Winter Weather or Not?

No. That is not me. I have not lost 85lbs and become Asian.

(But those are killer boots though, aren't they? Do you think those tassels are attached to some sort of wonderful wool boot liner? Mmm kickin kickers.)

This girl has more than just swish storm boots and an apartment in the Upper East side of Manhattan to hold over me. She is rich, thin AND has snow. Bitch.

Wonder what are in those bags? Probably artichokes or something gross that I don't know how to cook.

Why is it that when I have places to go..

"...meeting starts at 7:30 am sharp. There is public parking available in the area. Secured building please bring 8 different types of photo identification. Guests found with cell phones on premises will be shot. Meeting rooms subject to change - create a profile in the lobby intranet kiosk to get up-to-date agenda... bring stool sample and blue kite."

THEN. Only then does it snow.

Now? Now that the 20 days of celebrating my son's 8th birthday has finally (mercifully) passed and I am almost able to consider myself - the immediate environment and some abandoned television shows. Now that I have time and interest in making a soup from scratch.. does it snow now?

No.

But everyone is PRETENDING that it did. Here is a photo I have just taken from my office window.

...pfffft!

Insulting. {Yenny  - don't you dare make fun of my arrow. You KNOW I scratched that shitty little thing out myself. } She is a very harsh critic of my arrows.

There was a time when she and I were opposites in everything. But lately (past 3 years) we have been noticing that the poles are shifting. She has started giving a damn about decor and graphic arts and I have just given up. I.Do.Not.Care. ..well most of the time.

For instance we play this stupid addictive iPad game called "MyTown2" where you create a city and then kinda 'play Bloomberg' on it. And she showed me her town and I laughed at her. she had put in roads. I was like "Okay, {HAHA} no that is really nice.... now all the fake digital people have places to drive their fake digital cars {HAHA STUPID}...that was very considerate of you."

"Well what did you do? Don't you have roads?"

"Hell no - screw those ants. I need to put a building there to collect rent off of."

Then she pointed out this element of the game where a little woman pop's out of the left side of the screen to give you pointless goals. And it turns out that Yenny actually takes direction from the fake pointless white girl.

In real life - the YENNY I KNOW - would have pretended to be COMPLETELY Chinese and blinked at the white girl as a sign that she did not speak the language. {or would not} She would have then coldly turned and ambled off without giving one lick of care to the social awkwardness.

Don't get me wrong - I have seen it go down before - right in front of me - and it's like a superpower.

But nowadays? She must be watching Doctor Phil or something. I make fun of her and she tries to deflect by saying that it's not about HER getting all soft and emotional - she throws her Sister-in-Law under the bus saying

"Look at this card!!!! It has Hearts and sayings and a POEM! Can you believe how soft she has gotten? She denies it - but she is growing 'emotions,' that Anna."

So sad. Yenny even decorated her character's home in Animal Crossing. She had some hideous matching floor and wall theme that made me do the urine face when I saw it. I can only imagine how many apples she picked to afford that.

Yes, the Yenny I know  - the Yenny of "The elevator incident of 2006"... she is gone. In her place is the Asian equivilent of the Gilmore girls.

Some December Pictures

or click here for full gallery page

Holiday Song

So I found this song through the posting of an old collegue who now works over at GetSocial. LivingSocial. Some hyper social place that sends a lot of mail.

This is a good song. I want to buy this song. But I cannot buy this song because iTunes does not offer it and SoundCloud is currently pretending that I am invisible. So I am irritated. This is now my lovely-frustrating-holiday-song-of-2011.

Holiday song by ladydanville

...okay, as I was posting the song for your listening enjoyment I just saw a little button that said "download for free." (Santa is so sneaky) And I clicked it and it was 'fer'reals'... so I am an asshat.

But now I have the song (Yay Me!)

LucyLu: A Story Worth Saving

I actually posted this on Facebook yesterday - but I had some imagery to go along with it. Someone was asking what type of dog Lucylu was. So here it is again.

