The honeymoon Ended So Quickly After the Lovers Reunited.

Good evening!

So this week has been about Noelle C reuniting with her one true love...Lumbergh.  Lumbergh was out all last week at corporate meetings in a warmer climate.  Poor Noelle C was stuck here with those of us who spend our time NOT worshiping at the altar of Lumbergh.  And Lumbergh, since he's gained quite a bit of confidence that the team here at Stuff, Installed  (It's the name I'm using for the company in the upcoming Elsie W book, so you're going to have to get used to it.) isn't going to set fire to the place or walk out, didn't spend the week checking in by phone or email or text or smoke signal or whatever.

Poor Noelle C. He did send one email...and he sent it to everyone, not just her, and it read, "Hope everything is running smoothly there.  Thanks for all you do."

My response, "All is fine, we haven't set fire to the building."

Noelle C fretted for two solid days as to what to send in response to this heartfelt email  (that someone else probably wrote since Lumbergh rarely says thanks for anything.  Ever.)  I don't know what she finally did send, but I can tell you this:  She asked me for ideas on what to say.  In response to an email.  From her boss.  That he sent to everyone.

I told her to say something clever like, "I hope the weather is good."

Anyway, so Monday she was reunited with him.  And oh, how the lovers missed each other!

Well, actually, she missed him.  He...well he didn't miss her.  And here's why:

Remember when Elsie W worked here and she started every day out coming in late and then arguing with him for half an hour  and then cooking herself something and then eating it so that by the time she dialed the phone for the first time she'd been on the clock for an hour?

Well, Noelle C has rather a similar pattern.  She strolls in ten minutes early, but she's cheering, literally shouting cheerfully, and JINGLING HER KEYS.  Every day. Now this would not be a problem if I weren't on the PHONE WITH CUSTOMERS.  By the time she arrives to work my day is almost...almost half done.  And she can't hear how loud she is because she won't do anything about her hearing so she comes in like a varsity cheerleader with her keys jingling and shouting, "HI SARAH HOW ARE YOU?  HOW'S YOUR DAY GOING?"

Only in a more sing-song sort of sickly sweet voice.

Then, in a voice only dogs, Lumbergh, and I can hear, she reaches a new octave and greets Lumbergh.   And when her voice gets higher, she sounds like a little girl.  A little pants wetting girl jingling her keys and simpering in front of her boss.

And then she spends no less than fifteen immediate minutes in his office going over the tiniest details of her job and how she performed it the previous day.  (She makes phone calls.  That's all she does.  There's no skill to it.  I do it all the time.  The only requirement is that you don't curse at the customers and you don't blow your brains out due to boredom.)  After that, when she's gotten either the praise she was digging for or the scolding she aches to get, she spends no less than half an hour sitting at her desk chanting something to herself just loud enough to annoy me but not loud enough to actually reach Lumbergh's ears so he can't hear the gigantic can of crazy he opened with the simplest word.  And then, well , then she'll announce loudly because again SHE CAN'T HEAR THE VOLUME OF HER OWN VOICE that she has to "potty."  (Seriously...she's 56.  "Potty" is a word that should be banned from her vocabulary unless she's talking to a child under the age of 3.)  And she'll tell us multiple times, because she has to tell every person in the office exactly where she's going and what she's doing.

So she potties....and that takes about fifteen minutes, which means, by the time she's done her first phone call, she's been on the clock for almost an hour.

Now, multiply that by four, the number of days a week I have to witness this and then multiply it by 54, the degrees the intensity grew for Monday's cathartic reunion. 

That took almost 90 minutes.  And then there was another chat in his office every hour on the hour for ten minutes.  By the time I got back from lunch Lumbergh was tearing his hair out...well, he would have been if he had any hair to tear out. 

All he wanted to do was talk about the great seminars he'd been to.  I know how that is.  You get back from a conference all energized and rarin' to go and then you realize you work with a whackadoo.  Anyway, she was in his office at one point and he said something about a personality seminar and she said, and I am not making this up:

"So did you find out what kind of man you are? I know what kind of man you are.  You are a strong man.  You are an organized man.  You are a man who tries very hard."

