Month: December 2005 (Page 2 of 4)

Right now, time, lists, projects, must-dos – they are just circlin’ the drain. I’ve got a hunnert things to do, twice as many things I want to do, I have trips & appointments, time-eaters and commitments, and boy, howdy, it sure must be the holidays. I am grateful the office kitchen is on another floor, because I’m not as tempted to eat all the sugar & popcorn when it’s far away! (hi, it’s not about self-restraint, the fact is, I’m lazy.)

Things are good. If they weren’t good, all of the above would have me huddled under my electric blanket, waiting for the undertow to take me away. 8 months later, I still like my job, I still like my bosses, I have a lot of things on the horizon that are good, and I work with one of the funniest women I know. Between the two of us, we’re a media minstrel show. I told her she needed to take up the banjo, so we could really take our show on the road. (I, of course, am the soft shoe, spoken-word performance part of our nationwide tour. With jazz hands.)

Oh, and an update on Inflatables Watch 2005: Snowman has been flat on his back two nights in a row, the penguin is leaning backwards, and Santa looks drunk, as he is lurching forward at a rakish, dangerous angle. I have never viewed a yard so challenged in keeping their holiday spirit upright.

Happy Weekend. Don’t sweat the small stuff. And yeah, pretty much? It’s all small stuff. Except Drunken Santa. He’s rather tall & looming. When he’s standing up all the way.

When I lived in St. Louis, I worked with some people who were from New York, and there’s an electronics chain in NY that uses “Can’t beat the Wiz!” as their tagline. For whatever reason – laughing, drinking, telling stories, it molded into my own vernacular, and it is absolutely perfect for today’s blog.

For today? Is our company holiday lunch. I am looking forward to it, because historically I’ve had to go to evening galas and freeze my face into a smile of joy, especially the last couple years. Two years ago I drank so much gin, I ordered my girlfriends to flank me at all times so I wouldn’t get myself fired for all the bitterness oozing out of me. Good times! Anyway, along with our lunch (and we don’t go back to work afterwards, woo-hoo!) we have a White Elephant exchange. And my gift is gonna be a doozy. It’s 100% credited to JWo. First off, his grandmother enjoys shopping at thrift stores. I know she’s found awesome deals on clothes for our nieces, that’s cool, but this summer she found some stuff for us. I am not trying to sound ungrateful, just keep in mind we pretty much want for nothing, and I have just gone through an enormous divesting of possessions, so extra tchotchkes are giving me hives this year. Unless you happen upon some pink milk glass. Say, the punch bowl set? That would make me jump up & down and actually shift one of the layers of the earth below me. I’d bet as far down as the mantle. In any event, one of the gifts was a toilet seat cover & tank cover set. With embroidery and ruffles. James felt we were obligated to put it out; I vetoed him, but said if he felt strongly about it, he could put it on HIS toilet seat in his bathroom. That didn’t happen, so it’s now going in to the White Elephant present. But the OTHER thing, that makes it so funny, and is 100% credited to JWo (the idea & everything), is that I’m putting a brand-new, factory-sealed DVD of “The Wiz” in the box. James won a backgammon tournament & the agreement was that everyone who played & lost had to send the winner a present – one of the things he got was a copy of “The Wiz”.

Can’t beat it! Happy Friday, peeps. I’m ready for….lunch!

Update: Kristin just stormed into my office in a frenzy of excitement, because The Wiz is apparently one of her favorite movies & she does not have it on DVD. I was treated to a few bars of “Ease on Down the Road” and some scarecrow dance moves, which left me – how do you say? – dumbstruck. I posted this blog more as a warning to her not to pick my present? And now? She’s goin’ for it. I guess it’s true: The Wiz cannot be beat.

SOMEBODY’s lyin’ down on the job of Christmas this year. MIGHT be more than one somebody.

