Intrepid Research Skillz For Hyre

Posted on 11/4/2007 by cheesefairy

I was sitting on the floor yesterday, watching Trombone play with a box of crayons. Actually, I was napping while he played with a box of crayons. Periodically he would pull one out of the box and yell, “Gurble!” and I would open my eyes and say, “That’s a RED crayon,” and then close my eyes again and he would quietly take a few minutes to put the crayon back in the box and pull out another one.

Hey, it was pissing rain and something resembling zero degrees outside and if we can’t amuse ourselves inside it is going to be a very long life until grade 1, I tell you what.

After a few iterations, I felt guilty so I got more creative. “That’s a BLUE crayon. The sky, Smurfs, blueberries and rotten cheese – those things are all blue. What’s a Smurf? Another time.” It was when I was describing orange, “Dyed cheese and apricots and pumpkins and, well, oranges…are all orange,” that I realized how weird it is that orange is both a noun and an adjective. Wouldn’t it be strange if we called bananas “yellows”?

I went to the Internet, expecting a long, arduous search because if I had never thought about this in 33 years of life, surely no one else would have. I am ashamed to report, though, that not only has most of the world already had this little brain wave but it’s a straight dope CLASSIC so, uh, yeah. I guess I’ve been busy? Thinking about other stuff?

The noun came first. Cecil (above) says the first utterance of “orange” as an adjective was recorded in 1620 but another site said it was in 1512 in the court of Henry VIII and this answer appeals more to my imagination. That same site says that, “Before [orange] was introduced to the English-speaking world, the colour was referred to (in Old English) as geoluhread, which translates into Modern English as yellow-red,” and I am inclined to believe this wholeheartedly as well.

Somewhat related:

I ate my first mandarin orange of the season (whoever’s season it is…) today. It was sublime.

Posted in food, trombone | 6 Comments

Entitlement Eats Your Candy Just Because it’s Yours

Posted on 11/3/2007 by cheesefairy

This week, my workplace was beside itself, tied in knots (just as uncomfortable as it sounds) trying to entertain a Fairly Big Wig who was visiting. Lucky us! He and his entourage were actually in my part of the office yesterday. Sadly, I had to go to a doctor’s appointment so I missed it but here’s how part of the visit transpired.

Fairly Big Wig: Hey, nice banner.
Cohort: Yeah, hey that is nice.
My boss: It’s our charitable campaign banner.
Cohort: Can we have it?

OK, pause here. Are you staring at your screen, afraid to even blink because you think you might have just had a stroke? Are you replying in your head, No, you idiot, you can not HAVE IT. Why would you say that? Me too. That’s what I said when I had this story told to me. But of course, they are Fairly Big Wigs. So –

My boss replied: I guess so.

And then the banner (trust me, it was ugly and completely not worth putting in your suitcase and taking back to, um, your head office) was removed from the wall, where another tall co-worker and I had thumbtacked it two weeks ago, folded neatly and presented to Fairly Big Wig and his Cohort, who, I am presuming, smiled broadly because dude! I was totally joking but they GAVE IT TO US! We CAN do anything we want! and then they went on their merry way.

This anecdote merely adds insult to the already fairly grievous injuries my co-workers and I have sustained at the hands of this particular Fairly Big Wig over the past couple of months. But oh! how I laughed; a bitter, jaded laugh. I realized that I am all out of anger and disbelief where my job is concerned. Nothing will surprise or shock me (except maybe a new administrative assistant who knows her ass from a copy of Wordperfect). By default, then, I am becoming that person with the Very Bad Attitude, the one who eggs her colleagues on, “What are they going to do, FIRE YOU?” The who has no loyalty to her job at all, only to the colleagues she likes and everyone else can piss up a rope.

Because when what you see at the top, at the pinnacle of your organization, is a bunch of assholes all lined up and what you see lining the path to the top is people with their tongues out, well, it doesn’t really make you want to climb that mountain so much, you know?

Ah, bad imagery. So!

Today at Superstore, Halloween costumes were 75% off so I bought a huge fuzzy dog costume for Trombone. I justified this – in light of my recent pontifications on ready-made costumes – in two ways:

1. At this time next year I will be entertaining a 2.5 year old and a 7 month old. Fuck creativity. Huzzah!
2. It was $2.44! That’s only $0.07 more than a box of Goldfish crackers!

