Puppy Love

Another weekend almost over.  Sigh.  Good news, though - I slept plenty, had lots of fun and got to go to a great party.

At the party, one of the guests brought his four year old kid, and she was not especially well-behaved, nor was Dad paying much attention.  She ended up with her grubby hands all over the cheese that we'd laid out for the burgers.  Yeah, I don't love kids.  We've established that, yes?

Now, on the other hand, my hostess' newest edition, an eight week old French Bulldog puppy named Beau, was sweet as pie.

Here he and I are, sharing a moment...

He looks like The Brain from Pinky and The Brain.  Love him.

And tomorrow, it's once more into the fray.  I think it'll be a good week.  My boss won't be there, which is a bummer, but we'll be making room for a new colleague - one that has my dubious seal of approval.  He seems like a good guy - he fosters dogs from the Music City Pug Rescue.  He has one now named Mimi.  He bought her a hat off Etsy.com.  I think we have a winner.

Life is pretty good.  I have a few little things nagging at me - but the good news is that life is 20% what happens to you and 80% the way you deal with it.

And that, my friends, is all that I can say for now.

Keep your puppies close.

ae

No, no...here's why you're a bad person...

We received an e mail this afternoon from our office manager:

All,

If you are one of the many who use the workout room please remember that there is another floor beneath us who have employees trying to work. The Property Manager reached out to me today saying she has had numerous complaints about the noise coming from our floor (mostly around lunch time) that sounds like someone is dropping something really heavy on the floor. This is a disturbance to those trying to work on the 3^rd floor.

In the future please be considerate of the company below us and put your weights down easier so the sound doesn’t carry to the below us.

The weights should never be dropped/thrown to the floor for any reason. If you cannot put them down softly you may want to think about lifting lighter weights.

Thank you

Sally Friendly* | Office Manager

* Name changed to protect the innocent.

I replied to my nearest and dearest with the following: 

Is anyone else surprised that people from the 3^rd floor could positively identify what noises coming from a workout room sounded like?

Have you seen these people?  They get on the elevator at the second floor with a cup of coffee and a muffin the size of a newborn baby, sweating and out of breath and they heave themselves off the elevator onto the 3^rd floor.  Sure, they’re wearing sweatpants, but only for the elastic waist and not for their lunchtime jog.

I recognize that I didn’t make the cover of SI’s Swimsuit issue again this year, but compared to these mouth breathers, I’m Jane Fonda circa 1982.

 

The only thing heavy they’ve ever dropped on the floor is their lunch box.

I’m just saying.

And that's why I'm a bad person.  Although, I've gotten a few "amen"s in reply.

Sign of the times

Ok, so I’m about to head to Weight Watchers, where I believe that everything that went up last week will go down this week.  That’s the hope.

They (the Weight Watchers peeps) recommend a Tool for Living™ called “Storyboarding” where you build out the comic strip that is your success story.  I may need to do that.

I’ve said this before, but I believe it now as much as ever.  Weight Watchers’ biggest failing, if you can call it that, is their inability to successfully address the emotional baggage causing people to eat beyond a point of satiety.  I don’t have an answer to this conundrum.  

I just keep showing up.  It seems to kind of work.

Meanwhile, it’s been a slow week, in that it’s been kind of busy with contract, paperwork, getting my expenses squared away… all good and necessary things.

But it makes time drag.

Big party at Natae’s this weekend.  Need to remember that storyboard when I want to reach for a slice or spoonful of something yummy.

Slivers turn into slices, slices into slabs and slabs make you a slob.

See, that’s the WW core competency – twee sayings that make you feel bad.

And make you want to eat.

And with that, I think I’ll head out and find out what the scale tells me.

The scale tells you how you did this week – the meeting will tell you how you’ll do next week.  Stay for the meeting, you’ll be glad you did.

That’s the sign in the bathroom at my meeting center.

Sigh.  I may be in a rut.  Or OCD.

Or both!

ae

Adventures on Planet XY

So, I went back to Tribe, Nashville's ne plus ultra of Gay Bardom with friends over the weekend.  Matt was out of town, so I didn't feel like I was neglecting him.  Which is good, because I didn't get home til 2:15 AM.

