The older I get, the more I can see the side of me that is forgiving, and tolerant, and understanding. However, I often slam the door on that person within me, opting instead for the sharp-tongued, acerbic, and, dare I say, funnier person. I blame my father, for fostering in me the mind sprints to seek the humor, as fast as possible, and to grab it at the heart & rip it out for all to enjoy. A bit brutal, yes.

I re-sharpen my tongue daily. One poor (unknowing, unwitting, rather dim individual) got me going again yesterday. In our house, she is known as “(NAME), PRESIDENT OF HER UNDERPANTS!” because she uses her title EXCESSIVELY – especially when she calls, as though she’s getting a table at Le Cirque. Oh, mais oui, mademoiselle presidente! May we serve you complimentary Cristal for the pleasure of your company gracing our world-class restaurant?! No, no, we cannot take your money, it is NO GOOD here. Good god. I could just go on and on, but that would cross the line from acerbic sideline commentary into taking it all too seriously myself. Suffice it to say, I can’t help but dabble with vicious back-stabbing, if only for the amusement of my friends. You could say it makes me less of a person than her, but sweet mother, she makes the humor-poking so easy! It’s that whole fish-in-a-barrel thing. And if she didn’t act like she’s better than everyone, and that her ass, and her ass alone smells like roses all day long, I honestly wouldn’t get so wound up. That’s probably why I got so wound up all the time at my last job – so many people with inflated egos, bad management skills, and no desire to look at any shortcomings so they could improve things. Perhaps I like therapy too much – the examination of all of my own issues, faults, missteps and mistakes, but I think there’s something be said from learning from them, not ignoring them, or living in la-la land.

If I were a short-order cook (and I am short), I’d have a sign in my restaurant. It’d say: “Humility. Served Daily.” There’d also be lots of swearing. And a twelve-gauge under the counter. But also pie! There would be all kinds of pie! A la mode! Because pie without ice cream is like a kiss without a hug & a squeeze.

After seeing a commercial for “Entourage” on HBO, I looked at JWo and said, “If I ever get famous, I’m totally making Shelley my agent. Because she can kick serious ass, and that’s what you need in an agent.”

JWo nodded, kept on munchin’.

“And you?” I continued, “You’d be my ARM CANDY!”

That got a thumbs-up.

I think I’d open my own yarn shop with my celebri-wealth, and let all my friends draw dizzingly silly salaries to work there & knit all the yarn they wanted. I think that might even make them “tax deductible”, something you always want in an entourage.

My impending fame & fortune aside, I must plug the funny website again – I just love the frothingly biting celebrity-focused blog, Conversations About Famous People. Our knit friend Gretchen found it, and it just reinforces how much SHE needs to get her own blog, because she is a hysterical cheeky monkey! Do you hear me G? Only bloggers will be in the entourage. ;)

One of the “perks” right now, in the new job, is that everyone wants to take us to lunch. When I say “everyone”? I mean every single person gainfully employed in a sales position in the greater Kansas City area. EVERY ONE of them.

As in life, I am not going to be friends with everyone I meet, or even break bread with. We are currently in the mode of defining with whom we’ll ever entertain the NOTION of having lunch with again! These lunches can get painful. When the sales managers trail along, it turns into a small sideshow, with the salespeople being good lap dogs & behaving & not showing all of themselves, but then bursting with enthusiasm and salesperonship & doing good table tricks to show their bosses that they’re doing their jobs. As I always say, there is no free lunch. Somebody may be paying for it, but I’ll never get those minutes back! Today’s lunch was no different.

Except Kristin kept looking at me like she was going to figure out how to bury my dead body somewhere along Brush Creek once she finally killed me. That made me a little nervous. Good thing my entree came with a big knife…..

I think one of my dream jobs might actually be (drum roll): Dominatrix.

Just think how clean my house would be – and THEY would be paying ME to do it! Plus I’d be stress-free, because I’d be flogging it out.

Gotta learn how to walk in those pointy boots tho.

