Move over, James Bond

I used to work for a rich lady.  I was her personal assistant, and I worked at her house doing whatever she needed me to do.  My brother will swear up and down that this was not a real job, because my days basically consisted of long hours sitting on the sofa reading whatever book I was currently in the middle of, punctuated by brief moments of dog walking, phone answering, and the occasional foray into the kitchen to whip up some raspberry vinaigrette dressing or a BLT or whatever my employer was craving at the moment.  Needless to say, it was a pretty sweet gig.  It was also the scene of the most physically awesome thing I have ever done.  And it happened on my first day of work.  Unfortunately it was not witnessed by my boss who was out sunning herself by the pool at the time, but only by a random contractor and his helper.  Intrigued?  Read on...

* Let me preface this by saying that the first job I ever had was at a china shop, and the only rule I remember is that when the telephone rang, we were to answer it in two rings or less.  Three rings is unprofessional.  I don't know who arbitrarily decided that, but for whatever reason it has stuck with me for eight years and to this day I still feel vaguely guilty when I can't get to a phone by that crucial third ring.  This will all make sense in a moment.  

So it's my first day of work, right?  Naturally I was a little nervous and eager to please, and I definitely didn't want to mess anything up.  It was a pretty slow day; the only thing on the schedule was these guys that were supposed to come to the house and hang up a chandelier in the kitchen. 

So okay.  The guys get to the house.  I let them in the front door and show them the kitchen and where she wants the chandelier, and they move the kitchen table out of the way, put down a drop cloth so they don't wreck the hard-wood floor, and start working to get this thing up.  (It's truly hideous by the way- very dark wrought iron in the shape of bats with their wings outstretched, all surrounding these frosted glass globes that have dark red paint dripping down the sides that looks like blood.)

During the installation of what I like to call the Halloween Special (clearly ordered from Dr. Frankenstein's Discount Dungeon and Torture Chamber Supply), I decided I had to pee.  So I went.  I was all finished and washing my hands when I heard the faint sound of the telephone ringing.  In the back of my mind, I heard the voice of my old boss at the china shop and I thought: three rings is unprofessional.  The bathroom is at the end of a long hallway, which is on the other side of the kitchen from the closest telephone.  And I'm already down by one ring.  I only have one left.  I realize that if I'm going to make it before the third one, I'm going to have to do some serious hauling.  

So I set off down the hallway like Flo Jo and reached the kitchen just as the sounds of the second ring were dying away.  I had some serious momentum going, but as I headed for the table where the phone was, I hit the drop cloth that the contractors put down.  Fleecy, floor-protecting drop cloth + shiny wood floor = Slippery.  My feet flew out from under me and I landed hard on my butt, but here's the awesome part.  My momentum in addition to the slippery floor gave me some serious glide, and as I shot past the table I managed to grab the phone, push the Talk button, and answer calmly and in a professional manner before the third ring as I continued to slide across the floor at breakneck speed and crash into the hutch cabinet at the other end of the room.

The chandelier guys (who at this point thought I was REALLY COOL) were like "Oh my Gosh!  Are you okay??" and I was like "Of course I'm okay.  I'm a professional.  I'm only doing my job."  I was actually in some serious pain, but I wasn't about to let them know that.  I would rather them see me as the super dedicated employee who would throw herself (literally) into the face of danger with a casual disregard for my own personal safety in the interest of my work.  And anyway, the awesomeness of what I had just done went a long way in relieving the pain.  Being a personal assistant can provide a lot more opportunities for heroics than most people think.  Integrity incarnate- that's me.   

Mexican food makes me sleepy

I just got back from dinner out at a Mexican restaurant, and I'm so tired!  I can feel the delicious chicken tacos that I ate sitting in a warm, happy ball in my stomach, and it would be perfect napping conditions if it weren't 9pm.  I might go to bed early.  Seriously, I can barely hold my head up.  I haven't posted in a while though, so I'm going to be noble and fight through the exhaustion to update you all on what's been happening for the past few days.  Because I can tell that you are all just dying to know.  

