I took three days off work this year, between Christmas and New Year's, giving us a total of 11 days off (in a row!) Today is day 3, the first evening available to socialize, and.... naught. The only text response received was from my roommate from LA, who is home also. And while I love Margaret more and more the longer we live together... isn't it a little sad that the only response was from the girl I see every day in the hell-hole?
HOWEVER: We did get to go to Emanuella's lovely wedding, which was so nice and so reminiscent of mine own (our own. whatever). Potluck style! Only her wedding dress was much more elegant than mine (apropo), and her guests were much more... something. Old? Outdoorsy? Wearing funny clothes? - I mention this because her father wore a full suit in emerald green wool. Though my own grandfather did show up in a Microsoft Windows Blue sport coat.
We drove all the way down to the Bay Area, with the previous discussion with my old friend Robin that we should totally meet up, as well as a discussion with our old friend Samuel David Ayers III that we should totally meet up because he was going to play nerd with Robin and our other other old friend Matthew. Guess who didn't get to hang out in San Franscisco because no one would contact us? Myself and my husband, who fell asleep in the car ANYWAY so how could he have sat through a game of DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS????
Speaking of the aforementioned devil (I digress out of self-pity): On the drive back to Northern California, I felt I should drive because darling husband drove the whole way there and back last time, but I'm no good over the Grapevine. BUT, I didn't end up driving until after the first 5 hours because I refused to both drive and listen to the podcast of a RECORDED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS GAME. Instead, I had to sit with the laptop on my lap (imagine that) while Jesse listened and giggled like a 4th grade boy who just discovered cooties aren't real. I feel like it was an OK trade. I like not driving, but I don't like podcasts of 4 nerds sitting in a room cursing about their magic missiles and setting dwarves on fire. Oh the torture!! But it was better than driving.
So, we were ignored by our friends today. That was the point. We arrived home and discovered parental desertion as well - Jesse's were inexpicable not here, and mine own decided they'd rather go camping than hang out. TRUE LOVE IS CAMPING. In a trailer.
P.S. Emanuella's wedding was great. In the words of Washington Irving in "Rip Van Winkle," and later Dr. Spock and various other Vulcans, they should "live long and prosper."
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Talk About Oddballs
Previously described was my full-company Christmas bash, complete with drunkennes, karaoke, and bowling. And all-you-can-eat fried things. That was a hip, young, modern company at its prime.
Today was our departmental Christmas lunch... not quite so hip, but amusing in the oddity of it all.
I walked the 1/4 mile to the other building of our company, where all the raw materials go, with one other girl to set up the tables.. which were already set up in all their folding glory, covering in shimmering 100% silk. Which is viable as scrap, where I work. I put up our $0.99 tabletop Christmas trees, purchased by my boss this morning on her whirlwind trip to "I forgot Christmas decorations?" before work. We also got door covers and poinsettias.
I set up a buffets worth of Christmas cheer in the form of.... delivery Chinese food.
I sat at a table full of six females, on a decorative wooden patio bench. I was the only white chick.
My table was surrounded by 4 tables of Mexican men, snarfing the Chinese food and warm cola.
The tables were placed in the center of a 48,000 square foot warehouse with open doors, in 55 degree weather, with trains rumbling by at regular intervals.
To summarize: 20 Mexican men, 6 chicks, $300 of Chinese food and Trader Joe's truffles in a Warehouse bigger than the bulk-foods section of Costco in a winter coat with Christmas music twinkling in the background. Amalgam.
We had expensive cupcakes from Sprinkles Cupcakes for dessert. w00t!
Today was our departmental Christmas lunch... not quite so hip, but amusing in the oddity of it all.
I walked the 1/4 mile to the other building of our company, where all the raw materials go, with one other girl to set up the tables.. which were already set up in all their folding glory, covering in shimmering 100% silk. Which is viable as scrap, where I work. I put up our $0.99 tabletop Christmas trees, purchased by my boss this morning on her whirlwind trip to "I forgot Christmas decorations?" before work. We also got door covers and poinsettias.
I set up a buffets worth of Christmas cheer in the form of.... delivery Chinese food.
I sat at a table full of six females, on a decorative wooden patio bench. I was the only white chick.
My table was surrounded by 4 tables of Mexican men, snarfing the Chinese food and warm cola.
The tables were placed in the center of a 48,000 square foot warehouse with open doors, in 55 degree weather, with trains rumbling by at regular intervals.
To summarize: 20 Mexican men, 6 chicks, $300 of Chinese food and Trader Joe's truffles in a Warehouse bigger than the bulk-foods section of Costco in a winter coat with Christmas music twinkling in the background. Amalgam.
We had expensive cupcakes from Sprinkles Cupcakes for dessert. w00t!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Corporate Bribery
HO MAN! They sent out a letter this year at the work asking suppliers and contractors to please restrain their Christmastime giving (AKA bribery). Apparently, in past years it has gotten a little out-of-hand, and the company doesn't want to seem like they are corrupt or taking bribery to favor anyone, even though THAT IS THE POINT OF CORPORATE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS. It's not like our Turkish vendors are actually celebrating Jesus' birthday. They are celebrating the time of year when your bribes are more likely to be accepted and hit home.
People in the past have received Louis Vuitton handbags and wallets (thousands of dollars!!!), gifts of many dollars, tickets to sporting and theater events... the list could go on and on, I'm sure. Now, after the letter of "please restrain yourselves", we receive... FOOD. Food, food food. Chocolates, cookies, cheezy nips, more chocolates, and some apples. Damn you, vendors, for thinking that setting a box of Godiva chocolates at the end of my desk is going to make me LIKE YOU MORE. No. It's breaking my hard-earned self-discipline in the chocolate arena, as well as the crunchy salty things arena and the general "don't forage" arena. I would have rather had a handbag. Maybe.
People in the past have received Louis Vuitton handbags and wallets (thousands of dollars!!!), gifts of many dollars, tickets to sporting and theater events... the list could go on and on, I'm sure. Now, after the letter of "please restrain yourselves", we receive... FOOD. Food, food food. Chocolates, cookies, cheezy nips, more chocolates, and some apples. Damn you, vendors, for thinking that setting a box of Godiva chocolates at the end of my desk is going to make me LIKE YOU MORE. No. It's breaking my hard-earned self-discipline in the chocolate arena, as well as the crunchy salty things arena and the general "don't forage" arena. I would have rather had a handbag. Maybe.
Monday, December 8, 2008
My Mom and the Bomb
Also: My Mom is the Bomb
This was the story over Thanksgiving dinner. Imagine as well my mother, a 57-year-old innocent who once bought me a hookah because she thought it was an interesting objet d'art, and who was born a 3rd-grade-teacher and was never corrupted beyond that point. Here's a photo for reference:
So cute. P.S. This story is not entirely accurate, because I only heard in the once, and everyone was hollering too much to ask for more clarification. Anyway. My brother was driving his best bud and my mom up the long and winding road from the college to Paradise where they live. Along the way, the car driving in front of them flies off the road and runs into the ditch on the cliff-face side of the road. So my family + Brad, being good Samaritans all, pull over to help him. The guy sort of stumbles around mumbling about how tired he is, and hops in the back with Mommy-O - I guess just assuming he was welcome to get a ride. So they drive to Paradise with the guy zonked out in the back, not really knowing where to go except the name of a large and long street with many offshoots. Finally, after driving up and down the street, Sleepy puts his hand on my mom's leg and tells her "I need to get out of the car." I think this is after more location confusion.
So he gets out of the car and curls up on the curb with his head between his knees. After his moment, he stands up and takes a step and falls flat on his face. Like "timber!" style. At this point (why not sooner?), the fam decides to involve the authorities, though by the time said authorities arrived, the man was knocking on strangers doors trying to find out if they were his friends houses or something. After arguing with the police for sometime about the orientation of the planet, they decide to book him. Asking my mom if there were any weapons in the car, if the dude brought anything with him and getting negatives, they all went their merry ways.
As they drive home, Mom sees Brad hand Brian back a wicked little knife and starts freaking out because they told the cops there were no weapons.!. Brad mumbles "Well, Brian told me to stab him in the hand if he kept touching you." SO CUTE, even if it involves implicating minors in a crime. SO CUTE.
This is the best part: When they pull into the driveway, my mom finds a little velvet "pillow" where the guy had had his feet, and wonders aloud what it is. Brad takes it and looks at it and opens the bag and says "DUDE. IT'S A BONG." And my mother, innocent as she is, runs screaming out of the car telling the boys to "GET OUT GET OUT!!! IT'S A BOMB!!! IT'S GOING TO BLOW UP!!!" My mom has never heard of a bong before.
Needless to say, Bradley later proclaimed that this day was the best day in his whole life.
