Adventures & Misadventures
Abstract
Mr. Mister should have an honorary degree. AREN'T I FUCKING ADORABLE?? I watched wy too much Murder, She Wrote as a child, and know way too much about Angela Lansbury generally. Today's word of the day makes me har. Because I am four. I had an adventure! I was in New York! I FedExed something! I reminisce about one of my favoritest books ever, which you should all read. Free lunch today, served by hot guys. I also hear a really great awful joke, which you have to read to believe. It's probably better when I tell it in person, though. And now I have actual work to do. I KNOW SHOCKER.
@($*&%($*&%)$(*&%)#$$@^(&%#@%^
I can't believe Pandora is playing me a song by Mr. Mister. What have I done to deserve this!??! Actually, it's not that bad. It's not that good, but it's Mr. Mister. Someone should give him an honorary Ph.D., so he can be Dr. Mr. Mister. Or better yet a doctorate of divinity, so that he can be Rev. Dr. Mr. Mister. And then he and Martin Luther King can get together and talk about bitches and hos, and King can taunt Mister about the fact that he doesn't have a national holiday and Mister can cry lonely impotent tears. So. Someone get on that. Thanks.
So! My dad got a scanner for his birthday, which has been greatly amusing for everyone. Mostly for me, because apparently this is a scanner that is well suited to scanning pictures on slide film, which my father used extensively up until about the time that my sister was born. So mostly he's been going through and scanning pictures of ME!!! ages 0 - 2 or so. For example, see the new default icon! Yes, my literary mastery was evident even at a very young age. AREN'T I JUST THE CUTEST?!? Looking at that picture, though, puts the theme song to Murder, She Wrote in my head. indydc and I were just talking about that show last night. His theory is that Jessica Fletcher did them all. The show, after all, was on for like 8 seasons, which means there were something like 150 murders (HOLY CRAP, according to IMDB it was on for twelve years, so that's well north of 200 murders--more than 260, if you assume an average of one death per episode--which is probably more than Maine actually sees in twelve years), and all of them only occurred when she was around. She must also have been a master hypnotist, as all the people she accused then confessed. It's awesome how criminals don't understand the justice system in Maine. I disagree, though--I think that Murder, She Wrote is more like Scooby Doo for grown-ups. Well, okay, since it was on CBS in the late 80s and early 90s, way grown-ups. Think about it! Here comes the heroine, kind of accidentally into a situation which the good-natured yet hapless (is it possible for someone to be hapful? I'm totally going to use this word from now on) sherriff is way out of his depth (as are most puddles, but that's neither here nor there) even though there are only TWO POSSIBLE SUSPECTS and one of them is a crippled 80 year-old woman and the other is this shady guy that no one's ever seen before and the victim is a 30 year-old former Olympic gymnast who know Jessica personally and SURPRISE it's totally the old lady because the shady guy is an undercover cop who is really shitty at his job and the old lady is actually the bionic old lady and she would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids who, in this case, are played by Angela Lansbury. Who was nominated for like ten million Emmys for this show but never won. Which is okay because if she had really wanted one should could totally have substitutiarily locomoted all of them right into her effing purse, so that's why I didn't win one, okay?! I HAVE FOUR TONYS!!! TALE AS OLD AS TIME!!! Oh, fuck you all.
Okay, I know I'm a little bit obsessed with Bedknobs and Broomsticks and it is an awesome movie, and all, but I was just looking at the thing in German? And the name literally translates as "The Daring Witch and her Flying Bed." And if that didn't generate excitement on par with "Snakes on a Plane" then the Germans simply have no souls. Also because I didn't know the word "daring" I went to dictionary.com to look it up, and guess what their word of the day is? (For posterity, and those of you who don't get to this today, it's this.
HI I AM FOUR OKAY
I had an adventure yesterday! With THRILLS and CHILLS and SPILLS and HILLS and QUILLS and all of those except the last one. And the first three.
So I am sitting at work and it is 11:00 or so and my manager (whose last day is tomorrow! WAH!!!) walks in and says, "What are you doing this afternoon?" And I was like, uh, why? See, there are these documents. Documents that need to be served on these two people! In person! Today! Otherwise the statute of limitations tolls! Oh and also, THEY LIVE IN MANHATTAN. Can you go? Um, YES. YAY FIELD TRIP!!! So we finally got authorization from the client to send me at about 2:00. I get out the door here at a little after 2:30, in time to make the 4:00 US Air Shuttle, which I've been booked on. I call like four people and am all GUESS WHERE I AM?!? I call my sister, too, in case there's time to meet up for dinner. The flight is nice if a bit bumpy, and I get out of LaGuardia at 5:30. Cab it all the way to East 83rd Street at Lexington, which is where these people live. (Remember like a million years ago when I was talking about those people who were bankrupt because they'd spent like $350,000 decorating their condo in Miami? It's these people. I don't know if it's gotten to their attention that they're bankrupt, because this is a fairly nice building, but whatever.) The very nice doorman opens to door for me, and I'm all, Hi! I have these documents to serve on two of your residents! And he tells me they're out of town. Hmm. Well, I can just slip them under their door? Or leave it in their mailboxes? Leave them with you? (They were jsut documents, not process, so I didn't need to hand it to them personally; I just had to leave it in a place where it would come to their attention as soon as possible.) No, no, no. Hey, he was just doing his job, and if my building had a doorman I would totally expect him to do the same for me (why does the doorman thing only exist in New York? Or does it happen in other places, too? Like, a doorman is like a thing in New York. They know who you are and they do things for you besides hold packages, which is all that doormen seem to do here). So it's cool. I call the home office. GET THIS: They tell me to walk five blocks down Lex to a FedEx, and send it first morning delivery. FROM MANHATTAN. Yes, instead of spending $45 to Super-whammy express mail it overnight from Washington, they spent ($310 plane ticket, $116 petty cash for cabs, tips, meal, tolls, plus some indeterminate amount for my own salary, some of it OT) about $600, plus that same $45 to have me Super-whammy express mail it overnight from FIVE BLOCKS AWAY IN MANHATTAN. Oh, man, it was awesome. (Like, seriously, despite all the insanity that was this day, I was out of the office and I generally like travelling--especially when I'm being paid to do it--I was in a great mood all day, even to the point of saying things like "Have a good day!" to cab drivers which is so not normally how I am, but must have been a dead give-away to basically everyone around that I was not a New York resident.) By this time it's like 6:30, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to get from 78th (where I now am) to LaGuardia or if I'll have enough time for dinner in town because the last Shuttle flight out of LaGuardia is at 9:00 and I certainly won't be able to meet with my sister who would basically have had to meet me at the place I was serving the documents (or, trying to) and so I said, well, fuck it, and got back in the cab to LaGuardia and actually made the 8:00 Shuttle (which was painted with the PSA Livery, smile included, which I thought was TOTALLY HOTT, because PSA is the first airline I ever remember flying on--we took it to Disneyland when I was like six or so. We took United to Connecticut when I was like two, but I have no recollection of this at all, although I do somewhere still have the captain's wings they gave me) which got me home at 9:30ish, and as I walk in, jgesteve says:
"You just getting in from work?"
"Well, sort of."
And that was my adventure!
So, Sorry, all you Manhattanites and other New York-types, that I didn't get to hang out with you all. I didn't have very much time (although more than I expected) to do anything, and anyway I looked like hell. But! I did get out of the office, and I did have was was basically a 12-hour workday, so it was a total blast and I get paid for it, when mostly what I did was read my book and listen to my iPod.
After I caught my breath a bit I went downstairs to hang with indydc, who was watching To Kill a Mockingbird. I'd never seen the movie (and in fact I came in with about 15 minutes left in the movie, so I still haven't really), but I've read the book four times, the first being when I got a copy from my (recently deceased) grandmother for Christmas when I was in fourth grade. Oh, great, a book for Christmas. SNORE!!! But then I actually read it, and it was immediately my favorite, which it remained for a long time. It's still in my top five favorite books of all time. Watching it, I realized how much I remembered--but also how much I'd forgotten, and that I probably hadn't read it in about fifteen years. Which made me feel really old. Well, having had a lot of time on my hands that day to read (FOR SOME REASON) I'd just finished the book I had been reading, so this morning as I was heading out the door I picked up the copy that my grandmother had given me. It seemed appropriate. I'm appreciating the writing this time in a way I know I didn't before. It's just great. I have an extra copy of it on my shelf, and no idea why, if one of you wants to join me in (re-)reading it.
Free lunch at work today, in honor of the new baseball season. Two of the three food dudes people had that total dirty look going on and were totally hot. NO I DIDN'T GO AFTER ANY OF THEM. But I did eat my weight in hot dogs and popcorn. Too bad they didn't have beer. Stupid work rules. Also there was Cracker-Jack and my prize was pretty crap but it came in a little booklet that had a joke in it that's PRETTY DAMN CLOSE to the best joke ever told (it's no brown and sticky, but it's pretty close!):
Why do sharks only swim in salt water?
BECAUSE PEPPER WATER MAKES THEM SNEEZE!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Yes, my coworkers and I seriously laughed inappropriately long and loud at that one.
Britney Spears has a version of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll"? Ew. Don't get me wrong, I like the Brit, but that seems like...well, sacrelige.
Okay, by missing half a day yesterday some actual work piled up and I have actual things to do. It sucks. But I suppose I should actually like, do them. BOO. Only two weeks left in the curling season. BOO. Ghosts make this noise. BOO.
On the other hand, it finally feels like summer's on its way. YAY!
Mr. Mister should have an honorary degree. AREN'T I FUCKING ADORABLE?? I watched wy too much Murder, She Wrote as a child, and know way too much about Angela Lansbury generally. Today's word of the day makes me har. Because I am four. I had an adventure! I was in New York! I FedExed something! I reminisce about one of my favoritest books ever, which you should all read. Free lunch today, served by hot guys. I also hear a really great awful joke, which you have to read to believe. It's probably better when I tell it in person, though. And now I have actual work to do. I KNOW SHOCKER.
@($*&%($*&%)$(*&%)#$$@^(&%#@%^
I can't believe Pandora is playing me a song by Mr. Mister. What have I done to deserve this!??! Actually, it's not that bad. It's not that good, but it's Mr. Mister. Someone should give him an honorary Ph.D., so he can be Dr. Mr. Mister. Or better yet a doctorate of divinity, so that he can be Rev. Dr. Mr. Mister. And then he and Martin Luther King can get together and talk about bitches and hos, and King can taunt Mister about the fact that he doesn't have a national holiday and Mister can cry lonely impotent tears. So. Someone get on that. Thanks.
So! My dad got a scanner for his birthday, which has been greatly amusing for everyone. Mostly for me, because apparently this is a scanner that is well suited to scanning pictures on slide film, which my father used extensively up until about the time that my sister was born. So mostly he's been going through and scanning pictures of ME!!! ages 0 - 2 or so. For example, see the new default icon! Yes, my literary mastery was evident even at a very young age. AREN'T I JUST THE CUTEST?!? Looking at that picture, though, puts the theme song to Murder, She Wrote in my head. indydc and I were just talking about that show last night. His theory is that Jessica Fletcher did them all. The show, after all, was on for like 8 seasons, which means there were something like 150 murders (HOLY CRAP, according to IMDB it was on for twelve years, so that's well north of 200 murders--more than 260, if you assume an average of one death per episode--which is probably more than Maine actually sees in twelve years), and all of them only occurred when she was around. She must also have been a master hypnotist, as all the people she accused then confessed. It's awesome how criminals don't understand the justice system in Maine. I disagree, though--I think that Murder, She Wrote is more like Scooby Doo for grown-ups. Well, okay, since it was on CBS in the late 80s and early 90s, way grown-ups. Think about it! Here comes the heroine, kind of accidentally into a situation which the good-natured yet hapless (is it possible for someone to be hapful? I'm totally going to use this word from now on) sherriff is way out of his depth (as are most puddles, but that's neither here nor there) even though there are only TWO POSSIBLE SUSPECTS and one of them is a crippled 80 year-old woman and the other is this shady guy that no one's ever seen before and the victim is a 30 year-old former Olympic gymnast who know Jessica personally and SURPRISE it's totally the old lady because the shady guy is an undercover cop who is really shitty at his job and the old lady is actually the bionic old lady and she would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids who, in this case, are played by Angela Lansbury. Who was nominated for like ten million Emmys for this show but never won. Which is okay because if she had really wanted one should could totally have substitutiarily locomoted all of them right into her effing purse, so that's why I didn't win one, okay?! I HAVE FOUR TONYS!!! TALE AS OLD AS TIME!!! Oh, fuck you all.
Okay, I know I'm a little bit obsessed with Bedknobs and Broomsticks and it is an awesome movie, and all, but I was just looking at the thing in German? And the name literally translates as "The Daring Witch and her Flying Bed." And if that didn't generate excitement on par with "Snakes on a Plane" then the Germans simply have no souls. Also because I didn't know the word "daring" I went to dictionary.com to look it up, and guess what their word of the day is? (For posterity, and those of you who don't get to this today, it's this.
HI I AM FOUR OKAY
I had an adventure yesterday! With THRILLS and CHILLS and SPILLS and HILLS and QUILLS and all of those except the last one. And the first three.
So I am sitting at work and it is 11:00 or so and my manager (whose last day is tomorrow! WAH!!!) walks in and says, "What are you doing this afternoon?" And I was like, uh, why? See, there are these documents. Documents that need to be served on these two people! In person! Today! Otherwise the statute of limitations tolls! Oh and also, THEY LIVE IN MANHATTAN. Can you go? Um, YES. YAY FIELD TRIP!!! So we finally got authorization from the client to send me at about 2:00. I get out the door here at a little after 2:30, in time to make the 4:00 US Air Shuttle, which I've been booked on. I call like four people and am all GUESS WHERE I AM?!? I call my sister, too, in case there's time to meet up for dinner. The flight is nice if a bit bumpy, and I get out of LaGuardia at 5:30. Cab it all the way to East 83rd Street at Lexington, which is where these people live. (Remember like a million years ago when I was talking about those people who were bankrupt because they'd spent like $350,000 decorating their condo in Miami? It's these people. I don't know if it's gotten to their attention that they're bankrupt, because this is a fairly nice building, but whatever.) The very nice doorman opens to door for me, and I'm all, Hi! I have these documents to serve on two of your residents! And he tells me they're out of town. Hmm. Well, I can just slip them under their door? Or leave it in their mailboxes? Leave them with you? (They were jsut documents, not process, so I didn't need to hand it to them personally; I just had to leave it in a place where it would come to their attention as soon as possible.) No, no, no. Hey, he was just doing his job, and if my building had a doorman I would totally expect him to do the same for me (why does the doorman thing only exist in New York? Or does it happen in other places, too? Like, a doorman is like a thing in New York. They know who you are and they do things for you besides hold packages, which is all that doormen seem to do here). So it's cool. I call the home office. GET THIS: They tell me to walk five blocks down Lex to a FedEx, and send it first morning delivery. FROM MANHATTAN. Yes, instead of spending $45 to Super-whammy express mail it overnight from Washington, they spent ($310 plane ticket, $116 petty cash for cabs, tips, meal, tolls, plus some indeterminate amount for my own salary, some of it OT) about $600, plus that same $45 to have me Super-whammy express mail it overnight from FIVE BLOCKS AWAY IN MANHATTAN. Oh, man, it was awesome. (Like, seriously, despite all the insanity that was this day, I was out of the office and I generally like travelling--especially when I'm being paid to do it--I was in a great mood all day, even to the point of saying things like "Have a good day!" to cab drivers which is so not normally how I am, but must have been a dead give-away to basically everyone around that I was not a New York resident.) By this time it's like 6:30, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to get from 78th (where I now am) to LaGuardia or if I'll have enough time for dinner in town because the last Shuttle flight out of LaGuardia is at 9:00 and I certainly won't be able to meet with my sister who would basically have had to meet me at the place I was serving the documents (or, trying to) and so I said, well, fuck it, and got back in the cab to LaGuardia and actually made the 8:00 Shuttle (which was painted with the PSA Livery, smile included, which I thought was TOTALLY HOTT, because PSA is the first airline I ever remember flying on--we took it to Disneyland when I was like six or so. We took United to Connecticut when I was like two, but I have no recollection of this at all, although I do somewhere still have the captain's wings they gave me) which got me home at 9:30ish, and as I walk in, jgesteve says:
"You just getting in from work?"
"Well, sort of."
And that was my adventure!
So, Sorry, all you Manhattanites and other New York-types, that I didn't get to hang out with you all. I didn't have very much time (although more than I expected) to do anything, and anyway I looked like hell. But! I did get out of the office, and I did have was was basically a 12-hour workday, so it was a total blast and I get paid for it, when mostly what I did was read my book and listen to my iPod.
After I caught my breath a bit I went downstairs to hang with indydc, who was watching To Kill a Mockingbird. I'd never seen the movie (and in fact I came in with about 15 minutes left in the movie, so I still haven't really), but I've read the book four times, the first being when I got a copy from my (recently deceased) grandmother for Christmas when I was in fourth grade. Oh, great, a book for Christmas. SNORE!!! But then I actually read it, and it was immediately my favorite, which it remained for a long time. It's still in my top five favorite books of all time. Watching it, I realized how much I remembered--but also how much I'd forgotten, and that I probably hadn't read it in about fifteen years. Which made me feel really old. Well, having had a lot of time on my hands that day to read (FOR SOME REASON) I'd just finished the book I had been reading, so this morning as I was heading out the door I picked up the copy that my grandmother had given me. It seemed appropriate. I'm appreciating the writing this time in a way I know I didn't before. It's just great. I have an extra copy of it on my shelf, and no idea why, if one of you wants to join me in (re-)reading it.
Free lunch at work today, in honor of the new baseball season. Two of the three food dudes people had that total dirty look going on and were totally hot. NO I DIDN'T GO AFTER ANY OF THEM. But I did eat my weight in hot dogs and popcorn. Too bad they didn't have beer. Stupid work rules. Also there was Cracker-Jack and my prize was pretty crap but it came in a little booklet that had a joke in it that's PRETTY DAMN CLOSE to the best joke ever told (it's no brown and sticky, but it's pretty close!):
Why do sharks only swim in salt water?
BECAUSE PEPPER WATER MAKES THEM SNEEZE!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Yes, my coworkers and I seriously laughed inappropriately long and loud at that one.
Britney Spears has a version of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll"? Ew. Don't get me wrong, I like the Brit, but that seems like...well, sacrelige.
Okay, by missing half a day yesterday some actual work piled up and I have actual things to do. It sucks. But I suppose I should actually like, do them. BOO. Only two weeks left in the curling season. BOO. Ghosts make this noise. BOO.
On the other hand, it finally feels like summer's on its way. YAY!