Pet Rocks and Porta-Potties

After taking a personal day yesterday to basically just sit in an empty bathtub and cry while Nubbins brought me every skanky toy he owned just to stop the wailing noise, I decided the only thing that was going to keep me sane and employed was to become utterly and definitively complacent. All work objectives brought up in my performance review last month are now officially irrelevant. Network more? Not going to happen. Show more initiative? Like fun I'll show more initiative. Seek more professionally enhancing opportunities? What am I, a magician???? Until I begin the marketing management masters certificate program in the fall, I will simply arrive at work, complete mundane tasks while considering my various employment options should they catch onto my game and decide that not only am I not a "valuable" member of the team, I am also a significant drain on resources. Options I've come up with so far: security word generator (you know, that person that has to come up with the words that you have to type replicas of in order to access complete time-wasting bullshit websites that end up spamming your email), porta-potty architect (seriously though, how hard could THAT design be?), or a 911 dispatcher. (I'm pretty useless in life threatening emergencies but I have a lovely speaking voice). I also came up with a brilliant business idea last night that just might be my very own pet rock. (Keith likes to call his good ideas pet rocks because they might one day take off and make us millions and then we'll lose it all to some Madoff-copycat. The latest one was culturally-themed dog crates.) I was thinking about how different people always come up to me on the sidewalk (and this time by "different" I don't actually mean the guy in the cut-off denim shorts riding a unicycle) and ask me where certain department/retail stores are. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if Seattle had "shopping tours" where you would take all these bored rich women around to different stores so they could shop without having to worry about finding it or paying for parking or getting accosted by a man with a Squeegee wearing nothing but an American flag speedo and a cowboy hat offering to wash your window while claiming to be the mayor of Seattle. Pretty good idea, no? And give them champagne and little appetizers while you're tooling around. Thoughts? Ideas? Any input is helpful.
In other news, my dear old dad got a virus on his email and promptly decided to nip the problem in the bud and buy a new computer. I tried to explain to him that he merely needed to generate a new email address, but this is the same man who notifies you VIA EMAIL that he is going out of town so hold off on all electronic messages because HE WON'T GET THEM. It's precious. But then I guess your technological knowledge becomes fairly limited when all you use the internets for is to check football scores and share EVERY SINGLE FORWARD that comes within the vicinity of your inbox. I can honestly say one of the worst things that ever happened to me was when my father gave my Aunt Nancy my work email address. At about 3:18 p.m. every afternoon (I'm assuming she picks this time because it's just before supper and right after nappies), I get a barrage of emails in my inbox with subject lines like "Sad today but in 1955............", "Beautiful, God Bless Our Troops", and "Funny; People at Walmart." I have to admit I am intrigued by the Walmart forwards; I constantly find myself scanning each picture to see if any of the downtrodden customers even slightly resemble a family member. Needless to say, while I am appreciative of my dear aunt's patriotic furvor, I simply do not have the heart to tell her that my workplace is not the appropriate venue to be viewing massive powerpoint slides of mountains and angels inclusive of a signature Randy Travis song. And my Catholic guilt completely rules out blocking her email address.

Back to my groundbreaking decision. Now that I have made the decision to meet and not exceed expectations, I feel an oddly freeing sensation. As though I'm on a fried chicken train riding through a vat of mashed potatos while it rains gravy...which, btw, is my idea of heaven, with Weight Watchers preferrably snicking disapprovingly from a hot barrel of broccoli in hell.

Nubbins and Bella have informed me that they want a pet kitty. I have repeatedly refused on the grounds that they are physically incapable of taking responsibility for another animal, and I'm pretty sure H-Nubs just wants something to carry around in his mouth. This has not deterred them a single bit, and they continue to assure me that they will be "real real good with hugs and kisses please please please" and plead with me to just "believe" in them.

Cute huh? So not going to happen.

Losing it with Limericks

Just as I predicted yesterday, today definitely started out with a lot more potential for enjoyment. Despite waking up with a start after dreaming that my father hacked a robber to death with a hatchet who had just minutes before been force feeding me Oberto pepperoni sticks (did you know those things are made out of PIG HEARTS????)I bounced out of bed with the fresh-faced optimism of someone who is either an appreciating recognizer of life's simplicities or severely bipolar. Even my tangerine body wash escaped my usual sarcastic regard at it's constant proselytizing to "waken and refresh" even the most narcoleptic of corporate minions. I even skipped my daily ritual of standing in front the mirror sans towel harshly addressing all the areas of possible improvement (I could totally be a commercial building contractor, it basically contains the same elements of employ) and threw on a wonderfully summery outfit that would reflect my ridiculously cheerful mood. In extreme contrast to my semi-manic state, Henry Nubbins was NOT in good spirits when I passed him on my way out the door. Apparently he went out with his buddies Bean and Wally last night and they hit it pretty hard.

