Grumpy New Year

This is what you get for celebrating the misfortune of someone else’s death.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who worked in an office far, far away. She spent her days reading federal regulations and drafting policy, and trying to keep up with the whims of stock market governance. The girl loved her job, and spent many long hours growing pale and pasty by the light of the fluorescent bulbs that enabled her to work long after the daylight hours had passed into night. She was very lucky, as she really enjoyed the work that she did, and had the respect and support of her talented colleagues.

Then one day, the New York Stock Exchange announced that it would postpone the first trading day of the new year to honour the passing of a President. This was truly unprecedented news, as it would mean that the stock markets would be closed for four consecutive days, which was a very rare event indeed. Thank you, dead President!

The girl who loved her job paid no mind to this announcement, however, as she had already made plans to work from home that day. She had a couple of projects that required her undivided attention, and besides, the cable company was coming to do an installation for the new big screen HDTV that she bought for her loving boyfriend as a Christmas gift. The girl enjoyed working from home, for as much as she loved her job, one of her favourite perks was being able to work from home in pajamas.

Still, the rest of the office waited anxiously for the joyous announcement from management that no one had to work on Tuesday since the markets would be closed. An extra day off! Twenty-four whole more hours to nurse those inevitable hangovers! Rock on! The office was abuzz with gleeful anticipation.

Finally, the news came from above, but it wasn’t the news everyone had hoped for. Management noted that even though the markets were closed, banks were open and critical functions needed to be addressed, and an executive decision was made to keep the office open. There was much whispering and grumbling following this announcement.

“What a waste! We’ll be here twiddling our thumbs!” said the grumpy office
slackers.

“Is he serious? Can’t you talk some sense into him?” pleaded others.

Alas, the news had come and most accepted their fate begrudgingly. The girl who loved her job paid no mind. There was always work to be done, and wasn’t this such a lovely place to work, even if you did have to come in after all? But she was still planning to work from home. The announcement, so unfortunate for the others, didn’t change a thing as far as she was concerned.

Later, as her boss passed her in the hallway, he asked if she’d reminded her staff that they needed to report to work on Tuesday.

“I did,” she said, “but I won’t be here. I’ve got an appointment with the cable company between 11 and 2 to set up the new high-def service.”

Her boss was visibly upset, and demanded that she be there as well, even if it meant rescheduling with the cable company. No amount of pleading or reasoning would budge him.

“It wouldn’t be right if your staff showed up and you weren’t here along with them,” he said. “It sends the wrong message.”

Confused, distressed, and in a terrible huff, she returned to her desk and called to cancel her appointment.

And the moral of the story is, listen to your boyfriend when he tells you that you can pick up the box directly from Comcast and install the thing yourselves.

Happy New Year!

Happy happy!

Well, I lied. I said I was going to post more often, and here we are – over a week since my last post, and I’ve produced precisely nothing. How un-Christmasy of me.

So I guess those other memes that I want to do will just have to wait, since I will be heading off momentarily for our Orlando Christmas extravaganza (and by extravaganza, I mean plop on the couch and eat yummy Spanish food while watching the baby practice her walking, and cooking and baking and wrapping even more presents and drinking). The trunk of my car is chock-full of presents wrapped in pretty coloured paper and ribbons and bows. I’ve made dozens of chocolate lollipops and hundreds of cookies – iced sugar cookies, lemon angel wings, almond crescents, marshmallow fudgies, peanut butter blossoms, and and and. I am so excited about this holiday!

A very merry Christmas wish to all you Christmas bloggers. Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Kwanzaa, and a Joyous Winter Solstice, and just general happy and warm wishes to all of you! I heard something on the radio this morning that touched me, so I want to see if I can remember it and share it with you all – ah, I couldn’t remember enough to make it count, so I googled it. (I heart google). It’s a quote from Oren Arnold.

Christmas Gift Suggestions:

To your enemy – forgiveness
To an opponent – tolerance
To a friend – your heart
To customers – service
To all – charity
To children – a good example
And to yourself – respect

Happy holidays everyone!

Tis the Season

Well yes, it is that season as well... evidenced by the random scattering of all the gifts from our early Christmas celebration with my family this past weekend. But it also appears to be tag season. There are so many memes circulating around the blogosphere that I would like to do, so I expect I will post with maybe just a bit more frequency in the coming days. For one, I will be home ... working of course, but not travelling for once! And also, somehow I find it easier to do memes than to come up with an entirely original post.

Anyway, to kick off this Tag Season, I figure I better start with the one meme I've actually been tagged with, as opposed to the others that I just wanna do because I think they're cool. Madame Sass hit me with her best shot, so scroll down to see who I'm hitting. Just a warning: there will be six of you. Read at your own risk.

So here are the rules (which I have changed a little because I found them kinda redundant and not entirely clear): Each meme-er starts with the “6 weird things about you" and at the end, we tag 6 people. Those who get tagged then write their own 6 weird things post, as well as state this rule clearly. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says “you are tagged” in your tagee's comments section (on whatever completely unrelated post is active at the time of the tagging) and tell them to read your blog. As I said, I was tagged by Sass.

