daily life: November 2007 Archives
So there I was. Innocently and hard-workingly sitting at my desk. In the distance, the pug that works around the corner from me began to bark. Not the usual cute innocent barks of a spastic friendly doggie, but barks of terror. Barks that would not stop. The kind of barks that were engineered to alert their owners to certain danger.
I looked up in time to see a lion slowing rounding the corner, surveying the scene on our floor.
This lion casually walked over to an empty desk in our area and picked up the phone, apparently to check some voicemail messages. He sat down at the computer and propped his back paws on the desk as he listened to the phone, then put his legs down and sat up to take note of something on a post-it. Then he stood up, stretched, and reached in his pocket for a stack of index cards. 
He then proceeded to walk around to each and every person, and handed us all one of these cards inviting us to the Christmas party. Please carefully note the the reason "why":
Apparently similar incidents happened in our offices in other cities. A bulldog delivered the invitations in Detroit. Portland was visited by a penguin.
TO: Eco-Elements
FROM: Concerned Citizen
SUBJ: humble request for the public good
Hello,
I take the #15 bus every evening to get home from work, and I wait for my bus at the 1st and Pine stop right outside your storefront. The smell of incense even a few doors down from your store is extremely overwhelming, and on some days, flat-out nauseating. Do you think maybe you could tone it down a bit?
If not, maybe you should consider selling dust masks at a kiosk outside your front door to the other bus commuters who aren't as interested in the odor of patchouli as you are.
Thank you,
h.k.
FROM: Concerned Citizen
SUBJ: humble request for the public good
Hello,
I take the #15 bus every evening to get home from work, and I wait for my bus at the 1st and Pine stop right outside your storefront. The smell of incense even a few doors down from your store is extremely overwhelming, and on some days, flat-out nauseating. Do you think maybe you could tone it down a bit?
If not, maybe you should consider selling dust masks at a kiosk outside your front door to the other bus commuters who aren't as interested in the odor of patchouli as you are.
Thank you,
h.k.
I wasn't as hungover as I thought I would be after Video Game Vomit Day, but apparently I was hungover enough that I never checked the text messages on my phone. So this morning at work I was very pleased to find this message from Jackie:
Sent: 04-Nov-07 3:31AM
"I threw up. Your party was a success!"
Hooray!!
Sent: 04-Nov-07 3:31AM
"I threw up. Your party was a success!"
Hooray!!
One of the perks at my new company is that they pay for your gym membership to a relatively fancy athletic-type club. I signed up a couple of weeks ago, and it's a pretty nice place. The main thing I liked about it was that it is on the second floor and they don't have elevator access to that floor....only stairs. The thought of people taking an elevator to go use the stairmaster frankly enrages me, so thank god they've taken a stance on this critical issue.
Anyhow, I've gone in a couple of times to use the elliptical trainer, but today I decided to give one of their yoga classes a try. I'm not usually a big fan of yoga or Nia or any of the other hippie-based exercise regimens, but I can admit the benefits of yoga and stretching and power isometric poses and etc. And I actually kinda enjoy the fitness/strength-focused yoga classes, when the instructors aren't so ditzy and force you to imagine your inner light going through your spine to diffuse compassion and acceptance through your body, and henceforth the universe. Fuck that. I'm just there to stretch my hamstrings, hippie.
I would say that the class was 65% stretchy/posey, and 35% hippie bullshit. And 25% of the hippie part happened at the very end when the instructor vomited a mouthful of fancy Indian words, as if any of us in the room had a clue what she was saying. It was seriously like she was possessed, I think her eyes even rolled back in her head a little. And unfortunately I just watched "Child's Play I" last weekend, so for a split second I thought she was chanting the spell that Charles Lee Ray used to transfer his soul into the Good Guy doll. And when I realized that wasn't what she was saying, I was wishing that I had that memorized so I could say it.
Note to Halee's self, memorize this before your next yoga class:
Anyhow, I've gone in a couple of times to use the elliptical trainer, but today I decided to give one of their yoga classes a try. I'm not usually a big fan of yoga or Nia or any of the other hippie-based exercise regimens, but I can admit the benefits of yoga and stretching and power isometric poses and etc. And I actually kinda enjoy the fitness/strength-focused yoga classes, when the instructors aren't so ditzy and force you to imagine your inner light going through your spine to diffuse compassion and acceptance through your body, and henceforth the universe. Fuck that. I'm just there to stretch my hamstrings, hippie.
I would say that the class was 65% stretchy/posey, and 35% hippie bullshit. And 25% of the hippie part happened at the very end when the instructor vomited a mouthful of fancy Indian words, as if any of us in the room had a clue what she was saying. It was seriously like she was possessed, I think her eyes even rolled back in her head a little. And unfortunately I just watched "Child's Play I" last weekend, so for a split second I thought she was chanting the spell that Charles Lee Ray used to transfer his soul into the Good Guy doll. And when I realized that wasn't what she was saying, I was wishing that I had that memorized so I could say it.
Note to Halee's self, memorize this before your next yoga class:
Auday duay dumbalar. Auday duay dumbalar. La mwar de sway de pwa de yo. Se swa seten de pwa de mor. Auday deway dum balar. Give me the power, I beg of you!!
If you know me, you probably know I hate phones. I also hate talking on phones, and I double especially hate listening to other people talk on phones. But every now and then I'll have a perfectly satisfying phone conversation. Like the one that just happed with Wes:
*ringy-ring-ring*
Halee: "Good afternoon, this is Halee...how can I help you?" (it's 8PM)
Wes: "Hello?"
Halee: "Wes!"
Wes: "I thought I was going to get your voicemail."
Halee: "Nope...what are you doing?"
Wes: "You know you had those two beanbags with mean stuff written on them. And one said 'douchelord' and the other said...."
Halee: "'Dicktard'?"
Wes: "YES!!! That's all I needed...I'll talk to you later!"
I can only hope that call meant that Wes was poised at someone's back windshield with shoe polish in hand, and that they will soon be driving down the highway with something like "DICKTARD ROD" emblazoned across the back of their car.
But even if that's not the case, I can just be happy that I just had a phone conversation where I had to utter no more than 15 words and one of them was "dicktard."
*ringy-ring-ring*
Halee: "Good afternoon, this is Halee...how can I help you?" (it's 8PM)
Wes: "Hello?"
Halee: "Wes!"
Wes: "I thought I was going to get your voicemail."
Halee: "Nope...what are you doing?"
Wes: "You know you had those two beanbags with mean stuff written on them. And one said 'douchelord' and the other said...."
Halee: "'Dicktard'?"
Wes: "YES!!! That's all I needed...I'll talk to you later!"
I can only hope that call meant that Wes was poised at someone's back windshield with shoe polish in hand, and that they will soon be driving down the highway with something like "DICKTARD ROD" emblazoned across the back of their car.
But even if that's not the case, I can just be happy that I just had a phone conversation where I had to utter no more than 15 words and one of them was "dicktard."
