How apropos...

Against my better judgement I brought my co-workers some of the peanut butter cookies I made on Monday night. I shouldn't have. I should be boycotting doing anything remotely nice for them, since I discovered that the gifts I (and the other two members of the support pool - who happen to be temps) received for Administrative Professionals Day were on a list of things to be reimbursed that the manager in this office gave to our boss. And here I was, thinking they were doing this out of their own pockets from the kindness of their hearts. I'm freaking delusional, it would seem. Plus, to add insult to injury, I will be the one processing the reimbursement, so I get to see exactly how much those gifts cost.

So all the sugar and sugar substitute, creamer and half-and-half, giant containers of coffee from Costco, and various other odds and ends that I have stupidly supplied over the last several months just so that we'd have them...that ends. And when someone goes to get a cup of coffee and there are no supplies, they'd better not even look at me.

And I saw this on Overheard in the Office - it's like the hand of fate just gave me a high five:

5PM Anaphylactic Shock Isn't the Worst Way to Go

Cube monkey #1: I'm losing my will to live.
Cube monkey #2: Would a tiny peanut butter cookie help?

Calgary
Canada

via Overheard in the Office, Apr 29, 2008

Fetch my slippers and pipe

My husband is on to the fact that I've been bringing work home. I tried to keep it a secret, but he caught me before dinner last night. We had a brief, tense exchange of words where he basically reiterated his disapproval, and I established that while I was aware of and understood his feelings about the issue, it was my job - and I was doing what was needed to get it done in order to make sure I still have a job in the summer. He has a job that he walks away from every day at precisely five o'clock. I have a job where sometimes people ask me into meetings at 4:45 and I'm not walking out intil later in the evening, and from time to time eight hours is not enough to complete my daily assignments and take care of all of the little fires that pop up before they become infernos. This time of year is, in all honesty, the worst and most stressful time for this business. And it drives my husband nuts that sometimes I buy the break supplies, because I use them too and it's a nice gesture, regardless of whether or not it is noticed. (I'm not like some people: "Hey, boss, look! Look! I bought sugar! Praaaaise meeee!") I have a compatriot who picks up her boss' drycleaning, for cripes sake. It's apparently part of the "other duties as assigned" portion of her job description. And if the expectation is that I end up moving into the shark infested cubicles upstairs, the same could happen to me, too. I understand where he's coming from and why he's concerned, but the delivery could use a little work.

I weighed myself last night. I have lost five pounds since I weighed myself a couple months ago. I don't know how, since nothing has really changed. Is it stress? Hyperthyroid? Tapeworm? My husband is nagging me to see the doctor. But first he wants me to switch over to his doctor. Which requires paperwork, requesting records from my old doctor, calling the insurance company...so, where do I find this time? During my work day? I think not. Of course, he constantly gets on me about my weight and when I tell him that I seem to have lost a few pounds he doesn't have anything really positive or affirming to say. I guess maybe he's miffed that he's been trying to lose weight and it doesn't seem to be working. Whatever it is, the nagging about everything under the sun has got to stop or I'm going to start wearing a smoking jacket while I watch the game from my barkalounger grousing about how I need another martini and when the hell is dinner.

A plethora

Because Goblet of Fire is on...and I have nothing better to do (except the work I brought home, which I don't really feel like messing with):

Literary pursuits

I'm currently stalled in the reading of two books. One details how to endure (and maybe even succeed) while working with an idiot boss. I could have used this advice when dealing with the last two managers I had. The current boss I have mixed emotions about sometimes, but I know for sure he's not an idiot, at least in the sense of being clueless. The other book is about Queen Elizabeth I's business sense and leadership skills, which were considerable since she managed to remain an unmarried female monarch for a lifetime - an accomplisment for most kings of the time, let alone a woman whose paternity was often under question - while developing Britain's economic and military prowess into a powerful empire and force to be reckoned with on the world stage.

I've also got a growing list of "must reads" that includes my new favorite poets William Burroughs and Richard Brautigan, as well as 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy, 'Apathy' by Paul Neilon and Heinlen's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'.

