Category: cranky

The Reckoning

Today, the alarm clock went off and I groaned. Champagne, ham, prime rib, potatoes of all sort and way too many desserts slowed my senses and made me weak.

A Christmas hangover if there ever was one.

But this is December 27th. Christmas is over.

I knew what I needed to do. It was time to confess my sins.

Rising from my warm slumber, I put on the appropriate raiments and went to face the only entity that could absolve me from my indiscretions.

TM* looked at me with that one cold eye. He knew what I’d been up to. The last time we’d visited had been eight days ago.

Eight days.

A lot of bad behavior can happen in eight days.

A lot of bad behavior DID happen in eight days.

There was no turning back now. I entered the confessional and slowly began my ablutions.

The iPod went into my ears and shuffle fired up. No need for a hymnal, I know the words by heart.

Five minutes passed. Hey, I thought to myself, this is not so bad!

At about the fifteen minute mark, my left calf piped up. “Pardon me, but with all that booze you had, we’re a skosh dehydrated. Potassium low and all that. I believe I’ll go ahead and cramp right up.”

I said to myself, “just keep walking.”

At about the twenty five minute mark, my lower back chimed in. “Yes, yes, cramping does seem to be the thing to do. Huzzah!”

“Just keep walking.”

Then my feet had something to say, with a backing chorus from my knees.

“Just keep walking.”

My hip flexors asked, in a rather snotty tone, “Why *exactly* are we doing this?”

The very sweat glands of my body began exhaling stale booze and toxins.

I replied by turning my iPod up louder and putting an ever more determined look on my face and then I…

Just kept walking.

At the fifty minute mark, I’d said all the metaphorical Hail Marys and Glory be to the Fathers I could manage. I’d done my act of contrition.

I was absolved.

Kind of.

I suspect that tomorrow, I’ll need to go confess again.

You know, New Year’s Eve is just there on the horizon.

And the confessional is waiting.

*TM = Treadmill

Brevity Is Not My Middle Name

(Sometimes the pump just needs priming. After writing about having nothing to say, it turns out I actually did have something to say today. It was just hiding. Here’s a second post for the day.)

A few weeks ago, we had a manager’s meeting here at work. This is a once a quarter affair where we meet, eat pastry, and talk about our plans for the department over the next three months.

Part of these meetings is also a discussion about how we, the management team, can improve ourselves and be better leaders for our team.

This quarter’s growth topic in support of that goal was about our use of words.

A senior member of our staff held aloft the cap from a water bottle, and told us the goal was to “use a capful, don’t pour out the whole bottle.”

He told us to shorten the bullets on our PowerPoint presentations.

He told us to “speak in conclusions” in our emails.

He told us to always be aware of how many words we’re using and then trim it back.

Ironically, it took him over half an hour to pass along this message.

I deeply considered throwing the cap from my own water bottle at him.

But I didn’t.

Ahem.

Look, dear readers, you’ve been with me for over three years, and 1,000 posts which amounts to approximately half a million words.

Do you *really* think I can “use a capful” when I write?

People, please.

To paraphrase The Dude, I’m not really into that whole brevity thing.

I’m a writer! I’m a creative! I pass words like currency through my life. My husband and my best friend, the closest people to me, both have kick ass vocabularies! If you’re gonna run with me, you gotta love the use of words and language and be willing to endure my penchant for storytelling the whole damn six pack, not just the capful.

No, I say! No! I reject the capful and dive headfirst into the ocean of words, swim around nekkid, get the words all soaked into my skin and then I’ll use a few more adverbs just to make it more, erm, wordly!

Damnit! Asking me to ratchet back the words is like tying Rodin‘s hands behind his back and asking him to craft a masterpiece with his toes.*

Ain’t gonna happen.**

* Look who is comparing herself to Rodin. That’s a bit audacious, innit?

** That said…I’m trying. Well, trying at work anyway. Be warned, all the words I have to cut out of my days at work are so totally going to show up here.

Cartoon from Toothpaste for Dinner

There’s a special place in hell for…

Long time reader and cyber friend Elise suggested yesterday in the comments section that I pipe down on my Christmas cheer. So today, I bring you a crankier post, more in line with my usual holiday mood.

There is a special place in hell for…

…people who cook bacon in the work microwave. How exactly am I supposed to concentrate?

…people who park their moderately fancy car diagonally across three parking spaces.

…people who won’t take the last cookie, but they’ll break off half and leave the rest behind as a guilt offering. Just take the last damn cookie! (same deal on pie, cake, donuts and other pastries).

…people who don’t flush the toilet after they use it

…people who arrive late then stand too close to me in aerobics class. (How’s a tall girl supposed to swing these limbs with you up my behind?! I got here early and so can you.)

