Month: August 2005 (Page 3 of 4)

I find myself wishing we had a Crow’s Nest here today. I have a splitting headache, probably quite close to a migraine, and I realized I was thinking to myself, “I JUST WANT TO GO TO THE CROW’S NEST.” And then I realized, nobody really knows what in the hell that is, do they?

When I was in grade school, there was a tiny little room at the very top of the building. Standard-sized stairs led up to it, where a landing met a door, and in that room were dry old books, and a small padded bench, with a white cotton blanket & small white pillow. It had a little window that overlooked the playgrounds. Students who didn’t feel well, but didn’t warrant being sent home immediately, were escorted to that little room, which was called the Crow’s Nest. I only went there once, but it was so comforting. To be relieved of duty, no longer sitting in my desk, but safe & cozy at the very apex of the building, surrounded by books that hadn’t been opened in years, and the distant hum of classroom activity reassured me the world was carrying on.

Everyone needs a Crow’s Nest.

A Snappy Man Eating Shrimp

So shouts out to the man I love & look forward to spending the next umpteen years with. And let me just say, in a dramatic stage whisper, that I am quite glad I’m not celebrating my 6th anniversary at the former employer today. A couple years ago we got logo-branded lunch totes as our anniversary gift, with a “ha-ha” note encouraging us to work through lunch. Yep. Hello, Lead Balloon, are you my new mascot? And they honestly wondered why morale sucked.

Anyway. Vanilla Cheesecake Filling & JWo, those are the good things in life, and logo lunch bags are a speck in the rearview mirror. Elvis, wherever you are, you should have a slice of CostCo cake, man. I think you’d like it.

Several years ago, Shelley, Meredith & I took a trip to Puerto Vallarta. It was a 4-night cheapy FunJet vacation, and it was not only exactly what we needed at the time, but man, we got some FUN-NY stories out of the trip. You can’t go wrong with an all-inclusive resort & girlfriends – even if the “resort” is not top-of-the-line. I guess you CAN go wrong, but we managed to have a good time, if not a luxurious experience.

First day, we got in, and decided to immediately hit the ocean. Shelley (wisely) decided to stay under a thatched hut & fight off the peddlers, while Meredith & I grabbed foam boards & body surfed. That was all well & good, my first time doing it, and it was swell until I headed back to shore.

SLAM!

I didn’t even know what had hit me, at first. A whale? A schooner? A cannonball? Oh, that’s a WAVE. Well, I struggled to the surface, dimly aware that my nerve endings were SHRIEKING at me from my knee/shin area, having landed in the large shell line under the water & received numerous cuts, all of which were awash in salt water. Unfortunately, the shrieks were being obscured by the fact I had ocean water in my nose, ears, eyes, mouth & windpipe. I spluttered and coughed and shook my head & tried to spot Shelley on the shore, to walk towards her. As I finally regained my balance, struggling against the receding water –

SLAM!

And we’re under water again, and again into the sharp little shells. OK. Now I am PISSED. PISSED OFF. My sunglasses are gone, I have sand packed up my ass, cuts on my legs, salt in my eyes, and this fucking ocean isn’t letting go of me. I felt a surge of anger and furious determination pour out of me (along with some bits of the ocean), and I remember thinking, “WELL! This is NOT FUN, motherfuckin’ ocean, I am getting OUT.” And I did, and found my sunglasses, and yet, I know I never quite got ALL the sand out of my nooks and crannies on that trip.

So, I have Saturday allll to myself. I sleep in, I mess around on the computer, I love on the dogs, I have a bagel & then it’s off to my shopping mecca: SuperTarget. Actually, I stopped at the dry cleaners first & dropped off the blouses that have been in my trunk for uh, a really long time. And I got a customer bag so I can use the 24-hour drop, and I felt like I was 42 years old and I started wondering how much starch JWo would want if we started doing his shirts there.

Then I got to ST, and before I did any shopping, I went to Starbucks (I LOVE that they have them inside SuperTarget, it’s like my own little bio-dome!) and got my current MOST favorite drink EVER, a venti non-fat vanilla latte, iced. Each time I take the first sip, I look at it as though it has arrived here from outer space, and its purpose is to heal all that ails us. My short-term memory must be on the blink. Anyway, some brilliant person (probably the same one who thought up putting the ‘bucks in Target) also came up with a cup holder you snap on to your cart. Smashing!

And so I spent an hour roaming the aisles & buying the latest organizational solutions for my life that won’t, really, fix my life, and looking at dog chewies and birthday cards, and sipping my venti non-fat vanilla latte and felt like the biggest yuppie in the entire universe, if yuppies even exist anymore. I got an extra-sharp cheddar cheese ball for the wine & cheese party I was going to later that night (again with the yup factor).

I just might have to spend the day calling JWo “Gordon Gekko”.