I missed the rest.  i was busy gagging into my garbage can.

But by the end of Tuesday, after two days of worship just one step short of ceremonial feet washing, Lumbergh was at his wits' end with her and ceased communications with both of us.

I don't care.  I thrive on working alone.  Noelle C on the other hand thought we were in some sort of competition.  A competition for Lumbergh's love.  And the only rules were MAKE A LOT OF PHONE CALLS.

Hey, no problem.  I do my job.  I was perfectly happy to not be drawn into her web of whackadoodle.  And Lumbergh liked the peace and quiet. 

Noelle C, however, was not so happy and the minute he left for the night tonight, she let me have it.  For half an hour.

"He used to give me things to do. Now he gives you everything to do and all I'm supposed to do is make phone calls.  I asked him about it and he got angry at me."

Folks, let's try and see this from Lumbergh's perspective. He's a married guy.  He's a polar opposite from Noelle C in every possible way.  And the one thing he wants in the office is for people to do their jobs without having to be coaxed, monitored, instructed, and guided every step of the way.

I'm betting he got angry because, well, this isn't the first time Noelle C has berated him for giving me more attention.  I've tried explaining to her that her job is to make phone calls because she's good at that. My job is to do everything else because she's a whackadoo who tends to screw things up because she either doesn't hear everything or the multiple voices that must be harmonizing in her brain don't shut up long enough for her to focus on anything other than dialing the phone.

In short, what I'm sure Lumbergh heard, was this:

"YOU LOVE SARAH MORE THAN YOU LOVE ME!  WHY????????????????"

Now, according to Noelle C, she's going to ignore him until he loves her...I mean until he gives her more responsibilities in the office. 

It's going to be a long week.

Five for Friday: Things I really wish I'd never said to Noelle C

Good morning!  I realize it is Saturday, but this is probably my best Five for Friday ever, and I didn't feel like waiting until next Friday just because I was busy last night and didn't get around to posting this! 

I think it's all self explanatory, but let's just say this: I made these five statements over the course of a three month period.  And the responses, in some cases were immediate, while others got to simmer in that Pan's Labyrinth of a maze in her brain.

Enjoy!

5) The holidays are so busy, especially with the church choirs I'm in.

Everyone has their thing over the holidays that keeps them busy. For me, I'd gotten myself into two choirs at my church and realized that Christmas is the big music season. Lots of singing, lots of rehearsal. (I managed to come down with a raging case of laryingitis this year, so it was a moot point, but not at the time this conversation happened.) Noelle C and I were talking about being busy during the holiday season and I made mention of being in a church choir. This was not a first mention of the topic. We've talked about church often in the past. I was under the impression, mostly because she told me, that she belonged to a church she liked very much. Apparently not on the day said these innocent words because as she stood there, staring down at me over the ledge of my desk, she raised up all the fury possible in her frame and spewed for a ten minute litany about how she had a very bad experience in a church once and she would never, ever, ever (Do you hear Taylor Swift in your head?) go into a church ever again. She picked up a fairly heavy item from my desk (it's an item I'm required to have on my desk...I don't want it, it's not mine, but it's part of our display in the show room and I have to have it on my desk) and started waving it around. I feared for the health of my head since it was in direct flight line of this item, should her grip give way.

4) I'm selling candy bars for a fund raiser for my kid.

This was some months ago, Girl child was selling candy bars to raise money for her band trip. I took a couple boxes to work with me, and the sales were a complete success. My best customer? Yep, that would be Noelle C. No one loves chocolate quite like

a fluffy girl. She enjoyed several helpings of chocolaty goodness.

And then she decided she needed to lose 80 pounds immediately. And suddenly, suddenly those candy bars, and the fact that I was selling them, were the enemy.  "You are making me fat!"  she shouted through mouthfuls of chocolate, but not in a funny way like most fluffy girls do, not in a way that really said, "I'm making myself fat."  No, Noelle C was definitely accusing me of bringing the candy bars to work, pulling the money out of her pocket, and forcing the chocolate into her pie hole.

