Category: kerfuffle

Keep it to yourself, sister

The weather outside yesterday was what they call “low cloud cover”. Low ceiling, gray clouds, occasional sprinkling rain.

This makes most people think, “brr, cold” and toss on all matter of arctic gear.

This is not true for me. Low cloud cover means the heat is held in and the drizzly rain means humidity.

See, I was brought up in New Mexico and my body has been attuned to be a convection cooled device. Or, more accurately, an evaporative cooled device. I sweat. The dry desert air slurps that up, thus cooling my rig and allowing me to continue on.

I’m attuned to this and it suits me just fine.

When it’s warmish and humid, I cannot effectively evaporative cool my hard working human mo-chine.

You can ask anyone who knows me, my internal temp tends to run a little hot anyway. The frosty pawed feline doesn’t favor me as a sleeping device because she thinks I’m nice, ok?

So what all this means is, even on a cloudy drizzly day like today, I don’t want anything to do with a jacket.

This tends to make the biddies and would-be work moms crazy.

“Aren’t you cold!?!” they shriek.

“Where is your jacket?!?!” they demand in harpy voices.

Look, I have a mother. She’s a fine, upstanding lady. She taught me to be self-sufficient. If you are cold, put on a jacket. If you aren’t cold, don’t. If you are cold and don’t put on a jacket, it’s your own damn fault.

Mom and I have been in agreement on this for years.

Yesterday, I was wearing a sweater dress with a long sleeved sweater over, tights and knee-high black boots. That is practically Nanook of the North for me, and yet, one of my menopausal coworkers eyed me up and down and screeched “Aren’t you cold!?!” because I was sans jacket.

It was close to sixty frapping degrees outside, but it was drizzly, so that must mean everyone should wear an overcoat.

An overcoat? Hell. No. I was hot in what I was wearing!

But if I had said to her, “Hey, you look a little hot, why don’t you take some clothes off” I would have been reported to HR.

It’s a bizarre up world out there, and I’m but a passenger on this carnival ride.

Image via FreeFoto.com

Na Na Na Na, Hey, Hey, Hey…

Goodbye.

Ok, not goodbye, but welcome to bankruptcy.

From CNN:

Muzak files for bankruptcy

This story is a couple weeks old, so I don’t know how I missed it.

Ah Muzak. That bastion of elevators and department stores everywhere. Making the artistically fascinating into dreck.

Sure, bastardizing Beatles and Creedence Clearwater tunes is bad, but the first time I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” done up Muzac style, I was not only appalled, I was angry.

I fear they will crawl out of debt restructuring like the oily swamp monster that they are, reaching out a webbed hand to assimilate Flo Rida and Beyonce and Lady Ga Ga and all the other Top 40 pop crap, coming soon to a Seven Eleven near you.

Once upon a time, in my former job, I had the opportunity to interact with the beast that is Muzac. They were entrenched as the on-hold music for our busy call center. The telecom team found a supplier they liked better and asked me to pull the ripcord on the termination clause in the contract.

Is it wrong that I giggled the whole time the pages fed through the fax auto-feeder? I stood there giggling like Beavis and Butt Head for the whole time the machine made high pitch squeals, and gladly took the confirmation page from the paper tray, confirmed all pages were sent, and filed that bad boy with satisfaction.

One of those “I love my job” kinda days.

If that kind of glee is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Ah well, even oily swamp monsters have to make a living.

Do not mess with a Blues Queen

Especially a cranky Blues Queen.

I think most Americans either tuned in or saw coverage of Inauguration Day, right? There was that tender moment in the evening where the President and First Lady took to the floor to dance the first dance. (if you were under a rock January 20th, click here for video).

The song the first couple swayed to was “At Last”, performed by, much to my dismay, Beyonce.

