I was getting sick of the blue and orange (I'm not really an orange kind of girl), so here's the new look.
Enjoy.
Monday, June 28, 2004
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Seven Children, a Dog, and a Guitar
The night my parents sat my sister and me down in our living room and explained to us that Mommy was going to have a baby, I imagined a baby doll waiting in the garage for us. I waited patiently, and then expectantly as they explained that soon we would have a little brother or sister. Neither of us spoke, and at the time I assumed Tara was waiting with diminishing patience, as I was, for one of them to go out to the car and bring the baby in. Of course, Tara was only three at the time, and since it took her close to a year to even realize she had a brother once he arrived, it is more probable she was watching Sesame Street in her head or pretending she was a puppy. I, on the other hand, remember a distinct feeling of confusion when I realized that not only was there no doll, we wouldn’t even get the baby for months.
Talk about a let down.
The months leading up to my brother’s birth were a little more eventful, however, than I would have at first expected. Nearly every night we discussed possible names before my parents finally agreed on Holly for a girl, Brennan for a boy. I was not-so-secretly praying for a brother, not being all that impressed with the sister I already had.
When the call came from the hospital, and Sandi, our baby-sitter and best friend’s mom, informed me that I had a baby brother, I congratulated God on his listening skills. A slideshow of images appears in my head every time I think of those days: the dark pink, wrinkled face of my new baby brother, only a day old as he sat on the laps of his older sisters; watching my mom make room for Tara on her hospital bed when Tara insisted she had to rest; my grandparents in the oversized hospital gowns. But what I remember mostly are the ribbons my grandparents gave Tara and me the day Brennan was born. They looked like pink and blue lace but were stretchy, and we were extraordinarily pleased with them. Our high-school baby-sitter French-braided our hair with them to celebrate, and it was understood, at least between Tara and me, that this was the real treat, and not be confused with the gift of human life. On the way home from visiting the hospital, our car broke down and my dad walked us to a nearby house where we hitched a ride the remaining four miles home. Tara and I cried like it was the end of the world. Some might argue the excitement and stress of a new baby brother, Mom away from home, and all that extended family around had worn us out, but four miles can be a long and scary distance. I was excited about having a new brother, but his birth just didn’t stack up to everything his older, worldlier sisters were going through at the time of his birth.
By the end of my kindergarten year, only a month after his birth, all that had changed. Not only was I enamored with Brennan, I wanted another one. “But Mom,” I rationalized, “we have two girls and one boy. We need another boy to even things out.” Some days I felt a sister might be good. “Mom,” I tried persuasively, “if we have another girl, then when I leave for college, you’ll still have two girls and a boy. Nothing will change.” Hardly foolproof logic, but it didn’t matter because Mom was having none of it.
I was nine years old when my mother wrote a rap for each of us kids to perform on tape. Immortalized forever in my pink and white tie-dyed, hello 1991 T-shirt and matching stretch pants is me rapping, “I love my mom and dad, and I love my baby brother. I always tell my mom she needs to have another.” So she is aware that I want another one, I remember thinking. It will happen eventually.
By the time Brennan was five, my best friend’s mom was up to her fourth child. “But Mom, Sandi has four kids. Don’t you want her new baby to have someone to play with?” “Her new baby can play with Brennan,” she’d say distractedly, while folding laundry or cleaning up spills. I’d get pouty and leave in a huff, the star in my own movie about a misunderstood, underloved girl. “All she wanted was someone to love,” I imagined my audience saying. Never mind the sister and brother she already had.
Shortly after this time, I gave up on the dream of having another sibling and moved onto my next great plan. Every Friday night, Tara and I would beg our mother to let us have a friend—any friend—over to spend the night. She had plenty of reasons why we couldn’t: the house is too small or if you have one, then I’ll have to let your sister have one. The reasons went on and on, but without question, the most irritating one was, “Girls, for crying out loud, I spend all week in a small, overheated room teaching to eighth and ninth graders. The last thing I want to do at the end of the week is come home to a houseful of other people’s children.” This seemed horrendously unfair. Why should Tara and I have to suffer because other people’s children were obnoxious?? Why should we have to suffer because our mother had chosen a career that involved children? When asked, my mother would respond as she finished making dinner, “Why don’t you become a teacher, and then you’ll know.” Well, I informed her coldly, you lose, because guess what?
