Eeeew! Spiders!

This morning when I opened my front door an icky spider had constructed his home completely across my doorway. The nerve! Never fear - I dug into my arsenal of nano-nuclear weaponry to find one of my anti-spider missiles and handily dispatched him to spider Valhalla (and I really don't want to know what goes on in spider Valhalla, thank you).

I've been away from the tubes of the interwebz for a few days (for those not in the know, esteemed Alaska Senator Ted Stevens conceives of the internet as a series of tubes; the only thing appealing about that image is a recurring fantasy of Robert DeNiro a la "Brazil" busting into my apartment to repair my internet connection as well as my ducts...). I'll start with Wednesday evening.

I finally presented something for my reading group to peruse. They said I was redundant and verbose. Me? Redundant and verbose? Redundant and verbose? Me? Really? Redundant? Verbose? Hmm. Redundant and verbose. Maybe a little verbose. Redundant? Never. I'm not the least bit redundant. They did have a couple of nice things to say about my writing voice, and catching a nice 18th tone in my narrative. But redundant? I'm not the least bit redundant. Not at all. Maybe a little verbose.

However, as with any good spanking, inspiration was nonetheless derived, making me want to spend the next month in the stacks at Suzzallo, researching steam-powered submarines and whaling with a vengeance...but I've still got other things to attend to. Housework. Bills. Finding out when I can start collecting unemployment.

Thursday, on the way to the mater's house I stopped in at work. It was rather like a high school reunion - it was great to see everyone, and it took me forever to get in and out. I told them my tales of woe on being unemployed - sleeping in until 7:30, lying in bed for an hour or so to contemplate my day's activities, thinking about my blog entry, looking out the window and contemplating the universe...they didn't have much sympathy for my plight.

Thursday and Friday were mostly spent in pursuit of maternal errands and quests - life just doesn't get more enthralling than standing in line at Costco, I tells ya. I did get a copy of "Dr Strangelove" for my troubles, and expect to amuse myself with it sometime today. Woo hoo!

Yesterday was the memorial service for a recently deceased coworker. A very nice and proper memorial service was held in his honor yesterday afternoon...however, said service didn't really represent the entertainingly subversive coworker we all knew well. I mean, where was the vermin? So after the service and meet-and-greet reception that followed, the less reputable of us retired to the Rogue brewery in Issaquah to drink a toast to our departed friend with a pint (or several) of Dead Guy Ale . DG, our departed friend, was an award-winning home brewer, and Dead Guy was one of his favorite beverages.


I downed half a pint (I like the stuff, but beer is too many calories for too little bang), and then moved on to Maker's Mark, a move DG would have thoroughly approved of. My kilt-wearing friend JB was my escort and fake husband for the event (his wife was out of town, camping with their kids, so I was the wife-for-a-day and he was my fake husband); we were everything prim and proper, except for the conversation around the Kobe Beef Bleu Balls they served there...and no, I'm not going to enlighten those who were not in attendance. Some things can only be fully appreciated in their immediate context. I reported to JB that a woman in the restaurant sporting a Dead Kennedys hoodie (she probably wasn't even born the first time I saw them live) was definitely checking out my faux-hubby in his kilt; I did tell my readership that he looks really cute in it. It's all in the attitude, lads, just in case you're wondering how he gets away with it.

Ah, y'all are wondering what my Mad Scientist friend might have to say on the subject of me acquiring a faux spouse for a few hours? Well, I was unmarried when we chatted yesterday at about 4:30 PM, and I was single again about 5 hours later, so I don't know that there's much he can make of it. Maybe it will inspire him to consider donning a kilt, though. There's definitely a lack of kilt-wearing men in this town, and I'd love to see more of them.

My day today? Hmmmm, yogurt (I've only had coffee today), shower, put laundry away, put groceries away, vacuum, yoga, maybe Dr Strangelove. Never a dull moment at Chez Wilde.

All caught up on my exciting life now, so let me leave my readers better informed about their world than when they started reading this post.