I only mention this because I don't feel like talking about work...

But Lost last night (which I totally forgot about and missed the first ten minutes of, by the way) - insane! The death! The double dealing! Exploding houses and smoke monsters and late night b&e...Then I've got BSG tonight. I don't think my brain can take it.

Abandon ship!

Soooo...

I know I mentioned that I got news that Barbie resigned (from several sources). Or maybe not - I hear she's been telling people that the boss asked her to stay.

:blink:

Okay. Whatever.

Then, one of the managers offered someone a position (after the typically lengthy recruitment process), and they turned it down. So the department gets to start the search over again.

And today our newest full-time employee just quit. Literally *just* up and quit. Walked out. After less than two months, after working for several months before that as a temp. And she asked to not be contacted by the company for any reason. Which means I again get to babysit that office part of the time because they won't have staffing until they get yet another temp. I had a feeling that they were getting ready to cut that position, anyway, so that might've solved at least one problem for management. But still! This is exhausting!

Our temp brought me treats today because I put aside my work for a couple of days to help her with the mailing project from the dark firey depths this week. Because mailing projects that are done backwards are eeeevillll.

I had 'Learn to Swim' by Tool cranked up on the way home from work yesterday. It was incredibly fitting...

Feeling the burn

Blogger is being wonky today. Which is fitting. It's a very wonky feeling week. It is yet again Monday, despite my best efforts at pretending that Mondays don't exist. Selective reality isn't working out for me, apparently.

I'm starting to get very antsy about the state of affairs at work. I have assignments that I've been strongly encouraged to finish, yet I keep getting thrown into other people's projects, which causes me to fall behind some more. When I object, or argue my case, I'm given a hard time. So it seems like a lose-lose situation. I mean, if I say no to the other crap to focus on getting my work done them I'm not being a "team player", but if I allow myself to get dragged in, some of my work will be unfinished by the deadlines that have been set and I'm sure it will have serious and negative repercussions for me. Which is tiring, and causes me to get migraines if I think about it too much. I'm really losing my patience with my co-workers, and I'm incredibly frustrated that I have no idea what's going on with my review (I keep getting told - by someone other than my supervisor, of course - that I'm going to have one, but I have yet to see it scheduled), my workload and responsibility level are exhausting and require a nearly super-human ability to muster up anything but apathy for anymore, and if someone doesn't tell me what the heck is going on with the realignment and where I can expect to be in less than three months, I think I'm going to have a psychological meltdown from the pressure. Of course, changing roles will probably be a kind of situation that can best be described as going from the frying pan...into yet another frying pan. So, I suppose I should be careful what I wish for?

M: Thanks for the ticket! Sorry I couldn't even say hi - I was in the midst of fighting the urge to do physical harm to you-know-who (hint: I was standing in the doorway of that person's office when you came in...). Oh, and I got official word that Barbie resigned. And someone came in and was all "So, I hear you're moving upstairs. That's cool." How is it that people know about this and I have no freaking clue when/how this is all going down? It's like one day I'll walk in and someone will have boxed up all my stuff, and next thing you know Lumberg has my stapler and my desk is in the basement with the storage, and I never get a piece of delicious cake, and they said I can listen to music at a reasonable volume...

Too late. I've lost it.

Fridays, Saturdays...and plate glass windows are for the birds

I was all prepared to vent about the horrible day I had on Friday. Then my sinuses decided to wage a war on me, and I slept for about eighteen hours between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. I still don't quite feel up to thinking. So I'll boil Friday down to: mailing projects from hell, the demoralizing effects of layoffs and budget cuts, and lots and lots of very edgy people acting like jerks. It's going to be a long and very stressful summer.

We spent Saturday afternoon running around town, and then went for a walk at a local nature preserve, where I narrowly escaped a squirrel ambush:

This one attempted an aerial sneak attack...

While his bolder comrad engaged in the frontal assault.

I watched two movies last night before my head started to throb too much from a massive sinus headache - Delicatessen (which is French, and surreal, and bizarre and wonderful), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Which I have seen several times now, so I'm not sure why I sat through it again...I guess just because it was on.

