Dreamy...

I dreamed of John Krasinski last night, and it seemed that he might like me more than Pam...

April is stress and anxiety awareness month

I received this email from someone who won one of my eBay auctions:

"I have just won the bid on your item. I am interested in bidding on some other items you have for sale. How long would I have to continue bidding in order to have everything ship together to save on the shipping cost?" I replied and explained, I'm easy.

Five days later, from the same person: "I sent an e-mail about 30 minutes ago [actually, no] regarding combined shipping on more than one bid. I just saw paid for my item and at the end saw the note to wait to pay until finished bidding on all items. I have two questions: 1) how much time is allowed to continue bidding and wait to pay for all items 2) since I have just paid for my item - can I still bid on other items and will you still combine shipping - if so for how long can I continue to bid. Thank you in advance for your responses." Oh, my!! The stress in her tone! It's ok, whatever you want is fine, really. It's just me here...

And then, 10 days later, are you ready for a completely unexpected turn of events? Here goes: "I have completed my bidding. Please ship as soon as possible. My son's birthday is this coming week and we would like to receive them in time for his birthday. Please confirm via e-mail that the item has been shipped and the approximate arrival date. Thank you." Way to turn the stress completely around! I'm the one who's stressed now! Now I'm supposed to control the post office, I can't control when the package will get there, and the child's entire worldly happiness is in my hands... I... can't... take it!

Love "always"

I was in the attic looking for something and I found this birthday card from the spouse from whom I'm now free. Note he professes eternal love, but the "always" is all scrunched in an inadequately small space. Probably a sign of things that were to come, had I read into it.

The red house is Snoopy's house. He was big on Snoopy cards.

Hate is so corrosive

I don't believe in harboring negative emotions. I think that hate is more corrosive on the hater than on the hated, so I try to stay away from hate. But I hate our college class president!

We can't just get together because it might be fun, no, we have to beat an attendance record. So my attending the reunion makes her look good. Hate is so corrosive.

Work tears

I took my son to Take our Daughters to Work. He wants to be a cartoonist when he grows up and I'm trying to present him with some possible alternatives, you know, office work.

They did a nice event for the kids, there were presentations on diversity and security, and a scavenger hunt, and he seemed to like that, we had lunch in the cafeteria, I introduced him to lots of people, and so on, and then he sat in my office and played Spongebob video games on the computer, which made him cry.

On the way out of the building I asked him if he might like to work in a place like that someday and he said yes and I asked him why, thinking, you know, was it the diversity, the security, the cafeteria, all the people, and he said: I liked playing on the computer. Which was the one thing about the day that made him cry!... And that's not what we do at work!... That wasn't the point!...

I ate a nice leftover conference room prosciutto sandwich. It was really delicious.

The flip side

You know who hates free food? Mr. Krabs!

Infamy

I'm famous in my office--and it's not good famous--for eating leftover conference room food. Yesterday I got the last tuna sandwich.

After that it was just roast beef sandwiches--no one eats roast beef. Not even me. It just sits there all afternoon.

Why do you stoop so low? you ask.

It's simple really, it's free and it's food, and I'm frugal and famished.

Why they invented cubicles

I saw an episode of The Office where Dwight's desk is moved into the men's room. And that's why they invented cubicles.

You couldn't just move the desk, you'd have to move the whole cluster of 4 or 6 or 8 cubes and they wouldn't fit through the door, and before you've even finished thinking about it the fun has been totally sucked out.

Why I work

Today I took the day off and did various things, had a nice day, until, dum-da-dum-dum-dah... because I was around, I had to take my son to both piano lessons and baseball practice.

So now I know why I work: so I don't have to do that.

Star Wars choices

We are a Star Wars household. Six episodes just barely meet our Star Wars needs.

It's such a wonderful saga of underfunded good vs. Big Evil, but I still haven't figured out the important question: who's cuter, Anakin or Han Solo?

Home accomplishments

Occasionally I like to pretend I run a good household.

