Category: truth is stranger than…

A Nordstrom Epiphany

Yeah, so, I’m attending a friend’s wedding this weekend.

After a decade and a half of working in Silicon Valley companies with their schlubby dress codes, it turns out that I have a lot of pants and very few dresses in my closet.

This wedding is taking place in a lovely art gallery in Southern New Mexico. A really elegant place. This is going to be a very classy wedding.

Oh god…I need to wear a dress. And I don’t have one. Or at least not one nice enough for this shindig.

So today after work, I went shopping.

I hate shopping.

I used to really, really love shopping. Adored clothes. Couldn’t get enough shoes.

But not anymore.

Today as I sighed and whined, I closed my eyes and asked myself “why do I hate shopping this much?”

Then I opened my eyes and the answer lay there in front of me.

I dislike shopping so much these days because:


I’m living in a


kind of world.





And I have become a


kind of girl.



That explains it all.



Photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page.

Photos taken with an iPhone4s using the Camera+ app.



International Monetary Policy

Did you know that if you go to Google and type in Pesos to Dollar, that a nice little converter will come up?

Yep! You just enter the amount of pesos and *boop* it will tell you the corresponding amount in US Dollars. You can then take that amount and cut and paste it into a nice tidy PowerPoint presentation and ship it over to your demanding and agitated boss for his presentation later today.

And when you send that off you feel so gosh darn smart and efficient.

But there’s more.

Did you know there is a rather large difference between Mexican Pesos and Colombian Pesos?

Let’s show by way of example:

6 million Mexican Pesos is equal to:

$470,105 US Dollars


6 million Colombian Pesos is equal to:

$3,356 US Dollars.

Further, did you know that the difference between asking finance for 470k versus 3k on a pretty little PowerPoint slide is, well, significant.

Um. Whoops.

Pesky ol’ currency conversion.
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(Thankfully my BossMan caught it before the meeting and we fixed it. I’m now being teased unmercifully. Ugh!)




Image from flagpedia.net



Has Anyone Seen Karen?

Quick quiz: What’s this?





That, my friends, is the far corner under my work desk.

Why am I posting this?

Because my boss, the one eight time zones away, is running me ragged today. All day.

Me.

Today.

Friday.

Isn’t Friday supposed to be an easy day? Put your feet up and coast?

My fingers are tired of entering numbers on spreadsheets.

My wrist is acting up from all the mousing around.

My eyes are weary of creating transitions on PowerPoint.

And I’m tired of hearing my phone ring. “Karen, that’s great! Perfect. But now could you take all the data and make it look like something entirely different??”

Ugh!

At one point today, I actually said to my BossMan, “Chief, it’s like that old Finance joke…what do you *want* the numbers to say? I’ll make ’em tell any story you want.”

He wasn’t amused.

Then he asked me to make another PowerPoint slide.

So for the rest of the day, if anyone other than my boss is looking for me, that’s where I’ll be.

Under my desk. In the far corner.

Would someone bring me an order of fish and chips from the cafeteria downstairs?

And a cookie?

And a beer?

And maybe some vodka.

Thanks muchly.

(Happy Weekend)
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Conveniently, this week’s Theme Thursday is: corner


When a Good Idea Pops You Across The Chops

“Where do you get your ideas?”

It’s a question I get asked a lot. Sometimes with a shake of the head after reading one of my more out there blog posts. Sometimes with genuine curiousity.

I even talked about it a bit here.

Really, I think coming up with ideas is about being an observer of life. About noticing the little things here and there and then talking/writing/painting/arting about them.

For me, I’ve always thought the world is a fairly absurd place, and I find something to laugh about or think about (or both) every day. Ideas are everywhere. Around every corner. In the sky. On the ground. At the bottom of your cup of coffee. Yet so many still can’t see them or maybe don’t pay attention.

Then sometimes, a good idea pops me so hard across the chops that I don’t know how anyone could be oblivious.

Today, I had to have a minor procedure done at my HMO. The center where I had this done performs a LOT of different minor procedures so there were a lot of us, and my doctor was running late. This meant I had some time on my hands as I sat there in the ready area in my backless gown with a blue shower cap thing on my head.

I was separated from the other patients by only a thin curtain on either side.

