Say What!

I know better. I know better. I know better.

But I did it anyway.

We have instant messaging at work. No one uses the phone anymore – it is all IM. Here is how it went down.

“He is such an ass. He wants me to wait – OMG”

Yep it was in the ass’s IM window, not my friend’s window. The friend that I chat with everyday about this fella being an ass. He replied….

“Really?”

I quickly recovered: “Sorry wrong window, I was talking about my ex wanting me to wait on filing taxes to a friend, wrong window….”

Yeah, he knew it was made up – but I thought it was a pretty good recovery.

Just don’t do it folks.

But on the other hand about 6 months ago, he IM’d me about how hot I was and he thought I was smokin and he wanted to do things to me… He then said…. “ooops – that is really embarrassing – I was in the wrong window.” I think we are even – no?

the gap is a problem

So the reveal of a certain person’s taxes for 2010 and projected for 2011 comes to about 14%. Think about it. The amount of money he gives the church is more than the taxes he pays.

Then go to the other end. If you don’t make enough money, you don’t have to pay taxes either. You might get some help from food stamps or other programs and I am sure things are not rosey – but again your tax ratio is low on non-existent.

Then there are those of us in the middle. We seem to be getting squeezed. It is almost a struggle to try to continue. I always laugh when I see those commercials from some financial company. The one where people are walking around with some huge number – like 2,345,989 – and they say that is their number to retire. Get serious folks. I feel like a loser each time that commercial is on.

Let’s face it folks. The gap between rich and poor is huge. Middle class or the bottom is not the place to be. Bottom line – there is nothing going to be done about it for a very very long time.

Wonder if I could find an app to let me know what the lottery numbers will be. Yeah I didn’t think so. That damn publisher’s ch keeps telling me that I am destined to win. Somehow I think they are lying to me…

simplify…

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I have been coming at it from many angles as well. As I sit in meeting after meeting, or just doing my daily job, it goes through my mind. We need to simplify. We have made things so complex and built them up that we can’t see the real problem and solve it. It happens all over the place:

Government. It doesn’t matter what you are – republican, democrat, independent, etc. We have built up such huge non important walls that we can’t get anything done. Look at the republican zoo – well more like a circus – going on right now. All they do is tear at each other. None of them say what they are going to do to fix the broken mess we are in. They just complain or are negative about their running mates. We have a president in place that can’t do his job because congress has an issue with everything that is tried. I have little faith in this government because we have made it way too complicated. I could go on for hours on this one and how it trickles down to all of us. But we all do it. We all blame someone else. Healthcare workers blame insurance, insurance peeps blame patients, patients… you get it. complicated.

Even here at work. I work for a large company. They didn’t get to be this size and this profitable by not being smart. Yet, we continue to work in silos, like our bottom line is not the same, and we forget the simple stuff. Be nice to each other, respect one another, communicate to one another. Simplify.

I was thinking about how it was when my parents were raising me. If we didn’t have the money, we didn’t do it. Kids played outside, with each other. School was what it was. You played sports, you were cut from teams, you didn’t need huge levies to make it happen. There was a gym class and outdoor recess. Now a days we make it so complicated. Organized sports with attention to one sport once you hit 6th grade. No more gym classes – we can’t afford it. Organized play dates, or your kid sits on the couch in front of the tv or a game console. Simplify.

Look at the crap in your closet. I have clothes in there that have been there for years, that I haven’t worn. I either don’t have the body, or I just don’t wear it. Whatever the reason – it takes up too much space and I wear the same 7 pair of pants to work all the time. Get rid of the rest. Why did I buy it in the first place? Simplify.

We have cubes at work. The way it is set up now, we have more space than most. Luxury cubes if you will – when we moved here – this one guy had 10 tubs of crap that he moved. He has no white space on his desk. He does the least amount of work of all of us. We say he justifies that with the most crap. Anyway – we are moving folks in here, and they are re-working the cubes. They will be smaller to fit more folks. He is going to be sitting on files. He needs to simplify…

I could go on and on, but I am going to simplify this post – lol… Keep it simple people. Get to the bottom line, get it solved together and play nice. Amen.

Could you? Would you?

I work in a highly specialized technical field. Not bragging – you’ll understand in a minute… A position opened up at work – well mine actually – because they are moving me to something different. We interviewed about 5 people for the job. We always joke in our work environment about the number of acronyms used to describe what we do. When reading the resumes that come in – they start to blur. Not many folks who interview are local. So, while I was on Christmas break, my boss and a colleague interviewed a fella. They said he was great – would fit right in and hit the ground running. His first day was today.

He was built like Jude Law. He was very quite. He had a soft handshake. I should have known. He started training with our guy. He was the one who helped interview him. He noticed he wasn’t talking much and when he asked him simple questions he just sat there. When he did speak, our guy thought his accent was off.

My boss then asked him if he was the person we interviewed. He said “No”. He then confessed that he paid someone to do the interview and write his resume. He was quickly escorted out to the consulting representative. Would you ever have the nerve to do such a thing? Did he really think he would get away with it?

I am so naive. We were all amazed. Could you do that? Would you do that?  If you did do that, did you get away with it?

Happy New Year…

We were fortunate to have all of our kids home for Thanksgiving… They have trickled in and out throughout the month… The tree is down, with all of the lights. We did our winter cleaning the other day… Winter break is coming to an end. School starts up tomorrow and so does work… Here is to a great 2012!

Merry Christmas…

Well, I am off work until next year! This is the first year in all of the years that I have worked where I have done this. I usually have no troubles using up my vacation time. So, here I am, ready to clean the house only to have it messed up many times over. We have rain – no snow. We are having meatloaf on Christmas eve instead of a standing roast. And, for the first time ever – no kids on Christmas day. Now that took some adjustment, but I think we are both fine with it. It is all about change. But we will be good sharers, and all will be fine. We are going to friends for Christmas dinner. So, it is all good.