This was the story over Thanksgiving dinner. Imagine as well my mother, a 57-year-old innocent who once bought me a hookah because she thought it was an interesting objet d'art, and who was born a 3rd-grade-teacher and was never corrupted beyond that point. Here's a photo for reference:
So cute. P.S. This story is not entirely accurate, because I only heard in the once, and everyone was hollering too much to ask for more clarification. Anyway. My brother was driving his best bud and my mom up the long and winding road from the college to Paradise where they live. Along the way, the car driving in front of them flies off the road and runs into the ditch on the cliff-face side of the road. So my family + Brad, being good Samaritans all, pull over to help him. The guy sort of stumbles around mumbling about how tired he is, and hops in the back with Mommy-O - I guess just assuming he was welcome to get a ride. So they drive to Paradise with the guy zonked out in the back, not really knowing where to go except the name of a large and long street with many offshoots. Finally, after driving up and down the street, Sleepy puts his hand on my mom's leg and tells her "I need to get out of the car." I think this is after more location confusion.
So he gets out of the car and curls up on the curb with his head between his knees. After his moment, he stands up and takes a step and falls flat on his face. Like "timber!" style. At this point (why not sooner?), the fam decides to involve the authorities, though by the time said authorities arrived, the man was knocking on strangers doors trying to find out if they were his friends houses or something. After arguing with the police for sometime about the orientation of the planet, they decide to book him. Asking my mom if there were any weapons in the car, if the dude brought anything with him and getting negatives, they all went their merry ways.
As they drive home, Mom sees Brad hand Brian back a wicked little knife and starts freaking out because they told the cops there were no weapons.!. Brad mumbles "Well, Brian told me to stab him in the hand if he kept touching you." SO CUTE, even if it involves implicating minors in a crime. SO CUTE.
This is the best part: When they pull into the driveway, my mom finds a little velvet "pillow" where the guy had had his feet, and wonders aloud what it is. Brad takes it and looks at it and opens the bag and says "DUDE. IT'S A BONG." And my mother, innocent as she is, runs screaming out of the car telling the boys to "GET OUT GET OUT!!! IT'S A BOMB!!! IT'S GOING TO BLOW UP!!!" My mom has never heard of a bong before.
Needless to say, Bradley later proclaimed that this day was the best day in his whole life.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Who Says Celebrating Christmas has to Actually Involve Christmas?
We had our annual work-sponsored Christmas celebration today - meaning we got to get off early in order to make asses of ourselves, all on the company dollar.
P.S. Despite all their anal planning and 400,000 e-mails about parking regulations and driving, even THEY couldn't figure out how to circumvent the LAPD closing off one of the roads in their direction. I find myself eternally prideful of actually arriving at the correct location without getting mugged and/or ending up in Compton.
Christmas for the company comes in the form of BOWLING. Bowling and gourmet pizza and build-your-own-burgers on crappy buns, with a constant stream of onion rings and fries and chick-o-sticks supplied by the hottie mini-skirt waitresses that only exist so you believe in Tila Tequila. Unfortunately, our team bowled in the second round, so everyone was already tipsy by the time they got to their lanes and didn't care about bowling anymore. Myself included.
However, this was the best bowling in the whole world. Who can forget my boss, a keenly intelligent woman with the voice of Capt. Janeway, talking crap about everyone with sailor mouth, and then proceeding to hurl herself down the bowling lane head first and sliding on her belly halfway, then crawling back up on her hands and knees and getting up to re-start dancing to Michael Jackson pumping through the speakers, still hurling epithets. Or her dancing in front of ALL the lanes with her little fish-wiggle dance, only to come back and still not hit a pin.
Or the tiny tiny gay man who sang Shania Twain's "Damn, I Feel Like a Woman" at the karaoke machine? Or the Director of Production running around like a 21 year-old on her birthday, dancing and shaking her "groove thing(s)" at everything with my best work friend, who was wearing a pink tutu and striped 70's knee socks. Good times, good times.
It's just too bad I didn't win a raffle prize. They raffled a 32" LCD flat screen TV. That would have been SWEET!! I consumed many alcohol and still didn't get very tipsy - alcohol tolerance be damned, I'd rather be a cheap date any day. I though about karaoke-ing but was too late due to the second round of bowling. I screamed so much that I feel like I just smoked a cigarette all for the low low price of free. Not a bad Christmas party - the only appearance of Christmas, as hinted by the title, was the raffles were called out by a hairy balding man in a santa suit, with a sexy Mrs. Santa handing them out.
P.S. Despite all their anal planning and 400,000 e-mails about parking regulations and driving, even THEY couldn't figure out how to circumvent the LAPD closing off one of the roads in their direction. I find myself eternally prideful of actually arriving at the correct location without getting mugged and/or ending up in Compton.
