leah_sips

MEMO

ATTN: Pedestrians
FROM: Common Sense
SUBJECT: Your Safety

As a driver I am more than happy to stop and let you cross the street, crosswalk or no crosswalk. However, I am not able to stop and let you go if I don't see you. If I am driving on a busy street, I ask that you stop, look and wait for the appropriate time before crossing. I ask that you not just walk into the middle of the street without looking. By taking these small steps, you are helping to ensure the safety of not only me and other people on the street, but you are helping to preserve your own life and limb. If for some reason you are not able to stop and looking before carelessly wandering into the middle of traffic, I ask for your assistance in not stopping in the middle of the road to let me know that you are in fact walking. I see that you are walking and that is why I didn't run you down with my car. Furthermore, while you are stopped in the middle road, it is requested that you kindly put your middle finger down and refrain from telling me to go fuck myself. As mentioned earlier in the memo, I am more than happy to stop if you are visible and if it doesn't endanger the lives of everyone else in general vicinity.

I was just checking my online bank statement and saw a $10 charge to a place called Reservation Rewards. I had no idea what that was, so I called the number on the statement to see. I gave them my name and they couldn't find me. I gave them my zip and they couldn't find me. I asked them what they did and the surly man said that they are "a service that provides discounts to products on the internet." I thought about asking why I had to pay $10 if this was supposed to be a savings to me, but decided to not be a wiseass. Then the guy asked for my email address and Eureka! They found my account. Under the name of Justin Burton!!!!!

Justin! What did you do and how did you get my credit card number?!?!?!?!?!

I've hit rock bottom. All it took was a few days of having a cold and one day with no voice. I just watched American Idol for the first time. I thought they all pretty much sucked. Except for the guy who sang Day Tripper and even that was only mediocre. And now I'm completely digusted with myself for even writing about this. ::sigh""

Gary (or anyone who happens to know the answer to this), how come soap operas still have new episodes? Are they shot way far in advance? Or are the fine writers of daytime dramas non-union writers? What's the deal?

And I know that they are still new episodes because I watch General Hospital at 10pm on SoapNet many nights.

Dear Nintendo DS,
Oh, how I love Diner Dash. Flo and I are totally bff.  But why, oh why, must you be so stylus-centric?  I like pushing buttons, not waving wands. ::sigh::
Sincerely,
The League of Flo's Friend

Pro - Made tarts for Thanksgiving dessert. Pumpkin-maple and chocolate-raspberry. Both look and smell delish!
Con - I totally underestimated how long it would take and spent waaay more time than I thought I would. Also underestimated the amount of dishes this would use. Oh dishpan hands, what will I ever do?

Pro - I got a new job and start in a week!!
Con - I already used up that first paycheck on car repairs.  There is an even longer list of repairs needed, but I only did what the guy at the shop said I needed to make it through the winter

Con - With all of the repairs, I'm seriously thinking of trading in my little Petunia in the spring.  :(
Pro - I'm getting excited about the prospect of a new (or newish) car. Maybe one that has a bit of zip. Oh my!

Pro - My new job comes with a nice little raise!
Con - With a car payment looming, I won't really be seeing any more moneys

Pro - It's Thanksgiving. A time to give thanks.  And eat a big dinner with your family.
Con - Have any of you met my family? 'Nuff said. Plus, no stuffing or cranberry this year. We're making crepes (don't ask how that happened) for dinner. But I did buy some stuffing and cranberry fixins for later in the weekend, so I'm not a total commie.

Pro - As of 6pm tomorrow night I should be done with family commitments until Christmas
Con - Can we really find a con with that one?

This year I am thankful that this list had more pros than it did cons.

The Red Sox won the World Series. And then there was a parade for them. 

It's 90 degrees, sunny and a bit humid here in Boston. It's also the last week of September. I went apple picking last weekend in shorts and a tank. I thought a sweater was required for such activities. Not that I'm complaining. If it had been cooler, I never would have discovered my new favorite treat, cider pops. That's right, frozen apple cider on a stick. Yum-O. (AHHHH!!! I've been watching too much Rachel Ray and now I'm talking like her. Clearly I need to go on Intervention. I request Jeff. He's my fave interventionist!)

Anyway, with the warm weather and the unemployment I decided to make a trip to lovely and scenic South Boston this afternoon and lay in the sunshine on the beach. I pull into a parking lot (I actually got a space that wasn't on the street!) and notice there are almost no people there (Score! My favorite kind of beach - an empty one.) because most people have jobs. Then I get out of the car and notice an old man sitting the car next to mine. And he's watching the beach. THROUGH BINOCULARS!!!! Hello?!? That's totally not cool. Shouldn't he be hiding in the bushes or something? Or at least attempting to hide the fact that he's a total perv?!? I guess not. I just went in the opposite direction from him. I figure the worst case scenario is that he becomes obsessed with me, starts stalking me and I get my own Lifetime movie. It'd be a win-win situation.

I was sitting at my desk a few minutes ago talking to Beth about this and that. And the subject turned to the one and only time she's used her camera phone. While driving home from work one day she saw a sign on the local school fence that read "Happy Birthday JCP - 5/7/07" And she had to stop and take a picture because not only is that Jonathan's birthday, but also his initials. Weird, right?

I asked if he fully appreciated the time she spent figuring out how to take a picture and send it to him. She said that once he figured out what it was a picture of he appreciated it. And before I knew what happened (reminicent of the glazed donut incident from the other day), I said, "Of course he did. It was about him." Whoopsy.  I got a shocked look and she covered her mouth and pointed at me. Then she couldn't stop laughing.  See, the thing is, Beth knows Jonathan a whole lot better than me, so she's experienced his self absorbancy even more than I have.

That's right. It's a Bad Attitude Day for Miss Leah. It all started with a wardrobe crisis - since when do I care what I look like at work? and then a fumbled trip to Dunkin Donuts involving a parking lot cluster fuck. When I ordered my medium iced coffee with just milk I somehow also said "and a glazed donut please." I don't even know where that came from or how I said it, but I ate it and now my tummy hurts.

And when I finally got to work, all I wanted to do what drink my coffee and check my emails. But that is easier said than done around here. Beth thinks that I want her to come over to me and talk and talk and talk about anything and everything. About cleaning the house and doing the laundry. Or weeding the garden or the vile Jonathan moving in with his girlfriend or about the credit card she had to cancel or about the fact that I gave a client the wrong rate for their ad. I actually gave the correct rate and Beth was wrong, but she can't admit that. 

Here's how it works: On the fourth Sunday of the month, the Attleboro Sun increases their advertising rate and automatically places all ads into additional community newspapers. It is called a forced buy. It is common practice with print advertising. If I had told Susan that her ad was going to be $17 an inch on the fourth Sunday of the month, that would be wrong. It would be $32 an inch. But this past Sunday was the fifth Sunday of the month (because that's the way the calendar works sometimes goddamn it!) so the rate was only $17 and I was correct. When I told Beth that it was the 5th SUnday do you know what her response was? This is what she said and it made me want to punch her in the face - "But it was the fourth Saturday." Guess what Beth, that doesn't fucking matter. No one cares which Saturday it is. It only matters which Sunday it is. I'm right (as usual) and you're wrong. Deal with it. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So she's taking this opportunity to question everything I say to her. Everything. She isn't even bothering to read the entire email I send her, she just comes over and implies that I'm wrong, but I'm not. Can I guartantee that all the information I give her is absolutely accurate? No. But it is the information I have been given and really that's all I can do at this point. 

And apparently as punishment for being compentent, she is giving me stupid busy work to do all day today. So here I am writing this overly long piece of crap post and waiting for it to be lunchtime and pretending that it's taking me waaaay more than 5 minutes to do the stupid little mindless project she gave me. Is that wrong? Probably. Do I care? Nope. Because as I said already, this is my Bad Attitude Day and I'm going to fully embrace it.

This isn't all bad though. I know that I'm making the right decision in not coming back here permanently. I'd go crazy. Beth finally advertised my job online this week. She's been saying she's going to do it since before I came back. Now I just need to find a new job. Preferably one where I make a lot of money and only work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I've grown quite accustomed to that schedule and don't feel that it would beneficial for me to go back to a dreadful 5-day work week. Really, what would be the point of that?

