She Works Hard For the Money.

So if you haven't already heard me shouting from the rooftops.... I got the job!

My first day is tomorrow and I'm feeling the usual pre-new experience jitters and excitement. The anticipatory nerves mainly consist of fear that I'll mess up big time and/or do something horrifically embarrassing. Hopefully tomorrow night you won't see "Trader Joe's supermarket engulfed in flames due to new employee" on the eleven o'clock news. The manager told me to show up at nine but didn't say how long the shift would last, and I was too mind-swirly (Is this a word? It should be.) to ask. I'm guessing it'll last seven or eight hours though, which means I need to bring my lunch. Obviously I could buy my meals there considering it's a grocery store, but at least initially want to bring my food in order to avoid any additional anxiety and stressful uncertainty. I feel silly asking this, but do you guys have any portable vegetarian breakfast/lunch/dinner ideas? I don't know if they have a fridge where I could store my food yet but any ideas would be much appreciated. I'll keep you folks posted on how my first day goes and will continue to give you inside scoop of what goes on behind the scenes at TJ's.... 

Thank you lovely folks so much for your feedback related to what I mentioned in my last post. I was really hesitant to talk about it but am glad that I did, because I was so helped by your insightful comments and support. Although I'm proud of how hard I've worked and excited by all the big things on the horizon (It feels like when you're in a rollercoaster creeeeaking upwards before the big drop.) it also feels wrong. For so long I've used my behaviors and body rather than my voice to communicate how I felt. Now on the outside I seem fine. For instance, if someone were to ask my father how I was doing he'd probably say something along the lines of "She's great! I don't see her often but she appears to be doing so much better, just got a new job and is about to go back to school. Now her sister on the other hand..." But I don't feel better. And I am not a fan of when my outside appearance and insides don't match.... Apparently Cher from Clueless and I have much more in common than I thought. 

As if!

Even the interviewer on Wednesday commented "I sense a really positive aura in this [gesturing towards me] general direction." Thing is I felt anything but positive and cheery. Right before the interview I was sitting on the curb and wrote in my journal: I feel so tired and sad, totally defeated. I don't know what to do and can't take this anymore. But as soon as show time began and the curtain went up so to speak I was happy go lucky, all jokes and bright smiles. It sometimes scares me how well I can fool people, switch that "light" off and on. 

So yes, end of my self pitying (?) tangent and on to a new random topic. My family and I have lived in our apartment for ten years. We have seen many tenants come and go, just in the floor above us alone. There were the people who blasted Sesame Street in the dead of night (and no, they did not have children), the family which included a son who enjoyed throwing his toys and half eaten snacks (Rosie ate them) from their upper patio onto ours, and then the Ryan Seacrest lookalike who consistently tossed his cigarette butts onto our patio (..... Rosie ate those too.) 

I don't discriminate against non-foods.

We have new upstairs neighbors and they are possibly the strangest of all. Crazy noises come from their apartment all the time. My sister and I have had many a heated debate over what they could possibly be doing which causes such bizarre sounds and have come to the conclusion that they are: 1.) beating each other, 2.) having carnal sex, 3.) moving furniture, 4.) having sex with furniture, or 5.) all of the above.  Or maybe building a bomb? All I know is that it's super uncomfortable sitting with your mother and sister at the dinner table in awkward silence as mysterious thuds, moans, banging, etc. waft down from the ceiling. I thought things that go bump in the night come from under your bed, not above it!

Questions:

1.) When and what was your last "first?" 

2.) What do you suspect my fellow apartment-livers are doing? Have you ever had a memorable experience with obnoxious or funny neighbors?