1. I am possibly the only woman on the face of the earth who really thinks her hair is hot (except when curly; then it is a disastrous mess and I hate it)

2. I can cook a six-course meal without cracking open a cookbook, but I cannot make white rice that doesn't stick, even if my life depended on it.

3. My tongue is has lots of weird grooves and bumps.

4. I think tiramisu is a vile dessert.

5. I very rarely lose my temper, with the glaring exception of any time spent driving. Then, all bets are off. I curse and yell and get frustrated, no matter how hard I try to be calm. Worse still, I'm a backseat road-rager. I will not tell you how to drive, but I will tell you how that other guy who just cut us off cannot.

6. I cannot figure out how to work my new iPod. I mean it must be the simplest device on earth, and I just. cannot. compute.

Okay... so now I have to tag 6 people... uhhh, do I know 6 people who haven't done this meme? Let's see... Nat, Cressy, Miss Cheese, Masgblog, Dzer and Phil. Let's see who does it. I'm off to leave the obligatory "tag you're it!" comments.

A very merry unbirthday...

to you!

And a very happy birthday for me. We're in NY, my parents just left for their long drive back upstate, and Chulo and I are just hanging out with little sis and her husband, watching movies and drinking coffee and staying out of the cold.

I won the grand prize at the NY office holiday party on Thursday night -- yay! Actually I tried to give it back because I didn't think it was appropriate for me to win, but apparently everyone else thought it was fine so now I have a little thingy to watch movies on during the flight home.

So far, being 32 isn't so bad.

Survey Says...

It's what you call the guy in the slow-moving vehicle ahead of you in the left lane when he, rather than moves to the right where there is PLENTY OF SPACE for his slow ass, slams on his brakes when you gently flash your brights at him to ask him to speed up or move along, nearly causing a 4-car pile-up accident in fast-moving traffic.

A STUPID MOTHERFUCKING SCHMUCKO JACKASS FUCKTARD!

Dingdingdingdingding!

Okay I know it's rude to flash brights, but I flashed them very gently and only AFTER I moved to the left so that he would see me in his left mirror and realise that he was holding up traffic. Also please note that I could not go around him on the right because there were cars in my way but there were none next to him. I mean honestly, you know the left lane is for passing, you're making the speed limit but that's it, and there is a line of cars waiting for you to move so that they can move on to their respective destinations. Is it really necessary to practically kill me and a bunch of other people, including yourself and your passenger, because I injured your pride a lil by reminding you that you DID NOT BELONG IN THE LEFT LANE?

And Chulo (and Nat, and my mom, and and and) wonders why I have road rage. I mean are you paying attention to these people?? HELLO.

Right. In other news, I back from California, did I mention that? I think I must have, maybe like 17 weeks ago which is the last time I posted. But anyway, it was awesome. First of all, California has trees that change colour. Do you know how lovely that is?? I haven't seen coloured foliage in years. Palm trees are boring!

Also, the weather was lovely for gamboling around looking at lovely things like the Golden Gate Bridge and downtown Sonoma and wine country and ps the town of Berkeley is built into a mountain and it's CRAZY! Those people must have awesome calves. Oh crap, I forgot to upload pictures! Dammit! I have to load the photo program on Chulo's desktop because my laptop is sitting under a pile of junk since it decided to stop working.

Anyway I almost peed my pants driving home from my godmother's house in the scary Berkeley mountains. It was like that drop after the slow climb on a rollercoaster, when the decline is so steep that just before you dip, all you see is air ... and then suddenly you're careening down a mountain in a rental car that you didn't take out the insurance on!

But there's more! There's also superfun girl nights out with Terry and Miss Cheese and Loli and jumbo alcoholic drinks! I also have photos of THAT so I really should upload the stupid program but I'm soooooo tired. Damn five-day work week.

I need sleep, badly. It's a big weekend starting tomorrow! We have to go buy a REAL lovely-smelling tree, and a skirt for that tree, and finish up shopping for Christmas #1 (my family ...figures we are already done with shopping for Christmas #2 with Chulo's family). And I have to buy glue and glitter to christen the pretty new matching Christmas stockings that Chulo and I bought. And I have to do all those Christmas cards. Fuck, I know a lot of people.

Also I have to return some sweaters that I decided I will never get a chance to wear since the cold snap last week was a fluke and we are back into 80+ degrees and humid, damn stupid Florida! I have to tear the house apart looking for the big Lots bag with the pretty wrapping paper and new ribbons. Of course I already have like 11 other rolls of wrapping paper but that's hardly the point, it's Christmas after all! Oh and I have work to do since obviously working between 12 and 15 hours a day isn't quite cutting it! And we have to do laundry, and also CLEAN, ohmyGod do we have to clean... of course I can't call the cleaning girls back because there is too much JUNK here there and everywhere and the poor girls wouldn't know what to do with it all. I need a houseboy.

Okay I have to go peel the contacts off of my eyeballs and get some rest.