“I said, GUESS WHAT?”
“All right,” she’d sigh resignedly. “What?”
“I’m never becoming a teacher. Yeah, you heard me. If the result of teaching is that you don’t want kids around, I’m never doing it.”
As any educator will understand, this seemed to brighten her spirits rather than diminish them. And the result of all our whining was that the One Per Season Rule went into effect. “You may each have one friend a season. You can choose whoever you want, whenever you want, but don’t come whining to me two weeks after you had someone, cause it’ll be your own fault you used up your season.”
The ‘whoever we wanted, whenever we wanted’ part sounded just fine, but once a season? Tara and I looked at each other and scowled. One per season? That meant only four times a year. We turned the scowls on our mother who sighed the sigh of the truly weary. “Take it or leave it.”
We took it. It’s not like it was really a step down.
The result of this was that I routinely began to live in a dream world. Whereas up to this point, I could never understand why Tara’s habit of insisting we acknowledge she was—despite all evidence to the contrary—a dog, I slowly began to understand that when life hands you a lemon, well, you just gotta get on all fours and pretend that lemons were dog food.
“My name is Leisl,” I said, “and this is my brother, Kurt. Are you here to talk to our mother, Maria? She’s down the hall playing the guitar and singing about her favorite things. Oh look, here is my sister Louisa.”
But Tara was having none of it. “I’m not playing. I’ll only play if I can be the dog.”
“Tara, the von Trapps did not have any dogs.”
“Then I can’t play. I’m a dog.”
“Unh! Why do you have to ruin everything? Just be Louisa for a little while!”
“Woof,” she said matter-of-factly before settling on the floor with her head on her paw to rest.
I sighed, torn between my desire to be the von Trapp family and the reality that, like it or not, we were already short four members. Up to this point, I kept telling myself that four members could be overlooked. After all, my mom really did enjoy singing and playing the guitar, and probably would have agreed immediately to be Maria. My father flat-out refused to even acknowledge the game, calling me Erica despite my efforts to legally change my name to Leisl Michelle von Trapp (Leisl’s middle name was never shared with the general public, therefore, I decided just to keep my own—I liked it and it was so much fun to write in cursive). Refusing to do anything fun wasn’t such a far cry from Captain von Trapp, so I figured my father passed inspection. I’d put on my mother’s dress clothes and mope around the house, pretending he had given orders that under no circumstances were we to have play clothes.
So being short four members wasn’t really a problem, because we so obviously made up for what we lacked. We were, I was convinced, the von Trapps incarnate. It was only my mother’s steady refusal to produce any more offspring and my sister’s insistence that she was a dog that was keeping the rest of the world from knowing it too.
“Woof,” Tara repeated stubbornly.
I stomped my foot impatiently. The von Trapps did not have a dog; they had guitars and fun uncles. This wouldn’t be a problem if Brennan had wanted to the dog. Brennan had never seen The Sound of Music and so was resigned to the lowly role of Kurt, who had barely any lines, and was really only there so that Freidrich wouldn’t get lonely. But Tara knew the lines and, more importantly, knew the songs. She knew exactly when to stop back and let Leisl have her solos. Tara understood that Leisl was the oldest and prettiest and therefore the most important.
Louisa was manipulative and liked to crawl into normal people’s bedrooms with whole jars of spiders in her hands. Tara was perfect for Louisa and if she couldn’t see that …
“What if Louisa is a girl who thinks she’s a dog?”
Tara chewed on that. “Can I bark whenever I want?”
“I guess.”
“Can I have a solo?”
“What do you want to sing?”
“I don’t want to sing, I want to bark.”
It was shortly after this when I began wondering exactly how old Leisl was when she ran off to the hills that were alive with the sound of music to live alone. I slipped deeper and deeper into my dream world, until …
“That girl? That girl pretending she’s a dog? No, that’s not my sister. In fact, I don’t have any sisters. Or brothers. I’m an only child.”
Talk about a let down.