 

A sort of sub section of this is that I keep a dish of candy on my desk.  It's candy for customers who come in, or for the installation guys who stop by my desk or the UPS guy, pretty much anyone who would like a piece of candy in their day gets one if they want to stop by my desk.  Typically it's hard candy, but for the holidays I brought in a bag of festive mini candy bars.  I hadn't even opened the bag when she spied it and ran out of her office SHRIEKING like some staged Hollywood banshee  "You can't bring that in here, I'm trying to give up SUGAR!"

 

She berated me for five minutes for that one.  How DARE  I bring in candy when she's giving up sugar and did I know how damaging sugar was to the body, and she was in the medical field once and she watched Dr. Oz and now she's giving up sugar and how DARE I tempt her.

 

Lumbergh, our boss  (not his real name) heard this exchange and, in his weird sense of humor, decided from then on it was funny to tease me about it.  "Hey, you brought candy in...I'm on a diet!"  he will chirp as he flits by my desk.  (Apparently I've decided he's a bird.)  Oh yes, it's hilarious...

 

 

3) You have a personality.

 

Recently I've tried adopting a method of conversing with Noelle C that WON'T get me into trouble.  Since she can't hear half my responses anyway  unless I shout and then she gets mad at me because I'm shouting and she thinks I'm shouting because I'm angry at her...it's sick circle of life at my desk, I assure you...I decided to try just nodding and agreeing with everything she says by repeating exactly what she says.  And I was doing so well the other day.  Lumbergh had left for the day, which was her instant signal to stop working.  (what is it with the women I am forced to work with in this building?  Every time Lumbergh leaves, they stop working and come to my desk to complain about him...don't they know the minute he leaves I have a very important spider solitaire game to play?????? And it's really twisted that she does  it, because she is SO in love with Lumbergh.  So when she rips on him it confuses me...I made the mistake once of agreeing with her about his foibles....I won't be doingTHAT again because the flip side of those conversations always result in her running to Lumbergh to tell him that we talked about him...but she always leaves her participation out of the conversation.

 

Anyway, so he left for the day and she stomps to my desk and starts talking about how she likes how I laugh.  I have a big, loud laugh if you get me going.  I thanked her, but did not make eye contact because it's been my experience that when she starts with a new topic that seems random, it's probably leading somewhere I don't want to go.  So I nod a smile at her.

 

"I don't have a big laugh."

 

I nod and smile.

 

"I never laugh."

 

I nod and smile.

 

"I don't have a personality."

 

"Oh, you have a personality."  It slipped out before I could stop it.

 

That lit the fireworks.  She wanted me to open the door for her rant and I kicked that sucker in by saying she had a personality.  "NO!"  She shouted over me as she leaned over my desk, "I DON'T  I WAS NEVER ALLOWED TO HAVE A PERSONALITY.  I TELL PEOPLE YES AND I DO WHAT I'M TOLD BECAUSE THAT'S HOW I WAS RAISED  I WAS NEVER RAISED TO SMILE OR THINK FOR MYSELF AND SO NOW I DON'T HAVE A PERSONALITY  I'M JUST A MACHINE."

 

I wanted to disagree, but she was waving that item I'm forced to keep on my desk at me again...once of these days she's going to loosen her grip on it and it's going to hit me in the face.  I can feel it like it's already happened.  And that's why I don't throw out my lawyer's phone number.  I'm starting to fear for my physical safety.

2)  I wanted to be a paramedic when I was a kid.

 

I must be weak at the end of the day.  Lumbergh leaves about ten minutes before I do each day, so I relax a little bit and that's when she pounces.  How we got into a conversation about what we wanted to be when we were children I have no idea.  I try to avoid conversations about childhood because, as she's told me many times, she never had a childhood.  So how she got me to reveal that, as a childhood fan of the show "Emergency"  I wanted until I was fourteen and my mother crushed my dreams, to be a paramedic.  (That's a blog for another day)  The conversation started out nicely, I do remember that.  She said Emergency was her favorite show as well.  (I find this unlikely since she's told me several times she wasn't allowed to watch TV as a kid...)  She tells me endlessly how she was in the medical field, so we talked about nursing.  And then, it got weird.