Sweet lord, it is a new still-life every time I drive by this house. A week ago, the snowman was threatening to fall over in the morning, and by nighttime, was bent forward in a deep side-bend-pilates kind of move. They got him back up again and the penguin went next, he seemed to be leaning way back for a while. Tonight, when I drove home, both Santa & Snowman were flat on their backs and I laughed so hard, I got my camera and went back out. I hope they didn’t notice the fact a flash was going off, repeatedly, at their front yard, and I thank them for the free therapy. For I have strong beliefs about how you should decorate for the holidays (I’m actually abstaining this year), but “tasteful” rules & trumps all notions of excess. Some basics? Pick a theme. A theme of ONE. White lights? Multi-lights? ONE. PICK ONE. You don’t need to fill every square inch of your lawn, one or two things is sufficient to indicate you are IN THE SPIRIT. That said, I do enjoy driving by insane set-ups, just as long as it’s not on my street.

So you can imagine how I reacted to THREE inflatables plus neon plus lights plus a flag plus window and door clings. No wonder Santa & Snowman are tired. I get overwhelmed just lookin’ at ’em. Good thing I don’t have to blow ’em. Up. UP! Stop it! BAH!

Well, seems like we started something with that post yesterday; phsymom asked in the comments if we knew people who stored OTHER stuff in their bras, beyond the errant bread crumb or salad shrimp.

I worked for a woman in Minneapolis who kept her cash tucked in her bra. She was interesting, her name was Pat, she was brusque, and she had a bob haircut & slavic features. Pat + Bob + Brusque = Manly! But she never wore pants, always dresses & suits. Anyway, she was a shorter version of Janet Reno without the glasses, and dressed as conservatively as ol’ Janet did. She had a suit-type dress in several bland colors that she just rotated, so it became a uniform of sorts. One of my co-workers enjoyed calling her Pat-iooooo furniture behind her back. Why, I’m not sure, but it was funny. My line for her was, “What’s got into that PAT?” I digress. Back to Bra Storage 101: it was always disconcerting when you’d go in her office, suggest we get bagels for the team meeting, and she’d agree, reach into her dress & whip a $20 out of her bra & hand it to you. There’s a reason it’s lovingly referred to as cold hard cash. Warm bills throw you off your game. You’d take the money, gingerly & hesitantly, and tell yourself you’d never become her.

Then, you do. It starts randomly & innocently… Every place I’ve worked seems to put the vending machines in close proximity to the bathrooms. Therefore, when you take a little bathroom break & decide to be efficient with your time – you bring a little cash along with you to get a soda or a candy bar. I can’t stand to set anything down in a restroom, so where do you put your dollar bill if you have no pockets? You tuck it into your bra strap and think, “I’ve become Pat.” Of course, I’m far more stylish and would never hand warm money to co-workers, but necessity is the mother of invention, and bras can provide short-term storage options (for things beyond your boobs)…. The bigger the bra, the bigger the real estate – and storage!

So, one of the drawbacks of having enormous bosoms is that your cleavage turns into a crumb trap if your shirt has any neck/chest showing. (I guess one of the plus sides is that you have cleavage to begin with? I try to balance my negatives out. And end all my sentences with prepositions.) I would say this drawback is particularly cumbersome if you’re prone to spills, and especially if you eat toasted sandwiches for lunch, like me. And if you’re not prone to wearing turtlenecks, like me. So I try to dine on those types of things in the presence of understanding friends (not sales reps or MY BOSS), because inevitably, I am clawing down my cleavage to retract some errant flake of crust that is itching the bejesus out of me, and NO IT CAN’T WAIT.

I should knit myself a cowcatcher to go ’round my neck, so all the crumblies just fall off and escape the Cleavage Crevice (or Crevasse, if you’re trying for smart aleck…) I guess it’s called a “bib”…. but that seems so unfashionable. And you know me: pinnacle of all that is fashionable. I can prove it, just give me a minute to get these crumbs out of my bra…..

You should meet my friend Roger. Of course, he’s crazy in a good way, but all the same, the man takes Christmas & shopping to a level that can only be defined as professional-grade.

We were headed to Costco on Saturday & he described the process of shopping within his family. First, everyone makes a list of what they want. Then, he puts his into a SPREADSHEET, and color codes the items – red is what he’s buying for sure, blue for the rest of the stuff. That gets printed out, as he showed me in the car. (Lest you think perhaps it’s just lip service.) Then, he has another worksheet with a budget for each person, and as he buys things, he enters what he bought, how much, and it automatically calculates how much he has left to spend. Oh, and of course he keeps all his receipts. Things that require long-term proof-of-purchase get photocopied, because receipts fade.

