Merry Hot Aloholic Beverages

At our last session of calligraphy for the year, my teachers served coffee and apple cider, as they often do, but this time it was served with a bottle of Tuaca and a bottle of someone's homemade slivovitz, which is apparently a type of plum brandy. Very exciting, and very funny, since calligraphy demands a rather concentrated eye and a steady hand. I'd never had Tuaca before, which is an Italian brandy with vanilla and orange flavors, and I loved it. I loved it so much that I had it in hot chocolate during my lunch break at the bar across the street from my work, and I also had a shot of it alongside a cup of black tea at brunch the other day.

Here's my calligraphy teacher's apple cider mixture:

Add a shot of Tuaca to a mug of hot apple cider. Garnish with a cinnamon stick. Top with a generous glob of real whipped cream.

It's delicious, and tastes like apple pie with ice cream.
Happy, merry holidays!

"Belinas" by Kate Spade. Don't tell Bolinas.

Kate Spade has a new bag style called "Bellinas" which at first didn't register with me, till I started reading the blurb that describes the bag on the Kate Spade website.
It begins,"Just outside of San Francisco, rickety farm stands and bucolic woodlands have made Belinas a sought-after small-town sanctuary for haute ex-hippies and the eco-minded affluent." That was unintentionally hilarious and somewhat apt, for one thing, and the cherry on top of the sundae of weirdness is that they mispelled "Bolinas." What the hell?

New Yorkers.

text of ad

Fun with the Enneagram at Work

We have a new Staff Development "expert" at work. She is apparently supposed to develop us, the staff, and I'm told she has a ton of
soft skills, whatever soft skills are. I'm not sure what she's doing. First, I had a meeting with her during which we talked about my job and how I'd also absorbed a part-time job that was posted plus half of another woman's job when she went on maternity leave, leaving me with my first full time job and two part time jobs, meaning I am essentially doing two full time jobs. As always, when dealing with work discussions that are framed like "friendly, open conversations", I was cautious and guarded, while at the same time smiling and nodding my head a lot. I'm no fool. There is no free therapy with no strings attached at work.

That was my only interaction with her until she informed me that she would be taking over the explanation of benefits, which is my part of the orientation process for new staff, as I am the benefits administrator. We hired someone new (that's another post entirely) and Mrs. Soft Skills did her thing. The next day, she came to me and told me she tried to explain the benefits to this new person and realized she didn't know what she was talking about. I wanted to laugh and say, "Ya think?!" but instead I made what I think was an empathetic face and said, "No problem... I'll go over the benefits with her today."

The third thing she, um, accomplished was having everyone on staff take an Enneagram test, which is a personality test by which you find out which of nine personality types you are. This is supposed to help you work better with others, and it might, if anyone had actually revealed their type. Everyone was acting as though this was highly confidential information and was going to reveal some sort of personal secrets about them. (No, really? You're a perfectionist and you make everyone miserable in your quest for what you think is perfection? No!!! We never would have guessed!) So when the enneagram expert got to his discussion of Type 8 and revealed that this is his type, I also revealed that this is my type. I explained to my coworkers that I got into fistfights as a child (okay, I left out the fistfights I've gotten into since turning old enough to vote) and saw Mrs. Soft Skills staring at me literally with her mouth hanging open, which was kind of funny.

There are many enneagram sites, and usually you have to pay to take the full test, but this one has a short version of the test which will tell you your type.

White Elephants II

I think White Elephant gifts are lame. I'm just so tired of the whole Dilbert-like life I'm leading at work. I refuse to play the game again this year. I'm not going out and thinking about my coworkers and trying to pick a gift they could all like, or even trying to pick a gift with one person in mind and manipulating the game so that that special person takes my gift. Or worse... trying to be the person who brings the most CLEVER gift. White elephant gift exchanges are only fun if they people at the party are fun and quirky, or ironic, or silly. And I'm just not, and they are even less so than I!

The most effort I'm willing to put into this is looking around my house for all the new, unopened items that could be given as my White Elephant gift contribution and assessing them, and that's what I did tonight.

1) a package of three pairs of little girls underpants from GAP Kids which were supposed to be for my 7 year old sister to wear after she got wet at the beach but that our father objected to because they had the word "hipster" on the package

2) a pair of yellow Hue brand tights still in their packaging that I can't even remember buying

3) 2 pairs of Wally's Ear Candles

4) an unopened giant roll of Contact Paper brand shelf liner (DD dares me to do it, is offering me $100 cash if I wrap that up and use it as my white elephant gift. He does not think I have the balls.

5) a huge, unopened bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, that states "Best Before 09.08."

White Elephant Time

It's White Elephant Gift time of year. 2006 department party--we had a supposed $20 upper limit. One of my coworkers arrived with a really nice cutting board, which was valued at much more than $20, but she'd gotten it on sale and double-marked-down or whatever, and got it for $20. The strange thing was, she really wanted to win it herself, or manipulate the game so that she ended up taking the same thing home that she'd brought. That was totally weird... my boss' gift was a bottle of Veuve Cliquot ($49) which made the rest of us look like crappy cheap bitches. Somehow I ended up with the "Summer Cocktails Recipes" book. Um, no.

(Cut back to 2005... my gift was three pairs of those crazy fuzzy chenille socks from Nordstrom, two cute colors, like pink and blue, and one black pair. I forgot there was one guy on the team, a part timer. He got my gift, unfortunately, although the socks were obviously not exactly unisex in design. In fact I think there was a cartoon of some girl on the label. Cut to drunken coworkers suggesting he wear the socks on his penis.)

2007- Again with the Veuve Cliquot... only this time, I actually won it. Nevermind that it was wrapped furoshiki style in someone's rather gross old white shawl. Of course, the champagne was taken from me, leaving me with a thing that props a bottle of red wine up to breathe. Goddamn.

Morgan Bag by Monica Botkier

While walking out of Nordstrom the other day (I really was trying to walk OUT) time stood still and music swelled as I spotted this bag. Closer inspection revealed that this thing is made of super soft, crackly leather and feels nice to hold. I put it back, albeit reluctantly, and managed to back away, but there's always the Botkier website.

When the Internet Goes Awry

Someone told me that someone else invited them to yet another social networking website, only this one requires affluence.

Their stance line is,
"Make Life Better
The exclusive oragnaization of the world's wealthiest people."

Yes, they really did spell "organization" that way!

The Devil Wears Gray Cashmere Part II

For whatever reason, boss-lady (I have two bosses - boss-man and boss-lady) received this fancy Barbie doll as a gift the other day. I assume it's from a business partner who deals with the doll. It was strange to see it propped up in her rather stark, undecorated office. She's a battle axe who wears only gray and black and who disdains such things as rainbows, cupcakes, the color pink and ice skating. She's so vehement in her disdain for all things fun, fluffy, feminine and girly that I can only think she 1) was denied them as a child and is pretending to herself that she doesn't care 2)stopped maturing in middle school and is stuck in a pre-teen rebellion forever or 3) is just plain evil. It's fine to not like those things; it's another to profess it so passionately. It's like she's working very hard at carving out her identity as this elegant, steely, heart-of-darkness person, and working at it at every opportunity.

I could tell she liked the Barbie, and whenever I catch her liking something she's not supposed to like, I rub it in, with salt. Like the time it was her birthday and she told me "no cupcakes and shit", but when I caught her eating a mini cupcake at someone else's work birthday thing I screamed, "A MINI cupcake!? How CUTE!" So I gushed over the Barbie doll and then told her, "But of course, you're going to give it away... you hate that stuff." She then admitted that she liked Barbie as a child. Then she said she wished it wasn't blonde. The way she said blonde, you'd expect her to be a woman of color, or at least a dark white lady. No, she's a pale white lady with light brown hair and hazel eyes... not exactly even a brunette.

70's Imagery - Tarina Tarantino Peace Love and Sparkle

Sometimes jewelry designer Tarina Tarantino uses licensed images, for example her "Pink Head" Hello Kitty, Kid Robot, Fiorucci and Barbie (and those are in descending order of how much I liked each). Her newest collection is "Peace, Love and Sparkle" (so awesome; I love the name of the collection so much I could cry!) and features a cartoon-y peace sign, and these lips and teeth with a blue rose, and these two guys, which the website calls "teletrippers". Although the images look familiar in their psychedlic, bright 70's way, I don't know if these are licensed images. I don't even know if they were common 70's images (as Britney Spears once said, when asked about the Beatles, "I'm sorry. I'm very young..."). I did a few searches, stringing some keywords together (tried "lips teeth blue rose 70's imagery Tarina Tarantino" in varius permutations, but came up empty.

Hosting Woes.

There's a scene in the film Slums of Beverly Hills where Vivian Abramowitz (played by Natasha Lyonne) inadvertently leaks menstrual blood on a hand-embroidered fancy seat cushion at the home of her father's rich girlfriend. Vivian ducks under the tablecloth to discuss the matter with her cousin, decides to just cover the stain with her napkin and carry on. When the woman discovers the stain, there's a shriek of horror, followed by the whole family being marched out of the house, ending their evening early.

