A hard knock life

Yesterday at work I noticed a small Spiderman lunchbox sitting on a desk in the office and it seemed (and looked) really strange. I knew who the lunch box belonged to because it was on the desk of the 'new person' but instead of my saying out loud, " what the fuck is up with the lunch box? does she have a 7 year old son or what?", I calmly asked if there was a 7 year old little boy running around somewhere- and people looked at me like I was crazy, they didn't get my joke. There's never any 7 year old's running around our work place, the youngest is maybe 17 and they're doing everything except running around. But my question was more of a way for me to understand who the new woman in the building was without being rude. I needed some explanation for that Spiderman box because I'm sorry but you can't be a 27, 37 or 47 year old woman and bring one to work on your first day without an explanation-she seemed sane but you never know...

When adults carry or own (and use) little kid things like that it freaks me out. If it's a joke I kind of get it but still... leave it at home. Don't wear little pink or yellow t-shirts with rainbows or kittens on them and don't wear little colored barrettes in your hair as if you were four. Now don't get me wrong, I'd kill to have my Partridge Family lunch box back in my possession but if I did, you wouldn't find me filling it with my banana, my apple, my turkey sandwich, my oatmeal, or my little bag of chocolate chip cookies and bringing it to work... no way, that box stays home and comes out only to show off how well I took care of it. It would even be different if she happen to have maybe an old school Barbie lunch box or something classic but Spiderman?!

Anyway, from Spiderman the conversation turned into Little Orphan Annie. We were talking about the lunchboxes we had as kids and someone in the group had an Annie one. Now I've come to realize that If there's a woman in any room between the ages of 35 and 41 and the story of "Annie" comes up, nothing else and no other topic is going to take over that subject- at least for the next 10 minutes straight. People don't just seem to 'remember' "Annie"; they live, breath and worship her- and her little dog too. The way they talk about her borders on obsession but it's so strange because it happened so long ago and they talk about it as if they were just on stage with her. I can never figure out if it's Andrea McArdle, the actual story, the orphanage thing or the music that everyone was attracted to but it never fails: first comes the announcement "I loved Little Orphan Annie", then comes the singing "it's a hard knock life...", then more chatter about the sun coming out tomorrow. The infatuation and power around this thing amazes me. Sure, I remember Annie but because she had to have red hair and have the bad luck of being an orphan, and I too had red hair- I guess I chose not to pay too much attention to her. A red headed orphan... do all the odd ball characters have to have red hair? Come on now, Pippie, Annie, Hollie. It sucked for me because I was the only scrappy looking red headed kid on the block and in school and feeling quite special because of it and they had to go and make weird looking characters in the movies and comic strips have red hair just like me. It was rough.

I just realized this post has turned from talking about a grown woman carrying a lunch box to my childhood issues with being a red head. Lunch boxes, Little Orphan Annie, red hair and pigtails, infatuations and being a little kid... I'm not sure what it all means, but I'm glad I was a little red headed kid - even if it's taken me 1/2 my life to realize it.

Ahhh

I haven't had anything to drink for close to two weeks because of my horrific bronchial/flu-like/exhaustion state that I've been entrenched in. But yesterday with the snow flying, Easter weekend upon us and cancelled plans to head out (because of the fucking snow storm), I picked up a couple bottles along with dinner on the way home from work and man did it go down smoothly...




I sipped it slowly and methodically and I swear I could have drank it for the entire evening. It's good to be back...

Out of commission

I don't know what that last post was all about, I scare myself sometimes... butter? man, I am sick...

Anyway, for the last week or so I've been fighting a cold; I've been physically exhausted, feeling a little dazed and confused and walking around like I haven't slept in days- and I have. Last night I went to bed with a fever and a low, deep cough that was just waiting to explode. Needless to say I called in sick today and spent the entire day on the couch- with exploding cough, lots of tea (I hate tea), spoonfuls of raw honey and herbal cough medicine. My chest is burning, my cough is dry, my fever of 101 at 2:00 has broken and I'm back to a normal temp, but I still feel like I've been hit by a mac truck... and left out in the cold-in the rain. Damn, I've escaped getting sick all winter long! I was so proud of myself, feeling like some anti-germ fighting super hero or something. I guess even superheroes get knocked down every once in a while, but I don't like it.

