Category: Uncategorized (Page 47 of 114)

Have you seen the movie Clockwatchers? Well, that is my life today (and yesterday). We experience these days every so often, where the daily flow (usually flood) suddenly retreats, and you’re left with this wobbly feeling in your legs because you’re standing on dry ground again & trying to get your bearings. More than one day of this dearth of activity, though, and I’m ready to pry my eyes out with rusty ice picks.

Oh, sure, I have crap I could do. It’s all the little higgledy-piggledy stuff, though, that stands between me and Absolutely Nothing To Do, so instead, I fluffernutter around and stare at my computer screen while working on a document about Department Procedures and Processes With Which We Will Conquer The World. Riveting stuff, let me tell you. Everything takes on slow-motion characteristics. Walking up steps, I imagine I look like the bionic woman Wooowooowooooh woooohwooowooooh streams of light ricocheting off my arms because I’m going sooooooo sloooooowly. Part of me is jumping up and down inside my brain, listing off the 10,000 I “would” be doing if I were at home. Truth be told, I’d probably be asleep. Doing nothing can really wear you out!

I completely must have been an imp in another life. Probably also a drunken house elf who spent a lot of time alternating between weeping and shrieking with hysterical laughter in a elfen bi-polar way. All of that aside, I looooove me the prankety-pranks. LOVE THEM. And even worse, don’t particularly like them played on me, making me the WORST of all pranksters, the sort who can dish it out but cannot take it. Just like an unruly house elf!

So, right now, I have that high-in-my-chest compression of tickledness, that pressure that makes you feel like the mouth of a baloon stretched flat and taught and all air coming out of you will be at a high braying volume of noise. Because we played a little prank on my boss (always the best person to fuck with, don’t you think? Hi! I’m fired!) and it’s harmless yet funny.

Kristin & I both got Highly! Scented! candles as gifts at the holidays, and I put mine in our breezeway at home & lit it. Ten minutes later I had it blown out, the lid screwed back on, a permanent grimace etched on my face, what with the old-lady heavy-perfumed dreck saturating the air. Kristin never opened hers, until today, when I dared her to. Then, she & the other member of our department decided to HIDE IT in our boss’ office in an obscure corner with the lid off, and we would await the inevitable bitching, “What the hell is that smell, ass clowns?” from over the wall. But! Before that could happen, he came downstairs, and now is having a MEETING in his office with somebody from the Outside World, who must be wondering why our boss smells like a Cloying English Garden.

As long as nobody passes out or has a seizure, it’s still funny.

…If you’re a guy.

Just take a lesson from my husband, and in no time at all?

You have a drinking game.

Don’t worry, it’s quite simple, and much easier than being the Lithuanian judge.
First thing you look for are crotch & butt shots.
Then, sexual positions.
Last, and certainly not least, you watch for somebody to crash, fall, or get dropped.

What more do you need?

What I need right now is a fireplace. In my office. I am rarely, if ever, too cold at work, but today, I think the a/c is on. And it’s about 30 degrees outside. So! My fingers are stumpy ice blocks, the Skinnernet is not working again, and people need to introduce themselves on the phone.

That would be the first lesson in etiquette my world domination tour would enforce. Must Introduce Self On The Telephone! It’s so easy! All you do is say, “This is (your name here)”! The exceptions are, of course, spouses, family & good friends you speak with regularly. I’m not kidding you, I have people I’ve never spoken with before who’ll call up and say, “Hi Jennifer! How are you?” and wait for me to say “uhhhh, fiiiine?” and even THEN, they’ll just proceed with an attempt at chit-chat, like, how’s the weather blah blah blah, and at that point I give them stony silence followed by, “Who is this?” I feel like it’s some new approach some dickwad in sales motivation came up with, like, Hey! Don’t introduce yourself, just behave like you’re already a good friend, and the whole conversation will be friendly, you’ll be that much closer to closing the deal! Yeah, uh-huh, because people LOVE that kind of presumptive behavior in business. Monkeyfuckers. They’re going to have to clean toilets when I take over the world.

And, I have this strange thing going on with my eye, like I’ve got a scratch or infection or something horrid, and I’m probably going to end up wearing a patch, and then it will be Pirate Jen’s World Domination Tour (with Cher opening, of course.) and I will sing Eminem’s song “My Name Is” for my opening number while dressed in a lot of fur and mukluks. It will be awesome, you should get your tickets now.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Yes, I am changing my costumes/skins/templates about as often as Diana Ross changes her costumes in a show.

Right now, I’m trying on “purple”, from
Noipo, and the only complaint I have is that it doesn’t quite fit in a single frame. Sigh.

You should see me with shoes.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

My apologies if you’ve been trying to read my blog in the last hour or so. I have futzed with 8 different templates, restored links 5 times, re-installed Haloscan twice, and in general, been a complete nerd while my real job keeps interrupting me. But it’s Friday. And I think I’m going to finally leave this thing alone. For now.

No, we don’t live in Wyoming, but there are times when Midwestern sky feels just as expansive and infinite. I think what we have going on here in the Midwest that makes life a little different is an ever-changing weather situation. My husband is the ultimate weather forecaster – long ago, when we were in Orlando on a vacation together, he was watching the Weather Channel, and excitedly chimed in that a large front was coming off the coast of Africa. (Yes, “off the coast of Africa” gets said a LOT around our house now….. I couldn’t stop laughing at the time.) Of course, later, the weatherperson talked about it coming in off the coast of Africa, and James whipped around with righteous indignation and affirmation. “See!? See?!”

I went to Lawrence last weekend to visit one of my very good friends, and the drive was nothing short of a mini-slide show in Midwestern Winter. The skies were overcast & gray, and for a chunk of time, everything was clear. Then, for three minutes? Blinding snow. Then? Poof! Gone! Ha ha! Did you dream that? I drove through maybe ten segments of blinding snow, and by the fourth one, it was becoming familiar, so I started taking pictures. You can’t really see the snow, but I think it captures Kansas pretty well….. and yeah, I’m jacking up my layout to use the bigger photos!

As the temperatures here are set to plummet, nose-dive, and generally head into the deep freeze, I’m still in the grips of a sock-knitting frenzy. Good thing, given all the sock yarn I own …. and continue to buy!

I was at The Studio yesterday & didn’t buy anything! (Praise Me! Look at me! Resisting temptation for one whole day!) But there’s a skein of Opal sock yarn in a new colorway (or at least, one I hadn’t seen before) called “Flamingo” & it was a revelry of pinks. Kristin bought it, thankfully, so I could have a vicarious moment through her. Right now, I’m making JWo a pair of socks out of Trekking XXL, and the colors are so gorgeous I want to scream every time I stop to look at them. (I don’t, though, because screaming repeatedly at my knitting is probably inappropriate & a surefire way to get committed to Two Rivers WITHOUT my knitting.)

The Opal socks got finished on Valentine’s Day (so I could start JWo’s socks on the same day….) & here’s a couple of pictures…. I knit them on 1’s with a broken rib pattern on the ankles. I love the colors! And they’re verrrry cozy.