These are your eyes

Well, not your eyes; these are MY eyes*:

And these are my eyes on dilating drops:

Can you SEE how huge my pupil is?

No seriously, look:

I hate going to the eye doctor.  I come out looking like — well, I’ve no idea what my pupils would do on LSD, but popular culture leads me to believe they would look something like this.

And, of course, that made the hour-plus drive back to Lissaville an absolute joy.

*grumble, grumble, snarl*

Three things, though, made it bearable:

1) I’m not sensitive about my eyes.  The doctor can poke ‘em, prod ‘em, drip nasty potions into ‘em, and I just sit there phlegmatically.

2) Today’s Friday, and Mike’s coming home!

and 3) it was a consultation for maybe doing Lasik.  SQUEEE!!!

*No, I haven’t had to pull out the fleece hoods yet.  I don’t look forward to it.

I will give you twenty bucks

. . . if you will drink my coffee, take my shower, do my makeup, put on my suit, and button up my coat.

In other words, if you’ll let me sleep another hour.

Pretty please?

Otherwise known as a timberdoodle

This . . . is a woodcock in its natural habitat:

THIS . . . is a woodcock in a most un-natural habitat.  Said habitat being the sidewalk outside my office, after having crashed into the glass.

I stood by the poor thing for a good forty-five minutes waiting for animal control to show up.  It didn’t move at all until right before the guy got there.  When it did move, it suddenly flapped its wings and darted across the sidewalk . . . to smash into the glass, this time at floor-level.

*sigh*

Yes, I considered whacking it on the head or (as someone recommended) wringing its neck.  I didn’t because

A) I wasn’t sure it was internally damaged; if it were only stunned, it could be healed.  (The fact that woodcocks have a moveable beak makes me hope it was bleeding from the beak, not internally.)

B) I was too scared that I’d just hurt it, instead of mercy-killing it.

Anyway, the Animal Control guy popped it in a cardboard box and carried it off.  I asked him if they’d just euthanize it, or try to fix it; he said he’d leave it at the vet and thought it would probably be okay.

By the way . . . you’d be AMAZED how many people walk without looking where their frickin’ feet are going.  I stood there for forty-five minutes because otherwise that poor thing would have been punted like a soccer ball twenty times over.

(No, I was not tempted to take it home for Rajah to play with.  Wild birds often have lice, you know!)

Double bleg

Two pieces of advice being solicited this morning, dear readers!

First off . . .  how does one choose a holster?  I know, I know, try lots of stuff and see how it works . . . but where’s the starting point?  There are lots of things one needs to purchase before actually getting a gun (e.g. holster, bulletproof vest or big bucket of sand, cleaning kit, gun safe, etc.).  Where do I begin?  Which shops do y’all patronize?  How do I go about this business WITHOUT dropping a few hundred bucks on experimental holsters that I’ll never use?

***

And the second piece of advice I’d like today is:

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOUR COWORKER WILL NOT BLOW HER GODS-BEDAMNED NOSE????

The woman in the cube next to mine has severe sinus problems.  She continuously sniffles, snorks, and snerks.  You can HEAR the gunk in her neb move about as she snorts.  It’s absolutely disgusting.

And she does it VERY BLOODY FREQUENTLY.  I counted once — in the space of one minute, the longest she went without horking was thirteen seconds.

Mind you, there were a lot of five- and six-second intervals before we made it to that golden thirteen.

I freely admit that I have my fair share of character flaws.  It so happens that one of my flaws centers around aural cues such as sniffles — said flaw being that I cannot tune them out. No matter how hard I try to concentrate on my work, I find myself keeping half an ear out for that next, repulsive HNGKKKKKKK inhale.

It actually got bad enough that I broke all sorts of work etiquette rules and offered her a tissue.  Very politely, very sweetly, very hesitantly called her name and, when she looked up over the connecting wall, held up a box of tissues and sweetly, hesitantly asked if she needed one.

“Oh,” she said blankly.  “No,” she said flatly.

Four seconds later:  “CNHNNNKKKKK.”

I’m contemplating wearing my hair down and loose today so that I can hide earplugs.

There’s gotta be a better way.  Help me, Readers wan Kanobe — you’re my only hope!!

UPDATE:  Jay G links, and SayUncle links us both.  Thanks!  And thank you, readers, for the great suggestions in the comments!

Blowhard.

Hmmm.  We’ve noticed lately that the fan on my Eee seems to be working overtime.  You can hear it across the room.  Is that normal, or does Lissa need to take her baby to BestBuy for a checkup?

Stupid fire alarm

Yet another reason to be glad for an Eee!  I’m sitting on the sidewalk next to a terrified kitty waiting for the fire department to come and turn off the silly alarm.  On the bright side I *did* grab my Eee as well as our Kindles, and Mike was kind enough to pour my freshly-brewed coffee into a travel mug.  Try THAT with a desktop!

Hey, you know what sucks?