Now, I like Beyonce enough for who she is. The lady who brought the phrase “I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly” into the world. Oh yeah, and popularized the word “bootylicious”. Sure, she’s a bard for our times. Or something. She wearies me, but I have a few of her tunes on my iPod. I can’t hate on a lady who writes so much of her own music.

On that special day, however, I personally winced when the camera panned to B and she began warbling the Etta James classic.

I haven’t voiced this much because everyone I seem to talk with was like “OH! That Beyonce was SO wonderful!”

No she wasn’t. It was a special moment, but it was made special not by the singer (no way) but mainly by the sentiments of a kick ass song written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren.

Given the exhaustion of our country with the previous administration, the notion of “at last” really resonated. It was the perfect song performed by the wrong singer.

I wondered why, on that day, it wasn’t Miss Etta up there. She’s still got the pipes and she’s still out there performing.

In fact, on January 28th, she was performing in Seattle at the Paramount Theater.

Where she said: “But I tell you that woman he had singing for him, singing my song — she’s going to get her a– whipped.”

Oooh, it’s ON now! And I believe the 71 year old lady could do it too, with one bejeweled hand tied behind her tiny back.

She went on to say: “She has no business up there, singing up there on a big ol’ president day, gonna be singing my song that I’ve been singing forever.”

Not sure what set Miss Etta off since Beyonce has been slinging her crappy rendition of “At Last” all over the place, including at least once in the presence of Miss Etta.

I think what galled *me* the most about Beyonce getting up there, was that it was a publicity stunt! Seems Beyonce is working on a movie called “Cadillac Records” in which she portrays Etta James. What a great marketing chance on the national stage.

Opportunism. Great. Makes me like Beyonce even less.

: rolling of eyes :

Personally, though, I think Miss Etta is just ticked that Aretha Franklin got a shot on inauguration day and she didn’t. Just my two cents.

Speaking of Aretha, remember when Beyonce got into hot water with her too?

Doh!

__________________

By the by, Miss Etta who has notoriously struggled with her weight is looking HOT right now thanks to gastric bypass surgery a couple years ago!

Go Etta!! Look at her tiny self!

Source and Source.

What is this strange ritualistic dance?

This morning, driving to work, I saw many of my fellow Californians doing something odd…strange…weird….and yet, it felt vaguely familiar.

Yes, I passed the residential roads of my neighborhood and saw my fellow citizens by their cars…behaving oddly.

Some were using credit cards.

Others slapping with a newspaper.

One using just his bare hands.

All looked out of place.

Seems we had some low temps last night and these poor Californians were having to actually scrape the frost off their windshields.

I was never so happy for being able to park my car in the garage!

Oh I have scraped many a windshield in my day. Oh yes indeed.

I *hate* it.

Living in mile high Albuquerque, it was even worse when it snowed. So you’d brush off the snow, and THEN have to tackle the frost. Usually in my nice work clothes and high heels…in the wet and the mud. Boo!

Here, I don’t even own an ice scraper. I threw it away somewhere around year 2 post move. Don’t need it.

Clearly, no one else around here owns one either. The guy slapping his window with a newspaper gave me the most giggles. Beating the ice into submission? That is SO not going to work.

Thankfully it was a light frost and really, just starting up the car and getting the defroster going for several minutes would probably clear it up.

But the perplexed looks and utter consternation. That was good comedy as I sailed by in my warm, garage parked Jeep.

Public Service Announcement, a deux.

Weirdly, I’m not seeing a lot of big news about the peanut butter crisis.

In case you haven’t heard, salmonella in peanut butter. Not good.

Here’s a link to the FDA recall site. Click here.

Albuquerque Public Schools has pulled all peanut butter off their school menus. ABQjournal article here.

I guess not enough people have been sickened or died for this to be big news.

For you, my friends. Head’s up. Take precautions as you deem necessary.

And best news ever? Girl Scout Cookies are safe.

Whew. I already ordered a box of Tagalongs. Yeah, baby!

P.S. I find this photo mildly food pornish. No?