The months leading up to my brother’s birth were a little more eventful, however, than I would have at first expected. Nearly every night we discussed possible names before my parents finally agreed on Holly for a girl, Brennan for a boy. I was not-so-secretly praying for a brother, not being all that impressed with the sister I already had.
When the call came from the hospital, and Sandi, our baby-sitter and best friend’s mom, informed me that I had a baby brother, I congratulated God on his listening skills. A slideshow of images appears in my head every time I think of those days: the dark pink, wrinkled face of my new baby brother, only a day old as he sat on the laps of his older sisters; watching my mom make room for Tara on her hospital bed when Tara insisted she had to rest; my grandparents in the oversized hospital gowns. But what I remember mostly are the ribbons my grandparents gave Tara and me the day Brennan was born. They looked like pink and blue lace but were stretchy, and we were extraordinarily pleased with them. Our high-school baby-sitter French-braided our hair with them to celebrate, and it was understood, at least between Tara and me, that this was the real treat, and not be confused with the gift of human life. On the way home from visiting the hospital, our car broke down and my dad walked us to a nearby house where we hitched a ride the remaining four miles home. Tara and I cried like it was the end of the world. Some might argue the excitement and stress of a new baby brother, Mom away from home, and all that extended family around had worn us out, but four miles can be a long and scary distance. I was excited about having a new brother, but his birth just didn’t stack up to everything his older, worldlier sisters were going through at the time of his birth.
By the end of my kindergarten year, only a month after his birth, all that had changed. Not only was I enamored with Brennan, I wanted another one. “But Mom,” I rationalized, “we have two girls and one boy. We need another boy to even things out.” Some days I felt a sister might be good. “Mom,” I tried persuasively, “if we have another girl, then when I leave for college, you’ll still have two girls and a boy. Nothing will change.” Hardly foolproof logic, but it didn’t matter because Mom was having none of it.
I was nine years old when my mother wrote a rap for each of us kids to perform on tape. Immortalized forever in my pink and white tie-dyed, hello 1991 T-shirt and matching stretch pants is me rapping, “I love my mom and dad, and I love my baby brother. I always tell my mom she needs to have another.” So she is aware that I want another one, I remember thinking. It will happen eventually.
By the time Brennan was five, my best friend’s mom was up to her fourth child. “But Mom, Sandi has four kids. Don’t you want her new baby to have someone to play with?” “Her new baby can play with Brennan,” she’d say distractedly, while folding laundry or cleaning up spills. I’d get pouty and leave in a huff, the star in my own movie about a misunderstood, underloved girl. “All she wanted was someone to love,” I imagined my audience saying. Never mind the sister and brother she already had.
Shortly after this time, I gave up on the dream of having another sibling and moved onto my next great plan. Every Friday night, Tara and I would beg our mother to let us have a friend—any friend—over to spend the night. She had plenty of reasons why we couldn’t: the house is too small or if you have one, then I’ll have to let your sister have one. The reasons went on and on, but without question, the most irritating one was, “Girls, for crying out loud, I spend all week in a small, overheated room teaching to eighth and ninth graders. The last thing I want to do at the end of the week is come home to a houseful of other people’s children.” This seemed horrendously unfair. Why should Tara and I have to suffer because other people’s children were obnoxious?? Why should we have to suffer because our mother had chosen a career that involved children? When asked, my mother would respond as she finished making dinner, “Why don’t you become a teacher, and then you’ll know.” Well, I informed her coldly, you lose, because guess what?
“I said, GUESS WHAT?”
“All right,” she’d sigh resignedly. “What?”
“I’m never becoming a teacher. Yeah, you heard me. If the result of teaching is that you don’t want kids around, I’m never doing it.”
As any educator will understand, this seemed to brighten her spirits rather than diminish them. And the result of all our whining was that the One Per Season Rule went into effect. “You may each have one friend a season. You can choose whoever you want, whenever you want, but don’t come whining to me two weeks after you had someone, cause it’ll be your own fault you used up your season.”
The ‘whoever we wanted, whenever we wanted’ part sounded just fine, but once a season? Tara and I looked at each other and scowled. One per season? That meant only four times a year. We turned the scowls on our mother who sighed the sigh of the truly weary. “Take it or leave it.”
We took it. It’s not like it was really a step down.