So, basically nothing of consequence happened last week, hence the lack of posts.  Actually, I take that back.  Wednesday night I went to see the NY Phil at Avery Fisher.  They were performing Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the NY Choral Artists (whoever they are).  It was excellent.  I absolutely love that piece, even though I wanted to kill myself every day that I was learning it in college because it was so hard and I had too many other things to worry about.  But I digress.  Anyway, I wound up going by myself and it was really fun.  I've never taken myself out to a concert before.  The only bummer was that I didn't have anyone to talk about it with afterward.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I did trade emails about it with my friend who works in arts management, and it turns out that she used to work for the conductor when he was just starting up, she represented the soprano when she was starting her career overseas (I believe the phrase that she used was "she was one of my kids that I was trying to sell over in Europe" haha) and she somehow knows the tenor through her former boss because they are friends or something.  Anyway, I yakked about it with her for a while, which was fun because she is a fabulous musician and she really knows her stuff.  

From a glitzy night out in town to doing my corporate duty- Friday night (which I count as the start of the weekend) was my company's annual outing to see a Trenton Thunder game.  They are the minor league team for the Yankees.  It was about as fun as I expected it to be, which was not very.  I mean, it was nice to see everyone outside of the office and with their families and stuff, but baseball is not my thing, and I'm not really friends with a lot of my co-workers.  They are very nice, pleasant people, I just don't want to have an extended conversation with them in a forced social setting.  I did have one friend that I really enjoy who came, and she brought her family and they are really fun, but other than that it was pretty boring.  But I felt like it was important to go, because it was a nice thing that the partners did for everyone at the office. 

Saturday I went up to spend the weekend with Alison and the rest of the Heathers, and that night we went to the fair in Yorktown.  It was really fun, and the boys had a blast.  They were so cute.  They were really dragging by the end of the night though, and so was I!  I don't know why I was so tired, all I did was walk around, but for some reason I was exhausted by the time we got home.  I crashed hard at bedtime, and didn't wake up the next morning until after 8:30.  That's unusual for me when I'm at their house.  Even though I've kind of gone past the point when I'm treated like a guest and am now one of the fam, I still try to be courteous and I feel like when I'm in someone else's home I shouldn't sleep in until all hours and then lie around the house in my pajamas until tea time.  I try to get up not too much later than the boys, but Sunday morning I was the last one out of bed.  I even missed early morning tea!  That's not too much of a bummer though because the last time I had early morning tea at their house it was 7:30 on Christmas morning, and I pounded down a HUGE cup of tea in about five minutes flat and then immediately had to run downstairs and throw it all back up because the combination of how excited I was in addition to how fast I drank the tea made me sick.  Luckily the boys were absorbed in presents, and Alison and Randall were absorbed in watching them open presents, so no one noticed my brief moment of disgusting grossness.  Which is good because it was really embarrassing.  I felt like a little kid who ate her Halloween candy too fast.  I mean, seriously.  I'm an adult and I threw up on Christmas morning because I was too excited. 

Okay this post has soured, and taken a turn that I wasn't expecting.  I wasn't planning on writing about puking on Christmas.  How did that happen?  That was a seriously polluted stream of consciousness.  So anyway, now you know what I've been up to for the past few days.  Not a bad week/weekend if I do say so myself.  Now I'm going to go plan my outfit for tomorrow, because it's going to be Fancy Dress-Up Day at work.  See you all on the flip side. 

Frog Blog- Bye bye, Beans

It is my sad duty to inform you that when I can home from work this afternoon, I found Beans upside-down at the bottom of the tank looking very dead.  My suspicions were confirmed when I tapped the glass and there was no response, and then really confirmed when I fished him out with the net and dropped him in the toilet and he still didn't move.  Man down.  He's been flushed, and words of an appropriate solemn nature were said.  Pork is now A Frog On His Own.  Poor little guy.   

You may call me Master (in about 3 years)

I think I'm going back to school.  I've sat on my butt for three years since graduation (save for a brief, failed attempt at city living) waiting for something to fall into my lap and make me change my life, and it just recently occurred to me that if I want change, I have to make it.  So I'm going to University.  Again.  I'm applying to the online program at Drexel University to get my masters in Library Science, with a concentration in archival studies so that I can be one of those cool people working in the dungeon of some museum rebuilding the Library of Alexandria or something.

