Nope- not one post in August… my bad.

As I left on a cliffhanger of being sued let me catch y’all up on that whole thing:

This is a TERRIBLE picture of me- but as the shirt is in the wash so I can’t take another picture so it’ll have to do. Plus if I cropped it you wouldn’t see the flowers in the background, so what of it. To be attractive is not my sole goal in life anyway- after all, if all you are is pretty what would you be if the world was blind? I could have at least brushed my hair though…

But can we talk about the shirt my friend made me? She spent a truly amazing amount of time creating the logo that not only says “Beach of Contact” but has a dumpster fire as well as the phrase “Librarian paper pusher” on it.

The last was what the same COO who sent the beach of contact letter called me repeatedly to staff after I left because “all I did was write reports and create files.” HAHAHAHA- in the 30 day notice period they made me work they forbid me from talking to customers and were the ones who told me to clean up files and write reports… tis funny. I guess that was his attempt to say how little I actually did to bring in sales? The funny thing is that there is about a 3 month lag time between sales effort in a B2B company such as theirs and actual sales. So for 3 months after I stopped my sales efforts the sales would still come in at a regular pace (hence him saying I did nothing but push paper around since sales were still the same) and then I’m sure they DROPPED OFF A FUCKING CLIFF and he started to panic resulting in suing me.

The next few steps in this entire saga are truly hilarious.

I told my current bosses I could prove the old place knew I was coming to work here in a sales capacity and so there were abject lies in their cease and desist letters. I sent them a screenshot of my old COO on my Linkedin profile in the “viewed your profile” notifications. Why do I have this screenshot? Because I sent it to my friend (she of the tshirt creation) with a caption of “this fucking guy” on April 18th because she and I were laughing that he was viewing our Linkedin profiles daily since we’d left the company. I sent a screen grab of the text stream to my bosses so they could see the date and I did NOT edit out the caption.

“Your Honor, I submit exhibit A…”

It makes me laugh.

And then exhibit B: I had the foresight to record my meeting with the COO and the owner the day after I submitted my notice. I have now shared snippets of that (the part where they say they release me as well as the 3 minutes where I go into my new role and title and responsibilities) so FUUUUUCK them that they say they didn’t know what I was coming here to do or what my title was.

The best part about having to listen to that over 1 hour recorded meeting is the end after I sign off (I was recording on my phone in a voice memo) is that I turn to my husband (who was in the room) and go: “Ahh, I was hoping for a fight!”

Anyway, my current bosses are playing cool for now but they have this ammo if they need it and it’s all pretty much died down because the COO of the old place has put off a meeting over the whole thing till October due to taking 3 weeks of vacation in September. Sounds like either rehab or someone using up all their available vacation before quitting,. Or both. My guess is both

*Shrugs shoulders*

So that’s where it stands now: with me sleeping easily and laughing at the ridiculous of it all and knowing I shall of course prevail- if not immediately than eventually.

In other news we harvested an insane crop of grapes for more wild grape jelly.

Praise be. I can’t resize this for some reason. They hang in clusters of 5 at most, so it takes a while to harvest even when they’re so plentiful.

We had multiple 5 gallon buckets harvested. Last year we only were ever able to get 3 gallons… so we’re up to our eyeballs in wild grapes.

How do you make sure you don’t have a bunch of spiders or dirt on the grapes, you ask?

By being the one to personally get all the spiders and grapes off. Also- they’re so acidic they’ll burn the ever loving hell outta you if you don’t wear gloves.

Purple gold.

How do you know you got ALL the dirt and spiders off? By doing the whole thing a second time too.

And then you freeze them till you’re ready to batch it all up.

We’ve done one round of jelly already- and have case after case of jelly put up, and still have half of the grapes left.

In other other news I had the good fortune to get to visit my aunt in Minnesota for a few days ahead of my birthday. We shared good meals and IPAs and good conversation and enjoyed the weather that was 30 degrees cooler than in Texas.

And I got to sit on my uncle’s bench, wet pants be damned.

Also- she got me this woodblock for my birthday- which I love:

I’ve always liked Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags in that they are not prayers “to,” but instead are prayers “for”- a distinction I’ve always liked. The different colors symbolize the elements and the wind is said to carry the flags wishes of happiness and health and compassion and love to all corners of the world and everyone in it. In fitting fashion I got this as a gift- fitting as you’re not supposed to buy prayer flags for yourself but always supposed to receive them as a gift- which this was for me! It lives at my desk now and I love it AND having gotten the opportunity to hang out with my aunt again.

I went from there to a work trip and then home on my actual birthday to my lovely and amazing family with a perfect evening at home with more delicious food and great conversation and a life filled over the brim with love. It was a great way to ring in 44, let me tell you, even if my head hurt the next day a smidge. (or a lot. it was a lot.)

So much to tell from August! We camped at the beach again and caught fish and I caught sun poisoning (expired sunscreen is a thing) and camped with the beach coyotes.

They are so obviously NOT stray dogs, even from afar.

School started!

Kids have been sick.

Concerts have been attended.

Trips to see my brother and niece and nephew were done.

… so many things.

And I so I had lots of other things to share here but that will wait for next time.

These last two images did make me laugh though so I’ll leave you with them: