Drowning

Hoo boy, this week has been strictly about keeping my head above water.

Obviously, I’m pleased that Shoothouse Barbie and Dr. Boyfriend were able to stay, but it’s meant three nights in a row of going to bed past midnight.  Lissa needs more sleep than that to keep her coat shiny!

Plus, work has been a sh*tshow this week.  One of our group was scheduled for maternity in mid-January, but the inconsiderate little punk decided to make an unexpected appearance early Monday morning.  Kids these days!  Not even out of the womb and they’re wrecking everyone’s schedules!

I kid, I kid; we’re all pleased she delivered safely and that the baby was healthy.  Duh.  But since the mother doesn’t have access to a computer while she’s in the hospital, and she only called once, and my boss is out of the office this week, it’s been a mad scramble to divvy up her work and get it completed.

Anyway, long story short, I made some new friends this week, I saw some old friends, I had wonderful company, I miss my husband (who comes home tonight – yay!), and I’m completely exhausted.  I’m turning my caffeine mainline up to 4000 volts.

Anyone have fun plans for New Year?

Unexpected guests

Guess who dropped by the Kitty Den?  Shoothouse Barbie and Dr. Boyfriend!  What a good thing my apartment was already cleaned and tidied 🙂

As you can imagine, there was much late-night conversation and wine consumption, along with grip correction and Christmas gifts of Jeff Cooper.  If we make it to the range tonight, you’ll have pictures!

This year? SEVEN pounds of Who-Roast-Beast

Merry Christmas everyone!  We had four fewer people than last year so we downsized the roast to a more reasonable size.  Fewer leftovers, yes, but there’s still plenty for Lissa’s dinners this week!

Mike’s family and my father showed up around 4:10 PM to consume hors d’oeuvres.  (Bless them all for not showing up early!)  Mike firmly reigned in my tendency to go overboard with food, so we limited ourselves to fresh salsa and Tostidos scoops, fresh-baked pesto bread with Parmesan-garlic olive oil for dipping, Lays potato chips, and caprese salad made with three different kinds of tomato.  My father particularly complimented the salsa and asked for the recipe.  It’s very simple —

1) drive to Stop and Shop

2) buy a container of Fresh Salsa (you’ll find it in the produce section with the dips/chopped onion etc.)

I washed all the romaine and butter lettuce and ripped it to pieces and sliced up three carrots last night, as well as chopping up mushroom and onion for gravy (which I finished except for pan drippings before the folks arrived).  Once the roast was ready, I had only to a) steam the green beans, b) microwave three slices of bacon, c) boil the egg noodles, d) add grape tomatoes to the salad and dump it into a serving dish.  I’ve decided that microwaving bacon in a bowl is perfect for this preparation of green beans; I steamed them fresh and crisp, then tossed them with the resulting bacon fat and crumbled the bits over the top.  Delicious!  Even vegetarians admit that bacon is the perfect food.

After a break to clear away the carnage and open some presents, we re-convened for dessert.  Again, I kept it small this year — I baked an apple pie (thanks Mom!) and served it with banana bread and zucchini bread (a gift — thanks again Mom!).

I’m munching zucchini bread as I drink my coffee and looking around at my clean-and-tidied living room.  It’s a good way to approach the New Year.

I hope all of you made Santa’s Nice List this year!  But if you didn’t . . . well, I hear the people on the Naughty List have more fun anyway 😉

Merry Christmas!

Drink your eggnog, scarf a cookie, and pet a kitty.  Ho ho ho!

Overslept!

Sorry y’all!  I rolled out of bed barely in time to make a dash for the shower and catch my train.  Since I had nothing of my own to share, I’ll send you here for today’s amusement.  The lesson:  Sweet, sweet alcohol is a naughty girl!  Also, some of y’all are lucky to still be alive.

My personal fave:

Third was, few years ago when I moved to Chicago for a while, I was partying pretty hard with my friend. We got our pizza at 3 am and I got into a “cab”. I yelled at the driver “State and Grand” the street I lived on.

Then I said to the drivers “why is there a cage wall in your cab?” Then I asked, “why are there two cab drivers wearing hats?”. Turns out, I crawled into the back of a cop car in front of hundreds of people. They were like “ma’mam [sic] you’re in a police car. You’re IN A POLICE CAR!!”. I sarted [sic] telling them to take me home and I couldn’t get out of the back seat.

They finally started laughing and let me out. They had to help me get out because I was locked in. My friends were laughing so hard that they were on the sidewalk laying down pissing themselves.

Lay off the eggnog, honey.

PEBKAC error strikes again

Hey, remember That Woman?  Yeah, well, she’s been working overtime for the holidays, it appears.

Case in point:  Our little work holiday party and seven-person Yankee swap.  She left three times during the lunch — with no stated excuse — and was gone so long the third time I had to come find her and tell her we were waiting to do the gift swap.  Oh Lissa, say you, that’s poor manners but hardly idiotic. Conceded.  She didn’t get full-on idiotic until we were walking out.

Our co-worker CD (very nice girl) said something silly and laughed at herself.  That Woman then looked at CD and said, smilingly and loudly, “Are you drunk?”