::Deep cleansing breath::

So I was at Trader Joe's yesterday doing a bit of grocery shopping.
Here's a sample of my list:
1. Raisin bran clusters cereal
2. Vanilla soy milk
3. Vanilla soy coffee creamer
4. Coffee
5. Tofu
6. Popsicles
7. MorningStar Farms Buffalo "Chicken Wings"

There were probably other things as well, but you can make a few assumptions about me.
1. Dairy and I are not on the best of terms
2. I beleive the motto that breakfast is the most important meal of the day

So I get all the stuff I need and at the last minute remember the coffee creamer. There was no vanilla, but I can make do. I was excited when I picked it up for a couple of reasons:
1. I remembered it
2. They had soy (I can't always find it)
and 3. (this is where Art comes into the picture) It had a picture of soy beans on the carton. Now I kinda sorta remember a one Arthur Q Elliott saying there are never soy beans on soy drink products and that he would be more receptive to soy products if there were pictures of soy beans on the carton. I don't remember the exact circumstances around the discussion or why it made a difference, but I remember (sorta) this conversation taking place.  It was something about these soy products not being "milk" or "creamer" but actually soy juice. So Art, does this mean you'll drink the soy creamer?

Just curious. 

After cutting up a jalepeno pepper, don't pick your nose.

This was the first day since my unempployment began that I actually felt well. The cold symptoms hit about 10 minutes after I left the office on Friday (of course). But now I'm almost as good as new. I went to the gym this morning and the guy behind the counter commented on how early I was. I responded with "Ahh. The beneftis of unemployment." He just stared at me and didn't know what to say. I also realized that I've been using the ab machine wrong, so now I'm psyched to start using it the right way.

Then I met up with Chris at the farmer's market in Coolidge Corner. I've never been before. It was underwhelming. But I did get lettuce, snap peas and rhubarb.

The rhubarb inspired me to make these strawberry-rhubarb turnovers.


and Bob requested pics. So here they are:

Anyone ever watch those old Twighlight Zone episodes? There's the William Shatner on the plane episode. And the colony of tiny people in space episode. And then there's the episode where the power goes out and all mechanical things stop working on a block in Anytown USA. Eventually everyone starts fighting about the best way to handle the situation and in the end we learn that aliens are actually performing an experiment on the townsfolk. Well, I think I'm involved in one of those experiments at work.

For those that don't know, I started working at a small B2B events and research firm a couple of months ago. I am the Database Marketing Manager, which means I look at all the promotions the marketing department has going out and decide how to segment all of our contacts so the best people are the getting promotions for products they are the most likely to purchase and/or participate in.

Our big annual event was last week at the new Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and man, was that thing a bust. Very few people showed up, exhibitors want their money back, upper management has been meeting with the investors for that last week to try and get more money to keep the company going. Two sales people quit, one of the other marketing managers is leaving next week to go to grad school (this had been planned for quite awhile, but they have decided to not replace her) and worst of all, my boss is leaving on Friday. She got a job closer to home and it's with a big association. I don't blame her for jumping ship. CYA* is the unofficial motto of our department. She'll be staying on in a consulting role for the next few months, but she has a new job, so those functions will be pretty limited. So that leaves me with no boss and the department with no direction.

The worst part of all this is that no one is telling us anything. We don't even know which projects are still active. And that means we don't know what we should be working on or the priority of anything. We're supposed to be getting a new website and database this month. No one knows where that stands. We don't even know if we'll be employed in the fall or even next week.

So for now, a large part our time is spent whispering with coworkers about all the possible things that could happen to us. We have a million scenerios about what will happen with the company and who we think will be in and out with each scenario. With every possibility I'm either out or on the bubble.

Now comes the Twilight Zone moment. Everyone is starting to turn on each other. Most of the whispering has turned from corporate speculation to gossip and judgement of each other. As Julie the Graphic Designer from New Orleans said, "everyone is getting so damn persnickety!"

"Did you see that Ed left at 4:45?"
"Leah is over at Julie's desk AGAIN?!?! What are they talking about?"
And on and on and on.

It's great! Wendee is still doing her walk-throughs to make sure people are working. But she's started this new thing where she asks people to help her file or to sort the mail and take our the trash. I don't take out the trash. "Leah, can you help us take a load to the dump?" Someone actually asked me that. I said no. "Oh sorry. I'm busy." And I don't go to the dump. I should have my mom help. That was one of her favorite childhood activities.

Pretty soon we'll completely turn on each other, half the people will quit and the other half will revolt, take over the office, kill Wendee and survive on her ample meat for months.

Stayed tuned for the part two of the Twilight Zone.

* Cover your ass

It took 28 years, but I finally figured what I what want to be when I grow up -- Queen of the World! Wouldn't that be great. I already am Queen of My Own World, why not expand to The World? And let us not forget how much smarter I am than everyone else. It'll be a match made in heaven!

