Category: odd

When In Rome…

I’ve spent the past several days at another location of my company. It’s a smaller location, but the offices are very nice and the people are incredible.

It’s weird being in my own company yet still being the outsider. People have to show the way to both the restrooms and the break rooms so that I can make it through these crazy busy days.

Since this is a different location, all their stuff is different. I mean, it’s deceptive. That looks like the same coffee machine, but really, it’s not. It makes different coffee in a different way (pods vs filters here) and though the desk phones are the same make and model, how you dial out is different.

Ok, fine. I’m adaptable. I’m learning.

But there is one area where I’m a little concerned. It seems such a small thing…and yet.

Let me explain.

As any hardworking gal should, I try to drink a lot of water during my day. Keeps the old brain sponge hydrated and running clean.

I carry my own metal water bottle so I can have water on hand at all times. When empty, I simply fill up this bottle from the company’s water dispenser and keep sipping away.

They use a different kind of water dispenser here at this facility. It connects to the water supply out of the wall instead of using an upside down bottle. It looks a little something like this:



Ok, fine. Your common everyday water filter and dispenser. Great.

Only.

This one has three taps you must choose from to get your H2O.

Here’s what I mean:



Now, I realize I’m not the sharpest knife in the company drawer, but I think I can mostly work this out.

The one on the left with the red droplets; that must mean hot water, right? For tea and instant coffee.

The one on the right featuring the blue droplets must be cold water. Fine. Good.

But what about that one in the middle?

With the, uh, grey water droplets?

Isn’t gray water a sort of bad thing? As in, don’t drink it?

Are they really piping water from the bathroom sinks and laundry room through this dispenser?

And if so….ew.

Ok, I know, I know. The middle nozzle is intended to be warmish water or room temperature. At least I think so, anyway.

But I have to say, I avoid that middle nozzle

You never can tell. Maybe these people are all so chipper because they’re all just really sedated by all the contaminants in their water.

I go back to the Bay Area tonight and my simple two nozzle water system. These new fangled things are just too complicated for a simple minded gal like me.


$13 Buys a lot of Love

I have a fish. His name is Benito.

He’s a Half Moon Betta and I paid the princely sum of $13 for him. (most regular Betta fish go for about $5).

This is what he looked like when I first got him at the fish store:



He was little. He was scrappy. He liked his food to be delivered with alacrity.

Way back in May 2010, Benito almost died. The Good Man saved his life and now Benito has been a happy, scrappy, crazy fish in our home for the past year.

This is what Benito looks like now. He’s not only handsome, he’s a work of art. Right at this moment, this photo hangs in a Bay Area photography show where all may come and worship the handsome fish.



Last night, it was time to change out Benito’s water. We are very responsible fish owners and work very hard to make sure our fish are happy and swim around in good clear and conditioned water.

Doing a full tank change is tough because it requires us to dip the fish out of the tank (which can be stressful for the fish) and hold them in a small container while we replace the water in the tank.

Last night, I had completed this water change and I had returned Benito to his home. He’s always a little bewildered after the water change and has to reassert that his tank is truly his home. I decided to give him some food because if he can get a couple pellets down, he’ll go calm and all will be well.

For some reason last night when I reached over the tank to drop a tasty Hikari pellet his way, he got spooked and started darting around the tank.

This is not unusual behavior for a frightened Betta. What is unusual, however, is that he dove straight down and slammed his tiny fish noggin on the rocks.

He was visibly stunned and floated there for a moment with blank eyes and hardly any movement.

“Honey?” I said worriedly to The Good Man, “I think we have a problem.”

Benito did not look good. At one point, he stopped moving his fins at all and began to list to one side. Betta owners will know that laying on the bottom and listing to one side is NOT a good sign.

The Good Man and I crowded worriedly around the tank and watched him. His gills were still working and occasionally a side fin would flap. But it didn’t look good. It didn’t look good at all.

I became inconsolably depressed. My fish. My little fish! How could this happen?

The Good Man thought Benito was just stunned and would be all right. I wasn’t so sure. I fully expected to find him floating at the top of the tank in the morning.

I’m happy to say I was completely wrong. About a half hour later, Benito seemed revived and back to his usual self. This morning he was swimming about and hungry as usual.

Whew.

When did I start to love a little $13 fish so gosh darn much? A silly, scrappy, easily startled, concussed fish?

I don’t know. I just do. He may only be a pet store fish but he’s a part of our family.


Plumbing the Depths of the Thesaurus

This week’s Theme Thursday is: soft

Sometimes I see the weekly theme word and think “yeah baby! I know just what to write about.”

Sometimes I go. “meh.”

This week is a meh week.

Soft. What can one say about soft? Pillows, babies, marshmallows, fat ladies, feathers, skin, hair, blah blah blah.

So then I try my bag of tricks, Google the word. Check the dictionary. Check the thesaurus.