 

That's when she started flailing her arms around and talking about the many, many car accidents she's come up upon in her life and how she's had to drag people from burning cars and give them life saving CPR and how she gave CPR to a corpse on more than one occasion and how she and her ex husband  (and I was shocked...I knew she had kids, but she's never mentioned an ex anything...I thought they hatched in her cliff side nest)  once had to pull a man away from a car accident  (You're really not supposed to move people, are you?)  and how his "neck vein"  (her words, not mine.  I guess that's her medical field talk for JUGULAR.)  was spurting blood. 

 

"So you know what we have to do, right?"

 

I shake my head, more worried she's going to pick up that thing on the edge of my desk and fling it at me.

 

"We have to..." and here she pulls up her top  (this would be the third time she's forced me to see her underwear since she started working at Initech) "and then just pump away on the wound until the ambulance comes."

 

Confused?  I was too.  According to this statement, if I come upon a serious car accident I'm supposed to drag the victim around for a bit, flash my bra at him, and then do CPR on his jugular.

 

But hey, she must know what she's doing.  After all, she went to nursing school  (Which is weird since I thought nursing school was college and she has sworn to me she belonged to a cult that wouldn't allow her to go to college which is why while her five siblings all have college degrees and high powered careers, she is stuck working in a bad job...like, you know...mine.  Anyway, she went to nursing school, and she learned high important medical stuff like....well, that you have to wash your hands after using the bathroom.  AND THAT, she tells me, is WHY she washes her hands after every toilet use.

 

I must have had a different education.  See, I went to teachers school and they didn't teach us to wash our hands after using the bathroom...because we'd been taught that in school when we were in kindergarten!

 

 

1) I got a tetanus shot from my new doctor.

 

I wasn't feeling well the other day because I have a new internal med doc  (my other one quit...that's another blog)  and he insisted I get a tetanus shot.

 

All very innocent until Noelle C noticed I wasn't as perky as normal.  So I told her I'd gotten a new doctor and that I liked him after our first meeting, he seemed fairly thorough.

 

She asked his name.

 

I'm an idiot.  I told her his name.

 

And now she has a new doctor.  Mine.  Lord help us all.

 

She was going to meet with him on Friday so of course on Thursday when Lumbergh left she asked me how she should inform him that she didn't want to follow any medical orders but her own.  I suggested just asking him questions about how he would approach her various medical conditions and if she didn't like the answers, she didn't have to go to him.

 

She then picked up that thing I'm forced to keep on my desk and started waving it around talking about her previous doctor who wanted to prescribe something for her asthma that would melt her bones and how she had a friend who had melted bones and now that friend had to have someone help her to the bathroom.

 

Boy, I hope her friend knew to wash her hands afterwards.

 

So now not only is going to to my new doctor...she'll tell him I referred her to him, and she'll probably smack the poor guy in the head with a stack out outdated magazines.

 

And I will need a new doctor.

 

 

 

 

The Song I'll never sing with a Straight Face.

Good evening!

Sorry I've been out of touch this month...apparently once I released Fresh Ice, my body gave out completely and I've been one of those Walking Dead Zombie people...only less attractive.  No, really.  It's been the Snotpocolypse on my face.  I've had drainage run from my nose, throat, eyes...and I gave up cleaning out my ears when what I was pulling out of my ears didn't seem like something that should be percolating in a human body.  Oh, and I haven't had a voice.  Not at all.

Not having a voice for someone like me this time of year is really hard.  A big part of getting into the holiday spirit for me is singing.  I love singing Christmas songs in church, at work, at home.  I am a person who loves to sing.  This year, without a voice, it just hasn't been the same.

But not being able to sing brought to mind one of my favorite Christmas stories.  I've shared this before on this blog, but a good story is a good story, and hey, there are those out there who haven't heard this one.

So kids, gather 'round, and I'll tell you why, even if I had a voice, I will never be able to since "Peace, Peace"  without laughing out loud:

One of the cornerstones of traditional Christmas Eve experiences is the Children's Christmas Eve service. This is a church service where little girls put on a lot of velvet and curl up their hair and boys are wrestled into sweater vests and clip on ties so that they can stand up in front of church, sing a few Christmas hymns, and recite in unison "FORUNTOYOUISBORNASAVIORWHICHISCHRISTTHELORD!"

It's a big deal, Christmas Eve services. Cameras, cam corders whir in the back as 8th graders sit sullenly until it's their turn to stand up and recite, and there's always some 4 year old who cries so hard he wets his pants.

When I was one of those surly 8th graders, our Christmas Eve service was lead by the pastor's wife, an imposing figure of a woman we're going to call...wow, I don't have a clever name for her because, well, she's was so singular. I'll call her Mrs. because if I call her anything else, someone, somewhere, might sue me. But I swear to you every word of what I'm about to tell you it true.

The high point of our Christmas Eve service the year I was in 8th grade was the singing of Silent Night and Peace Peace. This is a musical number that is performed generally with a children's choir and an adult choir. The kids sing Silent night and the adults sing Peace Peace, which goes like this:

Peace, Peace, Peace on earth and good will to all
This is the time for love
This is the time for joy
Now let us all sing together
For peace peace peace on earth.

When done correctly, it's magical.

Mrs. was one of those grand women who believed in over dressing for everything. At 6'3" 275 lbs., she was hard to miss. But when she did up her mountain of curly red hair, painted all nine of her fingernails bright red (you read that right, she was missing the pinky finger on her right hand at the knuckle. Just a stubby finger...no red nail.) and donned something sparkly and flowing, she was a vision of Vegas like chic. She was the choir director for the entire church, which means the choir, the junior choir, of which I was a member, and the school kids who couldn't really sing or didn't want to be in junior choir but were forced to be in the church service all fell under her bedazzled, fleshy flapping arms.

Her vision for this song was sort of a theater in the round magic that really should involve a couple of teamsters to pull off. The senior choir was to line up behind the junior choir on the altar area. No risers, so the senior choir was sort of buried in the back. The non singing kids were on either side of her standing in lines. The organist...and this is key...was in the balcony BEHIND HER. And the bigger logistics issue was that the organ was backwards in the balcony. In order for the organist to see what was going on on the main floor of the church, he or she had to look in the mirror on the organ. Oh, and the organ bench was actually higher than the balcony railing, so there was always a certain degree of danger in playing the organ.  You never knew if THIS would be the day the organist crashed over the railing to certain death.

The service itself went pretty well. No one cried that year, or wet their pants. All we had to do was get through "Peace Peace" and we were free to go home and enjoy the real meaning of Christmas...you know, the present part.

The organist, a darling woman who shared my maiden name, and I will call her Ruth, because that is her name, fired up "Silent night" and the kids started singing on all three sides of Mrs. Then, with a point of a long red claw, Mrs. started the senior choir.

I'm not sure how it happened...okay, sure I am. The members of the senior choir couldn't see Mrs., so therefore they buried their faces in their music and ignored the fact that the organ, and with the organ the children, were pulling farther and farther ahead of them. (Average age of the senior choir...84)

In a move that was unheard of...and is now legendary, Mrs. stopped the show. "Stop, stop! Ruth! Stop playing!"

Mrs. just stopped Christmas Eve. Just like that. I was in the front row of the Junior Choir...it was all I could do to stop from laughing out loud.  No one, in the history of Christmas Eve services, had EVER stopped anything.  No, I've seen kids pass out.  I've seen wailing kids run in fear from the front of the church to their parents.  I've seen kids spill hot wax on themselves  (back when kids were allowed, nay, ordered, to hold actual live fire.)  But no one ever stopped a Christmas Eve service.  The tension in the church was a heavy cloud.

Not for the senior choir though...the bass section, God love them, didn't hear her shouting to stop...and in a silent church, the four basses growled out, "NOW LET US ALL SING TOGETHER!" before an Alto shoved them with her folder.

There was a horrible, delicious stretch of time when the room was silent, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Mrs. took a deep breath, raised her enormous arms, the light of the Christmas tree twinkling off the five diamond rings she wore on her nine fingers. "Ruth, take it from measure 84," she said.

We moved from that town a year later, and I don't know what became of Mrs. I do know this: That Christmas Eve became a legend across many parts of Wisconsin,  and to this day I will run into someone and we'll get to talking about Christmas music and they'll say, "Well, I'll never be able to sing "Peace Peace" with a straight face again."