So I am at the dog park this morning {yeah it's one of those stories} and there is one woman in the park with her cigarette and her dog LucyLu. My dog Thor runs in, makes a size able deposit and I pull out a bag and walk over to pick it up. And her dog Lucylu runs up and EATS it.

I am STUNNED and look to the woman who points at the scene with her cigarette and goes "that's her one bad habit."

<blink>

This is Hambone's reaction about a minute later. You can see the lady in the background.

Christmas Gift Ideas

IM exchange with my father about an hour ago.So I have this holiday gift swap thing with my office tomorrow morning. And I am new here to the company... so I want to bring the right gift. It is important to me to make the right impression.

They are doing one of those "Yankee Gift Swap" exchanges. But the rules really change from one group to another.

I asked the comptroller what I should bring and she said "some nice hand lotions, maybe" then I asked one of the tech guys and he regaled me with a story of the best gift from last year. "It was a coffee mug in the shape of a toilet and it had chili in it." The lady in legal said that she had gotten a very nice (slightly used) popcorn popper one year. Some people like to stress the point that "it's totally anonymous"... but seriously - we only have 16 people. How anonymous can it be??? I walk in with a gift in front of everyone and put it on a table... people have EYES. So that isn't even an element in my strategy.

I am agonizing over what to bring. These are the options I have come up with so far:

• a toilet bowl mug with lemongrass soup in it
• a classic board game and a bottle of booze
• some ugly tableware that someone gave me last year and a bottle of booze
• a live lobster
• a trophy from goodwill and a bottle of booze
• a size 67 women's nylon underwear
• one of those hunting jackets that makes you look like a pile of leaves
• a cream pie in a box with a little menacing note that says "do it. you know you want to."

I'm torn. Either way I'm bringing the bottle of booze with me. I am also considering bringing an extra (little) gift that I slip on to the table while no one else is looking. Maybe something terrible like a package of maxi pads or something from the old people aisle at the pharmacy.

Please send me ideas if you have them.

Update on Friday, December 16, 2011 at 09:47AM by Healey

In the event that people are wondering what I brought to the holiday party - I ended up going with a "Home Surgery Kit." It was comprised of the following:

• The game Operation (for practice)
• wound padding
• a wooden spoon (for the patient to bite on)
• a steak knife (yes it was new - sheesh)
• really, really strong booze called Root (I have actually seen it kill people. twice. "at's some strong shit'dere, woot, honey!")
• neosporin and a band-aid

It was a lovely package. You should consider it for your next hostess gift.

Now in return... well, that didn't work out so well. What I got was  - actually if memory serves, I was the first person to steal a gift in the Yankee Gift Swap. I am disappointed in my colleague for letting it get to person #10 before people started stealing shit others were beginning to be happy with.

My number was called and I immediately took the one item I could stomach that would upset it's present recipient. It was some sort of device that makes your iPhone into a slot machine. It took about 5 minutes before it was taken from me by the head of IT. Despicable. I was then forced to pick from the table where I opted for a seriously over used gift bag (no shit this thing must be as old as my kid). And the tissue paper must be original to the bag because it was so sad it was disintegrating in my hands.I mentioned all of this to the table as I opened it. So this is what I ended up with.

 Yes. It is a kitty cat squeezing the life out of a mentally retarded fish. AND it is a teapot. The kitty's head comes off (as it does with many serial killers).

It's surrealist art almost. It really is almost the perfect evil gift for me. I don't like cats. And it's so bloody big and cheery. I kinda hate-love it.

Later, back at the office, I researched the gift a bit to find that it had been given last year. Or at least it had been brought to the gift exchange which was held at someone's house. And since there were more gifts than people it had been overflow. So the person who had held the party kept it in it's bag (FOR A YEAR) and brought it back out into play for our recent celebration.

But the person who originally bought this evil little 'teapot-of-hate' was a man named Titus. A man who no longer works in this office. I am now going to research his address and send the little abusive kitty teapot back to him. He will be so delighted.