I decided to do this for a number of reasons- the first being that I've become too comfortable in the job I have now, and other than the fact that I'm dying to live on my own, I have no real motivation to move forward with my life.  This is going to screw up my master plan of buying my own place soon because the money I've been saving for that reason will now be going towards tuition instead.  I'm hoping though that the payoff will be worth it, because I think this is going to open up my life a lot.  Once I've got my degree and I get a job and move to wherever that job is, I will have so many chances to meet new people (and by people I mean boys).  I have no desire for a relationship right now, but by the time I do, I would like to be living in a place where a guy's idea of a good time is not going to someones farm, getting drunk in a field and then driving home.  I need a nerdy boy who likes what I like, although I'm not sure how I'm going to find him.  (Maybe I could try out some nerdy pick-up lines; "Check me out at your local library!") 

I'm telling everyone because if I make it public, I can't back out.  I'm doing this and I'm doing it for real.  I'm applying for the Spring semester of 2011, because the deadline for Fall 2010 is August 2nd and I don't have enough time to get my stuff together before then.  So...yay!  I'm going to be a Master at something!  Assuming I get accepted into the program, that is.  I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch.  

Mercurial temperament

      "I have a mercurial temperament," Anastasia said to her mother.
      "You also have a terribly dirty shirt on," her mother said.  "Don't you have any clean clothes?"
      "Yes, but I hate all my clean shirts.  This is my favorite shirt.  I'll save the clean ones for school.  This is okay for Saturday."
- Anastasia Krupnik, by Lois Lowry

So I've discovered the new design templates (thank you Sammi) and decided to revamp my blog (again).  My only problem is that there are too many fun ones to choose from.  I'm not going to pick just one and stick to it, I'm going to change whenever I feel like it.  It will depend on my mood, which, having a mercurial temperament as I do, changes a lot.  So don't be surprised if you visit my blog and it looks completely different than the time before.  It's still the same old blog, just wearing a different outfit.  It has a mercurial temperament.  Like me.  

      "Don't you agree that I have a mercurial temperament?"
      "Tell me what it means," said her mother.
      "It means someone who changes her mind a lot."
      "What have you changed your mind about?"
       Anastasia hoisted herself up on the countertop and sat with her legs dangling.
      "Well, just for an example, do you remember that at Thanksgiving I told you I hated pumpkin pie?"
      "Mmmmm."
      "Did you notice at Christmas I ate a whole lot of pumpkin pie?"
      "Yes," said her mother thoughtfully.  "As a matter of fact, I did notice that.  Christmas night, very late, I sneaked into the kitchen to get something to eat, and what I wanted was a piece of pumpkin pie.  And it was all gone.  You ate all the whipped cream, too."
      "Yeah.  Mercurial temperament." 

Frog blog

 These are my frogs before I moved them to a more spacious aquarium.  Cute little buggers, aren't they?


Have I mentioned lately that I have two frogs?  Well, I do.  For all those out there who have been 
living under a rock since Christmas, they are African Dwarf frogs, their names are Pork and Beans, and recently I moved them from their tiny plastic cube into a nice tank that has plants and pretty gravel.  The latest addition to the tank was a water filter, and I'm afraid that it might have had a really negative effect on the them.  Ever since I put it in the tank, all they do is hide.  They have not been eating, they have changed to a really light color and because of the lack of food, they have shrunk (weird).  I know what you're thinking- just turn the filter off!  I had the same thought about four days ago, so I did.  They have eaten a couple of times since then, but they haven't changed back to their normal color and are still really lethargic.  I'm afraid I've done irreparable damage.  I was really hoping that I could keep these guys alive.  Some of you know about my abysmal track record with fish (4-7 has seen many toilet funerals) and I thought I was doing the right thing by moving the frogs to a better environment but I might have killed them.  I'm not really that attached to them (they're frogs; they are not furry or snuggly and they don't exactly love you back) but I feel responsible for their lives and I really don't want them to die.  They have no control over what happens to them.  It's all me.  And I'm really trying to not screw it up. 

I've been waiting for you, Bejeweled 2.

We meet again, at last.  The circle is now complete.  When I left you, I was but a learner; now I am the master.  

Cue light sabers and death-battle.  Following the completion of the final 11 minutes in the trial version, Bejeweled 2 will shut down and sacrifice itself for the greater goal of ultimately convincing me to purchase the full game, which will seduce me into playing it every time I turn on my computer.  The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded.