In Which I Admit I Hate Change And Am Sad... 

or why is it we always lose the good ones? 

Okay, so long ago and far away before I became a lifetime indentured servant at the Special K, I had many, many jobs. They were jobs of varying duties, but they all had one thing in common... I was the one who said goodbye and left for greener pastures. 

I always had the ability to make strong friendships with coworkers, but inevitably my employment would come to its natural end for one reason or another, there would be a lovely "going-away" party and I'd walk out the door with a parting gift bag of various stolen office supplies, ready to embrace my next adventure. 

I've been at my current position for *gasp* 25 years. Over that time frame, I have watched many come and go through our revolving door and I must admit it sucks to be left behind. I much prefer being the one who leaves. It doesn't leave a scar on your heart.

To be honest, most of the people who have walked out the door had overstayed their welcome. It was simply their time to go, and their departure caused no great personal pain or emptiness. Then there are those whose absence will be forever felt. There haven't been many... three to be exact.

Today makes four...

This morning we bid farewell to one of my favorite coworkers of all time, Keith. He's charming, goofy, quick witted, sassy and has a delightfully twisted sense of humor that mirrors my own.  He is the King of "That's What She Said" and keeps us in stitches during commercial breaks. In short, he is an absolute blast to work with. Professionally he has the ability to put whomever he's interviewing at ease, allowing each person to open up and be himself. A true talent especially for hosting an entertainment show like Pittsburgh Today Live. And he ain't bad to look at either.

...even when he's carrying a girlie, gold purse. Sadly, as is the case in TV, his contract was not renewed and so will now call Tampa his home. 

And that sucks...

Personally, I got to know him better over the past several months by instant messaging on Facebook--while we were both at work. (Hey, you gotta do something productive in that eight hours, right?) He and I would dish, snark, spar, joke and generally conduct off-color exchanges over the interweb--a mere floor apart--in an attempt to crack each other up and make the work day a little lighter. Thankfully he'll still be on Facebook so the merriment can continue, but it won't be the same. I won't be able to stand along side the camera and watch the glint of mischief sparkle in his eyes as he reads unintentionally dirty phrases like "spilled its load" and "a great ball handler" or bust him up with a rude off-camera gesture. 

*sigh*  I will miss him immensely.

I'm happy to report we sent him on his way in our usual sophisticated fashion. 

We could not have chosen a more appropriate confectionery send off. And in case you're wondering... Yes. It IS a sugary-sweet 3-D willy.

As you can see he LOVED it... almost as much as we love him. 

Keith, it has been an enormous pleasure and privilege to work and play with you, my friend. Your irreverence and humor have been a solar flare of brightness in the otherwise dismally dark abyss of tedium. You will be missed every minute of every day. Be well.

So long Schlong.

"Skootch Just A Little Closer To The Edge Of The Table" 

or dude, could you at least warm that thing up first... 

Okay, so I had my annual Gyney appointment this morning. For those of the male persuasion, this is the most dreaded, anxiety-filled and mortifying doctor's appointment in a gal's entire life. I'm not kidding. Most women would rather have naked pictures of themselves posted on the internet than go to this appointment. Okay, maybe naked pictures on the internet is not the best example, but you get the idea.

*Note to readers of the male persuasion...you might want to stop reading now. Details are following.**

The only good thing about a Gyney exam is it is mercifully short--weighing in at a mere five minutes. 

That's the good news. 

The bad news is the anxiety starts in earnest the morning of.. what with the extra shaving and plucking in an attempt to pretend that, you know, you aren't a Yeti. Because you don't want this Dr. Dude to be put off by your unkempt cooter while he's jamming his five-foot-wide, man-hands up your love canal to squeeze the life out of your ovaries in a misguided attempt to find buried treasure. Sometimes I swear to God he's left his wedding ring and keys behind. Am I right ladies?

The whole experience is just bizarre. You're in this gown--open in the front--with a sheet draped over your lap. Then the doc instructs you to "skootch to the end of the table and put your feet in the stirrups". Yeah...nothing awkward about that besides the fact his face is going to be about an inch from your freshly groomed betty. 

Next up he pulls out an enormous, icy-cold scissor jack from the back of his car, known in the medical community as a speculum, to crank open your girlie bits to the size of manhole. Then I swear to God he straps on a miner's helmut light, ducks behind the thin curtain of sheeting and sends a canary in to test the air. This is when you pray you washed well enough that morning, because, you know, nobody wants a dead canary stinking up her squish mitten. People will talk. 