And neither will I.

Hey, you all have a marvelous Christmas, or, whatever you celebrate this time of year, I hope it's marvelous.  And I'll see you in 2013.

Ladies and Gents...FRESH ICE!

Hello all!

I try to keep my two blogs separate, but this week I have to make the same announcement I made over at It's a Writer's World!

After much blood, sweat, and tears, countless cups of coffee and more pinot noir than I care to admit to, Fresh Ice, my latest romantic suspense novel, is finally available in all formats!

Want it in print: Click right here!


Got a Kindle: Click right here!


Got a Nook: Click right here!

Got a different sort of e-reader, or want to read it on your computer: Click right here!


Remember, like all indie authors, my books live and die by word of mouth! If you love Fresh Ice, please leave a positive review on the site where you bought it.

If you don't love Fresh Ice...maybe just keep that to yourself!

Sarah's (semi) triumphant return to Gold's!

Good afternoon!

As many of you know I was in a car accident this past July.  Since then, my life has been a whirlwind of doctor's appointments, physical therapy, chiropractor's appointments, and rest.  Well, finally, last week, the physical therapist cleared me to go back to the gym...to swim.

See, the injury to my neck was sort of mysterious for a while, and now that they've figured out I won't die if I exercise  (which blows my theory about exercise) they feel it will be okay if I swim a little.

So, eager to be back at Gold's gym, I packed my bag and headed to the pool after work.

Here's the thing:  It's November.  It's Wisconsin.  It's COLD right now.  So I was cold when I get to the gym.  I was cold when I checked in, cold when I went to the locker room, cold when I changed into my new swim suit which looks fantastic on me  (well, it looks as good as a swim suit can on my body) except it has a snap at the waist band that keeps popping open.  It's not like it's a load bearing snap, it's just there and it pops open all the time.  Annoying.  Anyway, I was cold getting to the pool and really cold looking at the water.

I stood there, telling myself that once I got into the pool I would be okay.  I would swim a few laps and feel really good about myself.  So I stepped down on the first step into the pool. 

I'm not saying the water was cold.  Maybe my foot was already in the first stages of frostbite.  Who can say?  All I know is, sticking one foot in the water was quite enough for one day.  I decided we were going to take this return to Gold's slowly...baby steps...like today a foot in the pool, and maybe next month I'll go in up to my ankles. 

Perfectly satisfied with my progress for the day, I hit the hot tub. 

My time in the hot tub, because I have a weird form of eczema, had to be short as well, but being warm for the first time all day was sort of intoxicating, so I sat in the water a bit.  Two young women (I'm guessing they were young, women over the age of 30 and the dress size of 12 shouldn't wear string bikinis, but I didn't have my glasses on.) entered the pool area.  There was no one else in the entire space, no one in the hot tub, no one else in the pool.  Not wearing my glasses, I had a hard time really making out features and was shocked at first to think that one of the women was bottomless.  Then I realized that her string bikini bottom was the exact same pale pink as her skin.

The two women got into the pool and stood there.  Just stood there, talking.  Now, I've had a lot of conversations with friends, and many of them in the pool.  But I can't think of one time I had a conversation with someone in a pool while I was standing completely still, unless watching children was involved.  So here these two women are, in the tiniest of bikinis, each of them, standing in the pool at Gold's, doing nothing.  (Which, by the way, is completely different from me...I stuck a toe in and moved along.  That's doing nothing, but doing it out of the way of everyone else.)

I don't know if these women got annoyed that I was just sitting there, minding my own business, but I started to feel like they were not pleased that I was encroaching on their chat time.  (Gee, sorry.  Ya know, Starbucks is just across the parking lot, and THEY encourage people to do nothing and chat.)  After a few minutes of trying to just enjoy the hot tub while unable to ignore the fact that both of them were staring in my direction the entire time, (and seriously...it's a big space, you gotta look at me the whole time?)  I finally gave up and got out of the hot tub.