Christmas for the company comes in the form of BOWLING. Bowling and gourmet pizza and build-your-own-burgers on crappy buns, with a constant stream of onion rings and fries and chick-o-sticks supplied by the hottie mini-skirt waitresses that only exist so you believe in Tila Tequila. Unfortunately, our team bowled in the second round, so everyone was already tipsy by the time they got to their lanes and didn't care about bowling anymore. Myself included.
However, this was the best bowling in the whole world. Who can forget my boss, a keenly intelligent woman with the voice of Capt. Janeway, talking crap about everyone with sailor mouth, and then proceeding to hurl herself down the bowling lane head first and sliding on her belly halfway, then crawling back up on her hands and knees and getting up to re-start dancing to Michael Jackson pumping through the speakers, still hurling epithets. Or her dancing in front of ALL the lanes with her little fish-wiggle dance, only to come back and still not hit a pin.
Or the tiny tiny gay man who sang Shania Twain's "Damn, I Feel Like a Woman" at the karaoke machine? Or the Director of Production running around like a 21 year-old on her birthday, dancing and shaking her "groove thing(s)" at everything with my best work friend, who was wearing a pink tutu and striped 70's knee socks. Good times, good times.
It's just too bad I didn't win a raffle prize. They raffled a 32" LCD flat screen TV. That would have been SWEET!! I consumed many alcohol and still didn't get very tipsy - alcohol tolerance be damned, I'd rather be a cheap date any day. I though about karaoke-ing but was too late due to the second round of bowling. I screamed so much that I feel like I just smoked a cigarette all for the low low price of free. Not a bad Christmas party - the only appearance of Christmas, as hinted by the title, was the raffles were called out by a hairy balding man in a santa suit, with a sexy Mrs. Santa handing them out.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Future Bees
Note: Not known babies. Internet babies.
Jesse's been talking about babies ever since we went home for thanksgiving and got to see my excellent baby neice, who (TWILIGHT REFERENCE) seems to captivate everyone who lays eyes upon her (but not suck blood). I agree that she is pretty much the greatest baby to have ever been popped upon to the earth - how many babies laugh in unhuman glee when they get smacked in the face by a high-velocity dog tail? Not that many, I think. She's still in the running = toppling-forwards-but just-barely-catching-yourself-with-your-legs phase, and that is hilarious in and of itself. I could go on and on and on about her fabulousness, but I digress from my title topic.
Jesse has been talking about bees, and what our bees will be like when we accidentally become preggers, and I thought I was OK with the idea of being a mom. But when I think about the non-June-Cleaver version, the one with the morning sickness and post-partum depression and the vomit and the cranberry diapers and the wailing at every hour of the morning and the lack of being able to sit down and read a book, I'm still just really not sure.
I mean - I'm already crazy. What will happen when you add 4 billion more hormones, more pain, and fatness? MORE CRAZY. I can't even look at birth control without flying into a hormone-induced fit of crazy. "Why doesn't anyone love me!?! Why does no one want me around!?! What have I ever done to anyone to make them hate me so much?!?" This excerpt taken from an actual birth-control induced craziness. I am not kidding.
What happens when, instead of getting home from work after a 10 hour day and doing the dishes and cleaning the tub and doing laundry and then reading a book, I have to get home from work and do the aforementioned and then TAKE CARE OF SOMEONE ELSE WITH MY WHOLE ATTENTION? I think I might be too selfish for a baby. I like baths so deep a baby would drown. I like books. I like coffee. These are not baby-friendly.
Sigh. This isn't even going to happen for years, and yet... I needed to blog about it. I'm AWESOME.
Jesse has been talking about bees, and what our bees will be like when we accidentally become preggers, and I thought I was OK with the idea of being a mom. But when I think about the non-June-Cleaver version, the one with the morning sickness and post-partum depression and the vomit and the cranberry diapers and the wailing at every hour of the morning and the lack of being able to sit down and read a book, I'm still just really not sure.
I mean - I'm already crazy. What will happen when you add 4 billion more hormones, more pain, and fatness? MORE CRAZY. I can't even look at birth control without flying into a hormone-induced fit of crazy. "Why doesn't anyone love me!?! Why does no one want me around!?! What have I ever done to anyone to make them hate me so much?!?" This excerpt taken from an actual birth-control induced craziness. I am not kidding.
What happens when, instead of getting home from work after a 10 hour day and doing the dishes and cleaning the tub and doing laundry and then reading a book, I have to get home from work and do the aforementioned and then TAKE CARE OF SOMEONE ELSE WITH MY WHOLE ATTENTION? I think I might be too selfish for a baby. I like baths so deep a baby would drown. I like books. I like coffee. These are not baby-friendly.
Sigh. This isn't even going to happen for years, and yet... I needed to blog about it. I'm AWESOME.
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