In case you haven't been paying attention, Obama says he will support limited off-shore drilling to ease gas prices. Yep, that will solve all our energy problems; we should concentrate on that instead of long-term solutions to energy production, consumption, and just living more sustainably. The only change I dare hope for is quarters for the laundry machines in my apartment building, sad to say.

More importantly, and much closer to my heart, is a new ISO standard for the proper cooking of pasta - woo hoo! For those who cannot wait, however, here is a submission from the Annals of Improbable Research for the proper cooking of pasta:

2008-07-10 Piero's Preliminary Pasta Procedure

Hunger for the standard, and hunger in itself, demand at least one recipe. Here, from Italy, is a pert, 46-word specification from Italian chemist and rock star and LFHCfS 2002/3 Man of the Year Piero Paraidino:

"To 3 L of already boiling water containing 2 tablespoons of NaCl add 250 g of raw Italian pasta. Boil the mixture for 9 minutes, then recover the solid by filtration. Add 20 cl of extravirgin olive oil and a previously warmed dressing of your choice."

The Annals of Improbable Research is one of those sites on which it is very easy for me to lose hours of my life; I hope to lose a couple of hours there next time I'm on campus stealing wifi from my Alma Mater.

That's it for today; hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday will find me inspired to new heights of verbosity and redundancy!

My Last Day...And My First

Yesterday was my last day at MegaDyneCorp Technologies (not their real name). I did indeed wear my jammies in to work (there will be photographic evidence in the next few days, I assure you). Two other liberated chair moisteners joined me by donning their lounging attire, and four members of my now-shrunken unit dressed to celebrate my freedom - Noisy came as me with Mary Todd Lincoln accessories (July 16th is the anniversary of MTL's death); Ms Prickly also came dressed as me (in one of my favorite skirts!); Cesare came as Mamluk Sultan Baibar, whose glorious victory at the Battle of Antioch on May 18, 1268, is generally ignored by calendar makers; and JB wore his kilt. If I might digress just a moment, I love a man in a kilt; the first time I ever saw a kilt-wearing man in the flesh was in 1981 at a Dead Kennedys show at the Showbox. There was this good-looking blond man in the scene who always sported black-rimmed eye glasses of an early 1960's vintage, and that night he had on combat boots, a black leather jacket and a kilt...and I was in love! He broke my heart when he went poofy haired disco three years later....

But I have to say, as cute as JB looked in his kilt, Cesare was stunning in his robes and fez - they were perfect with his beard and braided pigtail, and he looked as if he should be living it up in a hashish lounge in Marrakech...

But enough of the wardrobe details - let me return to work. The cafeteria had sunk to its lowest ever in terms of pastry quality, so Wonder Woman actually ran up to Starbucks and grabbed some pastries, including some Top Pot donuts (mmmm....donuts). I much appreciated it; when lounging around in my pyjamas and robe, it's nice to have a decent pastry to go with the coffee. So again, thank you so much, Wonder Woman!

Then there was the group lunch out - something like 40 people invaded the Red Robin, messing up the section seating and changing places at the tables so that the poor wait staff could do nothing but watch the chaos. Since they were all high-school age, I don't think they cared much; I figure that will teach management there to not take reservations for large groups, heh heh.

There were many tearful hugs, some last minute packing, and then another summit at the Milton. That was great fun - JB treated me to a Dewars Rob Roy, which the young bartender did not know how to make. Apparently, it's an old-fashioned drink. I said that I liked my drinks like I liked my men, old and classic, and some dude at the end of the bar started howling with laughter - it probably was pretty funny, coming from a woman in pyjamas and bathrobe and fuzzy pink flamingo slippers. Panagiotis treated me to a Glenlivet on the rocks - yeah, I like scotch. It rather goes with the men in kilts thing, after all. Tasty bar food was shared, and someone I hadn't seen in years actually showed up - the man responsible for my Gidorah and Mothra Beanie Babies. No, I'm not a BB collector, but I love all things Gojira (Godzilla to you unbelievers). It was great to see him again, and I have his card, so if I get desperate for work, I'll be sending him an email with my resume...