Now, pay attention here, because this is where Sarah starts to believe in Karma a tiny little bit.  See, I was feeling all superior to these women because, hey, I came, I did something, and I was going.  They were just standing there, doing nothing.  So I had a rare moment of feeling superior to someone in a bikini.  That doesn't happen often.

And it didn't last long.  Did I mention I was NOT wearing my glasses?  Oh, and if you have ever been to a gym pool, you know the doors to the men's and the women's locker rooms look waaaaaaaaaaay too much alike. 

Do I really need to tell you more?

Okay, so there I was, feeling superior to the two do nothings who were STILL STARING AT ME.  And, as I made the turn for the locker room, they burst into laughter. 

You guessed it.  I'd headed through the door to the men's locker room. 

Yes, baby steps back to the gym. Like maybe next time I get the courage to go in there, I DON'T go to the men's locker room.  That would be a magnificent next step.

Noelle C Thinks we ALL should have a Life Coach.

Good morning!

Like most people this time of year, I've been busy with holiday preparations.  I won't bore you with my Thanksgiving story...you can hear that when Bob and Brian start reading their Holiday Horror Stories.

No, today I want to share with you the wisdom of Noelle C.  You see, she just got back from vacation where she took a three day painting class and now believes she not only is a master painter  (and wants to sell her paintings of flowers and pumpkins for anywhere between $25 and $5000 dollars...and I'm not saying she's a bad artist, I'm saying I've seen similar work emerge from a 6th grade school art class) but that she now holds the key to happiness and peace.

Oh yeah, this is going to be good.

Lets' start with the painting class.  I'm not an elitist.  Not even a little bit.  But she informed me yesterday that since she's taken this three day class, and since the teacher of this class  (I don't use the word "pyramid scheme" all that often, but boy howdy, does this smack of it) is trying to get make the class a college credit...somewhere...that now she, Noelle C, is a college student.

I hate to tell her it sounds more like she's the victim of a traveling snake oil salesperson, but hey, we all have to find that out for ourselves.  Besides, if it makes her happy and gives her something else to talk about other than how miserable her entire life was to this point and how much she loves Lumbergh  (and you can hear that whole story, too, every day, if you say something to her like, "How was your weekend?"  or "Good morning.") then I'm perfectly fine listening to how she's going to be able to retire on the sales of her paintings and on the money people are going to pay her to teach them how to paint now that she's a Level One instructor in this painting method.  (Three days...and she's an instructor.  Does anyone else see this for what it is?)

Anyway, that's not why I'm blogging today.  No, today I have to share with you the wisdom Noelle C gleaned from a Life Coach she met in Florida.  Well, really, she heard about this woman from the guy who picked her up in an airport shuttle the last day of her vacation.  See, he used to be married to the woman who is now a life coach and shares her secrets to a happier life online.

And people think I'm gullible.

So yesterday, after a 45 minute profanity laden diatribe against everything from the temperature in the office (which is always cold) to her new computer monitor  (which Lumbergh bought while she was on vacation and now she feels she doesn't deserve it) to her career in the medical field to her former co workers to the fact that she, and I'm quoting here, "has never worked in a setting where she had to interact with people"  (I'll let you digest how someone who used to work in the medical field as a nursing assistant AND was a model AND worked at Initech for a year has never had to interact with people.)  she shared with me her new found secret to life.

Don't blame me...all I said was "good morning" when I was on my way to the bathroom...and apparently that turned on the launch sequence.

See, the guy who picked her up in the airport shuttle apparently picked up on the vibe that Noelle C isn't completely happy with her life.   Probably because he said "hello"  and she spent the next hour listing all the things that were wrong with her past and how she's now all alone, having declared her siblings "dead to her" recently.  (She says they were ignoring her at a recent family gathering.  Realistically, she probably couldn't hear them talking since she's so deaf and won't do anything about it.)

Being a woman willing to try...and believe, pretty much anything except that Lumbergh is not going to fire her...Noelle C checked out the woman's online affirmations.  And now Noelle C's decided this will also be the key to my personal life happiness.

"You have to do a daily affirmation with this woman,"  she cheered while I was doing the "potty dance" in her doorway.  (Why did I not just leave?  Because I'm super polite and was trained well to show my elders respect no matter what.)

