Two Things

1. I will not give into this:

Tapered jeans were God's ugly gift to the 80's. There's no room for them anymore. I don't care that people are wearing them again. I absolutely refuse. There's absolutely nothing flattering about them except for the fact that you will eventually have to get out of them, that is the only possible highlight about them, that one day, they will have to come off, and then you will be pants-less, and that might not be so cool - depending on the weather, place you happen to be when they come off, and the amount of exercising you've been doing.

2. I appreciate the seasons just as much as anybody. I got all gooey and weepy listening to Harry Connick Jr.'s Christmas CD this morning while writing a letter to a client that described why it was they had to pay $12000 in fines and a Happy Holidays to you. But that may have also been due to hormonal changes since I'm pregnant. Anyway, the point is, seasons are good. They remind you to do things like celebrate Chanukah and start tanning for Catalina, buuuuuut . . . I'm from southern California. To me the seasons change when it drops from 72 to 68. That's break-out-the-winter-clothes-and-find-me-a-hoodie weather as far as I'm concerned. So when I woke up and it was 60 degrees inside my house, and 45 degrees outside, I almost cried. I had to wear sweat pants on my run this morning. I hate wearing pants to run. (sidenote: putting me in tapered pants and making me run is the equivalent of killing my puppy and leaving it burning on my doorstep where I have to stomp it out even though I think it's flaming poo and then cry myself to sleep when I realize I just stomped on my burning dead puppy.) Iciness is expected in New York or even Fresno, not in the South Bay. But I am prepared to make the best of it and am building a snowman out of construction dirt in front of our office. He will be wearing sweat pants to keep him warm.

Why I Love Work Seminars

Because when I looked around the room, this is what I saw:

A gruff, very judgmental man, scolding me with judging accounting eyes of fire and judegment at the mess I made while eating my sandwich; my supervisor dabbing up hot coffee she had just spilled on a John Wooden autographed basketball; a silver haired Asian guy who laughed to himself every time he took a bite of his cookie; my co-worker who was finishing off his third jumbo bag of potato chips because instead of being able to order on his own, they ordered him a sandwich comprised soley of guacamole and olives; and my (pretty much blind) boss intermittently falling asleep then jerking herself awake - wherein she would immediately start jotting down notes (over pre-existing notes) while nodding in the general direction of the speaker.
It looked like this:

Irish Showers

It's amazing people in Ireland reproduce at all considering it's too cold to ever get naked inside, let alone outside on the green hilltops where I used to imagine lots of sexy frolicking took place. Fantasy about windblown Irish sex with leprechauns skipping by in the background = ruined.

I almost considered leaving my clothes on for the shower but changed my mind when I remembered I had been in them for forty two hours straight and fourteen of those hours had taken place while sitting on a plane in a row next to a farter.

Taking a shower there makes you colder. Not because the water is cold, if you wait long enough it eventually gets hot, but because the amount of water that comes out is like bathing under a sink faucet so that the rest of your body is exposed to the icy air. You have to constantly be moving around like someone doing an interpretive dance to Ace of Base in the shower so that it's not wetting just your left shoulder. I enjoy having a clean left shoulder as much as the next person, but c'mon. I have a lot of other body that needs to be cleaned.

Flushing the toilet is a whole other experience I don't even want to get into right now. Instead I will keep it hush, like (my future husband once he realizes he's not really gay he just needed to find the right woman) David does:

Happy Thanksgiving. . . Sort Of

One of the benefits of having a Grandma who thinks her way is always the right way, is that sometimes she decides to fly you out to Ireland for Thanksgiving because that's how it should be. Naturally, we should be spending the United States holiday in a different country where they don't even sell Turkey for food. HOW COULD THAT BE WEIRD?

Said Grandma is already tucked away in her Irish cottage, but calls me daily to remind me to bring cranberry sauce, and to remind me that she's sent a neighbor out to rent a pumpkin colored tablecloth that I am supposed to bring with me. Last time she rented a tablecloth she promptly gave it to a friend to cut up and make into napkins. The RENTED tablecloth.

My sister called to ask if she could pack her coat in my suitcase and when I explained there would be no room due to the festive tablecloth she screamed, "DOES SHE REMEMBER THAT SHE'S BLIND AND CAN'T SEE THE DAMN TABLECLOTH IN THE FIRST PLACE? What, does it feel orange?"

But I'm bringing it. Because I get to go to Ireland. I'm not ungrateful.

I spent the whole morning saying goodbye to the office, because even though it's like being stuck in a 1970's rehab center, I still kinda like it here.

Goodbye jungle tree:


Goodbye weird alien thing that somehow managed to survive all the jackhammering:


Goodbye lone water bottle that the receptionist decided to keep outside because she wanted one bottle in every room "just in case", and no, outside does not technically count as a room in the office, but she didn't really want to hear any of that nonsense:


And finally, goodbye for a few days Carrie - the only one in the office who would let me drape her in tablecloth magic:

Safe Drinking Water

I almost peed my pants this morning when the Sparkletts water guy knocked on my sliding glass door at work and waved violently to me. When I cautiously grinned and waved back, he made the international sign for "Open the door (so I can come in and rape you)". Naturally I got up to let him in, but even though he's about a foot smaller than me I'm still always afraid of the freakish happiness and enthusiasim with which he delievers water, so I said loudly, to no one in particular, "The water guy is here. I'm just gonna let him in! Ok? So if I go missing it's because I was trying to do good and hydrate you all! Ok, unlocking the door now. . ."

The receptionist sat at her desk ordering the Sparkletts guy to move the bottles from one end of the office to the other, in what I hoped was an attempt to tire him out so that he wouldn't have much energy to attack. Turns out she couldn't remember where the water cooler was. Which is always fun. You know, when the woman who is supposed to be running the office can't remember where we put water.

Miss Havisham distracted me with tax talk for a while, until I got tapped on the shoulder and screamed "DON'T CUT ME!", probably a little too loud for office talk. "Oh sorry, hahaha, didn't mean to scare you there," he said, "I just wanted to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving." "Oh. Of course you did." He proceeded to talk my ear off about football on Thanksgiving and did I watch football, and when I said yes as a matter of fact I watched Ohio beat Michigan this weekend, he went off about how glad he was Ohio won. We bonded a little bit then because I love Ohio, and here's why:

Those two on the left . . . Ohio, everybody!

I still wanted him out of my personal space and not sitting on my desk anymore, shifting papers like he was Julia Roberts saying he's never been on a fax before.

Not cool Mr. Water Guy. Not cool at all.

It's A Jungle Out There

The jack-hammering has stopped and those “dang mexicos” are gone. Which is sort of making me sad ‘cause now there’s no one to whistle at me when I walk into work in the morning. It's not every day ten muscular men whistle and call me baby before my hair had settled into an ‘ok’ state after blow-drying, since it takes about an hour after styling before it’s actually calm and reasonable, up until then it looks like I licked the end of a fork and gingerly stuck it into a light socket while holding onto frayed electrical wires with my other hand.

On the plus side, the door-slamming from my co-workers has stopped, and hysteria has subsided to a dull roar. Aside from the hourly, “Oh, sugar. I broke it! I broke the printer again! I didn’t even touch it. I don’t know what happened” from Miss Havisham, most of the yelling has stopped.

I’m sort of pleased with the rugged look our office has taken on now. Without any cement surrounding the building it kinda feels like we’re in the woods. Like we had to set up a make-shift accounting office suddenly, in the middle of battle, to make sure we filed all the extentions properly! Forget hot water and food and saving lives, what this war needs is taxes to be done damnit!



P.S. I'm making that face because Jungle coffee is gross.

Classics Shmlassics

You know when you say, “Hey have you seen that new show?” and your friend who is inherently better than you because she is married, owns a house, has a dog, doesn’t still work for her grandma even though she has a college degree, and knows how to correctly set up the address section on a business letter which is totally ridiculous because they teach you that in like third grade and why in the world does an eight year old need to know how to properly send a business letter, if the kid is so smart they’re conducting business they can look it up their damn selves. Anyway, you know when that friend responds, “I’m way too busy with real life stuff or reading the Classics in gold-leafed, leather-bound books to bother with mindless t.v. shows”? Well, f her. While she’s real-life-ing her way through the horror that is trying to decipher Chaucer in Old English, or “paying her bills”, you can be all cozy on the couch with a pint of coldstone, and your phone on vibrate near your down there while you make sure that they save the cheerleader so they can Save The WORLD!

I don't know if you all have caught on to the magic that is the show 'Heroes', but if you haven't you should. You should stop your working right now, drive over to my house, I live here:


You can meet me there and watch every episode I have tivoed. I will even fix you snacks. Who wants some snacks?!

Any show where a girl can get a tree branch stuck in her brain and then wake up and walk out of the coroner’s office so she can make it to school in the morning is real life enough for me.

I’m just sayin’.

This One Goes To Eleven

They're jack hammering right outside of our office today. And by right out front I mean two feet from my window. Which is gonna be really awesome for morale.

In an office where people freak out when management buys the wrong type of candy for the candy bowl, or send each other into mass hysteria at the thought of taking their lunch break five minutes later than usual, the fact that the office building is literally shaking from a swarm of husky Mexicans with power tools is, I'm pretty sure, going to be the psychotic undoing of at least half of the staff.

Already this morning my (pretty much blind) 81 year old boss shouted, "Goddamnit it's 8am. SOMEONE'S GONNA GET SHOT!" and then felt her way back to her desk where she sat down and rooted around for, what I can only imagine to be, an antique pistol she keeps hidden amongst the melted mints and bags of pennies.

The very pretty gal down the hall stood in my doorway shaking her head and proclaimed, "You'd think with all that shaking they are doing with the jack hammering, they'd be a lot skinnier." Which is extremely appropriate from a girl who once said, "I don't like all the Orientals. They make me claustrophobic." Why? Because they throw you in confined spaces and don't let you out? Damn those sneaky Orientals!

A fellow co-worker, as well as also being one of the three people under 60 years old in the office, took this cell phone picture to document the construction:


Now picture five more of them pounding horrifically as if my speaker was turned up to eleven. Then pour yourself some coffee, and relax into your swiveling chair, where the only thing drowning out the noise from construction is the screams of confusion from the receptionist who hit the construction truck because it "isn't usually parked there".