I still struggle with taking on other people’s “stuff”. I’m a fiercely loyal, loving person, and for those closest to me, I would do anything. Except rob a liquor store. Those don’t always go well, I hear. Anyway, it’s hard for me to not take on their problems, like they’re my own. I feel it, I have an internal struggle with being frustrated & mad, and yet when the day is done, there’s not one damn thing I can do except continue being a supportive friend, and try to squash & expel the extra emotion I’m carrying around, because it’s not gonna make a difference, one iota. I realize it’s all part of my own issues, wanting to be so connected to my parents, anyone, that I would immerse myself until my own (then frail) boundaries were bent, blurred and sometimes non-existent.

Yesterday my bubble rolled through & intersected with two different friend’s lives, people who are both in relationships that could be better. Loads better. One of them probably shouldn’t even be with the other person, but that’s my judgement. I just wish I could give each of them some of my strength, enough to last beyond the time they’re with me. I’d give them whatever it takes to make them feel better & do what they really need to do. I even said to JWo, “I wish I could just break off a chunk of my self esteem & give it to (*).” I counseled, I hugged, I admonished, I straight-talked most of the day yesterday, between both people. And yet today is a new day, and both people are still with their partners, situations? Probably unchanged. I got an email last night from one of them, the one I believed should end it, that they’d talked again & made progress – and I just felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. In our conversations yesterday, we’d compared the relationship to someone being beaten, in a physically abusive relationship. They agreed, they were the one being beaten. And the other person refuses to change. But they’ve made progress? I don’t believe it. Because the leopard cannot change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin, and that person smelled their demise coming & did a serious sales job to someone who wanted to buy it. As Yoda might say, “Helpless, I am.”

And now, I’m the one who said all this bad stuff yesterday, and was brutally honest about what I saw in their relationship. I don’t think it will be held against me, but it’s going to make it hard for me to look either of them straight in the eye. I’m not that good of a liar, and I’ve got duct tape on that side of my bubble after everything we went through yesterday.

But it did make me really grateful for what I have with JWo. So much so, he was completley absolved from weed-whacking the perennials I planted last year & he thought were weeds. It’s a messy bed & he thought he was cleanin’ up. I figure if they’re tough enough, they’ll come back next year. If not, it’s just plants.

I wouldn’t want to share my bubble with anyone else.

We had yesterday afternoon off at work – spent at the local amusement park. I’m not much on the rides, and I wasn’t going to try to squeeze into a ride to discover I was too fat for it & have to wait for (all my co-workers) at the “phattys wait here” spot. James told me later there were some rides I could have gone on, but I didn’t want to mess with it – there’s also that fear in me that it’s gonna me my time & number that comes up on those things & blam, goodbye cruel world. So I was the Mom. I walked the whole damned park with these people, heat blazing up radiating off the black asphalt, and they ALL STAYED TOGETHER. For two hours. I even joked with one guy that there was absolutely no chance to slip off and go back to my car. Until I got my chance, everyone but one person went on this fly-up-in-the-air-drop-down-til-you-puke ride, and he & I had worked together at the old place. So I saw my opportunity & said, “I’m leaving.” He asked if he should pretend he lost me, or tell everyone I’d left, and I always prefer honesty, and told him he could tell ’em, I was heading home. I had a nice sweaty hike back to my car & felt like I got some good cleansing exercise for the day! My shins are barkin’ today.

I honestly thought there’d be more non-riders in the group – but those people? didn’t even go! DUH! I had hopes of knitting some socks & drinking some foo-foo drinks while the “kiddos” ran around in the heat. Sigh. It was not to be! But, then I thought about my old boss, how infamous she was for not going to events, not participating & not showing up at things, and even though I kinda felt like that? I wasn’t going to be like that. Because just being there means something – even if I didn’t ride the rides, I hiked around (in sandals! and got a ginormous blister under my big toe!) and chatted with and sweated profusely around people who are (mostly) younger than me. I will say that we did fit in all the rides at Disney – that was a pretty fun trip. And I sweated my ass of then, too. Nothing like Orlando in August!