A dove flew into our window a little while ago - there were little down feathers stuck to the living room picture window. We thought the poor thing was dead at first, but then realized it had just stunned itself. My husband herded it across the street into the neighbor's yard because it kept trying to wander into the next door yard where the cats live, and we didn't want to provide them with live game. I'm not sure if the bird has recovered, or is still in shock, since it disappeared. Hopefully it managed to fly away.

My tax dollars at work

Here's some advice, free, from me to you: don't move to Florida. And if you are unfortunate enough to already live here (like yours truly), may I suggest you make immediate plans to become one of the thousands vacating the state like rats on the proverbial sinking ship. Our not-so-fine state is in the midst of bracing for massive budget cuts - where I work we're staring down the second wave of "reductions" (four percent earlier this year, and now at least another eleven percent after the beginning of the new budget period), and layoffs and other "cost saving measures" have begun. I have no idea what department I will even be a part of in three months. Or if I'll have a job at all. So imagine my disgust when I learn that our state Senate is using their valuable time legislating Truck Nutz (you know - the fake scrotes that rednecks hang from the trailer hitches of their trucks). What a waste of time - for the senators and the cops who would be called upon to attempt to enforce this garbage. Personally, I think the brass balls are stupid, but I'm hardly offended. It just makes it that much easier to spot the mouth breathers and avoid them. What's worse is that prior to the local evening news report about this, the anchor gave a disclaimer that the story included images that others might find "offensive". {sarcasm on} Oh, I'm all aflutter with righteous indignity at being subjected to images of fake testes hanging from undercarriage! I'm calling my Congressman and demanding action! {/sarcasm off} Of course, this is also a state Senate that finally just got around to attempting to make beastiality illegal (warning: the linked story really does include some lurid and disturbing details about an unfortunate dog with the tragically ironic name of Lucky - read at your own risk) - although this bit of legislation hasn't been passed by the House quite yet - and is allowing teachers to discuss Intelligent Design in their classrooms if they don't favor the *scientific* theory of evolution. We're ranked 21st in the nation in terms of education, but I think the DOE stacks the deck.

We're becoming idiots, collectively, by degrees.

What's brewing

I made the coffee today...I think it tastes a little better. Now if only the temp would stop making a mess of the supply room. I can't find a thing, and she used all of the small file tabs I need. I spent most of yesterday thinking it was Thursday - that's how fried my brain is.

The Kids in the Hall are together and touring, and they'll be in town the day before my birthday. Now the challenge will be finding someone to go with me. It won't be my husband, since his response was "Uh...okay, I never really watched that show...". You have got to be kidding me! No chicken lady, no cabbage-head, no cancer boy? He doesn't even know what he's missing.

Like this:



And THIS:



My dad and I did the "head crusher" to each other for years...maybe I can get my dad to go?

So on to other things. Like the sorry state of what is considered "news" today. I know a lot of people talk about this, but I just want to point out that Martha Stewart's dog died, and it made the main page of CNN headlines. Don't get me wrong - the death of a pet is a sad, sad thing. But newsworthy? I hardly think so! It's a big world out there, full of endless journalistic possibility, and CNN's got some mass com intern typing up bits on a close to irrelevant homemaking maven's dead dog. But I guess it's what the people want. Just like Dr. Phil. Oh, wait - did the rest of the world finally wake up to the fact that the guy is an attention and fame whoring douchenozzle? It's about damn time! Which brings me to what I recently saw on the cover of one of those "entertainment" magazines: the big caption next to the photo was "Shiloh's Broken Tooth", then in smaller letters the words "Who Is Responsible?". Okay, for those who don't know who "Shiloh" is, that would be Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's biological child (shameful that I know this, yes, I agree). The kid is like a year or so old, so I'd like to address the accusatory tone of the caption. Obviously, the editor of that rag has never had a toddler, right? Because then they'd be aware of the fact that small children just learning to walk fall down. A lot. Hence the term "toddler", due to all the toddling. Sometimes they fall flat on their little faces, and the result can be as minor as tears all the way up to bumps, brusies, and sometimes chipped teeth. I know this from experience, so the headline on the cover of that magazine just made me roll my eyes and swear a promise to myself to never buy such a waste of paper that would attempt to scandalize (and capitalize off of) such a minor little thing. Not that I generally buy the entertainment mags - the fashion magazines I occasionally read are bad enough, with their thinly veiled attempts at convincing the "average" woman that life as a self-obsessed, status-seeking, loathful harpy is the true path to happiness and success.