Soaking chicken breasts in buttermilk . . .

coating them with a mixture of Panko, breadcrumbs, toasted sesame seeds, Italian herb seasoning, salt, and pepper . . .

baking them at 350° for precisely 25 minutes . . .

storing leftovers-for-tomorrow in the toaster oven to shield them from your cat’s gluttonous depredations . . .

and, of course, forgetting them.

Until your husband goes to toast his English Muffins and finds them, sad and forlorn and abandoned, the next morning.

Dammit!

Sigh.  Guess we’re going to the Lissaville (Home of the Evil Conservatives) Mexican Restaurant tonight!

A note from Miss Manners

Dear Small, Dark, Surly-looking Female Co-worker,

You do not look like you were born yesterday.  I have checked your history in our company phonebook and you have been working here for a not-insignificant amount of time.

I therefore find myself baffled that you have not yet mastered the rules of common courtesy.  As a public service, I shall attempt to instruct you on the very basics:

1) When men hold open doors for you, it’s nice to say thank you.  Ye Olde Financial Company has somewhat Southern-flavored manners and most men consider it appropriate to hold open the door you are approaching, even if causes them to miss the elevator.  A small acknowledgement of their courtesy would be polite.

2) When women hold open doors for you, it’s nice to say thank you.  We will hold the door for you as a manner of professional courtesy, even though you have NEVER ONCE muttered any token of appreciation.  While we may not feel the same chivalrous impulse as the males, our mommas taught us that allowing a door to slam in someone’s face is the height of rudeness. 

3) Apparently your momma did not teach you that.  Consider yourself schooled, madame.

Miss Manners, meanwhile, will strictly adhere to her upbringing.  She will be polite.  She will be courteous.  She will NOT allow doors to slam shut on your prissy, hostile, sullen, ungracious face, despite unworthy demons urging her to do so.

At least, I hope not.  My mother would NOT approve.

Most sincerely yours,

Miss Manners

The devil we knew . . . (BONUS: Kitty video!)

. . . was better than the one we didn’t.

Until recently, the Kitty Den was run by Pretty Good Management, Inc., and its main face was the woman who worked the office.  Petite, blond and perky, we quickly christened her Rental Barbie for her spunky personality, her gushing friendliness, and her absolute inability to do any math problem more complicated than 2 + 2 = 4.  (I can’t tell you how many times we had to rework the fee schedule for the apartment, but I could probably count the fist-marks in the wall behind our desk to figure it out.)  We didn’t dislike her, but we were occasionally quite frustrated with her penchant for arriving late and leaving early; if she left before we got home we couldn’t get our packages.  WANT PACKAGES!      

Anyway, Pretty Good Management, Inc. was let go rather abruptly – at least as far as they notified us – and they’ve now hired Other Management Company, LLC.  We were quite hopeful that the new office guru would, y’know, actually show up on time and stay till six.  

Verily, how bitter is the dashing of hopes.

Rental Ice Queen (Rental IQ, for short) is not Rental Barbie.  That is, she is not spunky, she is not friendly, and she most certainly does not gush.  Her modus operandi is instead to act as if she is constantly doing us favors by answering the bloody phone.  Oh, and staying until six?  Forget it – they’ve cut back office hours till five PM.  Seeing as how neither Mike nor I get home till 5:45, we politely inquired how to get our grubby little paws on our packages. 

Oh, we’ll have them delivered to your apartment just inside the door, no problem.

Uh-huh. 

Version 2: Oh, we’ll have them delivered to your apartment just inside the door,  no problem.  Unless there are a lot or they’re heavy, in which case we’ll tell the maintenance guy to call you for assistance after the office closes.  He won’t call you, of course, and then we’ll act like you’re being ridiculously demanding and unreasonable when you call us the next day and ask for your sh*t.

Ri-ight.

Version 3: Oh, we’ll have them delivered to your apartment just inside the door, no problem, assuming that you call us in the office and specifically ask us to deliver them to your apartment.  Never mind that we know you never get home before five, or that we previously promised a standard operating procedure of apartment delivery.  And you can’t leave instructions in advance.  Nope, we’ll just stick a package key in your mailbox so when you get home you’ll know that a package was delivered.  And that you can’t have it till tomorrow.  If you’re lucky.  Bite me, suckas!  Nyah-nyah!!

That b*tch Rental IQ!

Sigh.  Version 4:  And by the way, we don’t like to answer our phone.  So good luck with that.

I swear, if I didn’t have an adorable kitten with which to distract myself, I’d be pissed or something.

done

P.S.  The experienced kitten-baiter will always clip the subject’s claws before attempting a stunt like this.  Also, she will wear pants of some thick material such as denim.  And red toe nails are ALWAYS a good idea.

O What a Beautiful Morning

Ahhhh.  There’s nothing like snuggling in a warm bed, made with freshly-washed sheets and blankets, in the quiet, peaceful dark, a warm husband by your side.

Especially at 4:30 AM.

At which hour you have been woken, in that peaceful dark, by the unmistakable “HACK — HAAAAAAUCK — COUGH — HAAAAAAACK – CHLAAAAAAAAAAA- splat” of your cat horking up a hairball.

He looked quite proud of himself, afterwards.

Little stinker.