This scene, while hilarious in the movie, was MUCH less funny when it played itself out in my apartment the day after Thanksgiving. The day after anything one hosts is always sort of a nightmare... you think you cleaned everything the night before, only to realize in the light of day that everything is sticky and there are spills and stains everywhere, and you're going to basically have to do the same thorough apartment cleaning that you did in preparation for this get together now that it's over. I accept all that... what I wasn't prepared for was finding a quarter-sized circle of what looked like watery blood on the seat of two chairs and a couch! The location of these marks (on seats) is what makes me suspect it was menstrual. The two chair cushions, which were brand new but from IKEA, I tossed into the recycling without even attempting to clean them; obviously the couch stain had to be worked on. There's something just not right about having to clean someone else's menstrual blood. And I'm thinking about the guests, all of whom are nice people and good friends, and wondering which person would not just ask me for a tampon or a pad? Who was drunk enough to not realize she was --errrm-- leaking? (No one seemed that drunk!)

I ponder this while sitting on my hard wooden chair, sans seat cushion.

Hard Boiled Eggs, An Unmatched Desk, and a Black Sweater

I've recently begun working at a new organization; new for me. I think I've been there five months now-- certainly not long enough to understand anyone there and why the organization does the things it does.

We recently attempted to hire a receptionist. There was a very nice, very qualified woman who came to interview twice. Usually I'd assume that's a good sign. They decided not to hire her because she supposedly wasn't well-dressed enough and therefore doesn't have the right marketing and branding and messaging (words we use A LOT around there). She was a rotund little lady, and not young, and I wonder how much of not "looking right for the part" can be attributed to ageism and an intolerance for body diversity. It makes me feel weird and itchy thinking about this. At any rate, I got a good look at her-- she was wearing black pants, a white cotton shirt or blouse and a black sort of long cardigan. On any given day at our office you will see someone wearing the exact same thing. You will also see, or rather SMELL, someone eating a hard boiled egg that makes the whole front office smell like farts, the exposed side of someone's hideous pigsty of a desk, and soon, the new receptionist desk, which was purchased secondhand for $150 and which is made of some kind of fake mahogany veneer. The other three desks in the area are not mahogany colored-- they are sort of a honey pine color. We also have threadbare fake Persian rugs throughout the office, all of which have bare spots in them. When I look at the whole, the whole experience of what our office looks like and what I imagine would be someone's first impression, I think it's completely bizarre that they didn't hire that woman because her "style" didn't have the right messaging and branding. In all my years of working at offices, I've never felt more like I was in a television show about an office and all the nonsensical decisions and things that happen in them.

Happy Halloween!

My hamster Nougat, with a mini pumpkin.

I have acquired a beautiful pair of vintage eyeglasses for less than $11! Unfortunately, they have someone else's very strong prescription lenses in them, so I got in instant headache the minute I tried them on and couldn't see how they looked on me. So I put them on with my eyes closed and DD took a photo of me so I could even see how they look. I'm having them made with my own prescription. These things are BIG, which should be good as far as peripheral vision goes, and someone is making a custom eyeglass chain with Swarovski crystals for me to attach to the glasses. I'm very excited!

A bathrobe and an itchy wig

For DD's company Halloween party, we were two of the four Golden Girls. Of course I was made Sophia, because I'm the shortest. I wore a bathrobe lent to me by my friend Killer. Killer's mom is in her late 70's and apparently gave her the robe thinking she'd enjoy wearing it. It's baby blue flannel and buttons up to the neck. I also wore a curly gray wig and a wig cap. I was overheated the entire night, and after a short while, the wig felt like someone was poking twigs into my scalp! It was a good quality wig, too... a "real" wig, not a costume wig. Looking at some of the women in sexy, skimpy costumes shivering while I was practically making my own sauna inside the robe made me think that next year I'm going for a happy medium costume as far as coverage and comfort go!

For about the fifth year in a row, we didn't win the costume contest, although we try in earnest each year. This year, we did make it past the first round and got to walk across the stage, though!

Faux Fur Rules!

When I was a child, my grandmother lives next door to a man who was a retired furrier. I'm not sure if that's the correct word--he designed and made garments from fur. For some reason, my dad had some rabbit pelts that had been given to him by the furrier, and he was always saying he was going to have a jacket made for me. This totally horrified me, considering I actually had a (live) pet rabbit and several hamsters... not to mention being a big fan of guinea pigs. While I appreciate fur, I'd rather appreciate it on the live animal.

I love faux fur, though. I've been looking to get a fake fur jacket for this winter season, and I recently got this gray faux chinchilla jacket with gray satin lining. I love this thing, and it's pretty soft, too!

Playing with Knives and Running with Scissors

There are three tools about which I am passionate-- pens, knives and scissors. You need good ones many times in a single day, especially if you cook, or even if you just cut a sandwich in half sometimes (that's the knife part, not the pen!)