So yesterday I high tailed it out of work at 4:00 so I could finish up a project I have been working on and that was going to be picked up on Thursday. The project was actually a very cool one but it took up every ounce of free time I have had for the past 2 months or so. I'll try to bottom line it here: Someone hired me to fill an ipod with 4-6 hours of music and then make a mixed CD from that music and burn 45 copies(one for each couple) with her evite logo on each CD. She's having a "meet and greet" party at a restaurant for her friends and neighbors and since she had zero knowledge of any adult music (she has 3 bratty rug rats), she needed some help. All she knew is that she wanted "cocktail" type music that people could talk over- nothing too depressing or too loud. No problem, I was all over it. I have enough music in my house and on my computer to take care of a 20 hour cocktail party. I accepted the challenge and immediately dove in. The problem, and it was a big one throughout the entire process, was this woman. She just wouldn't leave me alone at any point throughout to let me do my thing. She e-mailed every day, wanted certain things earlier than we discussed, couldn't commit on the fee, had horrible taste in music, and basically couldn't let it go. So for months not only have I been listening to and choosing particular songs for the party but also pacifying this woman through the entire process. After printing up and cutting 45 copies of the play list for the mix on Tuesday at work, I came home and slid each one into it's sleeve and I was done. I piled the CD'S on the coffee table and went into the dining room to get a box to keep them safe. Less than one second later, I hear a crash and run in to find that my cat has knocked over my glass of water and it was all over the coffee table FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I grabbed the pile of CD'S and went into the dining room to assess the damage. First of all, do you know how long it takes to burn 45 CDs, compose and print out the cover art and decide which 20 songs are making it to the "mix".?! I take music and this type of thing very, very seriously. I told her from day one that I was treating this as if it were my own party and she had absolutely nothing to worry about. I changed the play list many times and even went to the restaurant and listened to the ipod. Since it sounded horrible because of their speakers, I turned around and burned 5 CDS for her to put into the changer instead. Sound is of utmost importance to me. This thing took me forever!

Back to the accident: it turned out that every single CD that I had burned and put into a sleeve had to be taken out and sleeve tossed- each and every one was wet. At This point I still had two nights left if by any chance the play list needed to be re printed or (the worst of all) CD's needed to be re-burned. Icouldn't literally breathe because with every breath came a whopping cough- All this while chasing the cat around the dining room because she was now obsessed with what's on the table and kept jumping up on top of the laid out CD'S. I proceeded to take every single CD and play list out to lay out and let dry. The cat eventually got shut in a bedroom and C. Love went to Best Buy to buy some new sleeves. All this while my cough is getting progressively worse and I feel a fever coming on. We spent the next hour putting the CD'S in their new, dry sleeves and I put everything in the closet, shut the door, ate some dinner and went to bed.

Fast forward to Thursday at 1:23: I'm home sick again today and already called in for Friday. I've hit the Robitussin, can't stop sneezing and the woman comes over in 1/2 hour to pick up the fucking Cd's. I think I'll meet her outside so she doesn't have to come into the sick house. Man, what a way to end the winter. And on top of it all I wasn't even invited to the party... oh well. I'm done- good bye, I'm off for a nap as soon as she leaves.

Bad Butter

I know there are more important things in life to discuss: like breaking up with your love or 'hooking up with a hottie' or quitting your job or losing your cat or hitting a pot hole and screwing up your alignment but I gotta complain about the bad butter I bought at the store. It's tainting all of my food like a bad smell permeating the air. It looked a little funky when I opened it but I needed it so desperately that I choose to ignore- and I now I suffer.

On Sunday I was making C. Love a birthday dinner (birthday was Sat) which consisted of fillet with a white wine herb sauce, twice baked MASHED POTATOES, roasted asparagus, some warmed bread, and some profiteroles with chocolate sauce for dessert. I had only one quarter of a stick of butter left after I made the profiteroles and I still had the entire dinner to make- not good planning on my part. I definitely needed more than 1/4 of a stick for mashed potatoes, a rich wine sauce and bread, so I ventured into the living room and told C. Love about my problem. Being her wonderful self, she offered to go to the convenient store for me and pick up a stick- great, but when she said "convenient store" I kind of froze in my tracks. I kind of think that if you're not a snack food, a newspaper, a cigarette, a soda, a Gatorade or maybe a box of tissues- you're never leaving that convenient store- I swear some of that food on those shelves has been there for years.

Anyway, to make a long story somewhat shorter, the butter C. Love bought that night was indeed bad... very bad. It looked odd to me on Saturday night but I let it slide. It smelled odd and it tasted a little funky in my mashed potatoes, but again- I let it slide. But tonight when I made Pasta Primavera it smelled and tasted bad again- that was it. Damn, a whole pound of butter and I had to throw it away. I looked at the date as I tossed it in the garbage. It said: Best if purchased by Jan 2008. Just as I suspected, don't ever buy butter in a convenient store- stick to the candy bars.

Trust me, I have many more important things to be discussing here but for some odd reason the butter thing got to me... So it leads me to this question: what are you putting on your toast- real butter or the fake stuff? (I bet the fake stuff never goes bad)