First, we met for dinner, a chic little place near Vanderbilt called Rumba known for it's fancy rum drinks (Rumba, rum drinks....get it?) and small plates.  I had some goat cheese stuffed peppadew peppers and some chicken satay, along with a guava nectar champagne punch.  Amazing.

After dinner, we headed to Tribe where there were go-go dancers.  Four guys in very tight, revealing underwear, standing on stage, shaking it.  One dancer in particular had plenty of "it" to shake.  I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor.  I may look worldly, but aw shucks, Ah'm jest a simple country girl...

Yeah, so this guy, who we'll call Rod, wore a neon yellow pair of briefs (and they were brief), and had serious junk.  Not a large penis, per se, but huge balls.  And they were blowin' in the wind.  I could not take my eyes off of them.

Not to scale.  But pretty damn close.

No, wait - I totally could.  Because the place was overflowing with all shapes and sizes of eye-candy.

Does it make me a bad feminist because I was objectifying all these men?

Yes?

What if I say I was trying to play wingwoman for the single members of my party?

Yeah, I know - I'm still bad news.

Anyway - the music was hot, the scenery was pleasant, and the company was excellent as always.

At one point, I split off to hit the ladies' room.  There were three doors - Men, Boys and Girl (the s appeared to have been removed).  When I got back, they asked me if there were guys in the loo with me.  There weren't.  Now, the next time I went back, there were.   In fact, three guys in drag asked me to take their picture.  Two of them looked amazing - the one in thigh high hooker boots and the one dressed as a geisha. The third guy had on a dress, but no wig, no makeup and a full beard.  He may not have gotten the memo.

Today, I asked my friend about the two restrooms - one for boys, one for men.  Turns out they're the same bathroom with two different doors.  He had never noticed they were marked differently.

And I guess that's where I'm coming from with my post.  The beauty of being exposed to things you don't see every day is that you notice the details more.  

And of course, it's interesting to people watch.  I don't want to sound all Gorillas in the Mist here - because it's not like I'm trying to infiltrate the culture and write a sociology textbook.  It's just that I enjoy going out, I like the company of the people I'm with, and I think Tribe is a kickin' bar.  I loved Manuel's in Atlanta.  I enjoyed The Globe in Athens... none of them have anything in common but a liquor license.

Ok, one last thing about Tribe and then I'll let it go.  They have showtunes from 5-10 every Sunday.  I might go hang there one day and have a few drinks and listen to their DJ spin it.

This might be the most awesome thing ever.

Since tomorrow is Mardi Gras, I'm stopping on the way in at Publix to pick up King's Cake.  I'll probably also wear the beads I got Saturday night.

Laissez les bon temps...

ConText...

I received a text from my friend Natae yesterday containing a picture that she'd taken the night before at Loser's -  a bar we all went to in celebration of our friend Candice's last day at our company.

Here's the image:

I'd like to think my friend is smiling in appreciation of my goods, but we were actually making fun of someone who wasn't there that night by throwing Captain Morgan poses.  It's a long story.  Just trust me - he didn't even see them.

What she wrote was - "Your tits are amazing.  That is all."

So first I called to thank her for making my day.  Because, she has a point.  Looking good!  What's my secret?  Well,  I'd have to say PMS + Cacique's Balconette bra, + Genetics + a lowcut top I bought for $3.49 at the Goodwill.  Boom!

My next thought was, now, how do I "accidentally" send this to everyone in my phone distro list and make it look like an "Oh, how embarrassing!"?

At which point, I thought, screw it - this is going on Facebook (which means that a few people will be missing it - need to talk to Natae about leaking it to a few of our non-FB friends).

The response has been positive.

Late last night after we left the bar (which was really awesome, but I'll spare details),  I got a text from my friend Jim in which he said I was "the bomb".   Again - he has a point.

I'm a personable sort - I like people, I like to connect - so texting isn't really my medium, but they were both just what I needed when I needed them.  So I'm willing to become a woman of 2012.

But now, I'm going to forward the text from Natae to my husband - because he's out of town working, and I want him to know what he has to come home to.

That is all.

ae

Honey, don't.