Here are a couple of pics that I found recently and had sent to my cousin…

That is me in the pink dress, my cousin in the red and my Mom rockin a sylish doo!

And this one makes me laugh, cause I am wearing my St. Patrick’s Day pin…

Merry Christmas!

Sing me a song…

I love the VW commercial where they are all singing what they think the words are to the “Rocket Man” song by EJ…  Cracks me up every time because I myself had my own version of what I sang at that point.  Even now that I know the real words, I always go with what I have always thought in my head…

So, a few weeks ago at my Aunt’s funeral, Mary and I were sitting in the pew at church, singing along to the songs.  When we were getting ready to go up for communion, the lady in front of me turns and says, “You two sing very nice, you could sit behind me anytime in church.”  This made me laugh.  I said “thank you”.  But we were laughing.  Here is why.  When our girls grace us with their presence at church, they always comment on my singing.  They don’t loooove it – they say I stink.  I agree.  I tend to sing in whatever key the person in next to me.  It isn’t pretty – I admit it.  So, I just gotta believe that lady heard Mary and not me – but it did make me laugh.  It is almost like saying I need to gain weight.  Not so much.

I do admit I can belt it out in the car just like a rock star.  I love it when you see someone else getting into their tunes.   I won’t quit my day job, but it was nice to get a compliment!

 

ho ho

Maybe it should be bah humbug. I don’t know. With all the rain, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas. We did 90% of our shopping online. Along with that all of the gifts we got, came from lists given to us by our kids. “Don’t stray from the list!” There is no element of suprise in that… It tends to add to my Scrooge-ed nature.

So we thought we would try to bolster the mood. We made cut out cookies. Now a few years back, we needed a new mixer. I decided it would be cheaper to just get the Sunbeam one that was $89. It has to be just as nice as that other brand right? Yeah, not so much. I was alone with the mixer while making the batter. Mary was at the store and the girls in their rooms. We had words. Getting the beaters in was causing me to sweat. Lifting the top part back took a degree in engineering. That little toggle switch thingy that moves the bowl. Stuck in place. Not moving. I perservered, and the dough was made.

After dinner, we started in on cutting out the cookies and baking them. We had a great system going. They were turning out good. Then it was time to ice. Does it get this way for you? You start out making a detailed Santa, or gingerbread man. Near the 2000th cookie, you are slapping on whatever color icing you have left and adding sprinkles. Our favorite part was when the cookie broke and we got to eat it right there.

When we were done, we had flour from head to toe. Icing was all over the place. That kind of mess would have never flown in my parent’s house… We could have listened to Christmas tunes while making them, but we decided to watch the women’s ncaa volleyball finals instead.

Bah humbug. This angel cookie I am eating with my coffee, strangely resembles an asian ghost…

the funeral

The only time I see my cousins and my Aunt seems to be at a funeral. We are getting short on eligible candidates. (By eligible, I mean those close to 100!) We all behaved at this one. Yes, we are a drinking family, and yes, we usually have a huge party after the church part is over.

When we got to the club, I heard one of the waitresses say, “The Smith girls are here, better get a lot more milller lite”. (Yeah we aren’t really a Smith – but you get it…) One of the bartenders looked like Aretha during the big hair days. She kept us well stocked. Although it is sad to be there for the person who died, it is fun to reminise about old times. My kids love to hear the stories and with my parents gone, this is the only time they hear the stories.

There is always a wow factor that goes on once you get later in the evening. This time it wasn’t our group gathering the flowers in a bag for a bridal shower the next day… We were told to not touch the flowers! Where as I didn’t exactly do any gathering, I did egg them on to do it quite a bit. So, anyways… We were sitting at our table and this fella came up to us. Apparently he dated my one cousin for a bit in high school. He looked kinda like a used car salesman to me. So, he chatted a while with my cousin, met the table and left. About 20 minutes later, he came back, and asked if her husband was there. She replied, no, and he planted a big on right on her lips! We all just stared. Ewww. The look on my neice’s face told the whole story. So, that was the excitement for the night. We all made some quirky comments, my cousin blushed a bit and we got a lot of mleage out of it.

I will say when it was time to leave, we were told to take some flowers home. Yes – we have three vases of beautiful roses around the house. And, it was all okay – I didn’t even have a hangover…

what do you do?

Have you ever been in a situation where you know what is going to happen, but you can’t do a thing about it?

Saturday night we had a party to go to, and as is usual, we were running late. It was an open house, so being late wasn’t a problem. In my line of work, I have to do work sometimes on a Saturday night. We knew this up front, and talked to the hosts – and they were fine with me doing it during their open house. It normally takes 15 minutes to get to their house. I needed to be online at 8. We left our house at 7:25.

Except we forgot about the zoo lights. It was a warm day, and the traffic was abmissmal. At about 7:50, we formed a strategy. We would get to a starbucks and I would login there, and then go on our way. We finally got to the light that would put us past the stopped traffic. The car in front of us was too far in the intersection. So he backed up. Problem is, he left his car in reverse. Yes, the two white backing lights were shining brightly in our eyes. A few minutes passed – still shining. I looked at Mary and said, “He is going to hit us.” After the tension of the drive to that point, she started laughing. It was not funny! What could you do? We braced ourselves. The light turned green on our side.

Now, luckily it was heavy traffic. Which means the folks turning left, do so when it is pink. The other car was slowly going through the intersection, so the fella didn’t floor it to go. He started to inch backwards. My horn was going full force! He finally realized it and put it in drive and went forward.

Cell phones people – don’t be on them when you drive! Too much tension on a Saturday night. We were lucky this time for sure!