Sunday, December 13, 2009

Circle of Life

The Professor and I have started on a grand search to get a new cat. We've decided we definitely want another Bengal. Sultan was so wonderful and neurotic, and I know another Bengal will be neurotic in its own way, but I'm hoping it will be neurotically-related to Sultan. And so, for the first time since I wrote it, I went back and revisited the post I wrote about him when we had to put him to sleep. And unexpectedly, he was here again. I'm not a person who has to take their pet on trips, or dress them up (have you SEEN some of those cat outfits?!?!), or treat them as a baby in other ways (I laugh, derisively, at those people, truth be told - a cat is a CAT, for goodness sake!). But all of a sudden, the days after that one were HERE again: when I'd walk in the house and automatically look for 2 cats instead of one. When I would sit on the couch, ready to hear the sound of a cat not getting the attention He Deserved, and realize that He was gone. When I'd open the bag of food and not get attacked. It was surprisingly hard to read that post. I'm ready to be attacked again.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Bathroom Etiquette

Ok, y’all, it’s like the Fairies of Employment Fun are following me around these days. I am not even making this up: All of the women in my organization got an email today asking us to “check behind you when using the bathroom” because someone pooped on the toilet seat – and that this is the second time this has happened. Being the good employee that I am, I immediately forwarded the email to one of my male coworkers and asked him how often the men get emails like this. Apparently, they don't. I told him I pitied G, our building manager, for having to send that email. I can just picture G sitting there, staring at the email with the word “feces” jumping out of his screen at him, thinking “there’s nothing left to do but hit send. I really have to hit send, don’t I?.” The poor man. Every time I go to the bathroom at work I’m going to think about this email and giggle. And since we’ve never discussed my work bathrooms before (aren't you glad we're discussing them now?), I’ll tell you another fascinating tidbit: We have an old card catalog in the one of the women’s bathrooms. When they put it in there, I thought it was just going to be a place to store some feminine type supplies. But a few people are using it as an Atomic Event Readiness Reserve. There’s the toothbrush and hair brush, sure. But there’s also a jar of peanut butter, a juice box, bottle of water, cheese crackers, and several other type snacks in there. Who goes in the bathroom and thinks “Oh, look! Food storage!”?

Monday, December 07, 2009

I won't be falling asleep at work this week

Scene I: Last Monday, 5:45 AM: My cell phone rings. I’ve been on vacation for a week, so one of my employees calls me to let me know that we don’t have any heat at work, that the damage is bad but they have an estimated completion date: February. We’re on less than 50% of our boiler capacity for the entire building for 10 weeks, because the one boiler that is working isn’t working correctly. Time to break out the scarves & fingerless gloves. And the hot chocolate. And maybe the party supplies – parties always warm me up. Scene II: Tuesday, 7 AM: I’m at work and find out that my room is next in the Great Library Recarpeting Adventure of 2009. Nothing goes out of our room except for the old carpet. We’re just moving stuff around the room for the entire week like squirrels re-arranging their winter acorn supply, working around the guys. I would say “like deck chairs on the Titanic”, but no one has actually died (yet) from the fumes of A) the old glue under the old carpet, B) the new glue for the new carpet, and/or C) The disgusting sludge that mysteriously appeared in one spot when the old carpet was ripped out. Also, the tiny particles that have infiltrated my lungs make me wonder if I’ve just discovered what it’s like to breathe fiberglass, but I’m kind of afraid to find out the answer to that question, so I just keep those thoughts to myself. And another Also: can mold spores start growing in your lungs? Mold likes warm, damp places, so if I were mold, I think lungs would be a good place to make a home. Unless the fiberglass got there first and beat me up. Scene III: Thursday afternoon: Staring at my inbox, an encouraging email arrives. In a nutshell it says “We think you’re getting too complacent with how things are going this week, so while some work is being done in another part of the building, the power will randomly shut off and on starting Monday, expected to be finished in 2 weeks. This will affect the functioning of the fire alarm, causing you to want to rip out your ear drums. Have a nice weekend!” Scene IV: Today, Monday, 0730: I walk into the office. There’s no heat, the new carpet is 85% installed, my lungs remind me that they emptied themselves of mold & fiberglass over the weekend for a reason – namely, so I can breathe – and the power is out for half the hallway & 4 cubicles, and the fire alarm isn’t working correctly, it has in fact decided to amuse itself by randomly going off for 5-6 minutes at a time. My cubicle has power (Yay?) – but the email server, internet server & [Library Software You’ve Never Heard Of] server are all down. Meaning: No emailing, cataloging, book ordering, random internet surfing or other type of work will be done until at least one of them is back up and running. So, in things I'm grateful for this week: A) Dear Baby Jesus, I’m glad we lost heat in the winter rather than A/C in the summer; B) Did I mention our old carpet was oozing, so it was kinda fun to see what was underneath of there – especially since the oozing spot is on the far end of the room from me and I can yell “Hey, Sue! How’s your ooze today?” at random points in time; C) Everyone needs an interrupted power supply at some point to make them grateful to Al Gore for creating the Internets. The malfunctioning fire alarm – the bell for which resides on the wall over my cubicle – can go to hell, though.

Saturday, December 05, 2009

It's like that time that I thought I was dying from food poisoning. Only worse.

It was an eventful week at work (nothing bad, just lots of crazy), culminating in a late Friday night snow shower that disappeared before I woke up this morning - which, admittedly, was a little later than anyone wanting to see snow should have been in bed. But all of this is meaningless, in light of what happened to me at the mechanic this morning. Mike wasn't there. I called a few days ago to let him know to order the Top-Secret-Super-Special Oil that my Prius takes. Everything seemed fine. Normal. He didn't ask to take today off, didn't tell me that he was putting some unknown woman behind the desk to take the key out of my hand. I walked in and was immediately confused and unsure. It took me a long time to find Mike. I'm not ready to break up with him yet. Oh, the pain! Oh my breaking heart! So my car is in the hands of someone named Lora. A nice woman, sure, with a great smile. She's still learning the computer system, so it took awhile. That didn't bother me, because I was frantically peering through the window into the shop, scanning to see if Mike was halfway under a hood or fondling someone else's engine. (Oddly enough, no one found a woman staring at a garage full of mechanics note worthy. Have I not been following protocol all the times that I *didn't* ogle the men?). Luckily for my nerves one of the mechanics was with her. Somehow* he knew who I was, knew about the Top-Secret-Super-Special Oil that my Prius takes and that it had been ordered this week, knew that I wasn't going to stay in the waiting room. He knew my routine. He remembered my old car. He's not Mike. But he'll do. For now. *It's the cookies. It seems I always go in there in December, so I usually bring them cookies when I pick my car up. Everyone deserves cookies in December. Especially if you're working on my car. Not-Mike is definitely getting cookies today. I can't take any chances right now, with Mike gone. My heart is too fragile. Update: Oh Noes! They finished with my car in record time - 1 hour instead of 3-4, so I didn't have time to bake them cookies. I'm getting a bad-car-karma feeling in my stomach that exactly matches the pain in my heart over Mike's defection.