(We’re walking out of the conference room and into the office proper at this point.  You know, where the Vice Presidents and Managing Directors reside.  Cue uncomfortable glances with wide eyes.)

And then she follows her screwy question with an earnest and equally loud, “No, I’m serious!  Is that vodka in your Coke bottle?”

Wha?  Gah . . .Mmf . . . WTF, over?

Understand, too — A) I happen to know that CD doesn’t drink, ever, because of medical complications; B) That Woman likes CD.  She wasn’t saying these horribly work-inappropriate things to be cruel or get CD in trouble.  She was just saying them because she’s a f***ed-up moron.

Case 2:  I was wearing my all-black choir outfit on Friday, with a black-gold-and-silver pashmina Mike’s folks brought me from Italy to add a splash of style.  That Woman looked me up and down while she waited for an elevator and was very complimentary.  In fact, as she told me, “That’s so stylish, I really like your whole ensemble.”

But she pronounced it “on-som-bluh.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her . . .

And, as Mike pointed out later, it could have been worse.  She could have said “on-som-BLAY.”  And then gotten a McCafé, to make a better day possiblé.

(I hate those McDonald’s ads with all the furor of a wet cat thrown into the snow.  I will never never got one of those lattés, just on principle.  Of course, the fact that regular milk (as opposed to Lactaid or soy milk) goes through my system like Indian food goes through a poodle has nothing to do with it.)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Or: Two entertainment reviews and a whine!

The Good: Straight No Chaser

Well, I’m sure many of my readers think that straight drinks with no chaser are inherently good, but actually I was speaking of the a capella group from Indiana University.  They came to the Berklee Theater on Saturday night and rocked the house.  The singing was great, the music and choreography was original — they hit everything from Jingle Bells to Amy Winehouse’s Rehab — and the showmanship was superb.  What a great way to get into the holiday spirit!

If y’all want some fun Christmas music to play while the kids rip open their presents, I highly recommend their Christmas albums!

The Bad: Inglourious Basterds

This movie was, I swear, Quentin Tarantino’s attempt at making Dr. Strangelove.  The flick was just weird. It was viciously graphic in places — I can’t tell you exactly how, because I covered my eyes for some of it — and weirdly spaghetti-western in others (this could be due to the fact that he borrowed a bunch of music from his Kill Bill films).  The plot was confusing and convoluted.

Spoiler alert!  Highlight the next paragraph to read my complaint:

So . . . they kill Hitler by shooting him, then lighting the theater on fire, then blowing it up with explosives.  A little overkill, anyone?  And if Col. Landers was kind-of an undercover good guy, why the completely unnecessary snuff scene with Diane Krueger?  And she’d left behind a shoe AND an autograph at the bar murder scene?  SRSLY?  And Shoshanna Dreyfus dying in her red dress was straight-up ridiculous, y’all.

So the answer, Shoothouse Barbie, is — no, you’re not the only one who saw it and didn’t like it, though I wouldn’t say I hated it with fiery passion.  I’d say my reaction was more confused distaste and distilled WTF, over.

And The Ugly?  That would be my hair this morning, until I showered.  It was ugly because I couldn’t shower yesterday morning due to the icy freezing cold water coming out of my HOT faucet.  For the second morning in a row. (It thawed out enough Saturday night for me to take a warmish shower; I wasn’t, like, smelly or anything.)  Happily, everything seemed to be in order today.  It saved me the trouble of throwing a hissy fit to the maintenance guys.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Clever bunch of folks, you are.

Har-de-har-har.  Brats!  😉

Okay, I’ll clarify:

Rather than take the time to

– think up something to write about

– frame the post in my mind

– write it out

– edit it

– proof it for spelling and/or grammatical errors

and THEN post . . . instead, I published a 22-words excuse.

And it’s only 22 if you count “I.”  Which *I* did.

And believe me, I was seriously tempted to do the same again today, only I had to respond to the clever gits from yesterday.

Apparently, I’m getting old.  Three nights of being up past midnight is too much for this doddering old graybeard . . .

Happy Thursday!  Don’t freeze!!

Choices

Today, I chose an extra half hour of sleep over thinking up a post.

And no, I don’t regret it one bit.

🙂

Good news/ Bad news

Good news: The office manager promised to call before the glass guys came to repair the sliding door.

Bad news: He didn’t.

Good news: They did lock the cat away in the bedroom.

Bad news:  It was the spare bedroom, not the master bedroom.  I.e., no food, water, or litter.

Bad news (2): They didn’t let him out when they left, so he was stuck there until I got home at 10:45 PM.

Good news: Rajah didn’t puke or poop on the carpet

Bad news: . . . . that I’ve discovered.  Yet.

Good news:  The glass guys removed the shattered pane of glass from the sliding door.

Bad news: They didn’t replace it with a new pane.

Good news: It’s a double-paned door so I still have the one whole piece of glass!

Bad news: It’s only Tuesday.  It’s gonna be a loooooooooong week . . .

Good news: I had beef stew ready in my crockpot when I came home that I’d cooked for over 24 hours.  YUM!!!!

I believe the good news wins 🙂