This is also when he decides to engage in conversation, which always makes me chuckle because I envision cartoon thought bubbles coming from behind the draped sheet. "So, how about that Pens game last night?" "You want I should check the engine while I'm in here?"  Just a little mental exercise to get me through and block the horror.

One quick scraping with a 28" bottle brush, an oil change and an MP3 port installation later, he hangs a tiny pine tree air freshener on my tube and closes up shop for another year. 

Nothing left to do except scoop up your clothes along with what's left of your dignity and head home. Seriously, next time he's buying me a drink beforehand...

Ain't it grand being a girl?

Sorry, Wrong Number 

or wait...is this still on?!?  

Okay, so last week my Krazr decided to stop taking it's lithium and went completely Norman Bates psycho. I mean, like really nuts...shutting itself off, losing service, ending calls. I think it might have caught some kind of cyberspace STD (the little trollup) flirting with this rogue TXT message that kept showing up randomly. Seriously, if it had a head, it would have been spinning a 360, vomiting up green pea soup and calling me the "C" word.

Needless to say it was pronounced dead at the Verizon store where there was a lovely little ceremony in it's honor after which it's lifeless hull was donated to science and the women's shelter. This left me the arduous task of choosing another device with which to be frustrated...uh, I mean play.

Holy Stromboli! 

There are waaaay too many choices for my bean to comprehend. They were having a significant deal on Blackberries (a BOGO, if you will), but it would have cost an extra $60 per month for the service because they hog tie you with all of the "Data" services at Ole Verizon. Anywho...we decided on two LG's, a Chocolate for Geo and a Versa for me, because, you know, I'm spoiled and have to have the keyboard which wraps around the phone like a case. Plus I got the bells and whistles in the form of internet service and GPS navigation, et al.

$3000 later with an agreement to give up our first born in our next lifetime, we walk out of the store with our new swanky phones and a manual which pretty much reads like an incomprehensible Greek tragedy, chiseled from the Rosetta Stone in ancient Cuneiform. Then I proceed to drop it on the floor in the mall, scattering its multiple parts all over a four foot area much to Geo's dismay. But that's another story altogether...

Fast forward (or I guess flash backward) to Saturday. I'm at work getting ready to record our High School quiz shows when my bud, K-Schnikes, whom I've written of in a prior post linked here, comes in to audio to chat and check out my new phone. I'm showing him how the touch screen works in the contacts folder. I hand it to K-Schnikes to let him try his hand at the touch screen. His big ole fingers fling the text which lands randomly on one John Green, Award winning young adult author of whom I've written here. 

(Brief background: K-Schnikes LOVES John Green and his writings and was quite giddy (as was I) when we got to hang with John and his brother Hank back in November.)

Continuing on...

So my FRIEND jokingly says, "Hey, let's call him" and hits the screen. Ms. Versa starts dialing the freaking number!! "Holy CRAP!" I say in my usual demure and feminine way, slamming the keyboard case shut. 

Whew! That was a close one. We proceed to chat and listen to some CDs I brought to use for our hosts entrance. It's all good...

And that's when I see it... the time ticking along on the front screen of my phone. 1:48  1:49 1:50... 

My eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. OMG!!! The phone connection is still ON!!! Slamming the cover closed DOES NOT END THE CALL!  

sh*t sh*t SH*T! 

Then, horror of horrors, I realize my name will show up with my number since I gave him my cell number to call me when they got into town. Oh great... Our entire unguarded conversation is now a ridiculously, random ramble on the voicemail of one of the nicest notable persons I've ever met--who now thinks I'm a nut job. How mortifying. Damn you, technology and your fancy ways!

Surely I'm not the only one out there who has had a new phone blunder worthy of a red face or two. I'd love to hear a story or three, you know, to make me feel less of a total asshat... or at least an asshat in good company. So come on, kids..spill it. Think of it as community service to the elderly. 

Also, please enjoy this completely stupid act. The fun begins at :52. Now this dude is asshat royalty. Enjoy! 

Friday Photo #18 

or why my neighborhood rocks... 

Okay, so instead of posting a photo today I was going to do a link to my first posting which explains how I'm consistently inconsistent...hence the lack of adherence to the whole Friday Photo thingie because quite honestly, I haven't taken any interesting shots lately and I basically  just plain old didn't feel like putting out the effort. I'm lazy that way. Sorry.

But then I remembered this photo taken years ago in our neighborhood (conveniently right outside the liquor store) and thought... Hells yeah, Boobies!!! Yay! 

