First there’s this. The money quote is, of course, “Did she just wink at us like she was America’s cocktail waitress?”
The second item is this.
I got up from my desk around 3 today because I was just sick of the paper. It’s a good thing I did because in re-reading the first half (the only half right now), I realized a gaping hole and so, tomorrow this paper will practically finish writing itself. Too bad I don’t have some little gadget that I could attach to my head tonight while I sleep and have it finish the paper.
I got up from my desk so I could cut the grass. It’s been overdue and it’s beautiful outside. Also–cutting grass=not writing paper!
I had finished the yard portion and decided to go ahead and cut the part out along the road. I was about a third of the way finished when I realized the damn neighbor was standing in the driveway. The damn neighbor, her son and another neighbor were hanging out waiting for me to come over to them. Egads. The neighbor and her son technically live next door to us but it’s more like behind us and we’ve never met them. We wave but that’s it. As I’ve mentioned that’s the way I like it.
Anyway, she had gotten our mail today and the other neighbor (the cranky man’s wife) had gotten the other neighbor’s mail so it was a massive cascade fail on the part of the mail carrier. The fail that made me have to actually engage in small talk with neighbors. I should have knuckled down and finished writing my paper and then I could have ignored the doorbell when the neighbor drove up to hand over our mail.
Procrastination bit me in the ass this afternoon.
I’ve procrastinated all morning and have done a tiny bit of work on a paper due next Thursday. A tiny bit. I have to write a paper on organizational learning at NASA. I do not care one wit about this. It has nothing to do with NASA–fascinated by them–it’s just that I don’t care if any organization shows organizational learning unless it’s the organization I’m working in or will work in. I know, short-sighted. It’s all about my learning, blah, blah, blah. Still. I do not want to write this paper. I do not care.
This is something I care about:
We started feeding a black and white cat this summer and with much originality called him Blackie.
The cat is stand-offish and only signals his need for food by standing in the yard and staring. I’m a sucker so I usually comply with the order. I’ve never been able to get near enough to the cat to pet it.
Recently, I thought progress had been made because the cat started sticking around longer and I thought we were working up to actually making friends with each other. Then, we realized there are two black and white cats coming around for hand outs. So, Blackie became Adolph because of his mustache and the other cat became Blackie. The picture above is Adolph from last night and I had to up the lighting on the picture so that’s why it’s fuzzy.
Simon doesn’t approve of either one of them.
Update:
Here’s proof that of the two black cats. The one on the right is the friendly cat. After I took this horrible picture, we ended up feeding this one because the other one had gotten to the trough first. Eventually, the friendly cat came up to see us on the back steps, licked my thumb and then ate some more food.
Since I have worked at my place of employment I have had to compile and send a monthly report to our client. Every single month I send an email to everyone who is supposed to update our shared Excel spreadsheet reminding them to submit their data by Noon on whatever day at the end of the month. The email is always sent days, if not a whole week, in advance.
The deadline for September’s report was Noon on Friday the 26th. That was last week. Today at 2pm I get an email from a co-worker stating “Oh I noticed October’s report the only one available and there isn’t a September one in the archive yet so I can’t update”.
It’s a good thing I’m separated by miles instead of steps from this person. She’s worked here for a few months less than I have so for her entire tenure this report has come due. I have talked until I’m blue in the face, developed handouts, talked at staff meetings, bitched and moaned and done everything I can think of short of going to each person with a loaded gun pointed at their heads to get people to fill out the spreadsheet. I could give a rat’s ass about the report but I’m shackled with this “other duties as assigned” task and so by God I’m going to do it and do it well.
So when I get an email an entire day after the report was due and then the email tells me she was going to update an archived report, I nearly blew out an artery. Any wonder why I waffle betweeen hating my job and hating the people I work with? Fill out the spreadsheet because when you don’t you make my job harder than it needs to be and when you don’t do that simple thing for me it makes me a)want to kill you b)want to never help you again (and you freaking ask me all the time for help).
I must either start drinking at work or learn some meditation.
Holy cow…a Flannery O’Connor recording from the early 60s.
Guess where we went yesterday:
If that’s not enough of a clue, here’s another one:
Around the time Good Will Hunting came out I went to Boston with a group of 14 or so other people for work. I hadn’t seen the movie yet and so had no idea what all the other women in the group were talking about. We went to Boston to learn how to train a huge amount of people on how to use an automated resume system. I would work with those people again in a heartbeat.
One night we left Jillian’s and really had no idea how to get back to the hotel. I was driving one of the mini-vans because, believe it or not, I was sober. We were so lost that we stopped and asked a cabbie in the middle of the street. We ended up paying him since he gave us such good directions–yes, we handed money out of our mini-van into the cab. Whatever, we got back to the hotel.
While we were driving around aimlessly, we went through Southie and saw some of the sights from Good Will Hunting. Everyone, but me, pointed out the landmarks. Then they talked about Matt Damon’s teeth. The man has nearly perfect teeth. Seriously, check him out.
Since that time, I frequently mention how perfect Matt Damon’s teeth are. So, somehow all of this story relates to this video. I have to say I’m not a huge Sarah Silverman fan but she gets extra gold stars for this:
*** I should tell you about my after-hours visit to a potato chip factory at some point–a training job definitely has perks.
Feeling the Virginia pride today:
Makes me miss my Grandma Muggiehead and her starlight mints.
Today there was a reversal of roles, although if it had been a true reversal I would still be asleep. The better-half is taking his mother to undergo some tests and we decided it would be easier for him to cart her around in the car rather than the truck. So, I’m off today. Because I am lame and can’t drive a stick shift. Yes, I know. How awesome is it that the car’s alarm decided to go off by itself at 6:19am? I start bitching about how someone’s alarm is going off and I look out the window and discover it’s our car. The better-half thinks when he put the keys in his pocket that the fob somehow triggered the alarm.
I plan on working on a paper for one of my classes. With my luck I’ll get it mostly done and then find out tomorrow that we have a week’s extension. We have an assignment to write about and last week people in class griped about feeling like we’ve talked the case studies to death and they’d like to pick other case studies. Wouldn’t you know some folks are having a problem finding case studies that fit our topic? Mmmm, maybe you should be careful what you wish for.
Yesterday I was talking to my supervisor about another project I have to do for class which will require me to attend meetings, schedule interviews, etc. I felt like she was stonewalling me a little and I’m so sick of the word can’t that I’m thinking of yelling the next time and every time someone says that to really draw attention to it. I need to work on my poker face because she could tell I was annoyed and so we talked about other things I could do to still gather data. The fact that some of the things that I’m supposed to look for don’t exist at our organization will speak volumes. I need to look at positive and negative space so to speak.
In other news, I can see a wee snake on the pool cover. I suppose I need to get out there and rescue it before the sun comes up and fries it.