I have a pair of really good knives. One is a slightly smaller version of the other. The make is Henckles. They were a gift from my mother, but I don't think good knives are necessarily so expensive that most people couldn't buy one for themselves. They came with a sharpener, and I sharpen them before each use. They're so much fun to use. I cut things into paper thin slices all the time just because I can, and they cut through tough stuff like pineapple rind like it's butter. But yesterday I did a work event where we were preparing food, and cutting lemons with knives my coworker brought to the event was like torture. I felt like I was cutting through my leg with a butter knife. Her knives kept winging off in all directions, turning my lemon slices into bits of lemon splooge. I hated this task so much that I came home and told my knives how much I love them and how I'll never take them for granted again. They told me that they want to have a baby, and I agreed that's a fantastic idea!

Food Issues.

I work with some people who have some major food issues. At a previous job, I worked with a woman who went into angry hysterics because we made microwave popcorn, which we couldn't understand, till later our boss alluded to "food issues". After I saw the woman putting five tiny tupperware containers each the size of a softball, and each filled with what appeared to be lettuce or spinach leaves, which she proceeded to eat for lunch every day during the workweek, it started to make sense. At my last job, I worked with a woman who was tall, thin, and who also had food issues. She would heat up a little tiny container of stinky casserole and eat outside most days. She liked to preach to others about how if we rode our bikes more, we could eat more ice cream. She also went crazy one night and stole someone's ice cream right out of the freezer, which was labeled with the owner's name, and ate it all. What a freak... maybe if she ate a normal-sized lunch, she wouldn't have whacked out and gorged herself on pilfered ice cream!

Now I work with more than one person with "food issues". And you know, I hate to gender stereotype, but they're always women. The other day when we had bagels with all the fixings, one of our Ladies with Food Issues stood there eating a slice of cucumber. And she's pregnant. If you can't eat a bagel when you're pregnant, then when? Today there was a macaroon in the office. Yes, a macaroon. Instead of someone eating a whole cookie, or even half a cookie, I watched the one macaroon get cut "in half" about seventeen times throughout the afternoon. By the end of the day, there was this paper wrapper with a tiny sliver of macaroon attached, with a butter knife sticking to it. It's kind of like when someone drinks almost all the milk and leaves the container in the refrigerator for someone else to deal with, only it's the Office Version, which inevitably involves thin women with Food Issues cutting pastries, cookies, cupcakes and the like into smaller and smaller pieces, and leaving the crumbs, mess, oil and knives for someone else to deal with. If I see one more BROKEN COOKIE, ripped bagel, gutted cinnamon roll, or dissected croissant, I think I am seriously going to SCREAM.

Where Else Can You Walk Around Half Naked?

Here I am at the Folsom Street Fair last Sunday. On the bottom I'm wearing black lace tights and turquoise underpants; hee hee. I didn't go all-out, because last year I was essentially topless and I felt too exposed, but at least I wasn't walking around in GAP khakis like so many of the tourists and lookie loos at Folsom this year. It seems like every year there are fewer participants and more cameras and more people who are just going to see the freak show, and it's sort of annoying, but to me, it still feels safe and I enjoy walking around half naked in heels in public, with cops around who are actually facilitating it all! I still love the Folsom Street Fair, and love San Francisco for having it every year!

The Most Fun Laptop Pillow Yet

I recently spent a day at West Coast Green, a green building trade show in San Jose California, "boothing" for the organization I work for. Aside: I love that "boothing" is a verb in trade show speak. You're not just "working at your booth" or "representing the organization" you work for. You're BOOTHING.

Anyhow, although there was no end to the parade of cool, sustainable products for building the Platinum LEED-certified, low-carbon footprint house of your dreams, complete with succulent-planted roof and radiant-heat flooring, I currently rent an apartment which was originally built by... the US military. Yeah.

That said, the item highest on my "most likely to buy" list was this awesome laptop pillow by Intelligent Forms:

Intelligent Forms' laptop pillow

The Intelligent Forms BOOTHERS settled me into a chair with the laptop pillow atop my knees and a cute little Macbook nestled into the pillow. The pillow is comfortable and flexible, and filled with buckwheat hulls, which make a pleasant sound and a nice weight. They had one made of brown fabric, which really looked like logs. Each round end bit of fabric was a different pattern, and the pillow held the laptop securely. What's more, because the contraption hugged the computer, I was able to move my legs around and shift my weight without fearing that the computer would slide off. I have to say I liked this thing so much more than the iLap, by Rain Designs, which is what I've used most recently.

Captcha Woes

I must be a bot, because more often than not, I honestly can't read these CAPTCHAs, that are designed to tell humans from machines. I get my vision examined frequently, I wear contact lenses, that THING that happens to people in their 40's where they can't read anymore and have to hold papers further from their eyes has not happened to me, my lenses are the right prescription, and supposedly with them inserted, I can see 20-20. CAPTCHAs have gotten more difficult...