Okay, so technically it's graffiti therefore vandalism, but really...how could you not laugh out loud at the sight of that? That's funny. FYI it has been cleaned up probably by the author of said message, but it lives on for eternity in our iPhoto Library and now here for your enjoyment.

GO MEAT!! 

Random Crap 

or attempting to unclog my mental hard drive  

Random Act of Oddness #1:

Okay, so about a month ago I felt like my jeans were a bit too baggy, right. I hadn't weighed myself for about ... oh six months, so I decided to jump on our scale to see what's what. We have one of those sliding weight scales you see in the doctor's office that registers from 0 pounds to like, you know, baby elephant. Anywho, I jump on and slide the weight to my usual starting point, 150 when the lever sinks like a concrete-shoed enemy of the Corleone family tossed in the East River. 

Wha? Cool!

I slide it back to the more palatable 100 pound mark and lo and behold... I've lost 10 pounds! Sweet! Every girls dream, right? Except I wasn't actively trying to lose weight. Sure I needed to drop the excess poundage and I'm certainly grateful for the surprise loss, but ... how the Hell did this happen? I'm stoked to be down roughly two whole sizes, but Geo's all concerned something nasty is lurking in my system. Or maybe he's just not liking my need to buy more clothes.

Random Act of Oddness #2:

Okay, so I'm driving home from yet another PT session when I spot this license plate in front of me: 

Sorry...that makes the 12-year-old in me chuckle

Random Act of Oddness #3:

Today is March 19. Check this out...

76 degrees... on March 19! The last couple of days have been gorgeous, warm, sunny days replete with the return of birds chirping their wee heads off. Aaaah, but this respite from frigid temps is just a tease, for tomorrow it all goes temporarily downhill. 

Oh March... must you always be the Lucy to our Charlie Brown, pulling the football out from under us at the last sec--Holy crap! Look at that dust. I really have to clean my car.

Random Act Of Oddness #4:

Anyone who knows me well, knows when a phrase strikes my fancy I tend to beat it to death. Prime example is the overuse of the  whole "that's what she said" thang. Well ladies and gents, we have a new contender for overused catch phrase of the day. Have you seen the new Hillshire Farms campaign? It's totally retarded, but I'm sure I'll be repeatedly working that tag line into my vernacular as my closing...because, that's how I role.

 

On a completely unrelated note:

OMG! We're watching last night's Daily Show and Jon & company just ran the BEST clip of some yahoo conservative TV pundit claiming people are so upset with the current administration they are taking to holding revolutionary era "tea party" protests around the country. Further stating they want to ... and I'm quoting here...  "Teabag the White House". 

Yes, you read correctly. "Teabag the White House"  to which Jon retorted, "I don't think 'teabag the white house' means what you think it means" and then manages to work in Dirty Sanchez... Oh just do yourself a favor and watch it for yourself. The fun and games start at :45 in. Enjoy!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

IndigNation! Populist Uprising '09 - The Enragening

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

GO MEAT!!

Oh My Aching Head

or I have one year to get technically saavy..yeah, right..

Okay, so Mary Ann, Howard, hopefully Geo and I are planning to dive into the quagmire of SXSW next year. As an attempt to get a taste of what to expect, I've been tracking the goings on, schedules... madness via Twitter which has the official SXSW schedule updating every nano second.

OH MY FREAKING GOD!!!???!!!!!!!!

There is SO MUCH of EVERYTHING!! The list of musical acts alone is, like three miles long. And they keep adding to the "Unofficial Music" list every ten minutes. It started off with 1800 acts...who knows how many there are now. They also have this MailChimp site on which you can create a personalized events calendar. I'm thinking this is going to be essential if we have any hope to organize and optimize our band plan.

Of course, someone in our party better figure out how to use this thing before we go or we are screwed...and not in a "that was a fun five minutes" way. I'm guessing taking a Blackberry or iPhone would be helpful, too. Or maybe dragging a 15-year-old, uber computer literate, internet socially hip lad/lass to lead us dinosaurs around is the way to go. But wait.. this is supposed to be fun, right? Oy....

Watch out SXSW... the Flintstones are coming!

Friday Photo(s) #17

or a lame attempt to recreate Wyeth's Christina's World  

Okay, so last year Geo and I went to Maine with my sister and brother-in-law, the land baron and baroness. It was beautiful. We walked the rocky coastline, ate loads of fresh seafood including a truly delectable lobster roll and drove to the Olsen farm. THE actual Olsen farm of Andrew Wyeth painting fame. How cool is that?

Naturally, since I'm such a goober, we attempted to recreate Mr. W's painting. I believe I could hear him spinning in his grave....