GoGoGomez

I have the supidest cat in the world. It is a given that I can not take a bath without him falling into it. When I'm lucky, I am not in it, or I at least get out of the way in time.

Just now, I drew a bath, but was finishing up some other things before I got in. It wasn't 2 minutes before I heard the expected and unmistakable sound of him falling in. He came running out, and started chasing his tail. That was about 5 minutes ago, and he is still running in circles, only pausing every now and then to look sad and confused.

Editing this entry to say that after I posted it, I went and got in the tub. Right as I sat down, someone fell in. Can you guess who? (hint: it wasn't me!)

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

I started my new job Monday. For the first day, I was required to sit through a new hire orientation all day. I'm now working for a property management company that employs thousands of people, and my orientation class was mostly people who will be on site at various properties we manage: the leasing agents and property managers and maintenance workers. I am an accountant. But still I had to sit through a class that focused mainly on fair housing requirements.

It was very interesting, and now I know the names of each protected class and the dates on which they became protected. But it was really a lot of common sense for anyone that's a nice, normal person. "Oh no shit, I can't refuse to rent to this lady just because she's a 72 year old black jewish lesbian single mother disabled military veteran from Afghanistan and is an active member of the communist party?" Huh.

We also briefly covered harassment in the workplace, with a video and everything. I was able to stick with it through most of it (I guess it never occurred to me that saying "something's not kosher on my Profit and Loss statement" could offend someone, but I suppose I can see it), but when we got to the guy sexually harassing his coworker, they lost me.

It showed a man walk up to a female coworker, presumably at some after hours function (funfact: harassment doesn't have to take place at the office to be harassment). He said that it was pretty funny how, every day when he saw her, she was all professional, manning the x-ray machine, and he was all professional, delivering the.... things he delivered (I don't remember!), and how all he could ever think was that he wished he had x-ray vision because she was so smokin' hot in those scrubs.

Gentlemen! Protip for you: the fact that he worked with her is the least of what's offensive about that come on. Work on your game, boys!

Yesterday I started actual work, and I think it's going to be awesome. A whole office full of 25 accounting nerds. I bet the fun never stops on our side of the building! It's pretty much 25 people, all wearing headphones. Good, I don't like you guys anyway.

Do You Feel Lucky?

In spite of it all, I do.

Merry Christmas!

Speaking as a Lady

Who ain't got a man, you know what really irritates me this time of year? All the jewelry commercials reminding me that I ain't got a man buying me any jewelry this year. I think my hatred for these commercials might be rivaled by all the MEN who do have ladies, though.

You know what's awkward? Hanging out at a bar with your male cousin. I'm a big people watcher, and "spot the first date" is a favorite game of mine. So I can't help but feel that in a corner of the bar, there's someone who as pegged us as a first date. Gross.

You know what's sucky? My hot water heater won't even fill a whole bathtub. So if I'm struck with the fancy for a bath, I have to fill it halfway, wait for the water heater to fill back up, and fill it the rest of the way. And NOTHING is worse than getting in, and finding that the water is not as warm as you think it is. So I wait, and tolerate the lukewarm bath, because I'm in til the bitter end.

You know what's nice? I got up this morning, put on my happyfeet sneakers, walked down to Safeway and got myself some breakfast fixins and walked back home. It was about a mile each way, and cold, but boy did it feel good.

You know what makes me want to write? Reading something by a truly astounding author. Do yourself a favor, and read anything by Daniel Handler.

You know what's depressing? Knowing I have to be fabulous in 2 hours and being completely dissatisfied with the clothes in my closet. Wish me luck.

Several Nice Things for the Weekend

Me:

• Casey asked me if I've lost weight (I haven't).
• It rained like a crazy motherfucker for about 48 hours.
• I found a great "home" bar close to my house. Good prices, casual atmosphere, and best of all, food.
• I went out Saturday night and drank one more than my normal limit (I wasn't driving) and had NO hangover Sunday.
• I found that one of my favorite coffee shops, which had closed, has reopened in a nicer spot.

Robb:

• He got a girlfriend!
• All he can talk about is his girlfriend so who knows what else.

Gomez:

• When trying to attack a beam of sunlight that I was reflecting on to the wall, he crashed and burned spectacularly, and I laughed at him pretty hard.
  

7 Things on Thursday

Stolen shamelessly from another blogger, here are three nice things a day, plus one from my cat.

1. My hair came out just right.
2. An older man on the elevator asked me how I was, and told me to have a great day.
3. Robb did his homework with no argument.

Robb:

1. They played football with the upperclassmen at lunch.
2. He outran the water truck (I don't know what this means either).
3. He got to play Guitar Hero at the library.

Gomez:

1. Tackled his brother and took him completely unawares. When Leo ran off, Gomez laid down with an incredibly smug look on his face.
   

I Don't Know Where Transiberia Is

But I know I want to go.

Saturday night, my mother took us all to see The Transiberian Orchestra. I know absolutely nothing about them. All I know is this video, which I imagine we've all seen:


At this point, I was thinking that it would just be.... an orchestra. We'd go sit and watch a bunch of people in tuxedos play weird music. I was wrong.

My first clue was when I found out it was being held in the college basketball stadium. It was at about this point that I began to fear that my "nice evening out" clothes were going to be overkill. I revised my attire and off we went. At the doors, I noticed signs saying "WARNING: flashing lights and strobes in effect". Ok, so it's going to be a bunch of people in tuxedos playing weird music while lights flash.

Well... yeah. Only not quite like i thought:



It's ROCKSTARS in tuxedos playing weird music! These guys just rocked it right out. The first half kind of dragged, but by my fifth seizure, I was hooked. And I wasn't alone! People all around me were going absolutely crazy. A lady in front of me was dancing and screaming and singing along. At first I thought she was drunk. By the end of the evening, I actually thought she might be slightly off her rocker and felt a little bad. The guys behind me couldn't stop yelling "YEEEEAAAAHHH!!!" People were dancing, singing along, even shouting the guys' names! These guys have groupies!

The first section was a whole long story. It was narrated by a guy who could put Isaak Hayes to shame, smoothest voice I've ever heard:


I wasn't quite following along, and when I compared notes with my family later, all we could agree on was that Santa was drunk in a bar at some point:

(At the show we saw this guy had long white hair)

At the end of the Christmas story, our narrator returned and told us all, "merry Christmas", and blew a kiss out to the audience. As the lights faded to black, I heard the guy behind me say, softly and with feeling, "merry Christmas to you man... merry Christmas to you".

Then they started rocking out for serious. It was an hour or so of guitar solos, blinding flashing lights, all interspersed with Christmas carols. Every one of the guys had long hair, making me wonder if it's a requirement. Every one of them played his solo with the intensity of Jimi Hendrix, even if it WAS "Silent Night" they were playing. You couldn't help but love it. Add in the 4 scantily clad girls singing and dancing, another chick playing an electric violin like a crazy person, and it was just pure gold.