The result of this was that I routinely began to live in a dream world. Whereas up to this point, I could never understand why Tara’s habit of insisting we acknowledge she was—despite all evidence to the contrary—a dog, I slowly began to understand that when life hands you a lemon, well, you just gotta get on all fours and pretend that lemons were dog food.
“My name is Leisl,” I said, “and this is my brother, Kurt. Are you here to talk to our mother, Maria? She’s down the hall playing the guitar and singing about her favorite things. Oh look, here is my sister Louisa.”
But Tara was having none of it. “I’m not playing. I’ll only play if I can be the dog.”
“Tara, the von Trapps did not have any dogs.”
“Then I can’t play. I’m a dog.”
“Unh! Why do you have to ruin everything? Just be Louisa for a little while!”
“Woof,” she said matter-of-factly before settling on the floor with her head on her paw to rest.
I sighed, torn between my desire to be the von Trapp family and the reality that, like it or not, we were already short four members. Up to this point, I kept telling myself that four members could be overlooked. After all, my mom really did enjoy singing and playing the guitar, and probably would have agreed immediately to be Maria. My father flat-out refused to even acknowledge the game, calling me Erica despite my efforts to legally change my name to Leisl Michelle von Trapp (Leisl’s middle name was never shared with the general public, therefore, I decided just to keep my own—I liked it and it was so much fun to write in cursive). Refusing to do anything fun wasn’t such a far cry from Captain von Trapp, so I figured my father passed inspection. I’d put on my mother’s dress clothes and mope around the house, pretending he had given orders that under no circumstances were we to have play clothes.
So being short four members wasn’t really a problem, because we so obviously made up for what we lacked. We were, I was convinced, the von Trapps incarnate. It was only my mother’s steady refusal to produce any more offspring and my sister’s insistence that she was a dog that was keeping the rest of the world from knowing it too.
“Woof,” Tara repeated stubbornly.
I stomped my foot impatiently. The von Trapps did not have a dog; they had guitars and fun uncles. This wouldn’t be a problem if Brennan had wanted to the dog. Brennan had never seen The Sound of Music and so was resigned to the lowly role of Kurt, who had barely any lines, and was really only there so that Freidrich wouldn’t get lonely. But Tara knew the lines and, more importantly, knew the songs. She knew exactly when to stop back and let Leisl have her solos. Tara understood that Leisl was the oldest and prettiest and therefore the most important.
Louisa was manipulative and liked to crawl into normal people’s bedrooms with whole jars of spiders in her hands. Tara was perfect for Louisa and if she couldn’t see that …
“What if Louisa is a girl who thinks she’s a dog?”
Tara chewed on that. “Can I bark whenever I want?”
“I guess.”
“Can I have a solo?”
“What do you want to sing?”
“I don’t want to sing, I want to bark.”
It was shortly after this when I began wondering exactly how old Leisl was when she ran off to the hills that were alive with the sound of music to live alone. I slipped deeper and deeper into my dream world, until …
“That girl? That girl pretending she’s a dog? No, that’s not my sister. In fact, I don’t have any sisters. Or brothers. I’m an only child.”
Friday, June 25, 2004
My favorite conversation from last week:
To take a page from the Operagirl:
My favorite conversation from last week:
[After working 2 hours on a contract at work for my father, only to find an identical one already made in a folder]
ME (nearly hysteria): WHAT'S THIS??
DAD: Oops. Guess I already had Heather make one. (To Heather) And I wasn't going to tell you, but I already had Erica make that contract you did for me just now.
ME: But I worked for TWO HOURS on that contract.
DAD: Well, I appreciate the effort.
[Heather and I exchange glances.]
HEATHER: I think we need to work on our ... (spells out "communication" using the manual alphabet)
DAD: Our what?
My favorite conversation from this week:
SWIMMING LESSONS KIDS: Erica, how old are you?
ME: How old do you think?
SLK: 46?
ME: What?
SLK: 32?
ME:
SLK: 41?
ME: I'm gonna go home and kill myself
SLK: 37?
My favorite conversation from last week:
[After working 2 hours on a contract at work for my father, only to find an identical one already made in a folder]
ME (nearly hysteria): WHAT'S THIS??