I listened as the 88 year old lady in the slot next to me ran down the list of medications she is allergic to (quinine..what an odd thing to be allergic to), explained that her knees hurt all the time and could they prop them up. She was also quite determined to make sure every person attending to her knew it was her left eye that was the problem. She was very concerned over them getting the wrong eye. Very concerned.

There is totally a story there. I mean, I was already starting to craft it in my head as I waited. I wished I had my trusty MacBook so I could start making notes.

Then there was the 67 year old woman on the other side of me. She was there for a colonoscopy. She was clearly nervous, you could hear by her voice. She was very docile and compliant to everything the nurse asked of her, but she struggled a bit to get into her gown (I heard her muttering to herself).

When they came to get her for her procedure, I heard the nurse say, “Ma’am, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you have to take off your underwear.”

pause

Bwahahahaha!

C’mon! You can’t make this up!

But by far the best idea I heard all day was when the doctor came into the space next door (the lady with the eye issues) and said, “Hello Mrs. Sanchez. I’m Dr. Scary. I’ll be working on you today. This is my nurse, her name is Mercy. Are you ready to begin?”

A doctor called Scary and a nurse called Mercy? Tell me that isn’t a fabulous short story just begging to happen.

I was catching ideas with a butterfly net today!
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And for the record, for my procedure, I got to keep my underwear on.

Just sayin’.






Image from the Best Quotes and Poetry blog.


In the Box

Despite the fact that The Good Man and I actually moved two weeks ago, we didn’t fully depart the old place until this past weekend.

That last mile is a sonofabitch.

I guess we just wanted to save the best for last? Or something. Basically, the last stuff to exit the old place was the stuff from deep in the dark recesses of storage under the house.

Let’s be honest, this stuff it wasn’t “our” stuff, it was my stuff. Lots and lots of boxes, some of which hadn’t been opened since they made the 1,200 mile ride from Albuquerque to the Bay Area.

The goal this weekend was to open those deteriorating boxes, get rid of what I could, and what was left, repack into fresh boxes and move on.

This proved to be a more difficult task than I had expected.

There were some surprises in those ol’ boxes. Especially the one I’d jauntily labeled “Karen’s Childhood.”

What a doozy that one was.

Sunday morning, there I sat on the cold floor of my now former garage, used my Buck knife to slice open the “childhood” box and dug around in there. I extracted a now almost fourteen year old gallon size Ziploc bag containing a bunch of papers and stuff I clearly didn’t know what to do with when I left Albuquerque.

I unzipped the bag, pulled out the contents and went through it piece by piece. I turned over photos, old love notes, and a ticket stub.

I gasped and my eyes got a little watery from both joy and memory.

The Wayback Machine gobbled me whole.

Here’s what I found:




The year was…um….yeah. 1990? Maybe 1989? Oh jumping jehosophat! I don’t know. A long time ago when my skin was elastic and my pants were not.

It was Ag Week at NMSU. An annual celebration that was a week full of fun, games, and dancing for all us kids in and around the Ag College. It culminated in a big concert and dance at the Pan Am center on the last day of the week.

This was a special year. My best good friend excitedly told me that her Uncle Bax would be performing at that year’s Ag Week. And by Uncle Bax, she meant Cowboy Poet and legendary New Mexican, Baxter Black.

That year there was another yahoolio on the bill with Bax. Some nobody named Vince Gill.

Yeah. That Vince Gill. Before anyone knew who he was.

Friday morning we were invited to come to the Ag Lobby to meet and greet. Bax was there holding court and signing autographs, and gave my best friend a huge hug when she walked up. We talked and laughed with Bax a while and then we went over to check out this Vince Gill character. He was wearing a pair of NMSU sweatpants, a three day old scruffy beard, and hair that hadn’t been washed in a good long while.

He was nice enough. Looked totally exhausted. He signed a glossy black and white promo photo (I found that in the bag too) and we walked away wondering who that rube was.

He put on a hell of a show that night. And so did Uncle Bax.

Let’s just say this, it was a hell of a party.

One for the history books. Sure would be fun to live that one again.

When the trash went out at the end of Sunday, the Bax and Vince ticket didn’t go with it. It went back into the Ziploc bag, then into a new box.

Maybe in another fourteen years I’ll slice open that box and discover it again.

And gasp.

And well up.

And remember.

Those were salad days, indeed.