I bought a new bathmat from Target this weekend. It is yellow and fuzzy, replacing the blue swirly one I got from IKEA last year. Here's a helpful tidbit to all you IKEA lovers out there: IKEA bathmats are not designed to last longer than a few months.

You may think that by washing the bathmat regularly you are prolonging its lifespan. You are not. For the first few months we washed the bathmat as needed. Then the roommate got sick of it and "replaced" it. Quotes because his version of replacing the bathmat is putting the blue swirly one in the recycling bin (I don't know why he thinks that would be recyclable) and putting a towel down on the bathroom floor. Then when I get home and run into the bathroom because I have to pee, slide across the floor and almost fall down. Towels are not good replacements for bathmats, so IKEA bathmat was put back in its rightful place.

And finally, after a year-long stalemate, I broke down and bought a new bathmat. Then came the tricky part. During this year-long stalemate, it turns out the bathmat had a battle plan all its own. Fusing itself to the bathroom floor. I knew it was stuck, but since I could just clean around it, I didn't actually try to lift it off the floor.

Well, I tried today. And tried. And tried. Finally I peeled it off. But not without leaving many, many blue terry cloth fuzz balls glued to the floor. It looked like the bathroom floor had grown blue grass. I tried to mop the floor. No luck. I let the Mistolene (Mr. Clean-type cleaner from the bodega around the corner) and hot water soak on the floor for a few minutes. No luck. I used the scrubby side of the sponge mop. Minimal luck. Repeat the above steps for over an hour and you'll be where I am right now: sitting in my room, not cleaning the bathroom. All of the blue has been peeled from the floor, but there is still the glue to contend with. Next step is the hairdryer. Maybe this will heat the glue enough to scrape it off.

Ah, fuck it. I'm putting Old Yella down and trying to forget that I just spent over an hour cleaning the bathroom floor.

After months of knowing it was gone and a couple of real attempts to locate it, I finally found my watch. Had it not been for a wayward pretzel, I never would have have found it hiding under the couch cushions. Not that I wear a watch anymore (I have a cell phone) and the only time I really wanted it was on my trip to Thailand last November. Still, it's nice knowing she's back home in the drawer next to my bed where she belongs. Right next to the dental floss. Whew!

In other news, I'm back to being a good worker bee at the Pape's this week. (Work, Monkey! Work! Faster! Faster!) I am excused from answering the phones while I'm here out of fear of confusing clients. Meet Leah, the amazing disappearing and reappearing account manager. She's here, she's gone, she's back, she's gone again. Then next Tuesday I start my new job as a Database Marketing Manager. When I interviewed, they gave me a tour of the office, so at least I know where the water cooler and the bathroom are before I start. Two less things to feel stupid about on the first day. 998,000 more things to have ask are still to come.

Somehow, I have avoided events similar to those detailed below. But would anyone really be surprised if that did happen to me. I even shop at that Target all the time.



Police arrest 10-year-old girl

February 12, 2007

BOSTON --Boston police have charged a 10-year-old girl with kicking a woman who had accidentally bumped her at a discount department store.

The girl was arrested on Sunday and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon after she and some female friends allegedly attacked a 22-year-old customer at the Target store in the city's Dorchester neighborhood.

Witnesses told police that the girls knocked the victim to the floor "where she was being hit, her hair was being ripped out, and her pants were taken off," Officer Eddy Chrispin said.

The 10-year-old girl was allegedly particularly brutal, Chrispin said, kicking the woman in the head and stomach as the victim's clothes were being torn off and she was punched in the face by the other girls.

The other girls were not arrested, but police will seek criminal complaints against them from a court clerk, police said.

The name of the girl arrested was not released because of her age.

The fight broke out in an aisle just before 4 p.m. after the victim "bumped into the youngest girl and refused to apologize," Chrispin said. The victim was treated at a hospital.

------

Information from: Boston Herald, http://www.bostonherald.com

I went to the bookstore this afternoon to get reading material for my upcoming trip to Mexico. Between the bargain table upstairs and the used book cellar, I left with four books. I'm sure you're all wondering how I chose the amazing books. Did I ask everyone I know for recommendations? Did I check the bestseller lists? Are they all classic works of literature? Nope. I scanned the shelves for pink covers! The perfect system for finding fabulous beach reads.