DAD: Oops. Guess I already had Heather make one. (To Heather) And I wasn't going to tell you, but I already had Erica make that contract you did for me just now.
ME: But I worked for TWO HOURS on that contract.
DAD: Well, I appreciate the effort.
[Heather and I exchange glances.]
HEATHER: I think we need to work on our ... (spells out "communication" using the manual alphabet)
DAD: Our what?
My favorite conversation from this week:
SWIMMING LESSONS KIDS: Erica, how old are you?
ME: How old do you think?
SLK: 46?
ME: What?
SLK: 32?
ME:
SLK: 41?
ME: I'm gonna go home and kill myself
SLK: 37?
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Miss Rixie Recommends (Annual Book Review):
Miss Rixie recommends:
Six weeks into summer, I am working through my list of BOOKS TO READ. (Although, I must say, my list always seems to grow faster than I can read them. I love that.)
So, here are a few that I've read that I recommend very, very strongly. If you are looking for books to read, here are some good choices.
Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot
Although Ms. Cabot can't seem to decide if she prefers "Meg" or "Meggin," she's a winner everytime. Told through letters, emails, voice messages, and journal entries, this novel is original in its use of modern day communication. I laughed out loud, quoted lines from it for weeks, and it almost makes me want to go into the office every day ... until I get there and realize I have no one to IM with, nor is there a hot lawyer hanging around to take me to lunch.
Nighttime is My Time by Mary Higgins Clark
One of MHC's best in years, it had me guessing right up to the very end. Very exciting with lots of human interest touches (high school reunions, babies give up for adoption at birth, first loves, and, of course, the resident psycho).
The Princess Diaries, Volumes I through IV by Meg Cabot
I'll be the first to admit, after seeing the movie a few years ago, I was very, very, VERY reluctant to read these. But the movie DOES NOT DO THESE BOOKS JUSTICE (nor does Mia ever ONCE utter the phrase, "Shut up!"), they are a fast read (it usually took me about two hours to finish one), and let's face it, princess or not, Mia Thermapolis is every one of us who've ever been a teenage girl ... except maybe Lana Weinberger.
Dating Dead Guys by Harley Jane Komerk
By far, the most original mystery I have read in years. The author proves that not only is she an accomplished actress (Parenthood), she knows what readers want--a mystery that's actually mysterious, and originality with some romance thrown in. Am anxiously awaiting the next by HJK.
To the Nines by Janet Evanovich
Admittedly, this is the second time I've read this novel, but it's just as funny as the first time around. In fact, I read it so fast last summer, that I could remember very little about it so it was almost as much fun this time around. After reading two books from her Full series this summer, I experienced such profound disappointment with them that I knew I could only be cured by revisiting some classics. To the Nines rose to the occasion.
Other 2004 summer reads Miss Rixie recommends:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
(and Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix as well. And Chamber of Secrets and the Sorceror's Stone, for that matter. J.K. Rowling is a genius.)
Ms. Simon Says by Mary McBride
Fun romantic suspense that a vacationer can breeze through.
Kill the Competition by Stephanie Bond
One of her best, although most of Ms. Bond’s are excellent. A few more years of exposure and she’ll be right up there with Jennifer Crusie. However, Miss Rixie does NOT recommend one of her early one’s, Manhunting in Mississippi, which was recently republished, and then bought and read by Miss Rixie this summer. Word on the street is some consumers are confusing this with a new release and said consumers are quite disappointed with it.
Bride of Pendorric by Victoria Holt
Imagine Wuthering Heights meets happily ever after. Suspenseful with an intriguing cast of characters. Just as good the second time around.
Next on Miss Rixie's list of BOOKS TO READ:
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding
Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Six weeks into summer, I am working through my list of BOOKS TO READ. (Although, I must say, my list always seems to grow faster than I can read them. I love that.)
So, here are a few that I've read that I recommend very, very strongly. If you are looking for books to read, here are some good choices.
Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot
Although Ms. Cabot can't seem to decide if she prefers "Meg" or "Meggin," she's a winner everytime. Told through letters, emails, voice messages, and journal entries, this novel is original in its use of modern day communication. I laughed out loud, quoted lines from it for weeks, and it almost makes me want to go into the office every day ... until I get there and realize I have no one to IM with, nor is there a hot lawyer hanging around to take me to lunch.