Today I put some of the outdoor chairs outdoors, four of them. And I moved a bookcase upstairs. In the process I stepped on one of the sharp toys that are strewn on the floor, and it hurt--it happened to be the same foot I used yesterday to step on a thorn.

So in trying to be virtuous, my non-virtuous mess got me. There's a message in there somewhere.

Trip to the jungle

My garden:



My mulch pile:

Shall the twain ever meet?

The history of these shots:

The small prop plane had to have been flying since the '30s, I was ready to puke, but it finally landed on a too-short grass strip in the middle of the jungle... no, no, that's the wrong story...

Here's the correct story:

I went outside in my bare feet because I forgot to put shoes on. Huh? How old am I? I forgot to wear shoes to go outside? Yes, that's what happened. I thought I would walk out to take the shot via the little path next to the barberry bushes, and I stepped on a thorn. It was quite painful, and I had to pull hard to get it out of my foot.

What's wrong with youth today

My son woke up really early this morning, weekday-early, which misses the whole point of the weekend-sleep-in, and he says, "Did I miss fried dynamite, did I miss it?"

"What are you talking about?!?"

It's cartoons. Why would they name a cartoon program after something that's not good for you and something that's not good for anybody?

Prey

I was sitting out on the deck and there was a fox walking through the back yard. It saw me and stopped and fixed me so intently that I started to feel like prey, or at least how I think prey would feel.

I started to wonder if it could run the 30 feet towards the deck and up a flight of deck stairs faster than I could get up from my chair, open the sliding door, go inside and close the sliding door behind me. I thought it might be a push.

So before it had a chance to decide to take me up on that telepathic that challenge, I got up and went inside.

Papal visit

I was going to write this:
When you believe you are god's representative on earth, you may very well be one of many, but when 1 billion people believe you're god's rep on earth, now that is unique.

Then I heard on the radio the pope's visit to the synagogue, the kind words, about the nice gift he brought, and I was moved.

So there you go: from snide to teary-eyed is a short distance.

I've been approved for a soda

Today I submitted $1.35 to the vending machine, which took my application, processed it, and approved me for a NEW lime diet coke.

I'm in once again!

I've been accepted to the dorm of my choice!

I'm going to my college reunion this year and signed up to stay in the dorms because it's A LOT cheaper than a hotel.

I did not realize there was a formal application process and that I could have been... presumably... agh... rejected (!) until I received this email today from the Residential Life Office: "Your Reunion Housing Reservation Request has been approved." [Caps theirs.]

I've been accepted, I'm in!

All I have to do is pay $35,000... no, wait, that would be for tuition, it's just a few hundred bucks...

Birthday parties at work

At my office there are monthly birthday parties for all the birthdays that fall during the month. There are maybe 6 or 7 honorees each month, some 100 people invited, about 100 square feet of sheet cake, and 8 people show up. The same 8 every month. Including me.

I call myself "Proud Sponsor and Fervent Supporter of the Monthly Birthday Celebration."

Annoyance

The most annoying words on earth:
a) Make me.
b) Yeah, right.
c) And I should care because?
It's not multiple choice, it's all of the above.

Punic Wars

I get library books for my father, who's retired, so he keeps busy instead of railing at the world. I got him a big 400-page book in tiny print on the Punic Wars, and don't you know it he knocked it out in two weeks flat!

Now he's railing about LIBOR. Don't ask.

Catholic teachers strike

You'd think the Catholic schools and teachers would find another way to overcome their differences, something more conciliatory. You'd think they'd offer their other cheek or something.

My sister is the smartest person I know

Not only is she smart, but she's totally dispassionate about her views, she tells it like she sees it, no hidden agenda.

So, anyway, I'm making homage to her because
a) she deserves it in a general way, and
b) she helped me authenticate the blog for the adsense to work.

That last one alone makes her a genius in my book.

Today

I'm starting this today because today's date is all powers of two: 4, 16 and 8.
I didn't choose it from among 365 days a year, I just chose it among today, yesterday, and the day before.
An earlier blog I did started on my high school boyfriend's birthday, which no one knew but me.