Now, you certainly are nodding and going, “whoa.” But it doesn’t stop there. Because his family lives in a smaller town, they are all searching for things in various places – online, etc. For some gifts & certain recipients, they go in on things together. And they call each other, with questions, updates, and requests to buy things they saw or didn’t have a chance to get when they were in town, so by Christmas, they all owe each other money. One of their rituals is to sit down at the dining room table, all of them with adding machines, go through their receipts & settle up. They love the whole process & it seems to be quite fun for them all – I think it’s absolutely hilarious!

I told Roger that James? Would pass out or die of a heart attack if he had married into a family that did that. I have the potential to be a contender, given my proclivity for shopping. I just don’t think my organizational skills would measure up, even with the recent improvements. And don’t think I’m saying Roger’s any more of a shopper than me – the reason we went to Costco was for my big TV!

In unrelated news, on Friday night – I told James that Richard Pryor was dead. (James always thinks EVERYone’s dead, but he corrected me on this one.) And then, Richard Pryor died on Saturday. Soon I, too, will have my own tv series…. called “The Death Whisperer.”

Survivor Winner!

I’m just happy that the winner tonight was Danni, from Tonganoxie KS. It’s a small town just past Bonner Springs, KS, which is where the big outdoor concert amphitheater is, so even though it doesn’t sound like it, it’s part of the Kansas City area. You know I always love gay Mormons, and I really liked Rafe, despite a couple of times I wanted to smack him, but I am glad Danni won – Stephenie just got too whiny & bossy and thought she was too in control of the game.

Now, if only the CHIEFS could have won, too…. we’d have had a great Sunday here in Cowtown. Instead, we have to keep hoping Denver trips up & we like, uh, win all the rest of our games. :cough: Keep hope alive!

This has been your final Survivor update, back to regular blogging (and Mondays! and driving! and knitting! and work!)

So I mentioned my newfound love of the Sudoku, and how I’m certain it’s staving off dementia (rationalization for WASTING TIME). I only play the easy level, and have it set up so I can hit “enter” and see how I’m doin’, along with the pencil feature so I can jot more than one number in as a placeholder.

If only hooking up all my electronic equipment were so straightforward. If I accomplish a complete, full-hookup by the end of the year, I will pretty much guarantee my senior years will be spent solving crimes ala Murder She Wrote and you will all start calling me “Miss Marple”.

For the time has come, the walrus said, to buy my big tv.
And surround sound system, with stereo
and dvd player things.

But wait!
She cried, for there was more
Another DVD player
It must somehow also hook in
To the big electronic pile
Come sit, have a cookie, some coffee
she sighed, for this will take a while.

Take care!
Don’t trip!
Speaker wire is everywhere.
The dogs sleep and lick your face.
They really just don’t care.

For you are surfing on the floor,
You’re lying down with them!
They care not for your stereo feats,
Or what hooks into what
They simply wish you’d give them treats!
This wiring thing is nuts.

And so the process begins again
Fourteen remotes surrounded
I finally got my big tv….
and the theme of the day is “Confounded”.

The finished Anouk pinafore….. on the absolutely adorable Miss Lily. She wore it for the Thanksgiving holiday, and I have to admit, not only is she the cutest li’l bug in the woooorld, but the dress/top looks pretty cute, too. :)

But I do still detest knitting with cotton… :)

I’ve officially hit the point in the holiday season where I feel like I just got dropped into the deepest, darkest jungles of ‘Nam and my only source of safety and rescue is thud-thud-thud soaring away from me. I have a zillion things to do, about half a zillion more things I *want* to do, and then there’s that pesky thing called “work” that requires attendance & time….. I started to list everything here but it made me hyperventilate & my chest started to tighten, and that’s not acceptable behavior in the dark jungle.

One foot in front of the other, one step at a time, don’t sweat the small stuff, keep on keepin’ on, keep on truckin’, keep hope alive, lord what a FRIEND we have in Jesus. That last one would occasionally be shouted out by the gay black man in men’s suits when I worked retail (men’s dress shirts & ties) right out of college. Emmett, wherever you are, I am shouting it with the same energy. While running through the holiday jungle with an AK-47 strapped to my bathrobe.