The other night I finished reading 'I Am Legend' (the movie, which I have not seen, is loosely based on this story and the two preceeding film adaptations). The story is actually part of a short story collection of the same name. I was a little underwhelmed. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but...

*****SPOILERS ahoy*****

...vampires? Not scary. Not even a little bit. There was a zombie story called 'Dance of the Dead' that had potential, but even it seemed to fall flat. Maybe for the era the stories were written in this stuff was cutting edge and a little terrifying, but as a fan of the horror genre who was raised on such authors as Stephen King and movies like The Thing and Poltergeist, I may have become a little jaded.

I've been watching a lot of Deadliest Catch on Discovery since they were doing a marathon to gear up to this season's premier (the show at least makes you appreciate the sacrifice and work that went into getting that insanely expensive plate of crab legs to your table all the more), and I discovered the website for the 'Northwestern'. It features Captain Sig's MySpace page, so I'm *this* close to sending an add request. Maybe I will, or maybe I won't. I haven't decided if it's lame or kind of cool. But I'm really excited that normal tv is back, and almost all of my favorite shows are airing new episodes: BSG, The Office, 30 Rock, Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch. The only thing missing right now is Lost.

Waaaaaaaalt!

I want to gouge out my frontal lobe!

I got these e-mails today (names and identifying details have been ommitted):

Original e-mail from employee X: Hey this is a friendly reminder that *blank vendor* will be here tomorrow at 8am tomorrow. See you here.

Response, ten minutes later from employee Y: Hey X...I thought it was at 8:30am?

Okay. First - THIS crap right here is why I have twenty e-mails about absolutely nothing that I have to slog through every single day. People insist on copying me on everything. I don't actually need to know that this was scheduled. I had to contact the vendor in order to get the process rolling (hi- not my job!), and now that I've handed it over to the folks who should have been pursuing it to begin with, I want nothing at all to do with it until it comes time to pay the bill for this project. And second...don't send an e-mail response - just pick up the fricking phone! What the eff is wrong with people??

And the coffee is once again not that good! I think I'll go throw myself down the stairs again...

Maybe lolcats will help?

You asked for it

So here's to another Monday morning. I'm sitting here drinking coffee and eating an imitation Hostess chocolate cupcake. (The front of the package shouts "0 grams trans fat"...while the words "200 calories per serving - number of servings:2" lurk on the back. Breakfast of champions!) The sugar in the break room is gone, as well as the good creamer, so I was forced to use Splenda (tastes like sugar my ass), and generic half and half. This coffee is terribly inadequate.

Over the weekend I became a member of another online forum (why??) and I became obsessed with the game Portal. In order to play it, though, we need to upgrade our computer. Since my husband comandeered the laptop that was supposed to be mine, I use the desktop, which has become sluggish and boggy and needs to be rebooted constantly. Luckily, my husband custom built it, so all of the components are upgradeable. All we really need are a new motherboard and a little more memory, so no need to buy a new (unmodifiable) machine from one of the big companies.

We've been hammering out plans for a vacation later this year. We haven't had a break in a couple of years, and it is sorely needed. I always worry that once we start getting the details together, something will come up to prevent us from going. That happened last year with my root canal - which still bothers me a little sometimes, especially when I get tense and clench my jaw. I guess I should have that checked out eventually. We have a trip planned for July, but it's just a weekend, so I don't count that as a true "vacation", as much as I really am looking forward to it (and I really am).