While I could sympathize with his obvious misery, I have told him numerous times to steer clear of those boxers; they spend far too much time getting hammered and humping everything in sight. And while I've always had a sneaking suspicion that
H-Nubs was happily and obliviously asexual, it is incidents like these that make me think he's dangerously close to using substance abuse to erase the shame of losing his manhood to a crazy old British guy with a folding table and a rusty knife. I decided the issue would need to be addressed sometime in the near future, and gave him some ice cubes and his favorite stuffed tail from the raccoon he drew and quartered when he was 3 months old. In the meantime, my spirits continued to lift with the heavy Seattle fog on the way to work as I relished my new book (In the Woods by Tana French) and calmly resisted the urge to punch the guy next to me in the nuts for violating my personal space with his ever-spreading leg posture. I practically skipped off the platform onto the lower level elevator and made my way to the street entry escalator. And then I saw it. WE ARE SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE BUT THIS ESCALATOR IS UNDER REPAIR. PLEASE. USE. STAIRS. And in one dammit short of a shit, I was back on the guest list to Bitchy Bat Mitzvah at Cynical Square. WHY ME????? I was having such a Sex and the City morning, why did SJP in her cute pink tutu and catchy soundtrack have to be replaced by Andy McDowell in a cornicopia apron and an off-tune self-titled folk song about pie? Just to give a little background to all of you who are thinking I'm just a big old pile of sissy, the University Street metro station is REKNOWNED for it's mile long plummet into darkness on the escalator from hell, and naturally, what goes down, must come back up (not really, but what else can I possibly say?) You would be safe in assuming that it is possible to read the paper, eat half a bagel and dig through your purse/satchel for that missing lip gloss before you ever get to street level. So naturally, if the escalator is out of service, there is another option. A much less favorable option. The ever-frustrating limerick stairs. I seriously believe that King County Metro has come up with the best "green" weight loss solution that is not only super effective, but incredibly sneaky as well. On each step of approximately five billion stairs, exists three words to an apparent limerick. And you would think that you would gradually comprehend the entire verse as you gained altitude. You would be sadly (and I mean REALLy sad) mistaken. The higher you climb, the more nonsensical these collection of words become. So much so, that you find yourself going back down two stairs and up three more just to see if you can somehow, some way derive SOME sort of meaning out of it. And by the time you reach University Street, you have climbed 653 out of 208 stairs. And the son of a bitch still doesn't make a damn bit of sense. But does that stop you from doing it all over again the following morning? Nope. Not one damn bit. Because you KNOW that you can figure it out, if you just take a different approach, even if there is really only one approach available. And that approach is UP. So 3,000 calories, two sweaty armpits and four make-up reapplications later, I'm at my desk. Pissed. Right. Off. And then it hits me. That bastard Nubbins is going to have a way better day than me.

Team Jacob

Today is the beginning of the first full week I've had to work this whole month, and after a super fun weekend at my ten-year reunion, I was feeling completely defeated and underestimated. In an attempt to curb the doomy effects of dejection, I ignored my emails, paid my bills online, made a pedicure appointment, checked out Facebook, then surfed the net for three hours. (Did you know that they shot a chupacabra in Texas last week?) Then I decided at about noon that I wasn't going to do a damn thing, and I truly feel bad for whoever misunderstood my stifled giggling at Lindsay Lohan's trial footage for awkward professional bliss. When I was given work to appease my apparent eagerness to become the department stalwart of the month, I totally morphed into this undermedicated and rabid creature seething with resentment and pure corporate rage, which immediately led into my daily ritual of inventing ways I could get fired AND get severance pay. After debating if I could indeed maintain my current lifestyle on just Keith's paycheck and a weekly unemployment check, I called my husband and told him that we needed to start our own business. To which he replied "Don't be disappointed, but it doesn't happen overnight and we would need to do a lot of research. But we should definitely consider it." To be honest I was disappointed, and after "researching" for about ten minutes on the Small Business Administration website, I just decided it would be easier to request a higher dosage in medication, join a tanning bed, and find another hobby that I could covertly maintain at work. So I started this blog. And downloaded Eminem onto my Mp3 player. Somehow running at the gym doesn't seem so bad when you have someone screaming "I'm doin' this for me bitch." Maybe tomorrow will be better, if Henry Nubbins doesn't keep me up until midnight again debating the nutritional benefits of consuming sheep poop or wavering on his Twilight loyalties. Nubbins is Team Edward. I am decidedly Team Jacob. It's becoming an issue.