I put it in his stroller while I shopped and he patted its head and told it toddler secrets. When we got home, I put it in the storage locker in our garage. I wonder if I could send myself an email from the future, telling me I have a dog costume in the storage locker. I have already, this year, made the mistake of thinking I had no socks and buying new socks, when in fact all my socks were in a bin in the garage. Oh the bright side, now I have LOTS of socks. I wonder if the Fairly Big Wig needs any socks. I could send him some.

In closing, my awesome new doctor is not just awesome but fluent in French and a really great teacher. It almost makes me want to go to medical school but I fear, based on the students I have been exposed to at work and at the doctor’s office, that I am not cute enough. Seriously, it’s like Grey’s Anatomy come to life.

Posted in idiots, trombone | 5 Comments

Because It’s There

Posted on 11/2/2007 by cheesefairy

I thought, on my bus-ride home today, about the all kinds of things I could write about tonight for my second day of daily blogging but then, realizing I will have little more energy than right now, before the food gets here and goes in my face, I decided I will save the thoughtful posts for the weekend and for now, at least, stick to monstrously long sentences and more easily addressed ideas.

Annnnnnd … breath.

Why would you nablogpomo? asked the inimitable and perhaps moustachioed P-Man over at Mother-Woman.

Short answer: Because it’s a hell of a lot easier than writing a novel.

Two Novembers ago I participated in national novel writing month and wrote a novel in a month. Yay me, etc. Hero biscuits abounded. Last year, with a 4 month old kicking around the house, I knew that another novel wasn’t going to happen and besides I don’t feel right about writing another fresh novel when I have two and a half perfectly good first drafts of potential novels that need attention. So I decided to do a blog post a day instead.

More why? Because I love to write and I don’t do it enough and I have this crazy sense of responsibility, even to imaginary deadlines and people I can’t see, so if I say I’m going to post every day for a month, I am actually going to feel really guilty and bad if I don’t. The fear of that guilt and bad-ness is enough to motivate me.

I was pleasantly surprised at how wonderful an exercise it was to write a blog post every day in November 2006. There were several elements that made it wonderful:

– lots of other people were doing it too and there was a nifty way to find their blogs and discover kindred hearts and be in common with hundreds of strangers
– people found me that way too and I increased my readership by at least 10%
– because more people were reading, I tried harder
– because of all the practice, my writing improved
– my brain felt clearer
– my soul was fed.

Sure, with all that cheesy good stuff you’d think I coulda kept it up another month or 12 but like I said: I feel obliged to please other people, not myself. If I just told myself to write every day, I wouldn’t. It’s sick. I know.

So this year, the 4 month old is a 16 month old, I’m working full time and commuting 2 + hours a day and I’m 16 weeks pregnant and it’s so fetching dark out there, plus when I’m not complaining, I’m sleeping, so you’re right to wonder why. The hell. I would do this.

Because I am a writer who prioritizes everything but writing. And this here’s a way I can keep that bit of myself alive just one more month.

Posted in bloggity!, writing | 3 Comments

My Bedtime Was 15 Minutes Ago

Posted on 11/1/2007 by cheesefairy

These are the words I have to type before I can slouch upstairs (2 flights) and crawl into my cold bed and shiver until I’m warmed up and then hold “High Fidelity” in front of my face while I doze for 10 minutes and then wake suddenly and sigh because I haven’t even turned the page and then put the book down, turn out the light and turn over onto one of my sides, I guess the one that doesn’t hurt and finally finally go to sleep for 8.5 hours until the “maMA!” wakes me and I ignore it and try to breathe through my congested nose but cannot so give up and get up and drink tea which is not like coffee, not like coffee at all, but better than nothing and at least hot, and then I can ignore no longer so I’ll go upstairs (1 flight) to greet the 16 month old of my dreams who toasts me with his water cup when I enter the room and flood it with light from the hall: “Wa-ter!” and when I agree, he points at the dog in his crib: “Wa-wa!” and I agree and he stands up and says, “Mama!” with his arms outstretched and with a tone of such fondness and excitement that instantly he is forgiven in advance for the whole day, for all his future annoyances and I sort of wish I could close the door behind me and just hang out in his crib all day, pointing at things and drinking water and feeling his face buried in my shoulder while he murmurs “Mama, mama,” like a lover, like a drunk stranger, like an old friend.

Posted in trombone | 3 Comments

Oh and Also, THIS:

Posted on 10/31/2007 by cheesefairy

Posted in bloggity! | 3 Comments