Things have been nice and low-key for the most part lately. Work is...workable, for now. There was a job out of state that I thought about applying for, but my husband and I decided just to take the wait-and-see approach for the next couple of months. I have a lot of work to catch up on, and to keep ahead of, so this spring and into early summer I expect is going to be a little stressful. And it would be great if people learned to spell my name correctly - I know my last name is a little rough, but my first name is pretty easy and has never been spelled with a silly little "i" or stripperific "ie", as much as some of my family members and co-workers would like to believe.

M is around later this week for a presentation, and we may get to have lunch and hang out when she's here. We have to make plans to do something fun before the month of April is a bust. I'll be having happy hour drinks with the ladies from upstairs at the end of the month, and one of them invited me to go shopping with her other little social group. It's kind of weird how I've fallen into this clique after all of this time keeping myself away from just this sort of situation, but they're nice people and it's good to have peers to commiserate with from time to time. I may live in a bubble, but I'm not an island. Whatever I just meant by that...

To me this is heaven

The perfect end to the weekend: tiramisu and a good cup of coffee while watching repeats of Deadliest Catch.

So how was your weekend?

Falling down

I'll cut to the chase today. I'm depressed. A series of events have transpired to make me feel in turn useless, ineffectual, clumsy, and excessively emotional. All before the morning coffee had a chance to get cold.

I've had to ride in to work with my husband because my car has a flat tire, so I've been doing the bare minimum as far as makeup and clothes are concerned - throw on whatever I can find in my closet that relatively matches and put on foundation and maybe some blush to keep from looking like a reanimated corpse. Of course, it still feel like a reanimated corpse due to stress, lack of sleep and general feelings of malaise.

I came in all intent to work on the budget project for the upcoming cuts, and ran some numbers just as an initial exercise (this thing isn't due until next week - I'm just trying to stay well ahead of a deadline for a change). Then I called the budget office to bounce my totals off of someone else's brain and found out that we didn't match. So before I went upstairs to see where I was off, I mentioned it to the manager down here about my dicrepancy, because she was headed to a meeting to discuss "streamlining and reassignement". Later I found out she had gone to the boss and told him that my numbers didn't quite add up to the budget mananger's and by what margin, before I even had a chance to correct my totals based on what I found out upstairs and before I could get in to talk to the boss myself. I won't type what I think about this. Actually, I did type it but I backed up and removed it. Lets just say it rhymes with the words "ducking" and "pitch". It was not her place to do that. I don't think she realizes what she's just done to both my professional and personal opinion of her character. And to add to that, when I was talking to the boss (who makes me very uncomfortable - have I ever mentioned that?), he said he'd been talking to the budget manager and they already had a plan in place. Which he had never, up to that point, bothered to share with me. And the budget manager knew they'd talked when I was in her office and didn't mention it either. So. I wasted my morning. Which pisses me off.

So I decided to go for a relaxing walk and try not to feel to aggravated, and I ended up falling down a small flight of stairs outside of my building. It might be funny to me later, but right now I'm sore and embarassed. I ended up with a couple of scrapes on my knees and one of my shins, sore wrists from trying to prevent myself whacking my chin on the sidewalk, and scrapes on the frames of my glasses from where they flew off and landed on the concrete. I guess my heel got caught on something on the middle step. Or I really am that ungainly. Or I threw myself down three low steps in a pathetic attempt to do myself in because life's not worth living. Whatever the case, my day is shot, I'm grumpy as hell, and I have training in half an hour.

If something positive actually happens today, I'll come back and add it in, but so far downhill is the only direction I've been going. Literally.

Realization/Rationalization

Behold the horror...