Heh. That reminds me – we took a cooler on the plane, because we stayed on-property & wanted to try & save some money on food while we were there? So we bought groceries while we were there & saved our money for dinners out. The funniest thing of that whole trip (beside JWo’s face in the picture from the Tower of Terror)? JWo hauling that wheeled cooler around the airport with his bags bungee-corded on it – it kept getting off-balance & we were already hot & annoyed & every five feet everything was tipping over. It’s hysterical now – wasn’t at the time! Cranky JWo. That was the same trip on which we had a HUGE blowout fight five days in, and as my auntie said, “Jennifer, everyone fights by Thursday at Disneyworld” – because it is just so perfect, and happy and the customer service is five-star, you just can’t exist in all that “perfection” and not feel like things are imperfect! Our friends who just went had the same experience – ready to kill each other by the fifth day. So let that be a caution to any of you going for an extended Disney trip!

(We fought over who would go pick up our embroidered MICKEY MOUSE EARSat the front desk.)(That is some funny shit now. I love you JWo!)

If I were a video game? I’d be Ms.Pac-Man. Consuming every dot, blinking ghost, and surprise treat on the board. I wouldn’t stop ’til everything was gone.

And on my commute in, a giant truck was stopped IN A LANE, and I realized it after I was behind it (they had their blinkers on) & so I put mine on, waiting for the light to change to move cars so I could get around them, and THEY HAD THE NERVE to wave at me, and then another one yelled at me that couldn’t I see their blinkers were on???? OMG. If I could give out tickets for rudeness? They would be paying out the nose, little fuckers. I think they were lost, and frustrated, but I’m PMSing, and so I screamed BACK at them, “I’M TRYING TO GET AROUND YOU, I SEE THAT, SHUT THE FUCK UP!” And then when I parked in my spot I wanted to go back up the hill and yell at them some more.

Good thing it’s a half-day at work. I could make people’s ears bleed today. And then I’d eat them.

…in that I just now spilled half a glass of Diet Coke on my desk. That makes 2 spillages in one week. I’m going to end up living in a plastic bubble, with those white cones from the vet on my hands & around my neck. (That’ll make knitting a real bitch. Hm.)

At least this time, my desk hadn’t had time to re-clutter, and very little got splashed…..

Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style 

I’m really enjoying the entrelac & it’s 100% due to the Noro yarn. I just LOOOOVE the colors. The picture has the pinks a little brighter, the dark greens too dark, but all-in-all, you get the idea of how it looks. I’m knitting this on slightly smaller needles (8 or 9, vs. 10.5) so it’s not going to be the 27″ wide (I’m cool with that), but hopefully I’ll have enough yarn to get it long enough without having to stretch it. I bought the yarn from Wool Needlework – color #134. They have awesome prices, and they’re fast!

Get $5 coupon from Kristin for Adagio Teas, and after much delay, decide the Iced Tea Pot Set would be a perfect workday amenity, especially since summer has arrived.

Have it delivered to work. Wonder why it is not arriving.

Have it show up at home, finally, because of mistake on address & the zip code (that part was my fault); haul into work, where its usage was intended.

Be one of a select few to discover how to get hot water out of the water filtration system. Spill some on the floor to mark point of discovery. Burn your hand from the steam if you like, it’s purely optional.

While pitcher sits, full of ice, set brewpot on handy black trivet-like-thing that arrived with it. Proceed to write the word “Trash” on three sides of the cardboard box so they take it away this time.

Turn around and realize you have the trivet upside down and it is triggering the “open” mechanism on the bottom of the brewpot. You will know this because 1/2 the hot tea contents are now slowly winding around the surface of your desk, soaking all papers in its undulating berry-blast red-river path. AWESOME!

Note how refreshed and herbal your freshly-wiped-down desk seems.

Empty brewpot into pitcher and re-brew a little more tea, repeating most of the above. Do not make mistake with trivet again.

Marvel at one’s ability to get dressed in the morning and mentally thank your higher power that the computer was not harmed in the process of making iced tea. Because there’s only so much leeway you get as a new employee, no matter what or where.

Enjoy iced tea and wonder if it will be tomorrow, next month, or six months from now that this process is repeated, if ever.