Here, Piggy, Piggy...

A luscious little lapping of lickable pig today!†

*************

I live in fear.‡

Brother's boss§ is a little... anal.

I like sitting at his desk before he arrives in the office and skewing his stapler just a tiny bit out of true just to watch him put it right when he gets there. Then he systematically touches and arranges everything on the desk just to be sure nothing else got fucked up while he wasn't looking.

I've dealt with worse, but he definitely teeters toward that end of the spectrum.

Yesterday, I had chicken fajitas for lunch while I was in his Littleton office. And I got a tiny, annoying shred of chicken stuck between my teeth. Brother's boss reached a toothpick down for me,¶ and I attended to the chicken and went on to groom my other teeth because... well, if nothing else, I kinda like chewing on toothpicks.#

I woke up this morning all groggy and warm and with a cat purring in my ear, then sat bolt upright, heart pounding like a footnote,†† suddenly aware I couldn't remember throwing the toothpick away. Try as I might, I can't visualise when or where I may have thrown it away and that means it could be anywhere.

It could be sitting in the middle of his desk.

Or chair.

Or dining room table.

Not only would this be disgusting and an abuse of toothpick privileges, but it would annoy him more than it would annoy most people. And he'd never let me forget it.

[SUMMARY: The petroleum industry: no country for odd women.]

*************

They've gone to a new recycling program here at Patrick's dad's office.‡‡

We used to have individual paper recycling in our offices, with similar, larger recycling bins in the copy rooms. And there is a recycling can in the kitchen for aluminum and plastic.

Under the new system, they've taken away our individual recycling boxes and our trash can liners. We are supposed to use the trash cans for recycling and they're supposed to provide us a "piggy back" to attach to the side of our trash cans to put trash that can't be recycled.§§

For one, I fail to see how this is better than the old way. It's certainly more of a pain in the ass because, for two, our recycling boxes and trash can liners have already disappeared, but the mysterious "piggy backs" have yet to be installed.

I know the dedicated enviroweenies are too caught up in the beauty of recycling to realise that the PTB basically expect us to live without trash cans.

And it may seem like a small thing to whine about, but if you are rolling your eyes at me right now, I challenge you to get rid of the trash can in your office for a week and see how you like it.

[SUMMARY: This may be kharmic payback for leaving my disgusting, chicken-blobbed toothpick on John's desk.]

*************

I knitted a monkey this weekend. No pictures, no details, I'm just thrilled to be able to utter that sentence.

Camera work to follow.

[SUMMARY: Non Sequiturs¶¶ backwards-R Us.]

*************

There is a new plague.

It seems like everybody's getting it -- Hans, Genius Sarah, Bag Lady Kathryn... and I thought it was the same thing I had from mid-December until some time the first week in February, but it appears it may be an entirely different animal. In which case, I'm probably not immune.

In fact, I'm a little headachy and tired today and that's apparently how it starts.

Now, I figure I can look at this one of three ways:

In the glass half empty way, I am being punished for digressions both known and inferred.##

In the glass half full way, Job had to suffer plagues on his way to biblical stardom, right? And my primary resolution for 2008 is still to reach sainthood.

In the not-getting-the-cart-before-the-horse way, I'm not actually sick yet.

[SUMMARY: Inside my head is a swirling, volatile place. Watch your footing.]

*************

Remember the big ol' deadline I had January 31? Well, the buyer to whom we sold bought us lunch today.†††

That is not what this little porcine tongue tango is about.

No, I started giggling helplessly to myself -- but in front of all the key players in Patrick's dad's office -- because of a whole tangential story in my head.

**WARNING**

Please see previous summary for caveat. Not responsible for dizziness, headache, nausea or disorientation.

See, the nice delivery girl was setting up on the conference table. She wanted to put this red-checkered, disposable tablecloth on the table, but there was a conference call thingie in the middle, which couldn't be moved without an ethernet expert, so the consensus was to leave said conference call thingie and just throw the tablecloth over it.

Which took me back a few years to when my parents‡‡‡ had their roof replaced right before they went on their annual four-week vacation. The roof didn't pass inspection, so they asked me to handle what I could in getting the job done right while they were out of town.

So after the second round of inspection rejection, I called the roofing company to read them the latest litany of inspection woes, and I added, "And there's a big lump in the top, eastern portion of the roof at the front of the house that looks like you shingled over a squirrel." Which I didn't really know I was going to say until it was out of my mouth.

It caught me so by surprise that I started laughing. The customer service wench at the roofing company didn't think it was funny at all,§§§ which made me laugh harder. I excused myself and said I'd call back later.

When I saw the conference call thingie lumping under the tablecloth today, it reminded me of the squirrel bump in Brother's parents' roof.

And I giggled. And excused myself.

[SUMMARY: Some of us will never rise above our own dorkedness in this world.]

*************

Last but not least, stealing from Lyda once again:




[SUMMARY: That's what he said!]

Probably because I can spell "fellatio."


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I linked to the picture's source, but you may not want to go there. There are PIG RECIPES, and that seems a little wrong, like having Cat Foo Yung recipe cards at the desk at the Denver Dumb Friends League.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Good start!

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): We also occasionally talk about Brother's father, Brother's grandmother or Brother's cousin Tani.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): John is 6'2" or 6'3". I am 5'4". It's a math thing. Or a physics thing. Both. I couldn't reach the damned toothpicks and had to ask for help.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Until I get splinters in my tongue.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): That's pretty funny. Or at least self-referential in the extreme.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): See? Now Patrick's practically family.

§§FOOTNOTE (like two enviroweenies dancing in the glen): What can't be recycled? I quote: "We can recycle most items; here are the exceptions Kleenex tissues, food, gum, paper towels, styrofoam, light bulbs, plastic bags and garbage." [sic, mostly because I feel they're missing a period and a colon and have tossed in an ill-advised semi-colon]. I take great exception, much like Kraft claiming to have salad dressing with ingredients. As "ingredients" means nothing specific, "garbage" means fuck-all. It's like saying, "and other stuff."

¶¶FOOTNOTE (noses!): I can spell "non sequitur." Also? Take *that* elementary school readers!

##FOOTNOTE (pounding like a flu ache): Y'know... like, "I may not know why I'm grounding you, but YOU know why I'm grounding you."

†††FOOTNOTE (cross purposes?): Maggiano's, for those of you scoring at home.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (bird tracks): Or, as we like to call them, "Brother's parents."

§§§FOOTNOTE (marching monkeys): In fact, she took me so seriously she wanted details of how I knew it was a squirrel and it took me a good fifteen minutes (when I called back) to talk her into the idea that I was just being flip and was pretty sure there was no squirrel involved, just a lump that suggested what it might look like if a squirrel had been shingled over.