…people who lecture the work group about being brief in emails, and take half an hour to repeatedly make the point

…people who leave their dirty dishes in the break room for someone else to deal with instead of taking them back to the cafeteria. Entitled much?

…people who are mean as a standard course of action throughout their day (yes, I have someone in mind)

…executives of any company or government agency who cannot be bothered to acknowledge a hello when passed in the hallway, on the street, in general

…people who run Craigslist scams when an honest person is just trying to find a decent place to rent

…whoever that person is who keeps sending out the “I am a Nigerian Prince” emails. Does anyone even fall for that anymore?

…used car salesmen (no particular reason, just on general principle due to the lack of principle)

…anyone at any time as I see fit. Bwahahahahahahahaha!

Photo by Glenn Pebley and used royalty free from stock.xchng.

Time Has A Funny Way…

There is an episode of Futurama (oh god, I’m going to quote Futurama) called “How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back.” It happens to be my favorite Futurama episode ever.

The episode is an homage to the bureaucrat, which appeals to me in a weird and sadistic way. At one point, the head bureaucrat is inspecting the locker of Fry, the show’s ne’er do well.

The bureaucrat extracts a baseball cap from Fry’s locker, and says, “Why is there yogurt in this hat?”

Fry replies, “I can explain. See it used to be milk, and…well, time makes fools of us all!”

This quote, “time makes fools of us all” has become a fave with The Good Man and me. Oft quoted and certainly true, time does make fools of us all.

And here’s what’s got me thinking this way…

After being sick both in October and for the first two weeks of November, I have been unable to shake a powerful and chronic cough. The gasping, almost retching, cannot-catch-my-breath sort of cough.

After being commanded by both The Good Man and my coworkers, on Friday I went to see a doctor. She was convinced I had Whooping Cough until she noted on my chart that I’d had a tetanus shot earlier this year. These days a Whooping Cough booster comes along with a tetanus shot.

So, after ruling out Whooping Cough and giving my non-stop cough a good listen, my doctor has determined that I have developed “hypersensitive airways.”

In laymen’s terms this means I now have asthma. I’ve never had asthma a day in my life, but evidently you can develop this problem at any time. It’s not expected to become a permanent condition, and with medication, I should be able to recover.

My medication takes the form of an inhaler used four times a day, a regimen I’m not enjoying in the least, but I’m sticking to quite adamantly.

You see, this health issue comes with a heavy load of baggage. Like back the truck up, get a U-Haul, step aside, “damn that’s a lot of baggage” sort of heavy.

Almost six years ago, my father passed away from complications of pulmonary fibrosis. It is believed he obtained this condition from the inhalation of beryllium in the course of his career at Sandia Labs.

In the years before he passed away, I watched my father struggle to simply breathe. Just bringing enough oxygen to his scarred and battered lungs was a battle. It was heartrending.

I thought then, “your breath is nothing to take for granted.” But then time moved on. I went on about the matters of living my life. The lesson became less important.

This year when I got a winter cold, I got the resulting cough but I ignored it. I coughed my way through it and it went away, mostly.

Then I got sick again and it went right to my chest and set up home.

Right now, typing this, I breathe with a wheeze. I’m able to get air into my lungs, but it’s hard to breathe deep without dissolving into a coughing fit.

What my father had was a disease of the lungs. What I have is a temporary inflammation of my airways. It’s not the same, I know. But right now I kind of feel like time has made a fool of me.

I know better. Perhaps the lesson needed to be learned again.

Professor Time comes with a reminder: Breathing is nothing to take for granted.

Photo by Maria Herrera and provided royalty free from stock.xchng.

An Open Letter on Behalf of Mankind

Dear engineer-type gentleman I just passed on the way into the cafeteria:

I appreciate that today is pretty warm day. The weatherman predicts temps as high at 95 degrees where we are.

I also appreciate that when the weather heats up, it’s always nice to release your legs from the tyranny of pants.

Fair enough.

Given that our employer favors a “business casual” environment, shorts are, for the most part ok.

What I take issue with, sir, is not that you are wearing shorts, but rather the shorts you chose to wear. That garment was obviously bought in or around the year of 1985 when both you and Larry Bird had the legs to pull off a pair of uncomfortably short shorts.

The year is now 2010 and neither you nor Mr. Bird should put people through this. It’s a lot to deal with while strolling the campus of this very conservative and well-respected multi-national corporation.

I fear for your manhood when you sit, good sir, because there is not enough cloth available, given the dimensions of your now engineer-like body, to cover all that needs to be covered.

No. Don’t bend over. Please. I’m begging you.

Just take your cheeseburger and fries and head back to whatever research lab you emerged from.

I shall go cleanse my eyes with a Brillo pad.

Let’s not have this chat again, eh?

Warm regards,

Karen