Interesting work week

My job is a very low-stress, kick-back job. I have a great boss, pretty good co-workers and flexible schedule. I come in, I work, I leave and never think about it til I get there the next day. I rarely have people in the office that I need to deal with.

This week has been really interesting! I've had auditors in since Monday and I went out with them on Tuesday night. They are both from South Carolina and the woman *really* wanted to see a celebrity. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to see them because all my celebrity sightings have been surprises. Their hotel was next to CityWalk, so we just met there and had dinner (and three beers) at Karl Strauss Brewery Company and then walked across over to Howl at the Moon. That night, HatM was doing "You sing it" which is basically karaoke with a life band. We proceeded to have more drinks and shut the place down at 1:30 AM. We had so much fun! I went home, drank a bunch of water, popped an Aleve, slept a bit and felt like a million bucks (other than being tired). On Wednesday, our workday dragged a bit considering we were ALL yawning.

Yesterday, one of the auditors left and a supervisor type came in to oversee how everything is going. He wanted to go to the beach. So, when it came time for lunch and I was asking what he would like for lunch, he said, "Well, if you were really nice, you'd take us to the beach for lunch!" I said, "Fine with me. We can take a long lunch and stay as late as you'd like." So, off we went to Manhattan Beach for lunch. We went to Rock'n Fish, which was really good. It's practically right on the beach. It has a great atmosphere. We sat out on the patio. Then we walked down the pier and enjoyed the sunshine. I could do that for lunch every day. I don't think I've ever taken a three hour lunch before. I could get used to that. I ended up staying til 6:45 when normally I'd leave around 4, but still!

Last night, the supervisor guy wanted fabulous Italian food and fabulous wine and asked me for a recommendation. Then he asked if I wanted to go, so I agreed to. I called my friend Mike and he recommended Valentino Italian Restaurant. Mike said that it would definitely be his #1 choice if he was going out for Italian and didn't care how much he spent. And you know what? He made an excellent recommendation. It was fabulous. We had a great time. The food was divine. It's beautiful inside, the service was attentive, but not intrusive, the wine list HUGE! It was a book. I think they have something like 2,500 wines on the list. I am not a huge wine drinker, so we settled on a bottle of champagne instead. Great food, good conversation, and overall quite fun. And most importantly, the supervisor guy liked it tremendously.

The thing that is funny about all this is that my boss has been on vacation this week. If he had been here, I think he probably would've been discouraging me from going out with the out-of-towners. But I've really enjoyed it. It was really fun and great to meet more people from other parts of the country and hear about life there. I love talking to people about stuff like that. I knew this week would be busy and I'm so glad I didn't make any plans for the evenings so that I was able to go out with them. I've never "entertained" people for work purposes. It's really fun. I could do that all the time.