Soft. Synonyms: Yielding, squashy (didn’t know that was a word, but it is), spongy, supple, pliable, elastic, malleable, flexible.

Now really? Soft = Flexible?

I don’t think so.

The list goes on: bendable, ductile, limp

What in the sam hell is ductile? Per the dictionary “Malleable enough to be worked, readily shaped, readily influenced.”

That gets us a long, long way from soft. To me soft is a tactile experience not someone susceptible to being pushed around. I guess the main definition of soft has evolved to being too easily influenced.

Not sure I like that.

Soft is one of those words that by saying it you feel it. Soooo sooooft. What you do think of? Your pillow? Your pet? Your favorite broke in pair of jeans?

Yeah. Me too. What I don’t think of is ductile.



Image from T-shirt guru.


Rasty Feline – Come here – I want to see you.

Back in 1876 I would imagine that Mr. Bell had no idea how his invention might take unify the world.

I appreciate that telephones and long distance dialing are nothing new, and yet I can still find ways to be amazed.

Since my job is global, I’m often up early in the morning to take conference calls. No matter what time of the dark night I rise, The Feline is always certain that it’s time to be fed.

It doesn’t matter if it’s actually her feeding time. She’s awake. I’m awake. Food. Now.

I usually ignore her until the clock spins around to the right feeding time, but this does not sit well with The Feline. Which means she rather vocally lets me (and The Good Man. And the neighbors) know just what’s on her mind.

I usually keep my phone on mute and I close the door to my home office to keep her out, but that does not deter the persistent one. She’ll get her snout into the gap under the door and let the vocalizations rip.

Through the magic of telephonic technology, my crabby Feline has been heard around the world. London, Singapore, Sydney, Mumbai, São Paulo, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Argentina, Columbia, Sweden, France, Ireland, and more have all heard her pleas.

Two weeks ago, I was on a call with at least six vice presidents and executive vice presidents of my company. I fed the Feline early to pipe her down. I was on mute. I said very little. I made sure she was far away from this call.

Little did I know…

The second I went off mute to give my input to the executive team, The Feline had something to say.

Yes, executives of a multinational company had to hear my damn cat hollering.

Today was a first for The Feline. This morning she was heard in Kenya. Yup, all the way to Nairobi. May all those nice people in central Africa know: “I will not be ignored!!”

*siiiiiigh*

By the way…if it’s seven in the morning and you are stumbling around trying to dial Kenya with a country code of 254 and you forget to dial the 011 first…well, you talk to a really nice lady in Waco, Texas (area code 254) who wants to know why in the heck you are calling her.




Who me?



Photo by Karen Fayeth and taken with the Camera+ app on an iPhone4. Photo subject to the Creative Commons license found in the far right column of this page.


Ramble On

More Unconscious Mutterings free association fun for the post-Easter Monday morning blahs.


  1. Squid :: When handed to an experienced chef in an Italian restaurant and made into Calimari frittata? Yes please!


  2. Wife :: A descriptor I still can’t get used to.


  3. Promising :: On Friday I had to renew my driver’s license. The DMV I went to was dull, gray and windowless. That said, there were plenty of young kids in line to take their written tests to get their learner permits. For them, those government gray walls held something rather promising. For me…drudgery.


  4. Tingle :: What happened when I used The Good Man’s “invigorating body wash” containing peppermint oil. Peppermint oil + lady parts = no


  5. Off balance :: Me. Daily. Gravity and I don’t get along.


  6. Nice :: What everyone calls me. “Oh that Karen is so nice!” If they only knew the evil that lurks within my mind. I’m just too polite to act on any of it. Which is why they call me nice.


  7. Honor :: One of those phrases you hope you never have to respond to: “How do you plead?” Always reply,”Not guilty, your honor.”


  8. Emphatic :: Helps if you are rather emphatic when you say it, too.


  9. Siren :: Here’s something I don’t miss from back home in New Mexico: the tornado siren. It freaked me when they even tested the damn thing. My family’s tenure in Carlsbad was fraught with that sound. brr!

    When I visited Hawaii, I didn’t know they tested the Tsunami siren once a month. I’d taken off at a sprint before a nice bystander told me the deal.


  10. Plated :: With this whole boom in the celebrity chef, one term that’s now in the vernacular is the term plated, as in “oh I love how the chef plated this entrée.” It seems like an abomination of the English language. Not that I’m above abusing the language a little now and again. Can’t explain why this particular use just bugs me. Though doesn’t annoy me as much as “yum-o,” which should get the speaker of that phrase summarily kicked in the shin.

Ok, done rambling, verbally shambling, and linguistically wandering.





That there’s a visual pun…it’s a Rambler. The 1968 version. My folks used to own a Rambler. It got stuck in the mud up in the mountains of Cuba, NM. Good memory.