Nighttime is My Time by Mary Higgins Clark
One of MHC's best in years, it had me guessing right up to the very end. Very exciting with lots of human interest touches (high school reunions, babies give up for adoption at birth, first loves, and, of course, the resident psycho).
The Princess Diaries, Volumes I through IV by Meg Cabot
I'll be the first to admit, after seeing the movie a few years ago, I was very, very, VERY reluctant to read these. But the movie DOES NOT DO THESE BOOKS JUSTICE (nor does Mia ever ONCE utter the phrase, "Shut up!"), they are a fast read (it usually took me about two hours to finish one), and let's face it, princess or not, Mia Thermapolis is every one of us who've ever been a teenage girl ... except maybe Lana Weinberger.
Dating Dead Guys by Harley Jane Komerk
By far, the most original mystery I have read in years. The author proves that not only is she an accomplished actress (Parenthood), she knows what readers want--a mystery that's actually mysterious, and originality with some romance thrown in. Am anxiously awaiting the next by HJK.
To the Nines by Janet Evanovich
Admittedly, this is the second time I've read this novel, but it's just as funny as the first time around. In fact, I read it so fast last summer, that I could remember very little about it so it was almost as much fun this time around. After reading two books from her Full series this summer, I experienced such profound disappointment with them that I knew I could only be cured by revisiting some classics. To the Nines rose to the occasion.
Other 2004 summer reads Miss Rixie recommends:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
(and Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix as well. And Chamber of Secrets and the Sorceror's Stone, for that matter. J.K. Rowling is a genius.)
Ms. Simon Says by Mary McBride
Fun romantic suspense that a vacationer can breeze through.
Kill the Competition by Stephanie Bond
One of her best, although most of Ms. Bond’s are excellent. A few more years of exposure and she’ll be right up there with Jennifer Crusie. However, Miss Rixie does NOT recommend one of her early one’s, Manhunting in Mississippi, which was recently republished, and then bought and read by Miss Rixie this summer. Word on the street is some consumers are confusing this with a new release and said consumers are quite disappointed with it.
Bride of Pendorric by Victoria Holt
Imagine Wuthering Heights meets happily ever after. Suspenseful with an intriguing cast of characters. Just as good the second time around.
Next on Miss Rixie's list of BOOKS TO READ:
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding
Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Office Space: the Miss Rixie edition
Office Space: the Miss Rixie edition
So fellow readers, I am back at my summer position: interning in my dad's office. In case you missed out on the fun of last summer's work, let me direct you to the following blogs:
Friday, 27 June 2003
Tuesday, 14 July 2003
Thursday, 14 August 2003
Aah, good times, good times.
Usually I'm in a rather large office, but one or two days a week I'll be in a smaller office. One of my first experiences at Office B happened today. Office B is so small that all three of us in the office--yes, you heard right, all THREE--can hear exactly what the other two are saying, doing, and thinking. This has cut into the considerable time usually devoted to internet "research" (entertainment news) and personal emailing.
So the three of us in this office today are me, my dad, and this guy whose code name will be Norm. I chose Norm because that is his actual name. Everyone in Office A knows Norm is really lazy and doesn't do anything ever. However, Norm is the only full-time person who works in Office B. Everyone else from Office A stops by once or twice a week, but has their real office in building A in a completely different town.
Consequently, Norm never has anyone checking up on him and even when other people are there, he feels no need to change his usual daily routine. Here is what he's done in the last two hours: taken his wife to a doctor's appointment, gone to the bathroom with a newspaper for about twenty minutes (maybe twenty-five--men are so weird. Can you imagine disappearing for a half hour AT WORK while everyone knows you're just taking a crap?? I mean, he took a newspaper, for Pete's sake), smoked a cigarette, talked to a guy about how much work he has that he doesn't want to do, smoked another cigarette with this guy, made a personal phone call, made another personal phone call, shut off his computer and restarted it, and then, oh yes, smoked ANOTHER cigarette. Plus, he lights up before he goes outside, so I smell it. My hair will probably smell like smoke by the end of the day. Sheesh. Oh now, I hear him rattling a newspaper. I wonder if he reads Foxtrot.