The horror of the ritual search for a new bathing suit. I finally faced the terror last night because we were going to the beach today, and the suit I had was too skimpy (there wasn't enough fabric to keep my not-so-huge tracts of land under wraps, so to speak). Last night I had to also face the facts and acknowledge a hard truth: I've allowed myself to gain way too much weight. Lets be honest - I'm pretty short. And short people cannot weigh what taller people weigh without inching into zaftig hobbit territory. I've always been a little...I'll say chubby, to put it kindly...since puberty exacted its vengeance on me, and weight-management (and finding off-the-rack clothes that fit - even in what stores label as "petites") has been nothing short of a challenge for almost all of my adult life (ha - short...no pun intended). But last night I finally had to take a hard look at the issue when I tried on a suit on the larger end of the normal sizing spectrum and felt it was a little too snug. So I wandered over to the "women's" sizing section (as tiny and utterly pathetic and uninspiring as it was), and it felt kind of weird, but I decided to try on a couple of the smaller sizes from that area. I'm pretty sure you can see where I'm going with this. Surprise - the size 14/16 "women's" fit better than the 14/16 "average". The bad part, though, is that they didn't have a 14/16 in a style I liked in the top, so I had to get the bottoms in the size I needed, and the top in a larger size (18) - so now I have excess fabric in the torso of my suit. Which has a decided "bun in the oven" look to it. This is not the look I was going for at all.

(I kinda wish they's bring back bathing dresses...but nooo, it's got to be all teensy tiny bikinis everywhere...)

It's frustrating being in a strange sort of retail sizing limbo. Too big for the average but not *quite* chunky enough to truly peruse the racks with the bigger gals. And forget the conversation I had with my husband before heading out on this self-esteem crushing excursion, as I tried (and failed) to explain not only why women's fashions cost more than men's ("just because?"), but also that there is no universal sizing standard. It must be so easy to be a man sometimes..."Hey, my pants have a hole in the crotch. Guess I should buy some pants before I get accused of being some kind of perv. Hey - here are some {checks waist size and pant length}. All done! Doo do do dee doo..."

That all being said, I have decided that I need to do something. I hold no illusions that I will be able to achieve and maintain a super-skinny state. Honestly - that's not for me anyway. (Tried it once...if you ever want to hear the story of how close I probably came to being one of "those girls" - you know, the ones who don't eat and fill the gnawing void with exercise while their bodies self destruct - just ask) I just can't keep ignoring the fact that I really am heavier than I ought to be. It's not just the aesthetics factor, either - this can't be terribly healthy. Since I recently canceled the expensive gym membership I wasn't using, and I've been finding myself snacking again for no apparent reason, here is the plan: two walking breaks during the working day of at least 10 minutes; increase in fresh fruits and veggies consumed daily; decrease in meats and pre-packaged foods; no soda - water (maybe a Fuze "slenderize" if I need something with flavor, but no soda); family walks in the evening around the lake or the park. I will need help sticking to some of this. Okay...sticking to most of it. I'm lazy and totally unmotivated much of the time. That's just the plain truth. I may discuss my successes or failures here, but I don't plan on replacing my normal urbane, pithy, ranting, pointless and shallow content with anything approaching a "diet blog", so don't worry about that.

But back to the point of the whole terrible and gut-wrenching experience last night. Now I have a bathing suit that kind of, but not really, fits. At least it more than adequately covers my seemingly ever increasing mass. I wore it to the beach. We had fun - it was a beautiful day.

This is what the nation's #1 rated beach looks like

A little windy, just like this same time last year. But it was more crowded, being Spring Break and all, plus with all of the late season snowbirds and Europeans. You can tell the tourists from people who have lived here for a period of time, because we're the ones mincing our way into the surf muttering "Oooohhh....cold. Cold! Ah! Cold..." the whole time. Once you get in though, it feels pretty good. Just remember the "stingray shuffle". We all got pretty burned, which is typical for the inaugural trip to the beach, even though I made everyone slather on the sunscreen. I guess it would've helped to remember to reapply. A least two of us will turn a decent shade of bronze, but the other one doesn't ever seem to be able to accomplish anything more than a serious farmer's tan. I just hope we don't all peel...that shite is just nasty.

Sunday is my son's birthday. It is officially his "big kid" milestone, at least in his mind. It'll be a pretty low-key get together, which is how we like to do parties. Just your typical cake, ice cream, burnt meats and malted hops kind of to-do.

Battle Star Galactica is on. This means I gotta go bask in the glory of Jamie Bamber. Damn...where's that towel pic?

Yeah, it's barely SFW ;)