Me: “Did Stevie Wonder just say ‘Pass the chocolate chips’????”

JWo: “Got some honey kisses for your LIPS.”

Me: “Oh.”

JWo: “You need to go to that Kiss This Guy site!”

Me: “Nah. I prefer the ones I come up with.”

Chocolate Chips & a Pocket Full of Cheese!

Seriously, how can you go wrong? I like my world. It’s full of tasty things.

In a recent brainstorming, we were discussing ideas for an upcoming new business pitch, and for those of you who learned everything about advertising from Melrose Place? Let me be the first to banish the romance and exotic nature from your mind. Yes, I got to talk to Bryan Adams last week, but I also deal with a lot of whining and begging and stupidity that isn’t nearly as entertaining to blog about. Heather Locklear’s character would not exist in a real ad agency because not only did she do account management, she did creative, and, well, she also did her employees. All in addition to being a landlord!

Anyway. We were discussing the point at which we leave & take the prospective clients to lunch. Because these kinds of meetings resemble nothing short of a strategic military operation, we are throwing around every possible idea/solution: limo? 15-person passenger van? walk? And I was all, OH SHIT, I hope we don’t walk 10 blocks in this 95-degree heat, because if I don’t die on the way, I am going to look like I just got out of the shower, with my hair plastered to my forehead in an extremely unattractive way, not the sexy way, no, please let us NOT WALK. Blessedly, walking was nixed. Then, my boss says, “Hansom?”

Because we have these horse-drawn carriages on the Plaza, and some of them are wire pumpkin cage-carriages entwined with white boas and mini xmas lights. And I broke the cardinal rule of brainstorming, which is that there are no bad ideas, and I boomed at him, “ABSOLUTELY NOT.”

He hasn’t stopped giving me shit about that one. But I can take it! It was funny, and yet, I wasn’t risking one minute of time on the notion that it might actually be our lunch transportation. Not that it was REALLY going to happen? Because I think they only do the horse rides at night and on the weekends. But there was no way in HELL I was riding around the Plaza in a horse-drawn carriage over the lunch hour in 95-degree heat and risking the chance the horse decides to take a dump, or has flatulence, or dies of heatstroke, or anything else. Not to mention I always associate the carriages with the crime story that broke when I first moved here about how one of the owners of one horse carriage business put a hit (a HIT!) out on the OTHER carriage business owner – both parties involved being ruthless, bloodthirsty: women! I still harbor a secret fear that the FEUD will re-erupt, and it will be that one time I foolishly agree to ride in a Cinderella carriage, and the next thing you know, I’m in some sort of modern-day Western-style shoot-out because I have the misfortune of being in the wrong hansom at the wrong time. And me without my shotgun.

So, Ix-Nay on the Ansoms-Hay. I think even Heather Locklear would agree with me on this one.

When new asphalt is poured, we will intentionally wait at least a week to draw the dividing lane stripes & dashes on the road.

Motorcycle cops (my “favorite”!) will be posted surreptitiously along the route. (They’re sneaky fucks anyway, it will come naturally, and while I would love to eliminate them entirely from my dominion, I will need them for the motorcade.) They will be watching the non-marked roads, and those who CANNOT IN THEIR OWN BRAIN FIGURE OUT HOW TO DIVIDE THE ROAD EQUALLY AND DRIVE ACCORDINGLY will be pulled over, their vehicle confiscated by the State of Jen, and sentenced to six years of walking or public transportation.

The good news is, when I rule the world, I will have an EXCELLENT bus system.

Polly has very malleable ears. She, of course, likes them rubbed. I, in my bizarro humor world, like to fold them into origami shapes. For whatever reason, her ears will fold in half & flip up, so she looks like she’s auditioning for the Flying Nun, or perhaps a new version of Princess Leia. Maybe even a Bjork-esque video. Sometimes they’ll “stay” in folded position for quite a while, and the other night she was jumping around, showing us her rubber bone and quite encouraged by our gasping laughter, completely immune to the fact her ears were staying in their folded-up state and giving her an absolutely goofy look. I tried to re-create that look this morning, but her ears must be less “fold-able” in the a.m., and so it took some effort to keep them folded long enough for pictures. But oh yes, there are pictures!

From the side….

And head-on…..

Good thing she can’t use the camera to get a shot of MY hair in the morning!!!! Revenge would truly be hers!

Well, if I were more tidy, organized & technically inclined, I’d figure out what’s jacked up in this html code. But that might interfere with being playful & chatting with the dogs, and I can’t be bothered. Let me know if I get too brash or wear on your nerves…. But keep in mind, I have been known to start bitch-slapping fights between my Sims characters. (But I HATE when they go off and sob!)

My Sim Personality

Find out your Sim personality at PersonalityLab.org!