So, one of the myriad things you may not know about me is that I live in an older house.  It was built in 1930.  As such, it's Quirky (note the capital Q).  And I'm learning that there's a difference in Built in 1970s Quirky and Built 1930s Quirky.  

Now, as a kid, I was never tasked with some of the major repair work or upkeep because my father was proficient, my mother was proficient and I was inept.  That's just the state of things. I could handle a broom, but not a paint brush.  A bucket of soapy water, but not a hammer.  It's fine.  It's fine.

Now that I'm all grown up, I'm having to learn some skills.

I was having a conversation with a colleague at work the other day.  He had assisted a mutual friend in installing a tile backsplash in her kitchen and I was asking him questions - intelligent ones about backer board and what not.  I like to think he was impressed.  I explained that Matt had tiled our master bath, while I ran and got things.  I explained that I was not gifted in using tools, measuring, or anything that required spatial reasoning skills.

I remember reading a David Sedaris piece where his partner basically said what David was good at was naming stuffed animals.  I totally get that.

But, I was explaining to this colleague that I was a self-sufficient woman.  I told him that while Matt was on business once, I wet vacced the flooded basement out for an entire day.  True story...the Nashville Flood of 2010, look it up.  I'm also good at disposing of dead animals.   I can open my own jars.  I'm not afraid of spiders, and I know to call 911 if the grill appears to be shooting flame out of the propane tank.

Where I'm going with this is that Matt's out of town this weekend, and yesterday, as I was getting ready for work, I heard this pop/crash noise.  A light bulb in the fixture had exploded and shattered.

Well, I had an 8AM training class, so I turned off the light, stepped around the glass and went to work.

This morning, I got the threaded, shardy bit of leftover bulb and unscrewed it from the socket.  I also swept up the glass.  Because, no I can't tile a backsplash, but I can unscrew a lightbulb.  No, I didn't use a potato.  I used rubber handled needle nosed pliers.  And I'm fine.

I'm kind of thinking I might hit up Home Depot this morning, buy a small can of paint and start redoing some of the trim around doors and baseboards - it's looking a little dinged and flaked-off.

Alternately, I could stop kidding myself, get a bucket of soapy water and wipe down all the baseboards, which really need it.

Regardless, in an hour I'm leaving to get my hair done, then tonight, I'm going out with friends for dinner and drinks.  Well dinner for me - I'm driving, so drinks for them.

That's kinda got me stoked.  What woman doesn't like to get pretty hair then take it out for a spin and get appreciated.

Because my dead animal disposal skills are only going to take me so far.  It's my nice rack that's going to seal the deal.  And by that, I mean the rack I bought at the Container Store that holds all our sandwich bags, parchment paper, tin foil, etc.

You should see how I mounted my rack...

Sickos.

ae

Matrix, matrices, metrics.

So, we have a customer in house for training.  He started by telling the two salespeeps how impressed he was with my mad skillz (not in those exact words) time we trained.

Which, to give you a recap, was over a year ago.  We were in a group session the day before the first User Conference, and this crazy bitch showed her ass in front of about two dozen other customers and left me with my mouth hanging open.  We all know I'm not speechless often.

She stormed out of the room, and this customer's colleague (a sweet grandmotherly type) who was with him, reaches over pats my hand and says, "I don't think she was very nice..."

Understatement of the century.

Anyway - he came back, and we had one of those great days in work history where you just think, "Son of a bitch, I must be doing something right".  Those are lyrics from a great song called Climbing Uphill from the amazing OCR of The Last Five Years... which is an off Broadway musical that I have never seen, but love anyway.

Sherie Rene Scott and Norbert Leo Butz... listen up, and get schooled:

Shit, now that I think of it - the song that line is from is Summer in Ohio.

Either way, this gal has pipes.  She's also pretty.

And I have mad trainer skillz.  And I'm cute.  Yaaay.

The weekend is fast approaching - I have no real plans, but I am thinking of getting a keratin treatment.

Because if you can't blow money on yourself, who can you blow money on?

Well, anyone, but that's not the point.

Anyway.

Want to hear another great showtune? 

(say yes, say yes):

Enough.  Go play outside and get some fresh air for heaven's sake!

ae