"You go online...and I don't remember the woman's name, but she's wonderful.  She says life is three pronged and you have to get in touch with all three sides to life.  You have to tune in to your spiritual side, your creative side, and your practical side and make everything work in harmony by doing these daily affirmations."

All I can picture is Stuart Smalley from "Saturday Night Live."

So that's the secret to life.  I have to find this woman, who's name I do not know, and listen to her daily affirmations because her ex husband picked up Noelle C and told her to do it.

No, you know what the secret to my happiness is?  The idea that one day, when I've completed the books about the whackadoos I have to work with, I can quit my job and all this will be a faint memory.

But I couldn't tell her that.  I didn't have time for another diatribe.  After all, I did have to hit the bathroom.

It's Thankgiving! Let the joy and dysfunction begin!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Here in the US, we take a Thursday late each November to put our lives on pause for a moment and share a meal with family while we count our many blessings and watch football.

Let's take the animal with the least flavorful
meat and stuff bread up its butt and
call it dinner

Every grade school child is told that we eat turkey, stuffing, cranberries, sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie to commemorate the first meal shared by the Pilgrims and the Natives.  Personally, I find it very unlikely that these two groups of people had the time and the ability to make a meal like this, given the limited cooking capabilities and actual food resources each group had.  Oh, and marshmallows hadn't really been invented yet, so there's that.

Note the bottle of wine in front of the CHILD.
Thanksgiving dinner...not for the
faint of heart.

What Thanksgiving has become in reality, is the gateway to five weeks of insanity and dysfunction wrapped up neatly with a night of complete debauchery on December 31st.  I think we actually have to have New Year's Eve simply because by the time we've survived multiple family gatherings  (BUT YOU HAVE TO BE THERE...IT'S  CHRISTMAS AND WE'RE FAMILY) we need a night to drink away the images of the uncle who set his house on fire while deep frying a turkey or the grandmother who made everyone cry with her "What I'm thankful for this year" speech at the dinner table...mostly because her top thing was that she was thankful she was old, and wouldn't have long to live with the ingrates and losers her children had become. 

Don't believe me?  Check out Bob and Brian's Holiday Horror Stories.  They'll start reading those soon, and every year there are more than enough stories of family dysfunction to destroy your faith in humankind.

I believe in Thanksgiving, I really do. I love the idea of everyone taking a day to breath and think about what's really important.  I like the idea of multiple generations of family gathered around a lovingly prepared meal and sharing their reflections on the year.  I like the idea of pie.

Reality, however, is that 2012 sort of sucked for my family.  Let's review:  Hubby lost his job in January. Skippy and I totalled two cars.  Peaches was involved in a very serious personal drama that lost her a friend. I spend more time at doctor's offices these days, thanks to my car accident, than I do at home, it seems. That's a lot to absorb in a short 11 months. 

But there have been good things, too.  The car I totaled wasn't paid for and not having the payments each month is a good thing.  Hubby is happy in his new job.  Skippy learned more about people while traveling 20 hours by bus from Montana to Minnesota than he may learn the rest of his life.  And Peaches realized that her parents might not be the worst judge of character when it comes to her friends.

2013 is going to be a much better year for us.  As I always say, "It can't possibly get worse...right?"  All we have to do is make our way through the minefield of the holidays these next few weeks and I'll be sitting at my friend, Linda's, house on New Year's day, sharing our own holiday horror stories.

Today, we dine with family, tonight, we go out and try to find the best bargains we can for Christmas gifts.   I'm a purist, I'm not leaving my house before 3 AM to shop.  Stores that open at 8 PM today should be ashamed of themselves...unless they are always a 24 hour store, that's different.  But retail folks need time to experience family fun and dysfunction while stuffing themselves with overcooked holiday fare, too.  Anyway, tonight we shop.  And tomorrow, Friday, after the shopping is done, and the taste of dry turkey and burnt stuffing and pumpkin pie made accidentally without sugar are all a distant memory, we look forward to the joys of the Christmas season.

God help us all.

Have a happy and Safe Thanksgiving everyone...and if you're looking for a great Thanksgiving themed movie to watch today, there is none better than "Home for the Holidays."