I did receive a couple of parting gifts - last week, Noisy gave me a Butthole Surfers video from 1985, I believe, full of live performances of all their early greats on there. I've already noted the time marks for my favorite songs, like "Hey" and "Mexican Caravan" and "I Shot the Pope" (or whatever the real title of the song is). It's been so long since I've listened to them that I was very happy to recall exactly how much I like their stuff. So truly, a million thanks, Noisy, for the wonderful treat!

I also received a flower arrangement from a former dept manager and his wife - they are great people, I always enjoyed working with him and chatting with his wife when she'd call. I would conspire with her to keep him on the straight and narrow - we made a great team. Thanks again for the lovely flowers!

And now for today...

I took a Benedryl last night because I felt an allergic attack was imminent, so I slept until 8:30 AM. I got up and brushed my teeth. I put on what I was wearing yesterday and walked to the coffee shop behind my house. I got a short soy mocha and cinnamon roll with orange glaze to go (no yogurt in the fridge, so that means I end up getting a breakfast treat at the coffee shop). I walked home, made sure I didn't want to catch today's NPR morning programming, and fired up the computer to check email. I cued up Jethro Tull in iTunes. There was an hysterically funny lolcats email waiting for me, which I read while eating and drinking. After ensuring that there weren't any email disasters I needed to address, I got the jammie cam going, and wrote my little blog post...


So, how's work today?

Note to Noisy - I'll write about Mr Pizza today, but I won't post it until tomorrow. This post is waaay too long as it is!

The Cross, Dysfunctional Team Meeting

Friday some of the malcontents (as Freud would have labeled us) from the workplace gathered at our official meeting site for a celebration of sorts - for those not in the know, the official meeting site includes libations alcoholic in nature. Woo hoo! The celebration was to mark the promotion of someone completely undeserving (whom I shall name Dink) to a position high enough that he will eventually be able to enact all his fascist fantasies...as soon as Ilsa of the SS responds to his voice mail messages.


Heh, the poster warns that some members of the public may find certain scenes in the film offensive and shocking. Shall we bet that some members under Dink's command found him offensive and shocking? If not, we can at least safely assume they found him uninformed and arrogant. Now a new bunch of underpaid corporate drones will learn to appreciate these most excellent qualities of his leadership. Thinking on it, I feel guilty that we did not make a toast to his new group of henchmen, er, underlings, er, subordinates.

We did make toasts to those who were unable to attend the meeting - and we had garlic cheese bread, which I think qualifies as toast. It occurs to me that tossing pieces of toasted garlic bread with hot, melted cheese on it at people you don't like would be a different method of toasting - but I digress, and the toasted garlic bread was too tasty to waste on someone I don't much like.

There was some small good news at yesterday's summit - one of Dink's former chair moisteners has landed another position. This chair moistener (I shall call him Lucky) is the only repository for a huge body of knowledge about our workplace. He's one of those people to whom you can go to either get an answer or to find out where to get one. It remains to be seen how fortunate Lucky's new placement truly is, but a reprieve is a reprieve and I'm pleased that he got one. I did try to convince him to take my job if I got laid off, but he's not nearly foolish enough to do that. I should have sweetened the deal by throwing in that shrunken head in my office. C'est la vie.

Back to the meeting minutes - there were toasts to those absent, a hailing of Fuhrer Dink, drinking and eating of pub grub, discussions about how many and how soon de big layoffs will be, and the joyous discovery that someone I know actually has the Ism lp with their cover of "I Think I Love You". I took incriminating photos of summit participants but you won't be seeing them here. No, those are my backup plan for when my unemployment insurance runs out ;-)

I have no idea when the meeting finally adjourned - four folks were still there when I left. Here's to hoping they're were not hung over!