Category: life

How is *your* Monday shaping up?

Mine? Well let’s see.

The Dodgers advanced to the NLCS (round two of the playoffs). Brutal.

Woke up today to the news that the global markets are a mess. Again.

My own company’s stock took another major dive.

Our intracompany HR system laid an egg, and I cannot deliver performance reviews today (It would have been a little good news to my weary and battered team).

And my socially, environmentally and economically conscious mode of transportation failed me today. Early this morning CalTrain danced with a semi truck. Minor injuries only and it happened far away from me. But that meant as I arrived at the station this morning, I got the news, “trains delayed indefinitely”.

*sigh* Not an auspicious start to the week.

Guess “someone has a case of the Mondays!“

This one’s for the pet owners

Due to having a rather austere father, I am not one of those folks with deep, fond memories of the parade of pets I owned and raised as I grew up.

The Good Man is this way. Both of his parents are avid animal people and so he has a whole lifetime of pets he can speak about in loving tones. It makes me sort of jealous.

I have one childhood pet. A white cat obtained when I was about twelve.

She was a good pet, truly. Her name was Yoda and she was very tolerant of me (and that’s saying a lot for a cat). She had a fantastic personality, full of charm and easy to love. She would come when you called her name and was nutso over turkey meat.

Poor little feline breathed her last while I was away studying at NMSU.

In the span of my adult life, post-Yoda, I’d never owned another pet. Which is weird, because I’m a lover of fuzzies and usually form close bonds with the pets belonging to my friends.

My best friend is owner to my goddog and a finicky godcat and I love ’em like they are my own. But they aren’t my own. And they live in Las Cruces, so that doesn’t help!

So imagine my delight when I began dating The Good Man almost three years ago and he had not one but TWO felines to keep his life interesting.

One charming old man marmalade and one batty, toddler-esque black and white.

Sadly, the marmie gave over to kidney issues soon after TGM and I started seeing each other, but I at least had the chance to love that orange kitty. He was a good man.

Which leaves us now with the batty cat. She’s the one who charms our lives these days.

This is only the second pet I’ve ever personally owned. And I am here to confess:

I love that cat.

In fact, that’s the genesis of this post. I have one of those screensavers that plucks images from my photo library and displays them onscreen. As I was on the phone earlier today dealing with another cranky business client, this photo flashed on my screen and held there for a bit too long.

And I stared at that g’damn cat and felt so much love in my heart. Like…over love. Too much love. WAY too much love for such a cute furry obnoxious, middle of the night meowing cuz she’s hungry kind of animal.

Am I the only pet owner who has ever wondered…am I a little *too* attached to my pet?

Strange days indeed…

Most peculiar, Mama*

If you, like me, sometimes struggle with change…well, then this is NOT our year.

I mean. Let’s start with the election. Both an African American Man and a woman on the main stage. Whoa Nellie!

The economy. Jeebus, I need a seatbelt to stay on this crazy ride!

There’s even a new profession I only just heard of in an article about this economy. A “neuroeconomist”, who studies the biology of economic behavior. Some guy from Emory University is saying we’re all acting like a bunch of scared sheep.

Not sure I disagree.

Several friends have been laid off from jobs and have had a lot of trouble finding a new gig.

Fannie Mae now (unwillingly) owns some 54,000 homes.

Some meaningful people both personally and in society have passed away.

A couple people very dear to me are seriously ill.

My 43-year old friend is preggers (naturally) for the first time.

My big brother is moving to Malaysia…This just after he and his family came through freaking Hurricane Ike.

Gas prices are through the roof. Prices unheard of thus far in our country.

Oh yeah, and for me personally I got married and am potentially changing jobs after almost a decade at one company.

2008 is not for sissies!

And we’re only nine months into this thing!

Holy crap!

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to retire to the underside of my bed with a tubful of Cherry Garcia, a canister of Valium and my cat.

Call me when things have settled, hey?

*Borrowed liberally from John Lennon. Thanks John!

Is it the air up there?

Today one of my employees stopped by my desk, and she was fuming. To be fair, she’s a black cloud kind of a gal, so I take her fuming quite lightly.

“Did you see what happened over there!?!?” she said, pointing in the direction of the corner where the “big boss” sits.

“Yes, I saw,” I replied calmly.

She sputtered. “But…but!”

See…there is some retrofit work being done in the building where Big Boss used to sit. And on an emergency basis, they’ve moved their operations over to our building.

Needless to say, Mr. Big Boss is going to make his space as comfortable as he wants it…even thought he will only be here for three months, tops.

My employee sputtered on, “Did you see that he had all the cubicles rearranged and then booted (her friend) out of their window cube so that his admin could sit there?!?!?”

“Yes, I saw,” I replied.

“But…doesn’t that make you mad!?!?” she howled.

“No, actually…in the scheme of all the crazy things execs have done at this company, this is mild.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said, sullenly walking away, “It’s still not fair, though.”

So that got me thinking…at what point in the escalation of your career path do you flip over from “wow, thanks for doing that for me” to “WHERE IS MY ROOM TEMPERATURE WATER!?!?!?!”

When do you get a hall pass for acting like a turd? How high does the title have to be?

I’m firmly lower middle management, and *clearly* it’s not that level.

I guess the real question is…how hard do I gotta work so I can get to the level where I don’t gotta work much at all?

For now, I can only gaze UP at the ivory tower.

Let’s see…

Since I dropped out of the world yesterday (see post below), let’s see what’s going on in my little world today so I can get caught up. Yep, let’s go to the news.

Stock are down…blah, blah, blah

Government bail out…blah blah

Obama struggling to maintain lead in key states. Sure, yeah, ok.

Palin ain’t talking to the press. boooring

Tainted milk in China. : brr : scary.

David Blaine hanging upside down for a real long time. Yawn. My feelings on that yo-yo are already documented.

Every state has a personality. Hmm. Mildly interesting.

A crappy rendition of the National Anthem. Nothing new. Ya never know what yer gonna get when you go to the yard.

Meg Ryan talks about her divorce. From, uh, 2000?

Wow, ok, well, in one day, not much changed.

And in that same day…people were rude on the CalTrain. My boss pooped on one of my performance reviews. The shuttle to the train broke down. There was a major accident a block from my house. And I ended the day with a deep headache and a really bad mood…that I brought home to The Good Man…just so he could experience the special joy his wife had to bring to the table.

feh!