We Got the Beet

I've come to the conclusion that the beet is a widely underestimated vegetable. As I was walking back from the gym, grimly contemplating my lunch options (meatloaf Lean Cuisine, which I believe is also used in a number of torture techniques at Guatanamo), I passed by the Market Fresh salad bar and thought, what the hell, I could spice up my day a little with some limp spinach and crown-cracking croutons. I threw a little mixed greens in my take-out box, (it doesn't matter how many times someone explains it to me, I still don't understand why they're called mixed greens when one of them is quite obviously purple. Am I the only one who sees this???) and then I noticed these little french-fry cut wedges of bitter goodness. BEETS!!! I haven't had them in a while, but you don't have to be a genius to know that a little ranch dressing and some beets could make Chuck Norris weep tears of iron and other metallic substances that will someday be bottled and stored in a geographically sound location to be accessed only when fighting a world-wide epidemic of alien attacks. At this point, I'm actually halfway through this magical box of nature's treasures, and I have to say I am still enamored with these wonderful little miracle veggies. And now I'm over it. (Really though, did you think I was going to write an entire post about beets? With everything else that's newsworthy about today? Mexico won Miss Universe and Ann Frank's favorite tree blew down for God's sake.)

I'm beginning to realize that I am not the only one who deems my job to be a veritable black hole of mundaneness and double-sided copying. I first came to this realization when I was on the phone with Twin Sister the other day, who is also a Drunk-Canoer-Saving Sunken-Boat- Insurance-Fraud-Auditing Port-Loving Water Hero with the UNITED STATES COAST GUARD. (you like the all caps? I did that just in case this blog ever gets into the wrong hands and the only thing standing between me and the business end of a taser and 5-10 in the brig for leaking government secrets that I didn't know were secrets is my unwavering loyalty to the U.S. Military) So I was giving Twin Sister a brief run-down of the sheer hardship that is my work-life, i.e. broken fax machines, computer viruses that are disguised as computer viruses, staple shortages and other corporate horrors that are far too graphic to mention, when suddenly she interrupts me and says "Oh hey, sorry about your day but I gotta go. Someone just reported that a state ferry is on fire." I barely got out an "Ok but just a sec cause I was going to tell you that the whole conference room mix-up got worked out and it's fi....ok, bye!" And at that moment, it was all quite clear. If I were to put my current employment situation into a mathamatical formula, this is how it would translate:

MY JOB+EXCESS ENTHUSIASM+LOVE FOR LAMINATING ALL THINGS LAMINABLE =
SIGNIFICANT DRAIN ON COMMERCIAL RESOURCES/NOT A GOOD TOPIC AT SOCIAL GATHERINGS

And to further cement the validity of this conclusion, my husband calls me AT WORK in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY to ask me to look up educationally enhancing factoids, like with what apparatus will Evel Knievel's son be attempting to jump the Grand Canyon, or if "batter back" is the definitional equivalent of "batten down" or "batter up" to which I reply "I DON'T KNOW BECAUSE I'M AT WORK AND I HAVE IMPORTANT STUFF TO DO BECAUSE I'M A CONTRIBUTOR AND IMPORTANT STUFF IS MY CONTRIBUTION!!!"
But we all know the truth. Your job can be valuable in many ways, but it's definitely not a life-altering position (like saving burning ferries) when your significant other deems it appropriate to have you find the clinical terminology for "a phobia of ants." Which is called myrmecophobia, in case you were wondering.

In other news, H-Nubs has been nagging me to enroll him in agility courses. He has this dream to participate in the Frisbee Dog World Championship and be the first Aussie to beat a whippet. The cost of the agility course combined with the fact that Henry has the attention span of a hummingbird on speed at a carnival, generates a surefire "no" 100% of the time. Yet he keeps demonstrating his frisbee skills every chance he gets, most of which he taught himself out of a "Frisbee for Aussie Dummies Whose Sisters Would Rather Eat Wheatgerm and Cat Vomit Than Play With Them on Any Given Day" manual, and elaborates on how rich we'd all be if he won. (Nubbins equates wealth with peanut butter dog biscuits and smoke-cured bull penises, which we would be knee-deep in if he did indeed win.) I keep reminding him that I've been winning at this game a lot longer than he's been playing it, but then I am always met with a pleading glance from those big brown eyes and a big goofy smile, to which resistance is practically futile.



Well played Mr. Nubbins. Well played.