: Ooooo-kay. See you.

Bryan makes eye contact with me across the bar and does the signaling to ask if I want to sing tonight. I shrug and say, "Sure," and I'm in the rotation. When Bryan calls me up to sing, I hear the woman telling her whole table that she convinced me to sing karaoke in the bathroom. I didn't have the heart to tell her that this was not my first time ever singing at karaoke.

Liz and James were both there tonight. It was fun talking with them both, as always. James, DM, and I had a long conversation about Lost.

I am working Friday and Saturday, as usual, and then I have a five-day weekend. I took off Tuesday through Thursday next week to relax, get some things done, and also get a nice dinner with my mom and her boyfriend on Wednesday. I am looking forward to the long weekend.