Course, I shouldn't talk. Here's what I've done in the last hour: driven to a gas station to buy Diet Coke, eaten a piece of chocolate cake, written a resume, entered some case notes, thought about going to the bathroom and then decided I didn't want to go in there after Norm, wrote an email to a friend, lost said email to friend, considered rewriting email to friend, then reconsidered and wrote email to sister. Oh yeah, and complained to my dad about how I'm bored and want to go home. He said, "Eat some cake." I said, "Okay," considerably cheered. Yum! There's another woman that works in this office. Her name is Audrey and I like her a lot. The reasons for this are threefold.
1) She called me adorable.
2) Last Thursday she brought doughnuts and today she brought cake.
3) She also thinks Norm is a tool.
Just wanted to let you know--Norm was NOT reading the newspaper, he's reading a Tom Clancy thriller and just informed me that Tom Clancy is one ugly dude. Considering that not ten minutes ago, Norm told some guy, "It's so hot in here, my armpits are mildewing," I'm not exactly thinking Norm is attractive enough to pass judgment.
[Sidebar to my father]: Dad if you are reading this: I'm totally joking, I was busy the whole afternoon ... except for those times when you looked over and saw that I was not.
So fellow readers, I am back at my summer position: interning in my dad's office. In case you missed out on the fun of last summer's work, let me direct you to the following blogs:
Friday, 27 June 2003
Tuesday, 14 July 2003
Thursday, 14 August 2003
Aah, good times, good times.
Usually I'm in a rather large office, but one or two days a week I'll be in a smaller office. One of my first experiences at Office B happened today. Office B is so small that all three of us in the office--yes, you heard right, all THREE--can hear exactly what the other two are saying, doing, and thinking. This has cut into the considerable time usually devoted to internet "research" (entertainment news) and personal emailing.
So the three of us in this office today are me, my dad, and this guy whose code name will be Norm. I chose Norm because that is his actual name. Everyone in Office A knows Norm is really lazy and doesn't do anything ever. However, Norm is the only full-time person who works in Office B. Everyone else from Office A stops by once or twice a week, but has their real office in building A in a completely different town.
Consequently, Norm never has anyone checking up on him and even when other people are there, he feels no need to change his usual daily routine. Here is what he's done in the last two hours: taken his wife to a doctor's appointment, gone to the bathroom with a newspaper for about twenty minutes (maybe twenty-five--men are so weird. Can you imagine disappearing for a half hour AT WORK while everyone knows you're just taking a crap?? I mean, he took a newspaper, for Pete's sake), smoked a cigarette, talked to a guy about how much work he has that he doesn't want to do, smoked another cigarette with this guy, made a personal phone call, made another personal phone call, shut off his computer and restarted it, and then, oh yes, smoked ANOTHER cigarette. Plus, he lights up before he goes outside, so I smell it. My hair will probably smell like smoke by the end of the day. Sheesh. Oh now, I hear him rattling a newspaper. I wonder if he reads Foxtrot.
Course, I shouldn't talk. Here's what I've done in the last hour: driven to a gas station to buy Diet Coke, eaten a piece of chocolate cake, written a resume, entered some case notes, thought about going to the bathroom and then decided I didn't want to go in there after Norm, wrote an email to a friend, lost said email to friend, considered rewriting email to friend, then reconsidered and wrote email to sister. Oh yeah, and complained to my dad about how I'm bored and want to go home. He said, "Eat some cake." I said, "Okay," considerably cheered. Yum! There's another woman that works in this office. Her name is Audrey and I like her a lot. The reasons for this are threefold.
1) She called me adorable.
2) Last Thursday she brought doughnuts and today she brought cake.
3) She also thinks Norm is a tool.
Just wanted to let you know--Norm was NOT reading the newspaper, he's reading a Tom Clancy thriller and just informed me that Tom Clancy is one ugly dude. Considering that not ten minutes ago, Norm told some guy, "It's so hot in here, my armpits are mildewing," I'm not exactly thinking Norm is attractive enough to pass judgment.
[Sidebar to my father]: Dad if you are reading this: I'm totally joking, I was busy the whole afternoon ... except for those times when you looked over and saw that I was not.
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